TELEVISION

World War II: Battlefield Europe

Series: World War II: Battlefield Europe
4.7
(43)
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Episodes
24
Rating
TVPG
Year
2020
Language
English
Publisher
The Great Courses

About

Designed in partnership with HISTORY and using a distinctly European perspective, this series offers a fresh lens through which to study the European Theater's major battles, larger-than-life personalities, twists of fate, and tales of intrigue. You'll uncover the strategic decisions behind Operation Barbarossa, D-Day, the Battle of the Bulge, the invasion of Italy, the fall of Berlin, and more.

Related Subjects

Episodes

1 to 3 of 24

1. The Battle of Moscow, December 1941

30m

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Start this series with an examination of what Professor Stone sees as the critical turning point of World War II: the Battle of Moscow in December 1941. At the opening of the fight, Hitler stood on the verge of total victory; by the end, a massive Soviet counteroffensive marked the beginning of the end for the Nazis.

2. Anti-Semitism and the Nazis

30m

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Hitler's effort to exterminate the Jews of Europe is a central part of the way we think about Nazism and World War II. Here, investigate the evolution of anti-Semitism in Europe from a belief system rooted in religion to a new form of anti-Semitism that was racial and biological (an evolution that paved the way for the Holocaust).

3. Tearing Up the Treaty of Versailles

28m

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What elements in the Treaty of Versailles made it a priority for Hitler to undermine and destroy? What factors kept other global powers from stopping Hitler's rise to power? What made the Spanish Civil War a symptom of World War II? How did the fate of Czechoslovakia weaken Stalin's faith in an alliance with the West?

4. The War Begins, 1939

29m

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With Germany's land grab in 1939, Britain and France reluctantly concluded that Hitler was bent on European domination. Follow the story of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union, the dramatic invasion of Poland in September 1939, and the rise of a new kind of German warfare called blitzkrieg ("lightning war").

5. The Nazi Rise to Power, 1922–1933

29m

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Adolf Hitler launched a catastrophic war that killed an estimated 60 million people. What brought this murderous individual (and his murderous ideology) into power in Nazi Germany? In this episode, Professor Stone puts the rise of Nazi Germany in context of the European environment of the 1920s and 1930s.

6. The Fall of France, Spring 1940

28m

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Investigate how Hitler achieved such a rapid and smashing initial advance in World War II. Topics include Germany's campaigns in Denmark and Norway, the collapse of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's government, the French defeat in the Battle of the Meuse River, and the rise of the Vichy regime under Marshal Philippe Petain.

Extended Details

  • Closed CaptionsEnglish

Artists

The Great Coursesdirector
The Great Coursesproducer
David R. Stoneactor