Combat America

Film journalist and critic Rüdiger Suchsland examines German cinema from 1933, when the Nazis came into power, until 1945, when the Third Reich collapsed. (A sequel to From Caligari to Hitler, 2015.)

This documentary is the story of two Mennonite brothers from Manitoba who were forced to make a decision in 1939, as Canada joined World War II. In the face of 400 years of pacifist tradition, should they now go to war? Ted became a conscientious objector while his brother went into military service. Fifty years later, the town of Winkler dedicates its first war memorial and John begins to share his war experiences with Ted.

In 1943 Japan is facing defeat. This makes Shinkichi, a straight, selfless student-patriot, ever more restless. He can no longer stand his soft "behind-the- gun" role of munition factory worker. School-mates one after another are going to the front, where he feels he should be. The last straw is an official report of his father's death in the Battle of Attu in the Aleutian Islands. He rushes to the naval air corps training camp at Tsuchiura along with his close school-mates Naito, Yamada, Saito and Tagawa as Volunteer pilot trainees leaving his mother and sweetheart weeping and helpless.

Everyone knows the public archive footage of Hitler. But most of it is silent. What was he saying? Special computer technology enables us for the first time to lip-read the silent film.

In the closing days of WWII, a Japanese soldier afflicted with tuberculosis is abandoned by his company and left to wander the Philippine island of Leyte.

In WW2, twelve year old Soviet orphan Ivan Bondarev works for the Soviet army as a scout behind the German lines and strikes a friendship with three sympathetic Soviet officers.

1939-1940 Finnish war. In the very first days, a group of female volunteers goes to the front. Young nurses and nurses in the hospital and on the front line selflessly help doctors to save the wounded soldiers, with weapons in their hands, take part in the fight against the enemy. In severe trials, the friendship and love of the film's characters is tempered and strengthened.

A group of expat criminals are coerced into a suicide mission behind enemy lines to destroy a game-changing chemical weapon developed by the Nazis and Japanese during World War II.

Following the tradition of military service in her family, Alene Duerk enlisted as a Navy nurse in 1943. During her eventful 32 year career, she served in WWII on a hospital ship in the Sea of Japan, and trained others in the Korean War. She became the Director of the Navy Nursing Corps during the Vietnam War before finally attaining the rank of Admiral in the U.S. Navy. Despite having no other women as mentors (or peers), Admiral Duerk always looked for challenging opportunities that women had not previously held. Her consistently high level of performance led to her ultimate rise to become the first woman Admiral.

Amidst the horror and chaos of war, two enemies are forced into an unholy alliance in the battle for survival.

The true life-story of Sara Góralnik, a 13 year-old Polish Jew whose entire family was killed by Nazis in September of 1942. After a grueling escape to the Ukrainian countryside, Sara steals her Christian best friend’s identity and finds refuge in a small village, where she is taken in by a farmer and his young wife. She soon discovers the dark secrets of her employers’ marriage, compounding the greatest secret she must strive to protect, her true identity.