Product Details

• Actors: Léon Degrelle, Heinrich Himmler, Fritz Kuhn, Neville Chamberlain, Clementine Churchill
• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Studio: GoodTimes Home Video
• VHS Release Date: July 16, 1998
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000009S09
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #118,352 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Nazi march across Europe in Chapter 2 of "Why We Fight", June 6, 2004

By 

Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Nazi Strike: Blitzkrieg! [VHS] (VHS Tape)

"The Nazis Strike" is the second in director Frank Capra's "Why We Fight" series, which remains the supreme example of American propaganda from World War II. During the war Capra was a major in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was commissioned by General George C. Marshall, the Army Chief of Staff, to make series of films that would explain the government's policy to the troops hastily being assembled, trained, and sent overseas.

In this 41-minute black & white documentary, which was released in 1943, Capra covers the rise of the Nazis to power as Hitler establishes his dictatorship over Germany and then has his armies march on Austria and Czechoslovakia before invading Poland and officially beginning the war. What is emphasized is how attempts at appeasement were made but failed to deter Hitler from his dreams of conquest. Capra documents how Hitler combined political maneuvers with military preparedness to position Germany for war. The section on the "Blitzkrieg" ("lighting war") attack on Poland is a superb record of the fall of that nation before the German juggernaut.

Capra was able to use the facilities of MGM, Paramount and 20th Century Fox, as well as the talents of filmmakers like Walter Huston, George Stevens, and William Wayler, as well as composers Alfred Newman and Dmitri Tiomkin. The animated map sequences were doen by Walt Disney and his staff. In addition to being effective tools of propaganda, helping to shift American from an isolationist to a war footing, the "Why We Fight" series effectively redefined the art of the documentary and remains a key source of archival footage today. In 2000 the "Why We Fight" series was added to the Library of Congress National Film Registry and this last chapter just reinforces why.

The series was eventually shown to the public in theaters and prints were shown to American allies in England and the Soviet Union as well. Even today the "Why We Fight" series remains a prime source of archival footage of this period. "The Nazi Strike" is followed by "Divide and Conquer," which continues the story of how the Nazi easily conquered most of the European continent.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good video, July 1, 2000

By 

Emil Whipkey (West Viringia, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Nazi Strike: Blitzkrieg! [VHS] (VHS Tape)

This is the second part in the Why We Fight series. This will explained the events leading to Nazi Germany's seige of Austria and Czechoslovakia. Also Neville Chamberlain failed Munich Pact. And the Nazi victory in Poland and the ruthless destruction of Warsaw.