[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.

[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.

[LiteKeeper]

dubious historical bump

[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.

[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.

[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...

[Mustang]

Sounds like what the Hildebeast has in store,...if enough of the brain-dead and misinformed nitwits vote for her when she runs in '04, or '08.

My remote is programmed to explode if I punch-up a PBS station or CNN, ...I may have to reconsider and check this out. :-))

Mustang sends from "Malpaso News"

[Remedy]

the unsettling possibilities of an alternative world order,

CULTURE : Hitler's Forgotten Library: The Man, His Books, and His Search for God

One of the most heavily marked books is Magic: History, Theory and Practice (1923), by Ernst Schertel. When I typed the author's name into one Internet search engine, I scored eight hits, including sites on Satanism, eroticism, sadomasochism, and flagellation. When I typed his name into Google, I scored twenty-six hits, including sites on parapsychology, astrology, and diverse sexual practices. According to a Web site for Germany's sadomasochistic community, Schertel wrote numerous books on flagellation and eroticism, and was "a central figure" in the German nudist movement of the 1920s and 1930s. Hitler's copy of Magic bears a handwritten dedication from Schertel, scrawled on the title page in pencil. A 170-page softcover in large format, the book has been thoroughly read, and its margins scored repeatedly. I found a particularly thick pencil line beside the passage "He who does not carry demonic seeds within him will never give birth to a new world."

[muir_redwoods]

So, it's a good thing so many Americans are armed, I guess. At least that's my inferrence.

[Susannah]

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.

Most PBS channel films can be purchased online...go to the following site and click on 'shop': http:/www.pbs.org Also, if you are in the USA, should be able to purchase by calling 1-800-PLAYPBS.

[chilepepper]

Alternate history is a fascinating topic: a Nazi defeat of Britain was definitely possible if one postulates a very few events going differently.

o DUNKIRK - as a "gesture", Hitler held back in capturing the BEF. If he had not done so, English morale would have suffered a tremendous hit, not to mention the loss of experienced troops.

o BATTLE OF BRITAIN - if the Luftwaffe/Goering had seen the destruction of the RAF airfields all the way through and gained air supremacy, things would be grim indeed for the Brits. I believe the guy who "really" saved England was Bomber Harris, who launched a bombing raid of Berlin when things were at their grimmest. This bombing raid attacked German *civilians*, and caused both Hitler and Goering to lose face, but the result was to take the Luftwaffe out of their gameplan and start bombing the British cities in retaliation, giving the RAF airfields and radar installations badly needed respite (the British civilians had to bear the brunt of course, but they did it with typical British aplomb).

o BARBAROSSA - if Hitler had postponed the attack on the Soviet Union, he probably would have had an easier time of it against the Brits. The Soviets were unlikely to take on the Germans until/unless the Germans were already on the ropes.

o DECLARING WAR ON THE US - if Hitler had not declared war on the US, it is not clear the US would have declared war on Germany...imagine Hitler denouncing the Japanese and in a very public way saying it was willing to help the US defeat Japan! (imagine the effect on US public opinion particularly given the German/Italian/Irish population which was inherently anti-British)

o THE BALKANS - if the Italians had been able to take Yugoslavia by themselves, the Wehrmacht would have had many more soldiers and assets to use against the Soviets and Stalingrad could have had a very different outcome.

o ME262 - if Hitler had not tried to turn a fighter jet into a bomber, the Luftwaffe might have been able to stem the waves of bombers against the German heartland.

As to those who say that taking Britain/Scotland wouldn't have changed the outcome of things, perhaps and perhaps not.

Gibraltar probably would have fallen. The great convoys would probably not be able to get to Murmansk. The nightmares would have started to pile up in a hurry...

the list goes on and on... just a few of these might have lead to a very different outcome -- it looks like God was helping out in this one!

[Bob J]

Tonight, UNSPUN with AnnaZ!
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[NormsRevenge]

Thanks so much for the post. This was one of those programs that when I saw the title and the start of it, I wasn't sure what to expect.

Excellent program.

I know we can knock the PBS networks and stations for slanted content but this is one show that made a number of strong points about what could have happened.

The information about the creation of the books that listed the targeted members of the English Isle was very interesting.The FBI files come to mind when I saw that segment, for some reason.

I am always on guard for the many historical programs that detail the WW1 and WW2 goings on, including most recently World War 2 The Complete History.

It has a spellbinding effect to see the sacrifices made to stop those who would have conquered the world and destroyed it at the same time and so many innocents.

Let us Never Forget that we are a continuation of those same "fictional" accounts of FRee peoples struggling for survival against what sometimes seem to be unsurmountable odds.

It is the spirit and the faith of FRee people that sustains us to this day.

One thing that upset me a bit is that they got Winnie in this show. In reality, it took his own people turning their backs on him after saving them all. President Bush must never face the same result.

[JudgemAll]

Why don't they do one about Hitler gowing to Moscow?

Seems to me the West is portrayed as losers and the East as our last chance...

[GeronL]

My local station reran this last night

[goldstategop]

Harry Turtledove is the acknowledged master in the "Alternate History" genre of science fiction. He's created believable parallel universes in which the South won the Civil War and the Nazis and Japanese conquered the world. Fascinating "if it had happened" speculation on what the world would look like if certain things changed. Quantum mechanics says parallel universes are not only possible but very likely.

(Denny Crane: "There are two places to find the truth. First God and then Fox News.")