World War Two: Behind Closed Doors (2008– )

A story showing the 3 allied leader's, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin's actions and relationships behind the scenes during World War 2. It isn't as friendly as it seems. Shows how close ... See full summary »

Stars:

Aleksey Petrenko, Bob Gunton, Paul Humpoletz

Cast

Series cast summary:
Aleksey Petrenko	...	Joseph Stalin (6 episodes, 2008-2009)
Bob Gunton	...	Franklin Roosevelt (6 episodes, 2008-2009)
Paul Humpoletz	...	Winston Churchill (6 episodes, 2008-2009)
Samuel West	...	Narrator (6 episodes, 2008-2009)
Valeriy Zhakov	...	Vyacheslav Molotov (4 episodes, 2008)
Krzysztof Dracz	...	Officer (4 episodes, 2008)
Michal Grudzinski		(3 episodes, 2008)
Tomasz Kwietko-Bebnowski		(3 episodes, 2008)
Michael J. Reynolds	...	Gen. George C. Marshall (3 episodes, 2008)
Simon Thorp	...	Anthony Eden (3 episodes, 2008)

Storyline

A story showing the 3 allied leader's, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin's actions and relationships behind the scenes during World War 2. It isn't as friendly as it seems. Shows how close the war was to favoring the axis if the Soviet Union joined forces with Hitler's Nazi's.

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Plot Keywords:

history of the soviet union | conference | international relations | political leader | politics | 

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Taglines:

Award-winning documentary-maker and historian Laurence Rees brings us a gripping new history of World War II

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Genres:

Documentary | History | War

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Details

Country:

UK Poland

Language:

English Russian German

Release Date:

24 November 2008 (UK)

Also Known As:

A második világháború - Zárt ajtók mögött

Filming Locations:

Poland

Company Credits

Production Co:

British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC)

Technical Specs

Runtime:

300 min 300 min (DVD)

Color:

Color

User Reviews

Another in a long line of efforts by the West to falsify the role of Russians in history.

This is another in a series of documentaries by the now propagandist BBC. I thought War Of The Century was misleading, but Behind Closed Doors is somewhat worse. The relations between Franklin Roosevelt, Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin were good, and the Yalta Conference was a high point in their cooperation. There they decided on what was to be done after Nazi Germany was defeated, and Stalin agreed to enter the war against Japan once the war in Europe was over. Behind Closed Doors is an attempt to falsify what happened by presenting divisions between the Western allies and the Soviet Union. The imperialist Churchill was always opposed to the Soviet Union but once Germany started bombing England he immediately decided to ally with the Soviet Union when Operation Barbarossa began. By then it was obvious that the real threat to Britain's security was Germany. Franklin Roosevelt turned out to be a serious president. He understood the situation in Europe, and he was willing to provide the Soviet Union with all the help possible. By the time of the Potsdam Conference, however, relations between the Soviet Union and the West began to change. Roosevelt was dead and his successor Harry Truman embraced a negative policy towards the Soviet Union, mainly because America by then had the atomic bomb. By the end of the war the United States was the hegemon, but the Soviet Union, under Stalin's leadership, also became a superpower. Even though the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany (almost 90% of German casualties were on the Eastern Front) the socialist state was devastated by the war. The Germans left a trail of destruction in Russia and the Soviet Union suffered 27 million deaths in what became the biggest war in history. Recent Western films and documentaries, such as Behind Closed Doors, are rewriting history by portraying the Soviet Union as an ally of Nazi Germany before 1941. This is obvious to any intelligent person. The Russians signed a non-aggression pact with the Germans because Stalin wanted the Soviet Union to stay out of the war at that time. Stalin knew that the British and the French were hatching plans to defeat the Soviet Union. Stalin wanted security for the Soviet Union after the country went through World War I, a revolution, a civil war, economic collapse, and rapid indusrialization of the 1930s. Adolf Hitler, like Churchill and many other Westerners, hated Russia and considered the Soviet Union to be a major threat to the West. He always wanted to attack and destroy Russia but conditions were such that he had to defeat France and bomb England. The French and the English were hoping that he would attack the Soviet Union and for a long time their position was that of appeasement towards Germany. They surrendered Austria and Czechoslovakia to Germany, and didn't really do anything until Hitler attacked France. The German army turned out to be so strong that France was defeated in just over a month. But since Britain couldn't be bombed into submission Hitler turned his massive military machine on the Soviet Union in June 1941. Thankfully, Russia had a competent leader like Stalin during those tough times. Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a superpower, the second largest economy in the world, defeated Nazi Germany and he was able to foil the dirty imperialist plans of the British and the Americans. The Anglo-Saxons hate him for this and this is the reason for all the anti-Stalinist propaganda in the West. If they could have they would have slaughtered many Russians like Hitler did, but since the Soviet Union was a strong state they had to resort to "containment" and propaganda. The history of the first half of the 20th century was told wonderfully in Carroll Quigley's book Tragedy And Hope. Just before the war Stalin decided to add to the Soviet Union a few states which belonged to the Russian Empire. These were Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia and Finland. A list of demands was sent to Finland, but under British pressure the Finnish government was forced to resist the Soviet Union. After the Winter War Finland handed over the territory that the Soviet Union wanted. Poland was ruled by a nationalist and authoritarian Sanacja regime. Poland took territory from Czechoslovakia in agreement with Hilter and nearly attacked Lithuania. Under this regime Poland was actively engaged in opposing the Soviet Union. Poland attacked Russia during the Russian Civil War and carried out genocide in some western parts of the Soviet Union. Under the non-aggression pact Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union divided Poland, though Germany got the more important part including the capital Warsaw. Six million people in Poland were killed under the German occupation, and three million of them were Jews. The Baltic states accepted the Soviet demands and the Red Army was able to station troops on their territory. While Stalin was adding these territories to the Soviet Union Hitler had conquered most of central and western Europe. The Soviet Union also could have been attacked by Japan in the east but, since the Japanese were defeated in two clashes by the Red Army in Mongolia, they decided to strike Pearl Harbor instead. These days, however, Russia's future seems grim. The West was able to defeat the Soviet Union in the Cold War by installing and supporting a treacherous and incompetent leader named Mikhail Gorbachev. Under Soviet rule the population in the Soviet Union increased by 100 million people, but after 1991 Russia's population decreased by 30 million people already. This was the result of capitalist reforms and economic warfare waged by the West. The West is carrying out its massive propaganda campaign against Russia and Russia's history. Millions of people in the West are engaged in this information war against Russia. Behind Closed Doors is just one of numerous efforts to falsify Russia's role in history. And the performances in this documentary are bad too.