Why We Fight: Divide and Conquer

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Scope & Content: This motion picture film focuses on the German military offensive, 1939-1940. In Reel 1, Adolf Hitler, in the Reichstag, pledges peace on Oct. 6, 1939; Panzer units roll across Denmark; armored, naval, and air power strikes Norway and Germans parade in Oslo. In Reel 2, British troops land in Norway, German planes attack ships evacuating the British, Ferdinand Foch inspects French troops in 1917 and Paris is defended by the "taxicab" army. In Reel 3, French troops man the Maginot Line in 1940, there is an analysis of the weakness of French morale and a dramatization of German propaganda. Footage also shows the French defensive strategy, Nazi airborne troops landing at Rotterdam, and armored columns racing across Holland. Reel 4 chronicles the Dutch surrender, but Rotterdam is reduced to ruins by bombing. Footage shows Panzer units invading Belgium and taking an Albert Canal fort, and advancing Allied columns are impeded by fleeing refugees. Reel 5 shows Panzer units, preceded by engineers, breaking through the Ardennes Forest, crossing the Meuse River, and taking the Sedan. Also included in an analysis of the operation. In Reel 6, Allied troops are evacuated at Dunkirk, Winston Churchill inspects the survivors, Italian troops invade France, President Franklin Roosevelt deplores the action, and Benito Mussolini speaks. General Henri Philippe Petain, Pierre Laval, Adolf Hitler and Hermann Goring are shown as the French surrender is signed. Hitler tours Paris and Generals Charles de Gaulle and Henri Giraud inspect free French units in North Africa.