What if the Nazis had invaded and occupied Britain during World War II?What if the Nazis had invaded and occupied Britain during World War II?What if the Nazis had invaded and occupied Britain during World War II?
Photos
Diego Matamoros
- Narrator
- (voice)
Adolf Hitler
- Self
- (archive footage)
Winston Churchill
- Self
- (archive footage)
King George VI
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as The Royal Family)
Queen Elizabeth II
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as The Royal Family)
Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as The Royal Family)
Walther von Brauchitsch
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as Walther Brauchitsch)
Vidkun Quisling
- Self
- (archive footage)
Ante Pavelic
- Self
- (archive footage)
Léon Degrelle
- Self
- (archive footage)
Oswald Mosley
- Self
- (archive footage)
Storyline
Did you know
- ConnectionsEdited from It Happened Here (1964)
Featured review
Interesting Alternative History
What if? That's the question raised by this documentary that considers the question of what life in Britain would have been like had Hitler's Germany won World War II and occupied the island. This has the advantage of being based on actual documents. The Germans expected to defeat Britain and had very detailed plans for what to do with the occupation, right down to which personalities would be arrested, which organizations would be destroyed and which museums would be plundered. The first half of this film deals with that German occupation, and it's a sobering look at what British life would have become, based on the documents and on the examples of how the Germans dealt with other nations under occupation. As this half comes to a close, I thought the film lost a bit of its bite as it became highly speculative, proposing either a nuclear war between Germany and the United States or a Cold War between the two powers, and suggesting that, with Werner von Braun not being captured by the Americans, Germany would have landed men on the moon first. Maybe, but that seemed to be becoming a bit too speculative and was going a bit beyond what the purpose of the film was. The second half of the movie shifts the focus from what the Germans would have done in the occupation to what the British would have done, and focuses on the plans for the "Auxiliary Units" set up on Churchill's orders - basically, small groups of men organized on a village by village basis who were to engage in guerilla warfare against the Germans. The depiction of the types of sabotage they would have engaged in was realistic, but in the end the film suggests that their operations would have been largely hopeless, and would have led to widespread reprisals against the civilian population.
Certainly, this is a sobering and realistic documentary that makes one grateful for those who so long ago made sure that Nazi tyranny would be defeated.
Certainly, this is a sobering and realistic documentary that makes one grateful for those who so long ago made sure that Nazi tyranny would be defeated.
helpful•51
- sddavis63
- Jul 3, 2010
Details
- Runtime1 hour 35 minutes
- Color
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