The documentary archive
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The destruction of Germany’s Sixth Army at Stalingrad unfolded between a military map and the daily experience of men trapped inside the pocket. Soviet Operation Uranus encircled the army…
13:27The International Military Tribunal at Nuremberg ended with different outcomes for different defendants: imprisonment, acquittal and death sentences. Ten men were executed on 16 October…
1:02Japan’s Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka placed a human pilot inside a weapon designed for a one-way attack. The operational Model 11 was carried toward its target beneath a bomber, released into a…
2:00Japan’s surrender in August 1945 followed several shocks in rapid succession. The United States bombed Hiroshima on 6 August and Nagasaki on 9 August. Between those attacks, the Soviet…
1:27Otto Günsche served as an SS adjutant close to Adolf Hitler during the final phase of the Nazi regime. His place in the Berlin bunker made him an important witness to the events…
1:30Images of prisoners apparently enjoying cultural events at Theresienstadt cannot be read as evidence that the ghetto was a humane refuge. Nazi authorities used the site to mislead outside…
2:09The final statements attributed to Nazi defendants at Nuremberg have often been repeated apart from the trial that preceded them. Ten men were executed on 16 October 1946 after the…
2:37Schwerer Gustav was an 800-millimeter railway gun developed in Germany for attacking heavy fortifications. Its scale attracted attention, but the weapon’s history is also a story of…
1:47In the final weeks of the war in Europe, the SS moved thousands of prisoners out of Neuengamme concentration camp and onto ships in the Lübeck area. Conditions aboard were catastrophic.…
1:11The liberation of France in 1944 brought celebration and the restoration of political authority, but also reprisals against people accused of collaboration. Among the most visible targets…
0:48SS John Burke was a merchant cargo ship carrying military supplies in the Philippines during the closing months of 1944. On 28 December, a Japanese suicide aircraft struck the ship while…
1:25Adolf Eichmann helped organize the deportation of Jews across Nazi-controlled Europe. After the war he escaped to Argentina, where Israeli agents captured him in 1960. His trial in…
0:58Before the atomic bombing of 6 August 1945, Hiroshima was a city of neighborhoods, shops, schools, bridges and streetcars. It had grown into a regional center whose daily life included…
0:48On 30 January 1945, the Wilhelm Gustloff left Gotenhafen during the evacuation from the advancing Red Army. The former cruise ship carried civilians and military personnel in crowded,…
1:39Yamato, Shinano and HMS Barham were lost under very different circumstances. Yamato was overwhelmed by American carrier aircraft on its final mission in April 1945. Shinano, converted from…
5:02Images of leisure inside Hitler’s circle can seem startling when placed beside the destruction associated with his regime. Surviving home movies and photographs show informal gatherings,…
1:23HMS Barham was a British battleship that had served in the First World War before returning to combat in the Second. On 25 November 1941, the German submarine U-331 attacked it in the…
1:35Switzerland remained outside direct participation in the Second World War, but neutrality did not place it outside the conflict’s economy or moral choices. Trade, financial transactions…
5:25Shinano began as a Yamato-class battleship project before Japan converted the hull into an aircraft carrier. The result was an exceptionally large ship, but size concealed serious…
1:53Léo Major’s name is closely linked to the liberation of Zwolle in the Netherlands in April 1945. A reconnaissance mission, the death of his fellow soldier Wilfrid Arsenault and Major’s…
1:43The Yokosuka MXY-7 Ohka was a specialized Japanese attack weapon whose intended flight ended in a collision with an enemy ship. The combat-used Model 11 combined a large explosive charge…
1:59Yamato represented the Imperial Japanese Navy’s investment in enormous battleships and heavy guns. Yet its final mission in April 1945 unfolded in a war increasingly shaped by aircraft,…
1:35Richard Bong’s name is closely associated with the P-38 Lightning and the aircraft called Marge. But the particular P-38 identified in Papua New Guinea in 2024 was being flown by Thomas…
2:16The Nazi propaganda film made at Theresienstadt presented selected scenes of work, culture and social activity inside a ghetto. That appearance depended on control over what could be…
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