The World at War (TV series)

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For other uses, see World at War (disambiguation)

The World at War

Genre	Documentary
Creator(s)	Jeremy Isaacs
Country of origin	United Kingdom
No. of series	1
Production
Producer(s)	Thames Television
Running time	1,352 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ITV
Original run	31 October 1973 – 8 May 1974

The World at War was a 26-episode television documentary series on World War II, the events that led up to it, and those that followed in its wake. The series was produced by Jeremy Isaacs for Thames Television (UK). Originally commissioned in 1969 the series took four years to produce such was the depth of its research and was premiered on ITV in 1973; the series cost £4 million to make, a then record for a British television programme. The series was narrated by Sir Laurence Olivier and its score was composed by Carl Davis.

The series interviewed leading members of the Allied and Axis campaigns, including eyewitness accounts by civilians, enlisted men, officers, and politicians, among them Albert Speer, Karl Dönitz, Jimmy Stewart, Bill Mauldin, Curtis LeMay, Lord Mountbatten, Alger Hiss, Toshikazu Kase, Charles Sweeney, Paul Tibbets, Anthony Eden, Traudl Junge and historian Stephen Ambrose. Jeremy Isaacs says in "The Making of 'The World at War" (included on the DVD set), that the most difficult subject to locate and convince to be interviewed was Heinrich Himmler's adjutant, Karl Wolff.

It is often considered to be the definitive television history of the Second World War, and considered by some the finest example of the documentary form, although much critically important information, such as the systematic breaking of Germany's codes by Britain which allowed Germany's encrypted communications to be intercepted, remained secret at the time.

In a list of the 100 Greatest British Television Programmes drawn up by the British Film Institute in 2000, voted for by industry professionals, The World at War was placed 19th.

[edit] The episodes

The series had 26 episodes. Producer Jeremy Isaacs asked a historian to list fifteen key campaigns of the war and devoted one episode to each. The remaining eleven episodes were devoted to other issues such as home life in Britain and Germany, the experience of occupation in The Netherlands, and the Nazis' use of genocide.

The episodes were:

A New Germany (1933–1939)
Distant War (September 1939–May 1940)
France Falls (May–June 1940)
Alone: The Battle of Britain (May 1940–May 1941)
Barbarossa (June–December 1941)
Banzai: Japan Strikes (1931–1942)
On our Way: America Enters the War (1939–1942)
Desert: The War in North Africa (1940–1943)
Stalingrad (June 1942–February 1943)
Wolfpack: U-Boats in the North Atlantic (1939–1943)
Red Star: The Soviet Union (1941–1943)
Whirlwind: Bombing Germany (September 1939–April 1944)
Tough Old Gut: Italy (1942–1943)
It's A Lovely Day Tomorrow: Burma (1942–1944)
Home Fires: Britain (1940–1944)
Inside the Reich: Germany (1940–1944)
Morning: Normandy Invasion (June–August 1944)
Occupation: Holland (1940–1944)
Pincers (August 1944–March 1945)
Genocide (1941–1945)
Nemesis (February–May 1945)
Japan (1941–1945)
Pacific - The Island to Island War (February 1942–July 1945)
The Atomic Bomb (February–September 1945)
Reckoning (April 1945)
Remember

The series was originally transmitted on the ITV network in the United Kingdom between 31 October 1973 and 8 May 1974. It has subsequently been shown around the world, and as of December 2006 is currently broadcast in the UK on the UKTV History channel. The Danish channel DR2 also broadcast the series in December 2006 and January 2007.

Each episode was 52 minutes excluding commercials; as was customary for ITV documentary series at the time, it was originally screened with only one central break. The Genocide episode was screened uninterrupted.

[edit] Additional episodes

Some footage and interviews that were not used in the original series were later made into additional hour or half-hour documentaries narrated by Eric Porter. These were released as a bonus to the VHS version and are included in the DVD set of the series.