PBS airs "Hitler's Victory," an alternate history with significance to American patriots

[risk]

Hitler's Britain (2 ´ 50'), produced by AAC FACT™, Lark International for PBS and Lion Television, examines one of the most intriguing questions of our time: what would the Nazis have done if they had conquered Britain? Told in two equally compelling parts, Thinking the Unthinkable: The Nazi Occupation of Britain and Churchill's Last Stand: The Secret of the British Resistance, Hitler's Britain will examine the unsettling possibilities of an alternative world order, and the chilling consequences that Hitler's victory would have had on the UK and beyond. Using reconstruction and graphic manipulation, the programme shows how Hitler's plans would have transformed Britain from a gentle, free-spirited country into an unimaginably harsh and repressive regime.

[risk]

I saw this on KQED last night, and it was awesome! You've simply got to see it. It's available on DVD, but I didn't catch the details on how to buy it ($20) and I don't see them online anywhere.

Interesting "thought provoking" issues of great relevance today:

• Resistance cells were actually planned by Churchill and trained. And yes, they were armed. How they would have deployed is described.
• Whole vilages were wiped out in reprisals for the cell activity.
• In the alternate history, liberals, gays, academics, and Jews were easily rounded up and killed. It's all supposedly there in Sonderfahndungsliste GB by SS General Walter Schellenberg. In this scenario, resistance was overwhelmed despite excellent planning.

  I think most dramatic were the interviews with the resistance cell survivors, and how they explained how serious they were about dying on their feet rather than on their knees. Message: don't mess with the Anglos.

[risk]

Bang! You may be more critical to our nation's security than you realized.

[swarthyguy]

SS-GB by Len Deighton is a good take on the same topic too.

[backhoe]

Archangel - Robert Harris
... he suggested an alternate history in which Hitler had won the war (similar to PK.Dick's
The Man in the High Castle or Otto Basil's The Twilight Men, among many ...

[SoDak]

I saw it. It was very interesting. I'm likely wrong, but it seems to me that the moment the nazi's managed a beachhead on Britain, US Soldiers would have been landing to help the Brits throw them off. I know that many in the US were ant-war, but that would have been the final straw in my mind.

[Mr.Clark]

They probably would not have gotten there in time, as we were barely mobilized at the time. It would have been close though.

[Poohbah]

There probably would have been a chilling realization that, if we weren't the very next in line, we would be on the list sooner or later.

[Mr.Clark]

Actually, the Harris book about the Nazi's winning was Fatherland, which was a fabulous book. Archangel was pretty good also.

[SoDak]

Didn't we already have flyers in the RAF by that time, along with munition pipelines? I need to re-read my WW2 history.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

If Hitler had even come close to conquering Britain, we would have had troops in Ireland and Iceland before Hitler could blink, ready to invade. He never would have won, no way, we wouldn't have let him.

[risk]

Wishful thinking.

[LiteKeeper]

dubious historical bump

[katana]

Sorry to say, but I think your assumption is wrong. There were plenty of Americans at the time, including Joe Kennedy and Charles Lindberg, who firmly believed the British were doomed and that America had no business saving them. Roosevelt was sympathetic to the British plight and did everything he could within (and a bit beyond) what the neutrality laws would allow to help them, but we fought Hitler because he declared war on us.

[Poohbah]

What most of the "FDR conspired to drag America into WW2" folks do NOT realize is that Lend-Lease and the "Neutrality Patrol" (which was anything BUT neutral) were actually quite popular moves at the time. There was a sense in America that we should help England with all aid possible short of war--and if Hitler didn't like it, he could have a nice warm cup of STFU.

[Savage Beast]

Maybe next they'll do one where George Bush was not elected President in 2000 and (therefore) Al-Qaida conquered Europe and North America.

[Restorer]

A conquered Britain would have made America's task far more difficult. A large, unsinkable aircraft carrier 12 miles off the coast of Europe was essential for Overlord.

Considering The Bomb, we would probably have still won the war, but it would have been longer and much bloodier.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Wishful thinking.

Did you see how fast we had troops in North Africa after Hitler declared war on us in 1941... matter of months. And we already had troops in Iceland, stationed there in 1940. The US had a navy, Germany didn't have one to speak of, so we could deploy troops and supplies faster.

[beckett]

I tuned in last night. I usually gobble this stuff up, but this program is complete dreck, from the unbearably ominous narration to the cheesy re-creations.

It was so silly I could only watch for about 20-30 minutes.

[SoDak]

I think common sense and a sense of imminent doom would have convinced more than enough of congress at the time to do the right thing.

[MD_Willington_1976]

I heard or saw on some show that Churchill would order the deployment of Anthrax over the UK & Europe if Germany made it onto British soil...