Michael Neuenschwander is quite effective here as the returning Swiss ambassador ("Zwygart") from the Nazi regime at the end of WWII. He arrives at his family home to discover that his loving daughter has a new boyfriend "Nicolas" (Yann Philipona). Meantime, his boss arrives to thank him for his work and to listen to his suggestions for post-war rapprochement with the Americans. It looks like this man's career is going to thrive and that his family is going to be happy. Well that sensation doesn't prevail for long. Pretty quickly he discovers that his government are way more interested in what's to come rather than what went before, and that his actions during the conflict are to be forgotten, if not proactively denied - as is he! Meantime, it also becomes clear that the boyfriend has an agenda of his own - and that centres around the behaviour of the emissary years earlier in regard to a young Swiss man "Maurice" (Victor Poltier) who ended up under the guillotine. The use of almost haunting flashback demonstrates well the increasing pressure on this increasingly vulnerable and lonely man as he starts to crack. Why did he do what he did (or didn't)? How complicit was his government? Will anyone listen now? It's quite a tautly directed story this, but it's missing too much substance. There's just not enough context to illustrate what this man is supposed to have done in the interests of a frightened nation. There's the strained relationship with his father (a strong performance from Peter Wyssbrod) that isn't really explained well either and by the end I just wanted to know more than I was being presented with by auteur Laurent Nègre. It does offer us an interesting treatise on just how quickly winning the war became winning the peace, and of just how "neutrality" was maybe not quite what it said on the tin - but I wanted more meat on the bones.
In the 1930s, Count Almásy is a Hungarian map maker employed by the Royal Geographical Society to chart the vast expanses of the Sahara Desert along with several other prominent explorers. As World War II unfolds, Almásy enters into a world of love, betrayal, and politics.
The true story of pianist Władysław Szpilman's experiences in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation. When the Jews of the city find themselves forced into a ghetto, Szpilman finds work playing in a café; and when his family is deported in 1942, he stays behind, works for a while as a laborer, and eventually goes into hiding in the ruins of the war-torn city.
The true story of how businessman Oskar Schindler saved over a thousand Jewish lives from the Nazis while they worked as slaves in his factory during World War II.
Follow legendary news reporter/commentator from his radio broadcasts from the rooftops of London during the Blitz to his TV documentary series "See It Now" and his confrontations with the Senator from Wisconsin that helped put an end to the witch-hunts.
Seven Decades after the bloody battle for Omaha Beach in Normandy, France on D-Day, many veterans are returning to visit one last time. Omaha Beach: Honor And Sacrifice tells the very personal stories of several veterans as they return to Omaha Beach and the celebration that Normandy, France holds in their honor every year.
Fall of 1941. Freshly graduated from school, Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya volunteers for a partisan unit. During an assignment, her comrades are ambushed, and she is captured by the Nazis. She endures hours of grueling interrogations and horrendous torture, but defiantly refuses to divulge any information that would compromise other units’ partisan missions. She doesn’t even tell her captors her real name. Zoya’s sacrifice was not in vain; it ignited fire in the hearts of millions of people and became the symbol of selfless heroism during WWII. She is one of the most celebrated heroes of that time.
Occupied France, 1942. Gilles is arrested by SS soldiers alongside other Jews and sent to a camp in Germany. He narrowly avoids sudden execution by swearing to the guards that he is not Jewish, but Persian. This lie temporarily saves him, but Gilles gets assigned a life-or-death mission: to teach Farsi to Head of Camp Koch, who dreams of opening a restaurant in Iran once the war is over. Through an ingenious trick, Gilles manages to survive by inventing words of "Farsi" every day and teaching them to Koch.
At the end of WWI, the treaty of Versailles established the conditions for peace in Europe. The aim for the victorious powers was to make Germany pay reparations, and to guarantee a future without war. Yet a decade later, the denunciation of 'Versailles' became a powerful lever for the nazis to obtain power as these reparations would mark the beginning of the humiliation of the German people, and nurture a feeling of having been bestowed a hopeless future. In the 20 years that follow the end of WWI, the issue of reparations and responsibility will effectively poison international relationship. The treaty negative impact goes well beyond WWII as the new European borders it implemented led to many conflicts during the twentieth century. This documentary shines a light on the causality between the decisions taken with the treaty of Versailles, and the ensuing events of the century.
Women soldiers of the Volunteer Army battle the Japanese in Northeast China in 1936.
Survivors tell the story of the Babyn Yar massacre from WWII, where some 100,000 people were massacred by German forces.