Prelude to War (1942) - (Documentary, War) - video Dailymotion

Film Gorillas

Alternate Title: Why We Fight Not Rated | 52min | Documentary, War | 27 May 1942 (USA)    The official World War II US Government film statement defining the various enemies of the Allies and why they must be fought.  Directors: Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak  Stars: Walter Huston, Victor Bulwer-Lytton, Kai-Shek Chiang

Transcript

00:00You

00:30Oh

01:00Oh

01:30Oh

01:44Causes and events leading up to our entry into the war

01:48Well, what are the causes?

01:51Why are we Americans on the march?

01:55Is it because of

02:01Pearl Harbor

02:06Is that why we are fighting or is it because of Britain

02:24France

02:30Oh

02:42China

02:50Czechoslovakia

02:56Norway

03:00Germany

03:05Poland

03:19Holland

03:23Greece

03:30Belgium

03:33Albania Yugoslavia

03:38Our Russia

04:00Russia

04:05Just what was it made us change our way of living overnight

04:09What turned our resources our machines?

04:12Our whole nation into one vast awesome

04:15Producing more and more weapons of war instead of the old materials of peace

04:19What put us into uniform ready to engage the enemy on every continent and every ocean

04:34What are these two worlds of which mr. Wallace spoke the free and the slave

04:52Let's take the free world first

04:54our world

04:56How did it become free?

04:58Only through a long and unceasing struggle inspired by men of vision

05:04Moses

05:08Muhammad

05:11Confucius

05:17Christ

05:21All believed that in the sight of God all men were created equal and

05:26From that there developed a spirit among men and nations

05:29Which is best expressed in our own declaration freedom

05:33We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal

05:39It is the cornerstone upon which our nation was built and the ideal of all the great liberators

05:46Washington

05:48Jefferson

05:50Garibaldi Lafayette

05:53Kosciuszko Bolivar Lincoln

05:58Lighthouses lighting up a dark and foggy world

06:03that government of the people

06:06by the people

06:08for the people

06:10Shall not perish from the earth

06:13fighting living dying

06:16for what

06:17For freedom that for which men have fought since time began

06:22to be free

06:25Is

06:30Life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery

06:37Forbid it Almighty God. I

06:40Know not what course others may take

06:43but as for me

06:45Give me liberty

06:47Or give me death

06:50But

06:52What if this other world

06:55Here man insisted that progress lay in killing freedom

06:59Here they were putting out the lighthouses

07:02one by one

07:05Here the march of history was reversing itself

07:08In Italy it began when an ambitious rabble-rouser set his followers marching on Rome

07:14The country like every other country after the last war was torn by political unrest hard times

07:21unemployment

07:26Two courses were available to the Italian people

07:29They could solve their problems in a free democratic way or they could let someone else do the solving for them

07:35They made the tragic mistake of choosing the second course

07:39They made the tragic mistake of choosing the second course

07:42They put their trust and faith in this one man. They believed he represented them

07:48Actually, he planned to betray them for the selfish interests of himself and the group back of him

07:54Just as he had earlier betrayed those who first supported him

07:59In Germany another and even more forceful demagogue set his followers marching from the Munich Beer Hall

08:05He too had the sinister opportunity to take advantage of post-war chaos

08:19But he also had certain distinctive German characteristics to play on

08:24To start with the Germans have an inborn national love of regimentation and a harsh discipline. He could give them that

08:35The

08:40German army and through them the people had never acknowledged

08:44German defeated in the last war and were anxious for revenge that too he promised

08:50the wealthy and powerful

08:52Industrialists were fearful of losing any of their wealth and power and were ready to back anyone who would retain it for them

08:59He promised to take care of them, too

09:01This man cunningly played all these ends against the middle and ruthlessly set out to murder the newborn German Republic

09:12In Japan you'd expect things to be done a little differently they were

09:17Here not one man, but a gang

09:20Disguised their little schemes of the will of the Emperor and to the Japanese people. The Emperor is God

09:26Taking advantage of their fanatical worship of the God Emperor. It was no great trick to take away what little freedom they had ever known

09:34Yes in these lands the people surrendered their liberties and through where their human dignity

09:48They gave up their rights as individual human beings

09:56I became a part of a mass a human herd

10:09Although these countries were far apart and different in custom and in language the same poison made them much alike

10:16Each got a new uniform in Italy. The new bosses wore black shirts in Germany

10:21The shirts were brown in Japan they hid behind the uniform of the army

10:27Really, they belonged to a sinister secret society

10:30Their symbol was a black dragon

10:33The other fellows had to have a symbol to Germany

10:39In Italy the old Roman symbol of the past

10:43In Germany, they call the new order national socialism or Naxalism

10:52In Italy, they had a shorter word fascism

10:58In Japan they had lots of names for it the new era of enlightenment

11:03the new order in Asia

11:05the co-prosperity sphere

11:08But no matter how you slice it

11:10It was just plain old-fashioned militaristic imperialism. The Japs would get the prosperity and

11:17The others would get the coal

11:19They say trouble always comes in threes

11:23Take a good close. Look at this trio

11:27remember these faces

11:30Remember them well, if you ever meet them don't hesitate

11:42Stop thinking and follow me cried Hitler. I will make you masters of the world and the people answered

11:49I

11:55Stop thinking and believe in me beloved Mussolini, and I will restore the glory that was wrong

12:01the people answered

12:07Stop thinking and follow your God Emperor cried the Japanese warlords and Japan will rule the world and the people answer

12:15bonsai bonsai

12:19Each system was alike and that the constitutional law-making bodies gave up their power

12:24the Reichstag in Berlin the House of Deputies in Rome

12:29the diet in Tokyo and

12:32These elected representatives became collections of Stooges rubber-stamp organizations

12:42Applauding on cue the words of the leaders

12:45Each system did away with free speech and free assembly

12:50Each system did away with a free press and substituted a press controlled by the party

12:56Through their ministries of propaganda each took complete control of the fair the movie the radio

13:02Every cultural activity and every channel of information was controlled by the most important members of the party

13:09Each did away with three courts and trial by jury and substituted courts and judges run by the party

13:17Each abolished labor unions and the rights of bargaining for wages

13:34Thank You

13:40Thank You and under the pretext of patriotism established a system of forced labor

13:46Each enforced its decrees by an army of secret police who held the power of life and death over every individual

13:54And for the few who still believed in freedom and said so there was a ready answer

13:59a

14:12Greatest intellect in the world can be silenced with this

14:16That is an exact translation of the words these black shirts cheer so lustily

14:22Dago, so feel the mrs. Ford could do it. I'm going to show not many more

14:27Whenever I hear anyone mention the word culture, the first thing I do is reach for my gun

14:34Yes, they had the answer the blackjack

14:56In Italy they did it different

15:16While in Japan

15:27So their names can be added those of hundreds and thousands of others who stood in the way of the new order

15:36Finally there is only one obstacle left

15:57The

16:02Word of God and the word of jurors cannot be reconciled then God must go

16:15I am absolutely clear in my own mind

16:17And I think I can speak for the Fuhrer as well

16:20But both the Catholic and Protestant churches must banish from the life of our people

16:24Thus spoke dr. Alfred Rosenberg, and if you have any doubt that he spoke for his Fuhrer, here's what happened

16:54Oh

17:16Thousands of other men of God

17:19Protestant Catholic Jewish were persecuted arrested confined in concentration camps

17:27Our Fuhrer is the intermediary between his people in the throne of God

17:32Everything the Fuhrer utters is religion in the highest sense

17:36It is only on one or two exceptional points that Christ and Hitler stand comparison

17:41For Hitler is far too big a man to be compared with one so petty

17:48Every day in all German classrooms

18:18Yes, take children from the faith of their fathers and teach them the state is the only church and the head of the state

18:26Is the voice of God?

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Prelude to War (1942) - (Documentary, War)

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