If this series sometimes treats lightly some events considered important by military historians -- the Battle of the Bulge gets three or four minutes -- it also informs us about subject usually neglected in documentaries. For instance, the British Home Guard, composed of boys and of men too old for the regular Army, was organized in 1940 when an invasion of England seemed imminent.
Well, the invasion was never realized. So what happened to the Home Guard? Answer: their ranks were supplemented by fit young men and they were integrated into the regular Army, serving as a kind of basic training and national guard. They marched in parades and were sometimes ordered to man anti-aircraft guns or direct traffic. Some resented these demands. It was more or less a hobby.
Not so for the German equivalent, the Volksturm, which became an important military force as the perimeter around Germany shrank. These really WERE old men and young boys, hastily oriented and handed rifles and anti-tank weapons if there were any left.
The anti-Semitism which was latent throughout much of Europe was instrumentalized by the Germans. If anything was wrong, it was the fault of the Jews. They were responsible for everything but tooth decay. And as the war went on, ordinary Germans recruited into the Einsatzgruppen systematically rounded up the Jews and communists in the newly conquered territories and executed all of them, while the soldiers of the Wehrmacht stood aghast. By the last months of the war, the genocidal program became what Max Weber would have called "rationalized." It was mounted efficiently and economically on an industrial scale. The photos still shock.
In the Pacific, MacArthur had landed at Leyte Gulf. Almost all the attention has been paid to the controversial naval battle that accompanied the landings. But MacArthur's troops didn't simply walk their way to Manila. Every occupied village had to be nearly destroyed to be taken. In one month, February, 1944, sixteen thousand Japanese died defending every yard of territory, and there were more than one hundred thousand Philippino civilian deaths.
Russian troops took Berlin, losing 10% of its army, as Hitler committed suicide, and the unconditional surrenders were signed on May 8th. Stalin, suspecting treachery, demanded a separate surrender. By this time, the last months of the war in Europe were clearly being fought for political dominance in the post-war years.
