Der Deserteur

Historian James Bulgin reveals the origins of the Holocaust in the German invasion of the Soviet Union, exploring the mass murder, collaboration and experimentation that led to the Final Solution.

The film is a graphic depiction of the war atrocities committed by the Japanese at Unit 731, the secret biological weapons experimentation unit of the Imperial Japanese Army during World War II. The film details the various cruel medical experiments Unit 731 inflicted upon the Chinese and Soviet prisoners at the tail-end of the war.

USSR, Late November, 1941. Based on the account by reporter Vasiliy Koroteev that appeared in the Red Army's newspaper, Krasnaya Zvezda, shortly after the battle, this is the story of Panifilov's Twenty-Eight, a group of twenty-eight soldiers of the Red Army's 316th Rifle Division, under the command of General Ivan Panfilov, that stopped the advance on Moscow of a column of fifty-four Nazi tanks of the 11th Panzer Division for several days. Though armed only with standard issue Mosin-Nagant infantry rifles and DP and PM-M1910 machine guns, all useless against tanks, and with wholly inadequate RPG-40 anti-tank grenades and PTRD-41 anti-tank rifles, they fight tirelessly and defiantly, with uncommon bravery and unwavering dedication, to protect Moscow and their Motherland.

For fans of history, this glimpse of Munich society in the 1920s will be a much-treasured event. The story revolves around an art-gallery manager who puts on a show featuring the scandalous works of a woman artist who committed suicide. He is unjustly accused of having committed adultery with her, and for some reason the authorities decide to make an example of him. He is imprisoned at about the same time that Hitler and the nascent Nazi party attempt the infamous Beer Hall Putsch, and the gallery manager's girlfriend and a Swiss writer valiantly (and unsuccessfully) attempt to get better justice for him. Nobody in authority, it seems, has the courage to take up the challenge of righting this particular injustice.

High-ranking officers struggle with the decision to prioritize bombing German factories producing new jet fighters over the extremely high casualties the mission will cost.

Confronted with death, National Health Service founder Aneurin ‘Nye’ Bevan’s deepest memories lead him on a mind-bending journey back through his life; from childhood to mining underground, Parliament and fights with Winston Churchill.

England, World War II. Quint Munroe, RAF officer and new leader of a Mosquito squadron, is tasked with destroying a secret Nazi base in France while trying to overcome the disappearance of a brother-in-arms.

The life and career of Erwin Rommel and his involvement in the plot to assassinate Hitler.

Sexual minorities were oppressed, imprisoned and murdered by the Nazis. Paragraph 175 criminalized homosexual men during the Nazi era – but the Nazis also discriminated against lesbians and trans people. They should be excluded from the national community. More than 50,000 queer people have been proven to have been persecuted. The documentary highlights three poignant fates in the context of Nazi terror.

In the spring of 1945, a train deporting hundreds of Jewish prisoners gets stranded near a small German village occupied by the Red Army. Condemned to each other and in a context of deep mistrust, desperation and revenge, an unexpected friendship emerges between Russian sniper Vera, village girl Winnie and Jewish-Dutch woman Simone.

At the end of WWI, the treaty of Versailles established the conditions for peace in Europe. The aim for the victorious powers was to make Germany pay reparations, and to guarantee a future without war. Yet a decade later, the denunciation of 'Versailles' became a powerful lever for the nazis to obtain power as these reparations would mark the beginning of the humiliation of the German people, and nurture a feeling of having been bestowed a hopeless future. In the 20 years that follow the end of WWI, the issue of reparations and responsibility will effectively poison international relationship. The treaty negative impact goes well beyond WWII as the new European borders it implemented led to many conflicts during the twentieth century. This documentary shines a light on the causality between the decisions taken with the treaty of Versailles, and the ensuing events of the century.