Divide and Conquer (1943); The Battle of Britain (1943)

Two entry’s from Frank Capra’s ‘Why We Fight’ series. The first covers the German advance from the conquest of Denmark to the fall of France, the second the German’s frustrated efforts to demoralize and conquer the British. While propaganda these films are marvelously done and almost astoundingly fair. The failures of the Allies and victors of the Axis receive there due attention, and it seems the goal is to be so honest as to prove Allied moral superiority, if not complete (at that time) military superiority. There are of course digs at the Germans, who are generalisticly characterized as a regimented people who don’t understand democracy, but given the nature of the Nazi state this seems to have been largely the case. This is an always stimulating film series worthy of the attention of any World War Two afficionado.