Timewatch — Specials

Aug 19911h 30m

The experiences of six German soldiers who survived the invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 are vividly captured through the viewfinders of the amateur film cameras they carried throughout the campaign. Lying forgotten and unseen by anyone else, the films they made cover the entire course of the invasion, from military training up to retreat, from the everyday to the horrific. Described by the soldiers themselves, these 8mm images offer a different view from the newsreels.

Aug 19911h 30m

When the German army surrounded Leningrad in 1941, it was the beginning of a terrible 900 days of isolation for its citizens. On a meager bread ration and with temperatures of minus 40 degrees Celsius, frozen corpses littered the streets. There was no light or water. It is now estimated that at least 1,200,000 people died. This remarkable German film uses previously untransmitted footage of the siege which shows the Russian suffering inflicted by the Nazis.

Sept 19911h

First of a four-part Timewatch reassessment of the life and work of Lyndon Baines Johnson, who took over as US President following the assassination of John F Kennedy in 1963. Part 1 examines his ambition and the political instinct which took him from small town rural affairs in Texas via Dallas to the highest office in the United States of America. Part 1 of 4.

Sept 19911h

The new president reassured a nation stunned by John F Kennedy's assassination and then surprised America with his forceful stand on civil rights and his programme for a Great Society. Part 2 of 4.

Sept 19911h

Johnson had galvanised America with his appeal for racial justice and his vision for a 'Great Society'. But at the same time, he had promised not to send American troops to Vietnam. Political experts and those who knew him best explain why, without national debate or congressional approval, he expanded a war he had never understood. Johnson's vision for America was about to be overtaken by a full-scale land war in Asia. Part 3 of 4.

Sept 19911h

As Johnson's term of office drew to a close, riots raged in the inner cities, and anti-Vietnam protesters demonstrated all over the country. With the United States as close to anarchy as at any time since the Civil War, Johnson felt he was living in a continuous nightmare. The final programme reveals how those who knew him best still regard him as a great man who almost realised an impossible dream. What he wanted was time to build his 'Great Society' - but time was running out. Part 4 of 4.

Jul 199050m

The story of Count Adolf Heinrich von Arnim, one of the many wealthy Germans whose lands were taken away from them in 1945, and his return to his former home for the first time in 45 years.

May 199050m

In May 1940, Hitler's Panzers trapped the armies of Britain and France in a pocket of land around the French port of Dunkirk. Escape seemed impossible, but within nine days more than 300,000 of these men were safely ashore back in England. How, against all the odds, had nearly a third of a million men been rescued from the beaches? Using eye-witness accounts and archive film, Timewatch recalls the political and human dilemmas which, 50 years ago, dominated an incredible nine days in British history.

May 19881h

During the summer of 1943, the SOE's largest network in occupied France collapsed, and more than 400 of the French Resistance were arrested. At the centre of this disaster stood the figure of Henri Dericourt, one of SOE's most trusted agents. However, Dericourt had also been working for German Intelligence. Following the publication of a new book ('All the King's Men' by Robert Marshall) which examines the events surrounding the collapse of SOE's network, Timewatch have updated this programme, originally transmitted in 1986. Recent evidence confirms that the catastrophe in wartime France was really the result of an extraordinary British espionage operation.

Oct 20091h

On 14 November 1940 the German Luftwaffe dropped so many bombs on Coventry that three quarters of the city was destroyed. Such was the devastation, the Germans coined a term to describe it - "to coventrate". This documentary explores the immediate aftermath of the attack, as panic gripped the city and half the population fled. But it also charts Coventry's remarkably rapid revival, and its role in the eventual "coventration" of Hamburg, Dresden, and Berlin, that would ultimately bring Germany to its knees.

May 2001

Mar 201059m

King Edward VII has always been an enigma. Twentieth-century dynasty builder and sex addict, boorish philistine and civilised cosmopolitan - he was all of these. Using extensive new research, this documentary unravels the mystery of a thoroughly modern monarch and shows that his legacy is still relevant today.