World War 2: Behind closed doors (documentary)

This documentary is not about the battle of such and such - but rather a much more interesting political backstage view of the wheeling’s and dealings of the western allies and their new buddy Stalin. And the focus is not on Hitler but on Stalin throughout the documentary, which show the increasing weakening of morals, principles and control over Stalin that Roosevelt and Churchill had as the war progressed. This documentary wonderfully illustrates how everyone tried to fuck over someone else - be it trying to make some compromise or simply by wishing to end up on top - even among the English and the Americans.

And while a well read person with an interest in WW2 would most likely know almost everything that became the result of the discussions between the 3 allied leaders the documentary relies on telling you the details that were secret up until recently when archives have been opened up and notes from the meetings made public for research and historians.

A couple of things stood out. First of all, the honesty of the documentary (made by BBC) which does not paint an altogether flattering picture of neither Roosevelt nor Churchill.

The eye witnesses and participants in actions that transpired during the war, who are being interviewed in this documentary are also brutally honest - in some cases you have people laughing about themselves having committed war crimes in front of the camera.

But perhaps the most nauseating thing about the documentary is how it shows you the contrast of the brainwashing media bullshit about happy meetings and hugs between the allied leaders, Stalin and Polish representatives or even between the Germans and the Soviets. You have wonderful "facepalm moments" when they show LIFE or TIME magazines running some fucked up story about Stalin as this gentle giant and his NKVD being compared to the FBI.

It's nauseating because shit like this is still going on with the media today. Brainwashing the public with lies told straight to your face and hoping you are stupid enough not to see through the propaganda of modern day politics and events.

This documentary is amazingly good. It gives you a fantastic continuity of pre WW2 events all the way to the start of the cold war. It is very engaging, and will probably piss you off more than once as you watch it because of what it shows, and as such ends up being a much more intelligent and satisfying ride then just watching another 60 minute documentary on D-Day or the battle of Kursk for the 5th time but with slightly different archive material.

This documentary makes use of newsreels and archive material as well as live actors to portray historical characters as they re-enact meetings and deals as they have been recorded by people present back when it happened for real. It adds a bit of a fleshed out portrayal of events instead of just listening to a speaker voice for 6 hours.

The best part? Someone uploaded the entire series on youtube. You can watch it for free by following this link to the YouTube playlist of all 27parts of this documentary: LINK