When Discovery Channel Killed History

After Killing Hitler, I witnessed another example of declining British television standards in the form of When Hitler Invaded Britain, documentary about Operation Sea Lion, Hitler's plan to invade Britain in Summer 1940.

Being a veteran of soc.history.what-if Usenet newsgroup, I have witnessed endless debates about (im)practicality of the endeavour and I cringe every when those less familiar with the subject treat Sea Lion as a walk in the park for Germans. I hoped that this documentary, allegedly based on "recently discovered top secret documents", would bring some new arguments to refute classic essay by late Alison Brooks in which she had given detailed explanation why Sea Lion would have not worked.

My hopes were quickly dashed when I saw that the majority of scenes again consisted of overqualified British actors struggling to give dramatic gravitas to boring lines from personal diaries and official reports, as well as some low budget war re-enactment, mostly in forms of invincible Wehrmacht rounding British prisoners or executing few civilians idiotic enough to join irregular forces. Of course, in this documentary Germans easily cross the Channel and simply walk into London, allowing some CGI budget to be spent on shots of Hitler at the balcony of Buckingham Palace.

Any attempt to show how and why Germans succeeded in this alternate scenario is discarded in favour of cheap theatrics. Even the casting of historical personalities is insultingly bad in conforming to cheap stereotypes. Douglas Reith, who looks like Reinhard Heydrich's twin brother, is given the role of BBC announcer that gives news about British capitulation.  Heydrich is, on the other hand, played by Benedict Taylor, actor made to look like Aryan hunk from 1970s Italian sexploitation films. Producers didn't even bother to find false moustache for Nicholas Jones, actor playing British General Alan Brooke, thus losing suspension of disbelief among any serious WW2 buff.

Lowest point of the film is the scene when German admiral Admiral Raeder, talks in the camera describing his forces as "the most powerful invasion fleet in the history", which is "completely ready" and "will succeed in its mission". Such overconfidence is something that you might expect from Luftwaffe chief Herman Goering, but his character is conspicuously absent from this picture. 

When Hitler Invaded Britain is just another example of "documentaries" that sacrifice the data and reasonable conclusions in favour of speculations that don't have much basis in reality, but they look good.

 

Comments

[Jussi Jalonen]

On a related note, a couple of weeks ago a number of professional Finnish historians published a collection of articles on alternate history. The book was titled "Mitä jos? - vaihtoehtoinen Suomen historia" ("What if? - alternate histories of Finland").

I haven't had the chance to read the book yet, but I saw the interview of emeritus professor Tuomo Polvinen, one of the writers, on the morning TV. The interviewer asked the professor to name three occasions when Finland had the opportunity to change the history of the entire world. Polvinen gave three examples:

1) The Yudenich offensive of 1919, and Mannerheim's plan to launch an attack against Petrograd in support of the White Russians. Presumably, this would have led to the conquest of Petrograd and the collapse of the Bolshevik Revolution.

(I've written a very sceptical analysis of this scenario on soc.history.what-if in the past, so obviously I did not share Polvinen's opinions. First, the professor failed to explain just _how_ Mannerheim could have both managed to muster the support for his plan as well as retain hist political power. Second, he failed to explain why the offensive would have necessarily succeeded; at the same time, the Finnish expedition to Aunus Karelia had already failed.)

2) The proposed Allied expedition to Scandinavia in support of Finland in the Winter of 1939-1940. Polvinen presented the old enthusiastic interpretation that the arrival of the Allied expeditionary force would have led to a war between the Western Powers and the USSR, thus changing the Second World War beyond recognition.

(I've written a good deal of this subject on the newsgroup as well. Let's just say that the rather substantial number of Swedish volunteers in the Finnish Army never triggered a war between the USSR and Sweden, so consequently I don't think that a more extensive western assistance could have led to a state of war between the Allies and the Soviets.)

3) Leningrad, 1941. If Finland had participated more actively in the siege and even launched an offensive against the city in support of Germans, et cetera...

(Again, why would such an offensive necessarily be succesful? Lord knows that the Finnish Armed Forces had already exhausted themselves during the summer offensive of 1941.)

I'll save further comments until I've actually read the book, but at the moment, I'm not expecting to be impressed.

Cheers,
Jalonen