Remembering and Understanding

In this episode, David looks at how the British view of the Great War as a futile slaughter has been moulded over time and only truly became a popular viewpoint after the Second World War. Going right back to its immediate aftermath, he compares the British and German sense of what the war meant and shows how Britain invested in the idea of the the war to end war. In contrast, Germany aimed not to prevent another 1914 but another 1918 - another defeat - and the myth of the stab in the back, which fueled the rise of Hitler. David also reveals how the Second World War made the First seem like an ineffectual sacrifice, and how a new, less deferential generation in the 1960s looked back during the 50th anniversaries of the Great War.