The Road to War. Episode 8: Global War. The spread of war September 1939 to December 1941

Global War: from Germany s invasion of Poland in 1939 to its declaration of war on the in 1941. Last of the fine 1989 series of eight programmes by Charles Wheeler. Poland suffered more than any other country intheSecond WorldWar. One in six Poles died atthehands oftheNazi occupiers, andtheJewish population was wiped out. The documentary has considerable focus on the plight of Poland. But Poland was onlythetrigger for awarwhich in two years wastoengulftheworld. GlobalWarseekstoanswer some ofthe puzzles ofthe war: why did Hitler call offtheinvasion of Britain and turn instead ontheSoviet Union And why did he declarewarontheUSA inthewinter of 1941 This film ties togethertheseparate strands oftheseries and tellsthetragic story of how a local conflict developed into a globalwar. The rest of the sequence of the Road to War series. all available on YouTube, was: 1 Britain, 2 Germany, 3 USSR, 4 Italy, 5 France, 6 Japan, 7 USA.