Countdown to War | |
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Directed by | Patrick Lau |
Written by | Ronald Harwood |
Produced by | Norma Percy |
Starring | Ian McKellen, Michael Aldridge, Rashid Suhrawardy, Peter Vaughan, Alex Norton, David Swift, John Woodvine |
Music by | Richard Harvey |
Release date |
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Running time | 78 minutes |
Language | English |
Countdown to War is a television film made in 1989 as a co-production by Granada Television and PBS. It recounts the events that occurred between 15 March 1939, when the German army commanded by Adolf Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia and created the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, and 3 September 1939, the date when France and United Kingdom declared war on Germany. The film is divided into 5 different stages: Mussolini's study, Hitler's Chancellery, Stalin's Kremlin, Beck’s bedroom, and Chamberlain's Cabinet. The script is based on private letters, diaries and records of meetings between the different leaders. [1] The film starred Ian McKellen, Michael Aldridge, Alex Norton and Barrie Rutter.
Europe's most powerful leaders desperately plot their strategies, attempting to determine the next moves of both their allies and enemies. The private meetings, arguments, anguish and personal battles will change the course of history. The Second World War is about to begin.
A DVD of this film was released on 22 January 2008. [2]
Ulrich Friedrich Wilhelm Joachim von Ribbentrop was a German politician and diplomat who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs of Nazi Germany from 1938 to 1945.
A cult of personality, or a cult of the leader, is the result of an effort which is made to create an idealized and heroic image of a leader by a government, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Historically, it has developed through techniques of mass media, propaganda, fake news, spectacle, the arts, patriotism, and government-organized demonstrations and rallies. A cult of personality is similar to apotheosis, except that it is established by modern social engineering techniques, usually by the state or the party in one-party states and dominant-party states. A cult of personality often accompanies the leader of a totalitarian or authoritarian countries. It can also be seen in some monarchies, theocracies, failed democracies and even in liberal democracies.
The Munich Agreement was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Nazi Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. The agreement provided for the German annexation of land on the border between Czechoslovakia and Germany called the Sudetenland, where more than three million people, mainly ethnic Germans, lived. The pact is also known in some areas as the Munich Betrayal, because of a previous 1924 alliance agreement and a 1925 military pact between France and the Czechoslovak Republic.
Appeasement, in an international context, is a diplomatic policy of making political, material, or territorial concessions to an aggressive power to avoid conflict. The term is most often applied to the foreign policy of the British governments of Prime Ministers Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain towards Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy between 1935 and 1939. Under British pressure, appeasement of Nazism and Fascism also played a role in French foreign policy of the period but was always much less popular there than in the United Kingdom.
The events preceding World War II in Europe are closely tied to the bellicosity of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, and Imperial Japan, as well as the Great Depression. The peace movement led to appeasement and disarmament.
This bibliography of Adolf Hitler is an English only non-fiction bibliography. There are thousands of books written about Hitler; therefore, this is not an all-inclusive list. The list has been segregated into groups to make the list more manageable.
The military alliance between the United Kingdom and Poland was formalised by the Anglo-Polish Agreement in 1939, with subsequent addenda of 1940 and 1944, for mutual assistance in case of a military invasion from Nazi Germany, as specified in a secret protocol.
The religious beliefs of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945, have been a matter of debate. His opinions regarding religious matters changed considerably over time. During the beginning of his political life, Hitler publicly expressed favorable opinions towards Christianity. Some historians describe his later posture as being "anti-Christian". He also criticized atheism.
Historians, political scientists and philosophers have studied Nazism with a specific focus on its religious and pseudo-religious aspects. It has been debated whether Nazism would constitute a political religion, and there has also been research on the millenarian, messianic, and occult or esoteric aspects of Nazism.
Great Contemporaries is a collection of 25 short biographical essays about famous people, written by Winston Churchill.
Apocalypse: The Second World War (2009) is a six-part French documentary by Daniel Costelle and Isabelle Clarke about the Second World War. The music of the documentary was composed by Kenji Kawai.
The 50th birthday of Adolf Hitler on 20 April 1939 was celebrated as a national holiday throughout Nazi Germany. Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels made sure the events organised in Berlin were a lavish spectacle focusing on Hitler. The festivities included a vast military parade with some 40,000 to 50,000 German troops taking part, along with 162 Luftwaffe airplanes flying overhead. The parade was intended in part as a warning to the Western powers of Nazi Germany's military capabilities. The parade lasted for more than four hours, with 20,000 official guests, along with several hundred thousand spectators being present.
Events in the year 1938 in Germany.
Mussolini: The Untold Story is a television biographical miniseries drama that aired on November 24–26, 1985. The series followed the rise, rule, and downfall of the Italian dictator Benito Mussolini.
ITV Sunday Night Theatre, originally titled ITV Saturday Night Theatre and often shortened to simply Sunday Night Theatre or Saturday Night Theatre, is a British television anthology series screened on ITV, whose episodes were contributed by various companies in the ITV network.
The following events occurred in January 1939:
The following events occurred in August 1939:
The following events occurred in October 1940:
The following events occurred in September 1938: