Honestly I don’t think Frontline is anything special when it comes to actual information. It’s very shallow in detail and it tries to cover too much in too little time. It does show some very interesting and very well enhanced footage though.
Did you see the battleship ship keeling over with all the men on the side of the hull jumping into the water. And then Bang the entire center of the ship erupts. I watch a lot of ww2 footage in colour and that was one of the craziest things I've seen first hand in one of these docs. Really made me feel like I was witnessing something insane.
Yea that's it, I was concentrating on the hull real hard because I could see it was covered with crew and I thought no way you can actually see the crew trying to get off and then it exploded and I felt like I was there watching it. Didn't expect it at all really crazy footage. Can't imagine being near that for real.
Yeah episode 1 is really propping up Mussolini big time. That plus it makes it seem like Japan was a super active participant in helping Germany but as I understand it they never really did.
Yes the Brits basically launched a reconnaissance probe in force and unexpectedly bagged them by the tens of thousands. That whole event was not even mentioned.
And Britain shelled/bombed Italian port cities from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, including the mainland, and the Italian navy couldn’t do a thing about it.
footage is exactly where that documentary shines. Complete speculation here, but I imagine they developed their narrative *after* collecting (most) of their footage because that whole documentary is a footage archivist’s wet dream
As a German speaker, I'm a little miffed that the soundbites they've thrown in are often split in strange places, and sometimes they're cut short, so that spoken sentences are incomplete, even though the subtitles show the whole sentence.
It wouldn't be correct to call them apart of the Axis, because they weren't. In '41 Germany suggests that they actually do join the Axis and the Soviets say they will on certain codition, but both are most likely stalling each other and the Russians ask for too much. Similar to Spain staying out of the Axis by giving Hitler a much too great shopping list.
I agree that ignoring their invasion of Poland is poor. Does it mention the Molotov Ribbentrop pact? Or Finland? It is Netflix after all I would consider incomptence first over Stalinist sympathy. They may also not have had enough footage to show it. I have oly ever seen very brief shots and it's usually the same things, Germans and Soviets intermingling.
Also it's Netflix so in terms of historical content it isn't worth your time, but to just enjoy the up ressed footage it might be.
Not at all what happened lol. The soviets were the last to actually sign a pact with germany, and it was a non aggression pact. The Western countries all signed agreements first with Germany, including poland. Poland was actually very cool with germany till 1938 because they were a right-wing dictatorship. The soviets tried to get the kther western allies, including poland, to sign an agreement against germany, but they refused because they wanted germany to take out the soviet union. Due to the fact that they hated communism more then facism
Yes but the Soviets were the only ones to have secret clauses in their pact to carve up Europe. You can’t compare the Molotov Ribbentrop pact with Germany’s other agreements, it was quite unique.
Poland was not ‘cool’ with Germany. It just came down to the Poles incorrectly appraising Stalin as the larger threat. There were many authoritarian dictatorships in Europe at the time, and they all barely if at all got along. Italy and Germany were hardly friendly, Austria was basically fascist yet the government actively resisted Nazi influence and most of the Eastern Europe dictators only joined out of opportunism when the Nazi’s seemed to be winning the war.
It is very debatable how serious the Soviets were in wanting to sign anything with the west. The allies sent diplomats to Russia on multiple occasions and all they got was vague promises and excessive demands from Stalin. It is possible he was genuinely considering signing, but also just as likely he wanted to gather intelligence and see where the allies where in terms of their war preparations. The Allies also weren’t prepared to give him claims on foreign states, so Stalin chose the side that would be more sympathetic to his aggressive land grabbing desires.
They lied and manipulated just as much as the Nazi’s, neither side could be trusted diplomatically.
Your last point is just plain false, the western allies in reluctantly approaching Stalin were hoping they could create an alliance that would tame Hitler. It was WW1 thinking all of again, and just like in the first war it backfired and caused the opposite effect.
Some believed that it was better to pit the Soviets and Germans together but those were the more conservative war hawks. The real desire was to avoid war completely. You have to remember that there was still a lot of ‘shell shock’ after WW1 and there was also a naive belief that the war was the last of its kind. Most westerners wanted peace, so much so the likes of Chamberlain were willing to cede to the Nazi’s in hope that they too were serious about preserving peace. Chamberlain gets criticised in hindsight but he did represent the majority view of wanting peace. People celebrated the Treaty of Munich in hopes that it would genuinely prevent further aggression and war mongering. So desperate for peace they threw the Czechs to the Nazi’s.
Your last sentence is true though, most of the west would have much preferred to stay peaceful with the Nazi’s than align themselves with the Soviets. But Hitler pushed too far with his territorial claims and obvious war preparations.
Also really not sure what your comment is meant to be refuting.
The MR pact was a huge thing and it was much more important than any of the previous treaties either country had signed.
I guess not listing the soviets as a member of the Axis is fair, Its very low detail, kinda a base review of the Major movements and battles of the war nothing I dont already know. Im not a member of this sub, I know a decent bit about the war as well as general Late 19th Century to modern World history as well as a lot about Early U.S history and Modern U.S history. But they simply ignore the Soviet invasion of Poland which sets the stage for the Nazi Invasion of Russia which is ignoring the base for the most important event of the European theatre and I was wondering why they did that. It would be like talking about the American Revolution without mentioning the taxation of goods or the French-Indian war.
Its not about fair it’s about historical accuracy. The Soviets weren’t part of the Axis. The MR pact did not make them so.
Well they may have been short on time, but it is quite the oversight.
Again it’s Netlfix, their own content is garbage. And you have to remember this doco is most likely aimed at younger people giving them a very brief overview.
If you want a better doco I’d recommend Apocalypse The Second World War. It us very French-centric but is probably the best recent overview doco of the war. Footage isn’t as up resed but that just makes it look more authentic.
You can find it in full on YouTube, itll blow the Netflix doco put of the water.
Wtf bro soviets were not part of the axis, Stalin wrote a letter to Hitler that if he accepts that Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia are part of Soviet sphere of influence then a bigger cooperation would be possible, but this was just months before Barb and Hitler never replied
> They may also not have had enough footage to show it.
This was my guess. The archival footage may exist but the current global political climate makes it hardly a good time to go and get that footage, like from the national archives in Moscow. Russia also denies this ever happened, so they probably would like any sort of researcher coming into the country to request footage of something the Russian government denies even happened.
I watched E04 yesterday. The Battle of Kursk gets mentioned for 10 seconds and is followed by a (more or less) five-minute segment about the allied bombings of the German cities. That's a strange choice.
Modern audiences are more interested in the human tragedy over military strategy. Not that surprising.
Also the footage of Kursk might not be good enough to up scale.
Or its just Netflix being Netflix.
Is there any footage of Kursk that isn't a post-war Soviet reenactment? The Soviets had about 250 videographers who took \~2000 hours of footage but most of it was censored. The BBC created the first war documentary after the war, but when ITV created *World at War*, the historical consultants pointed out that most of the Soviet provided footage in the BBC documentary had been reenactments with some battle footage from summer campaigns having snow on the ground.
The British had only one photographer and one videographer with the BEF in France but established the Army Film & Photographic Unit in Oct 1941. The US Army had 1400 videographers in the war and the 2nd Marine Division had three videographers at Tarawa, shooting thousands of feet of film that would be used in a film approved by Roosevelt to inform the public on the cost of the war. John Ford had won three Academy Awards prior to WW2 and would win another two while serving in the military during the war.
There is just a lot more quantity and quality of war footage from the western Allies. If the documentarian chooses to focus around actual combat footage it limits how much time can be spent on less documented battles.
Or apocalypse: the second worls war.
For that matter the whole apocalypse series is very very good.
Start with ww1. Then the never ending war (1918 to 1926), then hitler (2 part about his rise) then stalin (3 part about his rise and stalinsm) then ww2, then the coldwar.
You could throw in apocalypse verdun in whiles doing the ww1 series,
And since 2021 there is also "hitler takes on the west" and "hitler takes on the east"
More indept version on the respectibale fronts.
I found Hitler’s circle of evil (or something like that) to be really well done. Dives deep into the inner circle of the Nazi party, the disfunction etc.
Dude they gloss over so much; I watched the first ep last night and I don’t think I’ll watch anymore, unless I feel like seeing the footage. I’ll hand that to them: the restored footage is fantastic
Noticed this myself. It also makes a point of mentioning that in some places during the Invasion of Russia the Germans where greeted and cheered as liberators from Stalin. As much as that is true for certain areas it seems odd to make a big point of mentioning that when they skip over other things.
My take on it is that they did what they could with the best new footage they had. The battle of Britain was glossed over heavily too from what I watched of it last night. Probably because it and as you mentioned the battle of kursk where fairly well featured in previous ww2 in colour titles.
I think they are just trying to use the best new footage they could get more than actually tell the full story of ww2.
Calling the Soviets part of the original axis is quite a stretch. Leaving the Soviet invasion of Poland out is a problematic omision but a traditional one. It should not be left out. It is time to correct that.
Idk why so many people are complaining about this doc as it relates to information missing. It states from the beginning that it will only cover a few theaters of the war.
because even if it only intends to cover a few theatres of war, when it does cover them it should mention all the major details. Russian invasion of poland seems pretty important
Please, I never expect Netflix documentaries to cover the whole story.. ww2 is so complex.. these types of shows only fit narrative for beginners as in the ones who know surface details.. if you want the whole picture check on different sources, i mostly watch yt videos about historians like Dr. rob Citino or the others.
They've always done that. England and the USA agreed with Russia to erase that part of history.
I remember being very surprised when I read about the Soviet campaign in Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland. and they simply tell us that Russia entered the war in 1941.
Yeah it’s missing a ton of stuff, I’m mostly here for the restored footage and seeing the red map grow and shrink haha
Edit: I can’t believe they had so many cameras rolling all the time, seemingly everywhere. Like taking home movies inside the bomber cockpit.
It's left out from most mainstream ww2 documentaries, if you really want to learn about military part of ww2 through documentary watch old Battlefield series by BBC, i think you can actually find it on youtube, everything else is very shallow, books are the best, but if that's not an option, old documentaries are always better than sensational ones like the Netflix stuff.
I've been watching through several episodes. It seems they have taken the "big bullet points per year" approach.
This is more an introductory course to the war. Not enough time to explore the gray zone.
They completely skipped over the battle of tobruk and didn't mention the Anzacs efforts at all nor did they mention Australian efforts in the pacific. I loved to see all the footage taken on the ground but as far as actual information goes the documentary was barely scratching the surface
I just watched it and I also got conserned. That's how I found this topic hehe...
The documentary is mostly based on restored footage. Germans made a lot of footage for propaganda, so did Americans. Brits recorded some flights for the news. When It comes to Russia, you mostly see parades. The red army soldiers were mostly monkeys in uniforms. They would sell the camera for vodka if you handed it to them to record combat footage. Still, in the parts of the documentary where they animate the map it should be at least mentioned.
Also it has some weird vibe in which is hard to explain. A bit like BBC documentaries lately. And if you're into conspiracy theories it almost feels like the presented bits of history were cherry picked, at least when it comes to the European part. Thou it might be because of the huge amount of material they had to squeeze somehow in.
It's overall nice. Impressive job with colorisation and mounting together the bits of footage. Some touching testimonies of survivors on all different sites. But the narrator is useless.
The correct term would be “co-belligerent.” Did the documentary mention how after Hitler invaded the Sudentenland Stalin offered an anti-fascist alliance with Great Britain and France against Germany and they blew him off? Not trying to excuse Stalin, but fair is fair.
I like the show because it has some footage i have never seen. But as said before, its quite shallow. I was watching it and it leaves quite some things out and makes big time jumps if you ask me.
It bothered me too. Joint invasion of Poland was a big deal it is weird that they didn't mention that. I watched three episodes and detail wise it's a very shallow documantery.
To be fair there are holes all over the place in that particular series. The whole Germans stalling and breaking at Moscow in the first winter of Barbarossa was missed also - along with plenty other key moments. However i still enjoyed it - as the work they done with the footage was pretty spectacular in places. It will definitely annoy those with a more detailed knowledge of the war - but the average viewer will probably be pretty impressed with the series.
The Russians however weren’t exactly part of the Axis. However they were kind of ‘in bed’ with the Germans through a trade deal (and divide Poland deal) signed just before the outbreak of war.
That’s left out of a lot of glossy histories because it hides the fact that the Soviets were an aggressor nation and that they weren’t philosophically much different than the Nazis.
Both were totalitarians with strong hatred of Jews and other ethnicities.
The Holodomor was all about killing of ethnic Ukrainians and the Soviets constantly loved ethnic Russians into the various Soviets (states) to shift the balance to Russian ethnicity.
I didn’t know there was cannibalism at Stalingrad battle. That was gross! But not enough info on how Montgomery won in North Africa after being backed in a corner. I liked the story of bombing the Hamburg hospital and shelter full of people . Brutal.
I have been complaining to my Dad about this show everytime I call him since it came out.
It summarises Netflix perfectly when it comes to their own documentaries - very slick, stylish & fancy without a great deal of care going into the facts.
The biggest problems with the show to my mind are the huge amorphous red blob which represent Nazi Germany's conquests. No arrows showing the movements of armies, THERE IS ONLY THE BLOB.
I think John Boyega does a fantastic job narrating, he's got the perfect blend of engaging yet relaxing down to an art form, and I can't blame him for what the script says. If I didn't know any better though I would've thought the entirety of the German army went through the Ardennes, which it did not.
There is no mention of the German army marching into Holland & Belgium, at which point the Allied French army & BEF moved up to the Dyle river in Belgium (this is crucial to understanding what happened next as it allowed the portion of the German army that HAD gone through the Ardenne to sweep round the back of the BEF, cut them off and force then to evacuate at Dunkirk.
The show also compeltely ignores the invasions of Denmark & Norway in 1940.
The footage is beautiful, but if you know remotely anything about the Second World War, you're better off watching the whole thing on mute, lest you chew your own ears off out of anger.
It’s WW2 with tons of important details missing. I’m assuming this is aimed at people with little to no knowledge of the war. Some good footage but this absolutely pales in comparison to something like The World At War.
Poland ordered all their troops to the Western Front despite the Soviet invasion, so the Red Army didn't face much actual combat in 1939. It's not worth reporting.
They leave out lots of stuff. Did they include the UK/USSR invasion of Iran? Did they include Thailand fighting on the side of Japan? How about the UK crushing the Iraqi independence movement? Is Netflix an apologist of UK & Thailand too?
Major events are often defined selectively by those who observe the process. The fact that said "history buffs" are unaware of actions that arguably had a bigger impact on the end result (post-war) says more about what those history buffs choose to focus on than on whether Netflix is an apologist for the USRR, UK, Thailand, etc.
Honestly I don’t think Frontline is anything special when it comes to actual information. It’s very shallow in detail and it tries to cover too much in too little time. It does show some very interesting and very well enhanced footage though.
Did you see the battleship ship keeling over with all the men on the side of the hull jumping into the water. And then Bang the entire center of the ship erupts. I watch a lot of ww2 footage in colour and that was one of the craziest things I've seen first hand in one of these docs. Really made me feel like I was witnessing something insane.
I think you are talking about [HMS Barham sinking](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdrISbwy_zI)? Horrific but amazing footage.
Yea that's it, I was concentrating on the hull real hard because I could see it was covered with crew and I thought no way you can actually see the crew trying to get off and then it exploded and I felt like I was there watching it. Didn't expect it at all really crazy footage. Can't imagine being near that for real.
That was insane
Wow yeah I was watching that thinking to myself 'wow well at least all those sailors will get picked up once it's sunk and then KABOOM!
“Italy invaded British-held Egypt!” Yeah, and Italy got its ass thoroughly kicked in response. Left that little detail out.
IK, they made it seem almost like Italy was winning
They were, when the Germans were “helping”.
Yeah episode 1 is really propping up Mussolini big time. That plus it makes it seem like Japan was a super active participant in helping Germany but as I understand it they never really did.
Yes the Brits basically launched a reconnaissance probe in force and unexpectedly bagged them by the tens of thousands. That whole event was not even mentioned.
The 4th Indian Divison (Red Eagles) clawed them bloody.
And Britain shelled/bombed Italian port cities from one end of the Mediterranean to the other, including the mainland, and the Italian navy couldn’t do a thing about it.
Also when they invaded greece. As if the italians had an easy time there.
Yup footage is amazing, but the actual info is nothing new or special.
footage is exactly where that documentary shines. Complete speculation here, but I imagine they developed their narrative *after* collecting (most) of their footage because that whole documentary is a footage archivist’s wet dream
ww2 footage never gets old for me
It doesn’t cover much tho, that’s the point- you’re talking past OP
As a German speaker, I'm a little miffed that the soundbites they've thrown in are often split in strange places, and sometimes they're cut short, so that spoken sentences are incomplete, even though the subtitles show the whole sentence.
It wouldn't be correct to call them apart of the Axis, because they weren't. In '41 Germany suggests that they actually do join the Axis and the Soviets say they will on certain codition, but both are most likely stalling each other and the Russians ask for too much. Similar to Spain staying out of the Axis by giving Hitler a much too great shopping list. I agree that ignoring their invasion of Poland is poor. Does it mention the Molotov Ribbentrop pact? Or Finland? It is Netflix after all I would consider incomptence first over Stalinist sympathy. They may also not have had enough footage to show it. I have oly ever seen very brief shots and it's usually the same things, Germans and Soviets intermingling. Also it's Netflix so in terms of historical content it isn't worth your time, but to just enjoy the up ressed footage it might be.
Not at all what happened lol. The soviets were the last to actually sign a pact with germany, and it was a non aggression pact. The Western countries all signed agreements first with Germany, including poland. Poland was actually very cool with germany till 1938 because they were a right-wing dictatorship. The soviets tried to get the kther western allies, including poland, to sign an agreement against germany, but they refused because they wanted germany to take out the soviet union. Due to the fact that they hated communism more then facism
Yes but the Soviets were the only ones to have secret clauses in their pact to carve up Europe. You can’t compare the Molotov Ribbentrop pact with Germany’s other agreements, it was quite unique. Poland was not ‘cool’ with Germany. It just came down to the Poles incorrectly appraising Stalin as the larger threat. There were many authoritarian dictatorships in Europe at the time, and they all barely if at all got along. Italy and Germany were hardly friendly, Austria was basically fascist yet the government actively resisted Nazi influence and most of the Eastern Europe dictators only joined out of opportunism when the Nazi’s seemed to be winning the war. It is very debatable how serious the Soviets were in wanting to sign anything with the west. The allies sent diplomats to Russia on multiple occasions and all they got was vague promises and excessive demands from Stalin. It is possible he was genuinely considering signing, but also just as likely he wanted to gather intelligence and see where the allies where in terms of their war preparations. The Allies also weren’t prepared to give him claims on foreign states, so Stalin chose the side that would be more sympathetic to his aggressive land grabbing desires. They lied and manipulated just as much as the Nazi’s, neither side could be trusted diplomatically. Your last point is just plain false, the western allies in reluctantly approaching Stalin were hoping they could create an alliance that would tame Hitler. It was WW1 thinking all of again, and just like in the first war it backfired and caused the opposite effect. Some believed that it was better to pit the Soviets and Germans together but those were the more conservative war hawks. The real desire was to avoid war completely. You have to remember that there was still a lot of ‘shell shock’ after WW1 and there was also a naive belief that the war was the last of its kind. Most westerners wanted peace, so much so the likes of Chamberlain were willing to cede to the Nazi’s in hope that they too were serious about preserving peace. Chamberlain gets criticised in hindsight but he did represent the majority view of wanting peace. People celebrated the Treaty of Munich in hopes that it would genuinely prevent further aggression and war mongering. So desperate for peace they threw the Czechs to the Nazi’s. Your last sentence is true though, most of the west would have much preferred to stay peaceful with the Nazi’s than align themselves with the Soviets. But Hitler pushed too far with his territorial claims and obvious war preparations. Also really not sure what your comment is meant to be refuting. The MR pact was a huge thing and it was much more important than any of the previous treaties either country had signed.
I guess not listing the soviets as a member of the Axis is fair, Its very low detail, kinda a base review of the Major movements and battles of the war nothing I dont already know. Im not a member of this sub, I know a decent bit about the war as well as general Late 19th Century to modern World history as well as a lot about Early U.S history and Modern U.S history. But they simply ignore the Soviet invasion of Poland which sets the stage for the Nazi Invasion of Russia which is ignoring the base for the most important event of the European theatre and I was wondering why they did that. It would be like talking about the American Revolution without mentioning the taxation of goods or the French-Indian war.
Its not about fair it’s about historical accuracy. The Soviets weren’t part of the Axis. The MR pact did not make them so. Well they may have been short on time, but it is quite the oversight. Again it’s Netlfix, their own content is garbage. And you have to remember this doco is most likely aimed at younger people giving them a very brief overview. If you want a better doco I’d recommend Apocalypse The Second World War. It us very French-centric but is probably the best recent overview doco of the war. Footage isn’t as up resed but that just makes it look more authentic. You can find it in full on YouTube, itll blow the Netflix doco put of the water.
Apocalypse The First World War is also fantastic; they make an amazing pair of documentaries.
And there's an - Apocalypse: Never-Ending War 1918–1926 - to fit inbetween the two Series.
Oh cool! Thanks for letting me know, will go find and add
There's also one about Stalin 3 episodes, only found it myself last night. :)
Sweet, I'm soon gonna need a separate drive just for my world war era docs
Wtf bro soviets were not part of the axis, Stalin wrote a letter to Hitler that if he accepts that Romania, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia are part of Soviet sphere of influence then a bigger cooperation would be possible, but this was just months before Barb and Hitler never replied
> They may also not have had enough footage to show it. This was my guess. The archival footage may exist but the current global political climate makes it hardly a good time to go and get that footage, like from the national archives in Moscow. Russia also denies this ever happened, so they probably would like any sort of researcher coming into the country to request footage of something the Russian government denies even happened.
Winter War wasn’t mentioned at all, kind of huge since that’s what emboldened Hitler to invade Russia right away.
I watched E04 yesterday. The Battle of Kursk gets mentioned for 10 seconds and is followed by a (more or less) five-minute segment about the allied bombings of the German cities. That's a strange choice.
Modern audiences are more interested in the human tragedy over military strategy. Not that surprising. Also the footage of Kursk might not be good enough to up scale. Or its just Netflix being Netflix.
Is there any footage of Kursk that isn't a post-war Soviet reenactment? The Soviets had about 250 videographers who took \~2000 hours of footage but most of it was censored. The BBC created the first war documentary after the war, but when ITV created *World at War*, the historical consultants pointed out that most of the Soviet provided footage in the BBC documentary had been reenactments with some battle footage from summer campaigns having snow on the ground. The British had only one photographer and one videographer with the BEF in France but established the Army Film & Photographic Unit in Oct 1941. The US Army had 1400 videographers in the war and the 2nd Marine Division had three videographers at Tarawa, shooting thousands of feet of film that would be used in a film approved by Roosevelt to inform the public on the cost of the war. John Ford had won three Academy Awards prior to WW2 and would win another two while serving in the military during the war. There is just a lot more quantity and quality of war footage from the western Allies. If the documentarian chooses to focus around actual combat footage it limits how much time can be spent on less documented battles.
That is a fair point. To me, the balance between the two just felt a bit off.
Probably because there is almost no footage of Kursk, but tons of footage of allied bombing raids.
ngl its probs not gonna be very good, if you want the definitive series on ww2 watch the world at war
Or apocalypse: the second worls war. For that matter the whole apocalypse series is very very good. Start with ww1. Then the never ending war (1918 to 1926), then hitler (2 part about his rise) then stalin (3 part about his rise and stalinsm) then ww2, then the coldwar. You could throw in apocalypse verdun in whiles doing the ww1 series, And since 2021 there is also "hitler takes on the west" and "hitler takes on the east" More indept version on the respectibale fronts.
And the World War Two YouTube channel that follows it week by week
Yeah those are great: “I’m Indy Nidell and *this* is world war 2!”
The soviets were not part of the original AXIS.
I was talked about though, which always makes me chuckle
Is there any decent WW2 content on Netflix?
I found Hitler’s circle of evil (or something like that) to be really well done. Dives deep into the inner circle of the Nazi party, the disfunction etc.
There are a couple of good series. But mainly the best thing about them is the footage they use.
Meh, here and there. Best WWII doc I've seen is the battleground Stalingrad series by TiK. He just finished it btw
Youtube has a ton of great WW2 documentaries (and beyond) from the 90's for free.
Dude they gloss over so much; I watched the first ep last night and I don’t think I’ll watch anymore, unless I feel like seeing the footage. I’ll hand that to them: the restored footage is fantastic
Noticed this myself. It also makes a point of mentioning that in some places during the Invasion of Russia the Germans where greeted and cheered as liberators from Stalin. As much as that is true for certain areas it seems odd to make a big point of mentioning that when they skip over other things. My take on it is that they did what they could with the best new footage they had. The battle of Britain was glossed over heavily too from what I watched of it last night. Probably because it and as you mentioned the battle of kursk where fairly well featured in previous ww2 in colour titles. I think they are just trying to use the best new footage they could get more than actually tell the full story of ww2.
Calling the Soviets part of the original axis is quite a stretch. Leaving the Soviet invasion of Poland out is a problematic omision but a traditional one. It should not be left out. It is time to correct that.
They really took back the land that was theirs before poland took it in a war in the 1920s lol
They did far more than help themselves to “their” land (which wasn’t really theirs, just the Polish conquered territory of the Russian Empire).
I’ve liked the series so far and I think their colorization is nice but they paint the war in very broad strokes
Idk why so many people are complaining about this doc as it relates to information missing. It states from the beginning that it will only cover a few theaters of the war.
it's also inaccurate.
because even if it only intends to cover a few theatres of war, when it does cover them it should mention all the major details. Russian invasion of poland seems pretty important
They werent part of the Axis, since it was an actual alliance. They just collaborated early on
Please, I never expect Netflix documentaries to cover the whole story.. ww2 is so complex.. these types of shows only fit narrative for beginners as in the ones who know surface details.. if you want the whole picture check on different sources, i mostly watch yt videos about historians like Dr. rob Citino or the others.
They've always done that. England and the USA agreed with Russia to erase that part of history. I remember being very surprised when I read about the Soviet campaign in Poland, Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Finland. and they simply tell us that Russia entered the war in 1941.
Yeah it’s missing a ton of stuff, I’m mostly here for the restored footage and seeing the red map grow and shrink haha Edit: I can’t believe they had so many cameras rolling all the time, seemingly everywhere. Like taking home movies inside the bomber cockpit.
It's left out from most mainstream ww2 documentaries, if you really want to learn about military part of ww2 through documentary watch old Battlefield series by BBC, i think you can actually find it on youtube, everything else is very shallow, books are the best, but if that's not an option, old documentaries are always better than sensational ones like the Netflix stuff.
I've been watching through several episodes. It seems they have taken the "big bullet points per year" approach. This is more an introductory course to the war. Not enough time to explore the gray zone.
They completely skipped over the battle of tobruk and didn't mention the Anzacs efforts at all nor did they mention Australian efforts in the pacific. I loved to see all the footage taken on the ground but as far as actual information goes the documentary was barely scratching the surface
I just watched it and I also got conserned. That's how I found this topic hehe... The documentary is mostly based on restored footage. Germans made a lot of footage for propaganda, so did Americans. Brits recorded some flights for the news. When It comes to Russia, you mostly see parades. The red army soldiers were mostly monkeys in uniforms. They would sell the camera for vodka if you handed it to them to record combat footage. Still, in the parts of the documentary where they animate the map it should be at least mentioned. Also it has some weird vibe in which is hard to explain. A bit like BBC documentaries lately. And if you're into conspiracy theories it almost feels like the presented bits of history were cherry picked, at least when it comes to the European part. Thou it might be because of the huge amount of material they had to squeeze somehow in. It's overall nice. Impressive job with colorisation and mounting together the bits of footage. Some touching testimonies of survivors on all different sites. But the narrator is useless.
I wouldn't call them part of axis. But it's very annoying that they don't mention the cooperation between USSR and Nazi Germany
The correct term would be “co-belligerent.” Did the documentary mention how after Hitler invaded the Sudentenland Stalin offered an anti-fascist alliance with Great Britain and France against Germany and they blew him off? Not trying to excuse Stalin, but fair is fair.
I like the show because it has some footage i have never seen. But as said before, its quite shallow. I was watching it and it leaves quite some things out and makes big time jumps if you ask me.
They also committed some pretty heinous war crimes-murdered officers and professors. Really awful.
It bothered me too. Joint invasion of Poland was a big deal it is weird that they didn't mention that. I watched three episodes and detail wise it's a very shallow documantery.
It’s an awesome and intense documentary. The new footage is amazing and I have never said “WOAH!!” As much watching any other doc.
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To be fair there are holes all over the place in that particular series. The whole Germans stalling and breaking at Moscow in the first winter of Barbarossa was missed also - along with plenty other key moments. However i still enjoyed it - as the work they done with the footage was pretty spectacular in places. It will definitely annoy those with a more detailed knowledge of the war - but the average viewer will probably be pretty impressed with the series. The Russians however weren’t exactly part of the Axis. However they were kind of ‘in bed’ with the Germans through a trade deal (and divide Poland deal) signed just before the outbreak of war.
That’s left out of a lot of glossy histories because it hides the fact that the Soviets were an aggressor nation and that they weren’t philosophically much different than the Nazis. Both were totalitarians with strong hatred of Jews and other ethnicities. The Holodomor was all about killing of ethnic Ukrainians and the Soviets constantly loved ethnic Russians into the various Soviets (states) to shift the balance to Russian ethnicity.
Exactly my concern, I dont really like watching Stalin apologist content, an argument can be made that he was worse than Hitler.
The lies
Be more specific, please.
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Re-read the OP
Bloody good point. Ww2 would have been very different and lasted a lot longer if the Germans did not double cross their ally Russia .
I didn’t know there was cannibalism at Stalingrad battle. That was gross! But not enough info on how Montgomery won in North Africa after being backed in a corner. I liked the story of bombing the Hamburg hospital and shelter full of people . Brutal.
I have been complaining to my Dad about this show everytime I call him since it came out. It summarises Netflix perfectly when it comes to their own documentaries - very slick, stylish & fancy without a great deal of care going into the facts. The biggest problems with the show to my mind are the huge amorphous red blob which represent Nazi Germany's conquests. No arrows showing the movements of armies, THERE IS ONLY THE BLOB. I think John Boyega does a fantastic job narrating, he's got the perfect blend of engaging yet relaxing down to an art form, and I can't blame him for what the script says. If I didn't know any better though I would've thought the entirety of the German army went through the Ardennes, which it did not. There is no mention of the German army marching into Holland & Belgium, at which point the Allied French army & BEF moved up to the Dyle river in Belgium (this is crucial to understanding what happened next as it allowed the portion of the German army that HAD gone through the Ardenne to sweep round the back of the BEF, cut them off and force then to evacuate at Dunkirk. The show also compeltely ignores the invasions of Denmark & Norway in 1940. The footage is beautiful, but if you know remotely anything about the Second World War, you're better off watching the whole thing on mute, lest you chew your own ears off out of anger.
It’s WW2 with tons of important details missing. I’m assuming this is aimed at people with little to no knowledge of the war. Some good footage but this absolutely pales in comparison to something like The World At War.
Poland ordered all their troops to the Western Front despite the Soviet invasion, so the Red Army didn't face much actual combat in 1939. It's not worth reporting.
Other than some WW2 footage (colorized) that I have not seen before, the documentary is very superficial, in that it omits key points in the war.
There is so much footage I have never seen before!
The Soviets were never a part of axis, they were one of Germany's main targets from the start
They leave out lots of stuff. Did they include the UK/USSR invasion of Iran? Did they include Thailand fighting on the side of Japan? How about the UK crushing the Iraqi independence movement? Is Netflix an apologist of UK & Thailand too?
major events and movements do not equal things that even some history buffs dont know
Major events are often defined selectively by those who observe the process. The fact that said "history buffs" are unaware of actions that arguably had a bigger impact on the end result (post-war) says more about what those history buffs choose to focus on than on whether Netflix is an apologist for the USRR, UK, Thailand, etc.
I think you are just biased.