“The collapse of the French Army is the most important event of the 20th century.” 
There were three collapses. I wonder which one he was referring to.
IIRC, there are actually two versions oft he series. The original and some additional episodes shot in the late 1980’s.
I first saw this series 1976-7 on the Armed Forces Channel, while I was in Korea. During some of the last scenes of the Final Solution episodes, there were shots of bulldozers pushing emaciated bodies from the concentration camps into mass graves.
Another gal in the barracks was squcked out by this and complained, in a whiny voice, “Why did they have to show that? It’s so gross!” Most of the rest of us just looked at her in a WTH kind of way, and rolled our eyes.
Judging the past with today’s standards is a fool’s errand. It was the way the war was fought. This reminds me of the arguments against the dropping of the atomic bomb.
Wouldn’t be surprised if you were funny that way as well.
The episode on the Battle of The Atlantic needs revising, in the light of the ULTRA revelations. And I didn’t think the one on the Strategic Bombing Offensive was all that good - more film of the night bombing has emerged since then, rather than the ‘artists impressions’ that got used.
James Stewart appeared, without any fanfare or special introduction, just telling a bit about his experiences flying his bomber.
Many wartime generals and politicians were still around then, just about (Eden, R.A.B. Butler, Mark Clark) any later and they would have been gone.
“Fool’s errand?”
Really?
Using that rather specious argument, no one should have been tried at Nuremberg. After all, that was the “past” by the time that they were being judged. I mean, the past can’t really be judged using present standards, right?
Your words.
It was a morally questionable judgment to terrorize a city full of people using firebombs. It didn’t bring the war any closer to an end, the Allies would have tried (and did) any Axis officer who approved any such act and it may extended the war weeks or months longer than simply pressing the Japanese for a surrender. If you could provide a militarily sound and logical reason for it occurring, I’d like to read it.
Yeah…I am “funny” about the use of the atom bomb. I don’t get warm fuzzies about killing civilians during wartime. Perhaps you do. Might want to see someone about that it.
Using the atomic bomb simply:
[ol]
[li]Trapped the US and the Soviet Union in an endless arms race which fortunately didn’t result in the end of human life on Earth[/li][li]Cost this nation hundreds of billions which could have been used on social programs, instead of a bloated and questionably useful, military.[/li][li]Led to the the myriad concerns today about nuclear proliferation from North Korea to Iran[/li][/ol]
But that’s another argument entirely.
Well, comparing the firebombing of Tokyo to the entirety of what the Nazis did is ridiculous. And in fact, the Japanese Empire killed even more civilians during the course of their imperial ambitions all during the 30s up to the end of WWII than the Germans did in Europe & the USSR.
A militarily sound reason for it?! To end the war! It was obvious that the Japanese were fanatics, so if getting unconditional surrender necessitated somewhat ‘extreme’ measures applied directly to a fanatic population, then that’s what had to be done. Even more, without the atomic bomb (which few knew was even being developed) we would have had to invade, and the Japanese govt was impressing (i.e. drafting) the entire population to be combatants to repel it. Ergo, they were all potential targets at that point.
It’s pretty simple to me: It took the firebombing, an atomic bomb, and then *another *atomic bomb, and even after all that they were so fanatically against unconditional surrender the Japanese parliament still deadlocked on the vote to. And even after the Emperor broke the tie, voting for surrender, the military tried to arrest & overthrow him rather than let the surrender order be given!
Which means had we done anything less than the above they would not have capitulated when they did, the war would have certainly gone on longer.
But whatever, I don’t want to move this to GD… 
When me and my brothers were kids and visited my uncle, I was the weird kid that instead of wanting to play with the toys I loved to read his Salvat Encyclopedia of WWII, so when the series was shown in the old country of course it became one of my favorites.
Nowadays one of the episodes I find more interesting is the one about how the German people lived during the war. In “Inside the Reich: Germany” one can see how the propaganda worked, like having radio interviews with the soldiers from many places around the world where the troops where, in 1943 for days radio interviews from Stalingrad were faked as the 6th Army and elements of the 4th Panzer Army had fallen.
Then reckless choices like not putting the economy on a war footing early on actually put limitations to the German war machine. Scary to think what could had been if Hitler had put the economy on full war footing like England did early on. On top of that the Nazis were ideologically opposed to women participating in the work force, until it was really too late.
One very telling part of the general mentality of the Germans came when a German woman testified to the cameras in a latter episode, she reported that she began to hate Hitler only when the war came to them in German proper, but it was not hatred against the regime. It was like the hatred one has among gangsters when they cross each other. Because Hitler promised them that they would win half of the world and he asked them to help him they supported him; and now they had nothing, just their clothes.
The little boy with the upturned eyes at the end of the credits looks just like my kid. Creeps the hell out of me whenever I see it. I wonder if that kid made it?
Something that shocked me the last time I watched the whole thing (10+ years ago) was how historian Stephen Ambrose, who appears in the final episode, was a poofy sweater-wearing long-hair hippy back then! 
How I was used to seeing him in the 80s & 90s.
You’re counting Post WWII Algeria too?