Military and War - Divide and Conquer

"Divide and Conquer," Chapter III of Frank Capras "Why We Fight"series, begins with Britain and Frances declaration of war on Germanyafter Hitlers invasion of Poland. The film covers the Nazi capture ofDenmark and Norway, steps necessary to mount a future attack on Britain,then describes in detail Hitlers strategy as he conquers Luxembourg,Belgium and the Netherlands. Special attention is paid to Naziatrocities. Dead and injured children are shown en masse and the filmexplains how the bombing of Rotterdam leads to "thirty thousand men,women and children killed in ninety minutes." The narrator tells howthe Luftwaffe bombs small villages so that refugees clog the highways,and how it uses precision machine gun fire to herd the survivors towardthe allied armies, who find their progress severely constrained as aresult. An American military officer details the Nazi plan for aninvasion of France, which Hitler conquers in just over a month. TheGermans bludgeon the French armies into surrender, then "enslave" muchof the local population to service the German military regime.