What's on the TV today?

Now on Channel 5...Conspiracy: The Cold War Files

Gehlen's character being assessed.....one who switched his allegiance from Hitler at the end of the war and worked for the Allies,one of a number who would have been tried as war criminals....apparently complicit in the deaths of 3 million Russian POWs.

Looks like Six was one of his team,the man who intended that on the defeat of the British,all males between the ages 16-45 would be deported to the continent for forced labour

Russian sub K 129...conspiracy regarding the loss of this sub.I knew already that Howard Hughes was contracted to covert recover the sub .

 

On last night's TV, ITV at 8pm but will soon be available on "Catch-up"

"100 year old drivers ride again"

I winced as I saw some of these old (very old) drivers narrowly escaping death on the roads but gave them lots of marks for their determination to be independent.

Purely for the record, the Army taught me to drive in 1942 and I've been driving ever since, some 73 years.

Ron

 

Just watched, The Battle of the River Plate. Very much enjoyed the political nature of the situation.

 

Coming up all next week on BBC1, every morning at 9.15 am in the run-up to Remembrance Sunday, The People Remember
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b06nsc42/episodes/guide

 

The similar ones they have had in the past have been very good (I must remember to record them and watch later).

 

I watched the first episode (of two) of 'Colditz' on ITV3 on Saturday evening. I did not bother watching the second episode. To be perfectly honest, it was dreadful.

With a highly creditable cast it had the potential of being excellent. In my opinion the subject was poorly researched and the story lines completely unrealistic. Apparently, the mini-series was first aired in 2005. I must have missed it first time round. Again, just a personal opinion, but hopefully it will be out to sleep for at least another ten years!

 

Coming up tomorrow, Monday 14th December on Channel 4, 9pm
Guy Martin
"Our Guy in Latvia"

TV star Guy Martin thought his ­grandad Walter Kidals was a quiet man who pottered around his tool shed, tended sheep in his back garden and wore a suit on the beach.
But Walter had a secret history fighting for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.
As a conscript in the ferocious Latvian Legion, he battled against the Russians as they advanced into Nazi-occupied Europe.
Remarkably, he survived, despite seeing his best friend shot by a sniper and his fellow soldiers crucified by the roadside.

More here:
http://www.irishmirror.ie/showbiz/celebrity-news/tv-star-guy-martin-my-6997445

 

An interesting, if rather grim, family story about WW2.

 

Generation War on Super Channel.

Description states it is the German version of the Band of Brothers

 

The Germans win the war on their own?

 

I can remember watching this a while ago on what I at first thought was BBC4 - actually it appears to have been on BBC2 (which is quite unusual these days for the Beeb, to put a foreign language miniseries on 2 rather than on 4). I think I thought at the time that it was quite well produced but drama, not really history.

Just reading the wiki page:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_War

I hadn't realised that it was quite so controversial abroad though:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation_War#Reception

3 episodes is probably too little to do justice to the broader story that people want to be told, though I don't know what kind of reception it would have had if it had gone all out to try to tell answers to all the "troublesome questions" that some are saying that they would have liked it to better address.

I wonder though if it couldn't have succeeded better as a collaborative effort i.e. with a mix of countries of origin having input in its production rather than just the one. If they were originally aiming to market it internationally, from the comments I've so far seen they appear to have had their domestic market perhaps too much in mind in the stories that they chose to tell and hadn't really put enough thought into how it would appear in some of the countries that they sold it to.

 

Tonight at 9pm on the Yesterday Channel (Channel 19)

Freddie Knoller interview on what it was like to be a young man aged 17 and living under Nazi occupation

This is compelling viewing, miss it at your peril !

Ron

This is Freddie: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w2Jkbmb-KNU
And here: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2921719/I-basically-pimp-saved-life-Extraordinary-story-Auschwitz-survivor-spent-two-YEARS-hiding-Nazis-Paris-red-light-district.html

 

Thanks Ron for the review...will watch with interest.

Looks like a very interesting account of individual survival as many who survived have revealed over the years.

I wonder why he was sent on to Belsen (although it was a last gasp of the regime to hold on to prisoners/detainees)......may have been seen as an exchange prisoner since Himmler used Belsen also to imprison Jews who he thought would be attractive in an exchange deal for Nazi personnel held by the Allies.

 

Amazing account Ron,

Exactly as you said compelling and well worth viewing.

Rm.

 

Today is Holocaust Memorial Day and the BBC is marking it by two programs today.

The first is at 7pm on BBC 2 and the second is at 10:45 on BBC1 and tells the story of the amazing Sir Nicholas Winton who it was my honour to meet a few years ago,
http://ww2talk.com/forums/topic/8976-children-of-the-holocaust-train/

Ron

 

A very interesting account of Freddie Knoller's survival against the odds.

There were many of the Jewish faith who left Germany or Austria for France prewar although Freddie left for Belgium thinking that these locations represented safety.Then they were caught up with Hitler's sweep west and were deported to their deaths with the collaboration of Vichy.
.
Interesting regarding Figeac, a most beautiful area in the Lot to holiday in and a centre of resistance during the occupation.Freddie's arrest by the French police is an example which occurred to many through denunciation for a variety of reasons.

"Settlement in the East" one of the biggest acts of misinformation directed to those of the Jewish faith, hiding the ideological motivation of Hitler and his cohorts to exercise genocide.Those who saw through this propaganda usually had a better chance of survival and initiated evasion but families,being collective,were at the greater risk of being deported to the extermination camps in the east.

Overall,a lesson in history now and for future generations.

 

Anyone catch this? World War Two: A Timewatch Guide: www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b071gx2c via @bbciplayer Haven't had a chance to watch it yet but was drawn in by the mention of Saul David's name.

 

This may have been around before but new to me.

Storyville at 9.00pm on BBC 4 on Wednesday 30 March.

Interview by Philippe Sands of the sons of 2 indicted war criminals. The information says Sands lost much of his Jewish family at the hands of high ranking Nazis including the fathers of the 2 interviewees, one who now despises his father and one who refuses to condemn his. A harrowing tail.

Brian

 

I've only watched The Colditz Story the once and it didn't make much of an impression on me (yet I liked the board game ), but the other two are serious pieces of film making. The Cruel Sea is quite moving - not least due to Jack Hawkins' laconic stoicism and the excellence of the source material; The Dam Busters still stands up today as a lesson in how to win the viewer's sympathies and generate tension. If nothing else, compare it with the last twenty minutes or so with the last twenty minutes of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope and you may be in for a bit of a surprise - a shot-by-shot surprise at times.

Part of me is excited and part of me dreads the long-overdue remake...