Second World War Timeline in movies - 1 - towards global warfare

All this week the Archive will be presenting a timeline of the second world war as told in the movies - that's the entire story of the conflict which lasted from 1939 to 1945 and resulted in between 50 - 70 million fatalites. It was the most widespread war in history, with more than 100 million military personnel mobilised. In a state of "total war", the major participants placed their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities at the service of the war effort, erasing the distinction between civilian and military resources. The global conflict remains the most global war the world has ever seem, resulting in both the holocaust and the only use of nuclear weapons in a warfare.

Of course this series of articles is not intended to be a history of the conflict, but rather to highlight some of the better war movies which strive for both historical accuracy and viewer excitement.

To start the series the Archive points the interested reader towards Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003) which depicts the rise of Hitler, from impoverished child to leader of the National Socialist Party and instigator of the war in Europe which would eventually go global. The movie was originally made as a TV mini-series and shown on television, before being released as a theatrical movie. Reviews at the time were mostly negative but the production was nominted for several Emmys and did in fact win two.

Robert Carlyle in the role of Hitler is nothing short of remarkable with virtually every possible character trait of the Nazi dictator being captured and portrayed in an incredibly convincing manner. It does resort to stereotype on times and can not be said to be totally historically accurate but it does contain most of the important elements of the storyl. And although it only takes us upto Hitler becoming Chancellor of Germany, it provides a useful introduction to the start of our World War II timline.

Next - 1939 - Dunkirk.