The Beginning

World War II with Tom Hanks

This episode of 'World War II with Tom Hanks' explores the origins of the conflict, beginning with Germany's invasion of Poland on September

Key takeaways

• The invasion of Poland marked the start of a global conflict that would claim over 65 million lives, mostly civilians.
• Hitler's rise was fueled by resentment over the Treaty of Versailles and economic instability in post-WWI Germany.

Main topics

• Origins of World War II
• Treaty of Versailles and its aftermath

Notable quotes

'This is the real meaning of war.' – Hitler after surveying the ruins of Warsaw.

Conclusion

The invasion of Poland in 1939 marked not just the beginning of World War II, but a turning point in

Transcript preview

Speaker 8 (0:00) The History Channel Original Podcast. Speaker 1 (0:09) When I was a kid, every adult I knew shared one thing in common, a gap in their lives when everything appeared uncertain and time itself seemed to stand still. When they talked about it, they simply called it the war. For six dark years, the world was on fire. Cities were demolished and whole populations threatened. When would the war end? No one knew. How would it end? No one knew. Life was in stasis. The war is now a part of our culture, portrayed in movies and on television and novels and history books. The Allies usually defeat the enemy and save the world. But the grim reality of the war is almost impossible to comprehend. Over 65 million people are killed, the majority civilians. Everyone fought some version of the war, beginning with the mothers and fathers who sent their children overseas, not knowing when or if they would ever see them again. And of course, the soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines, often just a bunch of kids, who served with honor and bravery to liberate enslaved peoples and preserve human dignity. In doing so, they saved that which is most precious and valued by us all, freedom. The Second World War is the largest event in human history. No part of the globe is unaffected. World War II changed everything for all of us. Speaker 5 (1:52) This is World War II with Tom Hanks. Episode 1, The Beginning. Speaker 1 (2:02) Sometimes, the most monumental events begin without fanfare, before the world wakes. And so it is, on the 1st of September 1939, as dawn breaks over a sleeping city on the Baltic Sea, that the bloodiest conflict in all history begins. Speaker 5 (2:34) This is a national program from London. Germany has invaded Poland. Heavy outbreaks of fighting along the German-Polish frontier. As a German soldier, I entered this war with a strong heart. From now on, bombs will be met by bombs. Adolf Hitler. In Speaker 1 (3:09) just a matter of hours, a million and a half men, 1,300 planes, and 2,750 tanks. Speaker 1 (3:21) crossed the Polish border at lightning speed. September 1st, Speaker 4 (3:27) 1939. Storm breaks over Poland. Speaker 2 (3:32) The Germans are racing through with tanks and with artillery, following up with the infantry and accompanied by the Luftwaffe. And all of a sudden, people were waking up to the sound of tanks rumbling through the town, not really knowing what was happening. You're going to see waves of trucks and mechanized and motorized Speaker 4 (3:57) vehicles. It looks a bit like a science fiction novel, like all those novels written in the 20s and 30s about what the war of the future would look like. And suddenly, in 1939, the future is now. At Speaker 1 (4:17) 11 a.m., Hitler arrives at a Berlin opera house where he's gathered the Reichstag. The applause greets the people who have justified to address the Reichstag, which has been called an extraordinary session. Speaker 4 (4:43) This is the moment Hitler's been waiting for all his life. He's been the leader of the Nazi party since 1921. He came to power in 1933. He re-arms the country in 1935. And since then, it's been prepare, prepare, prepare. But Hitler wants a war. Speaker 5 (4:58) My entire life belongs from this moment on to my people. I want nothing else now than to be the first soldier of the German Reich. Speaker 1 (5:10) The invasion follows months of diplomatic tension over a strip of land known as the Polish Corridor, land that had once been part of Germany, but it was ceded to Poland to give her access to the sea after the First World War. Twenty years earlier, global leaders gathered in the French city of Versailles to sign the historic treaty ending that war. After four years of brutal fighting, an alliance led by Britain and France and supported by the United States emerged victorious. Germany, its military exhausted and its people near starvation, had lost. And now they would pay the price of defeat. Speaker 4 (6:00) The Treaty of Versailles takes territories away from Germany and strips Germany of populations and raw materials, turns the entire German merchant marine over to the Allies. It imposes reparations on the Germans. The Allies were attempting to limit the future power of Germany. The effects of the First World War were so grave, they were so catastrophic, that no one wanted to see a repeat of that. Speaker 1 (6:25) One young Austrian corporal fighting for the German army is Adolf Hitler. Like many, he is shocked by the way the war ends. Speaker 6 (6:35) Your average German was surprised by the news of the armistice because it happened so suddenly. The army was still in the field and there was a sense that we haven't been invaded and thoroughly beaten. It was personally a Speaker 3 (6:46) tragedy for Hitler. He heard the news of the armistice when he was still ill from injuries sustained in battle. He did not process the end of the war well. He did not accept the defeat of Germany. Speaker 1 (7:01) surviving soldiers come home angry and confused. Frankly, the response Speaker 4 (7:07) of many of them is disillusionment. Four years at the front, I managed to dodge all those bullets, and now I came home and this is what I fought for. Speaker 2 (7:16) When Hitler comes back from the war, he learns to talk to former soldiers who are now disgruntled and begins to feel the fact that he's actually quite a good speaker. Speaker 4 (7:31) He attends a meeting of a small group which will become the National Socialist German Workers, or Nazi Party. He finds something attractive. This is a party of grievance, talking about how Germany could be transformed and Germany could be made powerful again. In 1921, Hitler's talent for public speaking makes him the leader of this tiny party. Speaker 1 (7:52) Hitler's first move is an attempted coup against the Bavarian state government in Munich. Speaker 1 (7:59) But it fails, and he's arrested for treason. At his trial, the judge allows Hitler to publicly share his movement's grievances against war guilt, reparation, and communism. In jail, he publishes his memoir Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. With Hitler's notoriety, Nazi Party membership grows as Germany's Weimar Republic moves through the unstable 20s. Speaker 1 (8:32) The economy is burdened by heavy war reparations. In 1923, the cost of one loaf of bread rockets from three marks to 80 billion. The years that follow are unstable, chaotic. Hitler's Nazi party fuels racial hatred against Jews and fears about communism. Then, just as the economy is recovering, the Great Depression throws six million Germans out of work. Speaker 6 (9:05) People in Germany are confused, bewildered, unhappy. And so there's a real opening for a leader who will speak all these lines perfectly and talk about how I'm going to bring the Germans back together. Speaker 1 (9:16) In the 1932 elections, Germany is deeply divided. But President von Hindenburg, backed by conservative businessmen, appoints Hitler Chancellor to run the government at the beginning of 1933. Speaker 1 (9:33) In Speaker 4 (9:34) 1934, Hitler declares that he will now continue to be chancellor and take over the role of the president as well. He's transformed what was a democracy in Germany into a one-party and a one-man dictatorship. He's become the German leader, the Führer. Speaker 1 (9:56) His first promise as Fuhrer is to reclaim the land Germany lost at Versailles. He seizes the Rhineland, Austria, and the Sudetenland, German-speaking parts of Czechoslovakia. By 1938, just four years later, he's reshaped