The Seeds of War
- Episode aired 1982
YOUR RATING
Photos
Storyline
Featured review
The Path To Legalized Murder.
Cronkite covers the interbellum period of 1920 to 1939 in Europe and Asia. Walter Cronkite, once voted the most trusted man in America. ("Vot a name," said my Bavarian grandfather.) He begins with Germany. A democracy, the Weimar Republic, was established at the end of World War I but Germany wasn't used to a democratic government. Neither was the democratic government. Germany was only united two generations earlier by Bismark and had been ruled since then by a Kaiser. Cronkite doesn't mention this but "Kaiser" is a modern version of the word "Caesar", as was the "Czar" of Russia until he was gotten rid of earlier. The Kaiser was in effect the last claimant to the throne of the Roman Empire.
At any rate, the republic was very tentative. The demands of the surrender, the Versailles treaty, included Germany's making reparations for the damages suffered by the French in World War I. It was a heavy burden and when the Germans were slow, the French occupied the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, making further payments impossible. Strikes broke out. Communists fought the military, and the government, fearing a communist takeover, backed the generals. But the nation was in chaos and inflation was rife. Four trillion marks to the US dollar. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. People papered walls with bills of lower denominations. The inflation of the postwar period is often ignored but it shouldn't be. How would anyone feel if their bank accounts were suddenly reduced to one millionth of what they were once worth? By the end of the 20s stability had return and Germany's arts and sciences flourished. Thomas Mann, Berthold Brecht, Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, Walter Gropius, Sigmund Freud (Austria), Edwin Hubble. Whether or not the folks of today recognize these names is less important than the fact that they were important and influential figures in the 1920s. I'll throw in the fact that Vladimir Nabokov lived in Berlin during the 20s, writing stories and crossword puzzles for Russian refugees.
Hitler went nowhere during the 20s but the era ended with the Great Depression of the 30s. Hitler blamed the impotent republic, the communists, the foreigners and the Jews for the ensuing misery. He was elected Chancellor in 1933, the same year Roosevelt took office. Of course, greater misery -- much greater -- was to follow, as we all know.
The emergence of Japan as an aggressor nation is handled somewhat differently, with less emphasis on social conditions and more on the war in Manchuria and China during the 30s.
I must say that though this is far from Frank Capra's thoroughly propagandistic (and effective) "Why We Fight" series, it's still slanted. This was produced in 1982. The Cold War was in deep freeze. And the communist party in Germany is brought up several times, in a way that it isn't in more recent treatments of Hitler's rise. In China, Mao Tse Tung rescued Chiang Kai Sheck from imprisonment by the Japanese, and the communists are generally given their due. Yet, seemingly in order to maintain the "us" vs. "them" structure, the narration claims that the deliberate flooding of the Yellow River halted the Japanese advance -- a victory. Well, yes, it did. But it also killed roughly half a million Chinese citizens and made almost three million homeless and it was not initiated by "the Chinese" but by the National Army under Chiang.
None of these weaknesses means that the vast majority of high school students -- who don't know which country fought which in World War II -- wouldn't profit from watching this.
At any rate, the republic was very tentative. The demands of the surrender, the Versailles treaty, included Germany's making reparations for the damages suffered by the French in World War I. It was a heavy burden and when the Germans were slow, the French occupied the industrial heartland of the Ruhr, making further payments impossible. Strikes broke out. Communists fought the military, and the government, fearing a communist takeover, backed the generals. But the nation was in chaos and inflation was rife. Four trillion marks to the US dollar. A loaf of bread cost a million marks. People papered walls with bills of lower denominations. The inflation of the postwar period is often ignored but it shouldn't be. How would anyone feel if their bank accounts were suddenly reduced to one millionth of what they were once worth? By the end of the 20s stability had return and Germany's arts and sciences flourished. Thomas Mann, Berthold Brecht, Albert Einstein, Marlene Dietrich, Fritz Lang, Walter Gropius, Sigmund Freud (Austria), Edwin Hubble. Whether or not the folks of today recognize these names is less important than the fact that they were important and influential figures in the 1920s. I'll throw in the fact that Vladimir Nabokov lived in Berlin during the 20s, writing stories and crossword puzzles for Russian refugees.
Hitler went nowhere during the 20s but the era ended with the Great Depression of the 30s. Hitler blamed the impotent republic, the communists, the foreigners and the Jews for the ensuing misery. He was elected Chancellor in 1933, the same year Roosevelt took office. Of course, greater misery -- much greater -- was to follow, as we all know.
The emergence of Japan as an aggressor nation is handled somewhat differently, with less emphasis on social conditions and more on the war in Manchuria and China during the 30s.
I must say that though this is far from Frank Capra's thoroughly propagandistic (and effective) "Why We Fight" series, it's still slanted. This was produced in 1982. The Cold War was in deep freeze. And the communist party in Germany is brought up several times, in a way that it isn't in more recent treatments of Hitler's rise. In China, Mao Tse Tung rescued Chiang Kai Sheck from imprisonment by the Japanese, and the communists are generally given their due. Yet, seemingly in order to maintain the "us" vs. "them" structure, the narration claims that the deliberate flooding of the Yellow River halted the Japanese advance -- a victory. Well, yes, it did. But it also killed roughly half a million Chinese citizens and made almost three million homeless and it was not initiated by "the Chinese" but by the National Army under Chiang.
None of these weaknesses means that the vast majority of high school students -- who don't know which country fought which in World War II -- wouldn't profit from watching this.
helpful•00
- rmax304823
- May 16, 2017
Details
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content