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Reviews for the World at War

"The World At War was one of the greatest television series of all time. It demonstrated the potential power of history on television and inspired a generation - it certainly inspired me to make series like Nazis and Auschwitz. It is tremendously exciting that the complete interviews with the participants from The World at War are now published here for the first time. Most of the people who were interviewed for the series are now dead, but their vital history - thanks to this book - still lives" - Laurence Rees, author of Auschwitz

"Holmes has a sharp, knowing eye for anecdote and detail" - Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

"What sets Richard Holmes apart is the sheer quality of his writing and his empathy with his subjects" - Independent

The World At War contains remarkable interviews with the statesmen and military leaders of the time and it uses film from national and private sources, much of it never screened before. In fact, film research in 18 countries yielded over three million feet of archive film and nearly a million feet of interviews and location material. Above all, it brings to the screen the memories and experiences of ordinary men and women - American and Japanese, British and German, Russian and European, in uniform and out - who lived and fought throughout the most momentous conflict in world history.

The idea of producing a definitive televisual history of the Second World War came from Jeremy Isaacs, then a producer with Thames Television. He presented an initial plan for the programme to the board of Thames in the autumn of 1970. It was a daunting project for an independent television company to take on - 26 episodes of one hour in length, shown once a week over a period of six months. Isaacs delivered a two-line description of each episode and amazingly, 25 of these went on to be made. Having received board approval, Isaacs set about assembling his team, and they went to work in early 1971. It is a monument to their skills and the subsequent success of the programme that many members of this team went on to even bigger and better things.

Director David Elstein would become Director of Programmes at Thames before being appointed Chief Executive of Channel 5. Writer Charles Douglas-Home became editor of The Times, whilst another producer, Ted Childs, is one of the most influential makers of television drama in the UK, responsible for hits such as The Sweeney, Inspector Morse and Kavanagh QC. Jeremy Isaacs himself became the founding Chief Executive of Channel Four Television from 1981 to 1988 and later General Director of the Royal Opera House. He was knighted in 1996 for services to broadcasting and the arts. Writers were then selected, together with the rest of the crew, and the gargantuan research project began. One of the most difficult tasks was identifying and tracking down subjects for interview, particularly as many of those involved in the war preferred that the world forget they existed.

Months of painstaking research led to some spectacular results. Amongst those interviewed were Hitler's Armaments Minister, Albert Speer; Himmler's Adjutant, Karl Wolff; Hitler's Secretary, Traudl Junge; Hollywood star and USAAF bomber pilot, James Stewart; then Foreign Secretary, later Prime Minister, Anthony Eden, and Head of RAF Bomber Command, Arthur 'Bomber' Harris.

Isaacs, however was determined that the series should balance out the 'view from the top' with the 'view from the bottom' - that those on the front-line and on the receiving end of bombing were equally important as the strategists and the politicians. Thus The World At War features such fascinating characters as the torpedo-tanker crewman who drifted for weeks in the Atlantic without water but who somehow lived to tell the tale; the Leningrad housewife who endured a 1000-day siege; the D-Day GI who was there when the ramp on the landing craft went down in front of a hail of bullets, and, of course those who survived the horrors of Auschwitz.

Meanwhile, researchers were going through a huge amount of archive film, much of it held at the Imperial War Museum. The Nazis were remarkably thorough in recording even their most abhorrent atrocities - much of it in colour - and The World At War would become one of the first television documentaries to exploit these resources completely.

At the same time, work was also being progressed on the script, the logo, the music and the titles. It was to be 18 months before the title sequence was perfected to Isaac's satisfaction - those sombre black-and-white images set over burning text that would become one of the most memorable in television history.

The first programme, A New Germany, went out on Wednesday 31st October 1973 at 9.00pm, and the series went on to achieve excellent ratings for a documentary. One edition, Morning, the story of the D-Day Landings, made it into the top 10 that week, unheard of for a programme of that nature. The World at War was deemed a great success, and as a result, further 'specials' were produced, narrated this time by Eric Porter. Indeed, when shown on BBC2 over Christmas 2002, The World At War received a higher rating than Friends, which was shown at the same time on Channel 4.

The World at War has since been broadcast in nearly 100 countries around the world, and given its length, it is certain that it is showing somewhere at any given moment in time. It has won many 'outstanding documentary' accolades including an International Emmy.

Since its first release on DVD in 2001 which contained the complete 26 episode series and 6 specials, the original production team including Sir Jeremy Isaacs, Alan Afriat and Sue McConachy were brought back together in 2003 to film a 'Making of the World at War Retrospective'. This was included in a 30th anniversary special box set which was packaged along with a facsimile of the original BAFTA World at War booklet. The Retrospective is now included in the standard box set.

The World At War still remains a monumental achievement. Most importantly, it still remains as fresh and awe-inspiring as it did when it was first broadcast. The interview and the archive footage will never change, the analysis remains correct.

Awards

THE NATIONAL TELEVISION CRITICS AWARD - for Best Documentary Series to producer Jeremy Isaacs

GORGE POLK MEMORIAL AWARD - for the Most Outstanding Documentary on American Television to Jeremy Isaacs

AMERICAN NATIONAL ACADEMY OF TELEVISION ARTS AND SCIENCES EMMY AWARD - for 'Outstanding Documentary Achievements in programmes dealing with artistic, historic or cultural subjects'.

THE SOCIETY OF FILM AND TELEVISION ARTS TECHNICAL CRAFT AWARD - for Alan Afriat, Supervising Film Editor

WORLD JEWISH FILM AND TELEVISION FESTIVAL - a silver award to Genocide, episode 20 of World at War

Reviews

"A show of almost staggering ambition...the best series on American TV this year" VARIETY

"Like some irresistible juggernaut, Thames' monumental The World at War rolls triumphantly on. The awesome industry of the researchers has paid handsome dividends." DAILY TELEGRAPH

"A high standard of technical expertise, disciplined teamwork...the research has been exceptional...extraordinarily effective." SUNDAY TIMES

"For those of us who have lived through the cataclysm, these 26 episodes will send chills racing up the spine." LOS ANGELES TIMES

"Superb...some of the most significant television of the year." NEW YORK TIMES