Home Front

Summary

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World War II with Tom Hanks — Episode 15: "Home Front"

Date: July 14, 2026
Podcast by: The HISTORY Channel | Back Pocket Studios | Audacy
Host/Narrator: Tom Hanks

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Episode Overview

Episode 15, “Home Front,” explores how the realities of World War II finally reached the civilian populations of Germany and Japan between 1943 and 1944. Guided by Tom Hanks and several historian-experts, the episode chronicles how the war effort radically altered daily life, how governments used propaganda and mobilization to shore up morale, and how the devastating costs of total war were ultimately borne by entire societies. The narrative draws stark contrasts between propagandized normalcy and mounting desperation, showing the profound transformation of civilian life as both Axis powers faced existential crises.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Early War Years: Shielding the Population (00:35–03:53)

• Germany’s “Normalcy”:

  • Following military victories, Hitler tries to keep German life unchanged: theaters, stadiums, and daily routines continue despite the war.
  • Historian 1: "Hitler wants to maintain the semblance of normalcy... Germans are encouraged to go about their daily business." (01:36)
  • Hitler’s mistrust of his people, fearing a repeat of 1918 when home-front unrest toppled the government, underscores his determination to shield them from sacrifice and shortages.

• Turning Point — Stalingrad:

  • The defeat at Stalingrad (1943) delivers a devastating psychological blow: massive casualties, public panic, and the first acknowledgment of defeat.
  • Historian 3: "Nobody's been prepared for this...it unleashes a wave of panic." (03:42)

2. Propaganda and the Push for 'Total War' (03:53–06:55)

• Goebbels’ Role:

  • Joseph Goebbels, Nazi propaganda chief, stages the famous “Total War” speech in February 1943 to rally the nation and urge full mobilization.
  • Tom Hanks (quoting Goebbels): “Are you determined to follow the Führer through thick and thin and under the heaviest personal burden?” (05:36)
  • Despite the speech’s bombast, the Nazi regime resists mobilizing women into the workforce and insists on retaining traditional roles.

• Limits to Mobilization:

  • True "total war" isn’t implemented until later; Nazi conservatism means women stay home, and normalcy is preserved for as long as possible.
  • Historian 1: “That would, for example, have meant mobilizing women into industrial jobs, as had happened in the United States. The conservative Nazi regime wants women to stay in the home…” (06:39)

3. The Industrial War Machine and Forced Labor (06:55–08:49)

• Rise in Production, High Human Cost:
  • Albert Speer, appointed Armaments Minister in 1942, vastly increases German weapons output using millions of enslaved laborers from occupied territories.
  • Historian 1: “These were produced by human skeletons banging out parts for German weapons until they died.” (08:26)
  • The “armaments miracle” conceals horrific exploitation and suffering.

4. Bombing the German Home Front (09:07–10:58)

• Air Raids & Shelters:

  • Allies (RAF, U.S. 8th Air Force) escalate bombings of industrial and civilian targets. Monumental flak towers provide some protection, but most civilians shelter in cramped cellars.
  • Historian 2: “It was a terrifying experience and also exhausting. This happened night after night after night.” (10:34)

• Loss of Government Presence:

  • The psychological impact becomes severe as neighborhoods are destroyed and confidence in the regime wanes.

5. Japan: The Other Axis Home Front (11:12–16:36)

• Japan’s Initial Invulnerability:

  • Japan’s geographic advantage keeps it safe from air raids until 1944; resources from its vast empire are vital but increasingly threatened by U.S. naval blockade and submarine warfare.

• Sacrifice and Mobilization:

  • Scarcity and rationing are far more severe than in Germany or the U.S.; society is mobilized through neighborhood associations (tonari gumi), mutual surveillance, and propaganda.
  • Historian 8: “The message to people is if they will make these sacrifices at home, then soldiers abroad will keep them safe.” (16:14)

6. Wartime Shortages, Social Control, and Labor in Japan (18:43–23:18)

• National Austerity:

  • Extreme shortages: rationing, black markets flourish, cars run on coal, metal objects melted for war; many revert to foraging.
  • Neighborhood associations enforce rationing and surveillance, compelling cooperation but breeding mutual mistrust.

• Mobilizing All Ages:

  • Labor shortages lead to women and very young teenagers working in factories; by late 1943, even university students are drafted into military service.
  • Tom Hanks (reading from Japanese propaganda): “We do not expect to return alive. We simply hope to repay our debt to the Emperor. Long live the Emperor.” (24:03)

7. German and Japanese Home Fronts Under Pressure (24:37–29:09)

• Escalation and Collapse:

  • Berlin remains outwardly “normal,” but as Allied raids intensify, the illusion shatters.
  • Bombing of Berlin: Shift in November 1943 to targeting the capital with incendiaries aims to break German morale.

• Failure and Fallout in Japan:

  • The fall of Saipan in 1944 brings American bombers within range of Japanese cities. Civilian confidence collapses; Premier Tojo resigns under pressure from above and below.
  • Historian 8: “...stories of people phoning up Tojo's wife saying, why has your husband not killed himself yet?” (30:53)

8. Desperate Measures—Assassination, Suppression, and Final Mobilization (31:56–40:31)

• July 20, 1944—Attempted Assassination of Hitler:

  • A group of military officers led by Colonel von Stauffenberg fails to kill Hitler. The crackdown is swift and merciless.
  • Tom Hanks (as Hitler): "I speak to you today for two reasons. First, so that you can hear my voice and know that I am unhurt and well. Second, so that you should find out about a crime that is unparalleled in German history.” (33:20)
  • Widespread executions follow, Nazi control intensifies, and fear spreads.

• The Volkssturm—Germany’s People’s Militia:

  • In late 1944, the Volkssturm—comprised of old men and boys—is formed, armed minimally, and thrown into battle as Germany faces invasion from east and west.
  • Historian 1: “So we're talking about a 65 year old man or a 14 year old boy given a single shot weapon and sent out as a tank destroyer.” (38:14–39:22)

• No More Illusions:

  • Public life grinds to a halt. Propaganda's positive spin collapses under the weight of reality; sports, cinemas, and distractions end.
  • Historian 5: “That whole bubble of normalcy is now shattered... The real world war that they are in is now readily apparent to all of German society.” (39:59)

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Important Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the Stalingrad defeat:
  “Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Germans had a family member or a friend or knew someone who fought at Stalingrad. This is the greatest catastrophe in German history.” – Historian 1 (03:28)

• Goebbels’ Propaganda Push:
  “We want total war.” – Tom Hanks (quoting Goebbels) (06:08)

• Human cost of labor:
  “These were produced by human skeletons banging out parts for German weapons until they died.” – Historian 1 (08:26)

• On German civilians under bombing:
  “You stay down there for hours. Maybe you're down there until the next morning, and then finally somebody cracks the door, and you walk outside and you see your neighborhood is gone.” – Historian 5 (10:42)

• Japanese mobilization:
  “The message to people is if they will make these sacrifices at home, then soldiers abroad will keep them safe... They must sacrifice, sacrifice everything.” – Historian 8 (16:14)

• Japanese students conscripted:
  “We do not expect to return alive. We simply hope to repay our debt to the Emperor. Long live the Emperor.” – Tom Hanks (24:03)

• The collapse of Tojo's government:
  “The government has failed its most fundamental promise to the Japanese people. And there's only one person who can take the fall for this. Tojo." – Historian 10 (30:13)

• On the Volkssturm:
  “These are young boys and old men put together into pseudo military units and sent off to do or die against the Allied armies.” – Historian 1 (38:20)

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Critical Timestamps for Further Listening

• Germany’s early war “normalcy”: 01:36–02:54
• Stalingrad, morale crisis: 03:07–03:53
• Goebbels’ 'Total War' speech & Nazi reluctance: 04:27–06:39
• Slave labor & armaments 'miracle': 07:51–08:49
• German civilian air raids: 09:07–10:58
• Japan's home front & resource shortages: 14:19–16:36, 18:43–19:39
• Japanese government’s social control: 19:46–20:48
• Mobilization of youth & conscription of students: 21:42–24:18
• Strategic bombing of Berlin: 25:31–26:33
• Fall of Saipan, Tojo’s resignation: 29:09–31:23
• Hitler assassination attempt and repression: 32:03–36:45
• Formation of the Volkssturm: 37:46–40:31

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Thematic Conclusion

The episode masterfully juxtaposes the ways in which two totalitarian regimes sought to insulate their populations from the brutality of war, only to eventually collapse under sustained military pressure and internal contradictions. The “home front” is revealed not as a place of safety, but as the inevitable extension of the battlefield—where every citizen is mobilized and every illusion is shattered.

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Original host’s tone and style:
Tom Hanks delivers the narrative with gravitas and empathy, while historians provide sharp, colorful analysis and ground events in vivid, often harrowing, detail. The episode combines documentary clarity with the urgency and drama of lived experience, bringing listeners into the heart of wartime society as it is transformed by conflict’s relentless advance.

Transcript

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[Narrator]

by The start of 1943, Germany and Japan have been at war for several years. Although the people of both nations have endured battlefield casualties from the beginning, two critical events are about to bring the war home. The leaders of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan respond in very different ways.

[Tom Hanks]

This is World War II with Tom Hanks. Episode 15 Home Front. With eight minutes to go, Dresden remains on the attack. Kugler scores the last goal.

[Narrator]

By early 1943, the Nazi Third Reich has absorbed much of Europe. Great cities have been bombed, whole nations have been occupied. But in Germany, success on the battlefield allows life to go on as before.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Hitler wants to maintain the semblance of normalcy even in wartime. So theaters remain open, stadiums remain open, sporting events go on as scheduled. Germans are encouraged to go about their daily business.

[Historian/Expert 2]

The Germans, from the beginning of the war, have really been sheltered and shielded by Hitler because there is a belief that Hitler has that one of the main reasons that Germany collapsed in 1918 was because the population didn't have enough to eat. Their morale failed, and all of a sudden they turned against the government.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Hitler constantly tells the German people they're a master race, but, you know, deep down inside, he doesn't trust them at all. He was seared by the events of the First World War. Nothing could have looked stronger than the Kaiser's government in 1918, and it was overthrown in a revolution lasting a single day.

[Historian/Expert 2]

And so Hitler believes that the German people are, in a sense, fickle. If they aren't given what they want, if they don't have enough to eat, if they don't have the materiel that they're going to somehow turn on him. And so he is very, very determined to make sure that the German people don't feel the pinch of the war.

[Narrator]

But in early February, Germans across the Reich are told in a short radio broadcast that the 6th army has been destroyed at Stalingrad.

[Tom Hanks]

The sacrifice of the army was not for nothing. They died so that Germany would live.

[Narrator]

Germany suffered enormous casualties at Stalingrad. 90,000 captured and over 200,000 dead.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Hundreds of thousands if not millions of Germans had a family member or a friend or knew someone who fought at Stalingrad. This is the greatest catastrophe in German history.

[Historian/Expert 3]

Nobody's been prepared for this. For the families of people who are serving on the Stalingrad front, it unleashes a wave of panic.

[Narrator]

It is the first admission of a Wehrmacht defeat. But Hitler and his military leaders are busy planning a counterattack.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Hitler is now up in the Wolf's Lair, the Wolfschanza, his massive headquarters up in East Prussia. In almost complete isolation, he rarely appears in public. And so the task of rebuilding morale amongst the people is left to others.

[Narrator]

Joseph Goebbels, Hitler's Reich Minister of Enlightenment and Propaganda, has been at the center of the Nazi Party since it was formed in the 1920s.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Joseph Goebbels is one of the most unusual Nazi officials. He looks like anything but the image of the Nazi superman. He has no military background, but he's brilliant about the use of propaganda.

[Historian/Expert 4]

Goebbels decides that the time has come to deliver a speech exposing the German people to the realities of what 1943 is going to give them.

[Tom Hanks]

I am firmly convinced that the German people have been deeply moved by the blow of fate at Stalingrad.

[Historian/Expert 1]

For the first time, a Nazi party official stands up and says, the war isn't going well. Only the German people are capable of lifting Germany up from the defeated Stalingrad to ultimate victory. It's time to fight total war.

[Historian/Expert 4]

Total war is the commitment to a complete and full national mobilization, meaning that all businesses and then all people, all men, all women, absolutely everyone, become dedicated toward securing victory.

[Tom Hanks]

Are you determined to follow the Fuhrer through thick and thin and under the heaviest personal burden?

[Historian/Expert 3]

The total war speech is both an attempt to rally public opinion and an attempt to persuade Hitler to go to total war.

[Historian/Expert 4]

Think of this as like a closing argument at a trial. Goebbels is making a case to Adolf Hitler that if this war is going to prevail, you would have to accept the commitment to total war.

[Tom Hanks]

We want total war.

[Historian/Expert 4]

And so this hand selected crowd of followers and sycophants, they're saying ah to every word that he says. And Adolf Hitler is saying, nein.

[Narrator]

Hitler is reluctant. He promised triumph, not sacrifice.

[Historian/Expert 5]

People say, Goebbels giving that speech, that's the switch when Germany really goes to total war. But it isn't.

[Historian/Expert 1]

That would, for example, have meant mobilizing women into industrial jobs, as had happened in the United States. The conservative Nazi regime wants women to stay in the home so they can raise children, care for the family.

[Narrator]

But with so many men serving in the Wehrmacht, primarily on the Eastern front, Germany desperately needs workers. Albert Speer, Reich Minister of Armament and War Production, must find a solution.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Albert Speer is a complex figure. He begins his career as an architect, and he is the architect for the Nuremberg rallies. And these become a huge propaganda success. In 1942, Hitler appoints Speer as his new armaments minister. Speer has absolutely no background in armaments production at all, but nevertheless, he's a good organizer and he does quite an amazing job.

[Historian/Expert 5]

But if you're going to increase production, but you're not going to tap into the German people because we're trying to keep everything normal back home, well, you got to find that manpower somewhere.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Albert Speer has another strategy at hand, and that's to use slave laborers recruited from the various occupation zones.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Massive numbers of people were brought into the Reich to work as slave laborers. People from Western Europe, from France, from the Netherlands, but also from Poland, from Ukraine.

[Historian/Expert 5]

In 1943, 12 to 15 million people brought in from 20 other countries to effectively make up for the manpower that Germany has lost. However, it is also at a high human and moral cost.

[Historian/Expert 1]

They're barely fed. They're practically chained to the machine. Whenever we look at the dramatic increase in German arms Productions in 1943, we should always look behind the gleaming weapons and tanks and aircraft to realize that these were produced by human skeletons banging out parts for German weapons until they died.

[Historian/Expert 5]

Production will rise 56% in the first six months. It is an armaments miracle. It also gives Germany a propaganda story to tell.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Look at what we've done. We've turned armaments around. Look how many planes we're producing. Look how many tanks we're producing. Things are difficult, but it's going to be okay.

[Narrator]

But the RAF and the American 8th Air Force are expanding their relentless bombing campaign aimed at destroying Germany's industrial infrastructure and German morale.

[Historian/Expert 1]

The Germans may not yet be fighting total war, but the war is coming home to Germany in 1943. And it's the Anglo American round the clock bombing campaign.

[Narrator]

American B17s flying from England bomb the Reich's war factories by day. At night, the RAF hits German cities. Germany is forced to divert more and more men and material to defend the skies over their cities.

[Historian/Expert 1]

In facing the Allied bombing campaign, the Nazi regime does take steps. It builds these monumental flak towers, which they're almost impossible to demolish.

[Historian/Expert 4]

These massive flak towers are also air raid shelters. They have infirmaries, they have schools. The German government is saying to its people, these air raid shelters are there to protect you,

[Historian/Expert 1]

But there's never enough for the population. And when the bombers come, most Germans wind up going into a neighborhood cellar. They're cramped, they're hot. You're there all night long, and the children are getting sick from fear.

[Historian/Expert 2]

It was a terrifying experience and also exhausting. This happened night after night after night.

[Historian/Expert 5]

You stay down there for hours. Maybe you're down there until the next morning, And then finally somebody cracks the door, and you walk outside and you see your neighborhood is gone.

[Historian/Expert 1]

This is the first time that war has really come home to the German people, and many of them are asking, where is our government?

[Narrator]

While German cities are being bombed by the Western Allies, the skies over Japan remain clear.

[Historian/Expert 6]

Germany is much more vulnerable than Japan because it is within flying range of the British and the American bombers. Bombing Japan is not possible for the Allies in 1943 because Japan enjoyed an enormous defense perimeter.

[Narrator]

The Japanese have conquered an empire that spans much of Asia. Distance and the capture of several remote Pacific islands have created a defensive perimeter of over 3 million square miles that protects this empire. But American victories at Midway and Guadalcanal have breached this defensive ring.

[Historian/Expert 7]

Japan's home front still has not faced daily air raids, but military leaders know the tide is shifting against them.

[Narrator]

In June 1943, Tokyo's citizens gather to pay tribute to a fallen war hero. It's a solemn event

[Historian/Expert 3]

today.

[Tom Hanks]

Holder of the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Chrysanthemum, Navy Marshal hero Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto soul was laid to eternal rest.

[Historian/Expert 8]

Admiral Yamamoto was this huge figure in Japan, the mastermind of Pearl harbor, the hero of the early months of the war, and now he's gone.

[Narrator]

Acting on intercepted radio messages, the American Air Force shot down Admiral Yamamoto's plane over the Solomon Islands. His body was found and sent back to Japan. Japan tightly censors all news of the war, but the death of the Navy's supreme commander cannot be hidden from the Japanese people.

[Historian/Expert 8]

You've got up to a million people lining the streets. As this funeral cortege goes past a hugely somber occasion, there's a sense of a really significant figure passing.

[Historian/Expert 9]

Imagine what losing MacArthur would have done. These figures are seen as irreplaceable. And so when this pierces the news blackout for the public on what's really going on in the war, it's huge. This is a real concern in the Japanese government.

[Narrator]

Prime Minister Hideki Tojo was an early advocate for war against the United States.

[Historian/Expert 9]

Tojo at this point has been in power in Japan since shortly before Pearl Harbor. As the war situation is going increasingly badly, he needs a victory to be able to continue in power in Japan. Tojo is driven by honor. He's driven by loyalty to the emperor. And more than anything else, he wants to make sure that Japan escapes the war with its empire intact.

[Narrator]

The Japanese intended the attack on Pearl harbor to be a knockout blow against the Americans. They understood they couldn't win a protracted war against the economic might of the

[Historian/Expert 7]

United States, even when Japan was winning in the initial phase of the war. Japan's wartime production capacity is roughly only one tenth of the United states. So by 1940, the government really needs to use whatever it can get their hands on to keep the wartime production going.

[Narrator]

Oil from the East Indies, rubber from Malaya, iron ore from Manchuria, are all vital to Japanese war industries.

[Historian/Expert 9]

The problem is that you look at a map, you can see that that has to be transported over water.

[Historian/Expert 6]

They have a huge merchant marine, the third largest in the world, to move resources from Southeast Asia.

[Narrator]

Now all of it is threatened by the tightening stranglehold of the American Navy.

[Historian/Expert 4]

The United States submarine operations have been

[Narrator]

quite successful in cutting Japanese supply routes.

[Historian/Expert 10]

Japanese natural resources are increasingly lying at the bottom of the ocean. And so we begin to see critical material shortages on the Japanese home front.

[Narrator]

To maintain the nation's war effort, Prime Minister Tojo and his government imposed severe austerity on the Japanese people.

[Historian/Expert 6]

Unlike Nazi Germany, in Japan there never was this phenomenon of trying to keep the Japanese people totally comfortable. In general, Tojo believed that that if Japan were to be successful against the Americans and others, in lieu of natural resources, it would take the active mobilization of its human resources, its people.

[Historian/Expert 8]

The message to people is if they will make these sacrifices at home, then soldiers abroad will keep them safe. They will keep the Allies at bay. They will do their bit. If people at home do what they're supposed to do. They must sacrifice, sacrifice everything.

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[Historian/Expert 5]

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[Narrator]

The American naval blockade is choking the Japanese. Food is scarce. The everyday necessities of modern life disappear. But Prime Minister Tojo demands even greater sacrifice.

[Historian/Expert 10]

We certainly have rationing going on in the United States. This is on a national scale that is unmatched really in a lot of the Allied nations.

[Historian/Expert 8]

Electricity is being rationed. They're relying on sort of primitive ways of even just cooking food and having to burn their libraries for fuel to try and keep warm. No one has enough to eat. You've even got people going into the countryside to forage.

[Historian/Expert 10]

The Japanese are producing cars that run on coal rather than oil because oil is being taken for the war effort on such a large scale.

[Historian/Expert 8]

You've got temple bells, railings, pots and pans being melted down so that they can make bullets and armor.

[Historian/Expert 10]

In many ways, Japan is reverting to almost a pre industrial society as the war goes on.

[Historian/Expert 6]

However, Japanese people are not automatons. They don't necessarily willingly part with their food. The police realize there are widespread black markets all over Japan, so this is a real problem. And so Japanese leaders mobilize these neighborhood associations in Japanese called tonari gumi.

[Narrator]

The tonari gumi has been woven into Japanese culture for over a century, but in wartime it becomes a tool for the neighbors to keep an eye on each other.

[Historian/Expert 9]

The tonari gumi are groups of five to 10 households that work as a means of mobilizing the people behind Japan's war.

[Historian/Expert 6]

They ration the food. They carry out civil defense drills. They do many of the things that we would think that government officials would do elsewhere, but it's done by the people themselves.

[Historian/Expert 8]

But really the key is mutual surveillance. The idea that Japan's leaders have is that the cheapest and the surest way to keep an eye on people is to get people essentially to keep an eye on each other. Someone is always watching you.

[Historian/Expert 11]

By the end of 1943, this whole network of neighborhood associations looks like a very well oiled machine and operates like that, collecting resources for the home front. But Tojo and his government, they have an enormous problem. Labor shortages.

[Narrator]

As in Germany, because of massive military conscription, Japan suffers from a serious labor shortfall. Women have been working in Japanese war industries for some time now. They employ their children as well.

[Historian/Expert 6]

They're increasingly using very young labor. Teenagers, boys and girls who are not very skilled, quite hungry themselves

[Historian/Expert 7]

if you're older than 12. Study days were cut short. There is extremely limited time in class because most of their data are spent in factories. Everybody is mobilized.

[Narrator]

Despite the American blockade, Japanese manufacturing continues.

[Historian/Expert 7]

Keeping the wartime production going to some extent is truly remarkable. There is one motto that Japanese people live by during the war. Don't ask or want anything until we win. So essentially, let's sacrifice everything until we win.

[Narrator]

But now, in its seventh year of war, the Japanese military needs to replenish its ranks.

[Historian/Expert 8]

So up until this point, students are being kept out of the war effort. For the Japanese, education is extraordinarily important. So you can get an exemption from conscription if you're studying at university. But by October 1943, things have become so serious in Japan, you can no longer have that exemption.

[Historian/Expert 10]

October 21, 1943. 25,000 university students arrive in Tokyo Stadium. These students are being inducted into the Japanese armed services.

[Tom Hanks]

The students of the second year have finally come to the life of all, for all of us.

[Historian/Expert 10]

This is something that we see in other nations. For instance, in the United States, they are progressively conscripting more and more university students as well, but not so much at this scale.

[Historian/Expert 9]

I mean, this is Japan's future. These ambitious young people where so much investment has been made over their entire lives, education, raising, the whole thing.

[Historian/Expert 6]

It's the mark of a pretty desperate war effort. You can't think about the future when the near future is very dire.

[Tom Hanks]

We do not expect to return alive. We simply hope to repay our debt to the Emperor. Long live the Emperor.

[Historian/Expert 10]

So this event is really a giant piece of propaganda by Tojo. These young people are being asked to make the ultimate sacrifice. Who's going to be next? The inevitable message is everyone.

[Narrator]

As 1943 draws to a close, every Japanese citizen feels the war's impact. But in Berlin, stores and cinemas are still full. Goebbels and the Nazis continue to deceive the German people with propaganda from the front.

[Tom Hanks]

Our brave soldiers from all branches of the military have thwarted the enemy's ambitious plans.

[Narrator]

Everywhere a route on the Eastern Front is called a strategic retreat. Allied bombers are consistently shot down and do little damage.

[Historian/Expert 4]

The German people in Berlin are being fed a pretty steady diet of positive propaganda about the progress of the war. They had every reason to remain optimistic. And then at the end of 1943, everything changes.

[Historian/Expert 1]

The RAF has been concentrating its bombing on the Ruhr, the industrial heartland of Germany. But In November of 1943, they shift their focus to an even juicier morale target Berlin. It's an incendiary raid, that is, bombs that are meant to start fires throughout the city. The bombers believe that if you break the morale of Berlin, you've broken the Third Reich.

[Historian/Expert 2]

It's always important to have somebody taking care of the population at a time of great trauma, very much like Churchill in London during the Blitz. But Hitler's gone off to the Wolf's. There he won't have anything to do with the population of Germany anymore. He seems to have abandoned them almost. And once again, the person who takes up that gauntlet is Josef Goebbels.

[Historian/Expert 4]

Goebbels is meeting the survivors. He'll bring a crew with him, they'll film. And what he's doing is reassuring the German people. If bombers show up over your city, we're going to be there to help you.

[Historian/Expert 1]

First aid stations are set up, free food and drink handed out to the

[Historian/Expert 2]

population, and a big, huge show is put up into showing how we're going to protect the population. Propaganda can come back up and say, look at these terrible things they're doing. Look what would happen if they win the war. And in some ways, the bombing raids actually increased morale and increased the determination to fight on.

[Narrator]

Japan remains out of range of American bombers, but Prime Minister Tojo and other Japanese leaders understand that it may be only a matter of time before the Americans secure air bases within flying distance of the home islands.

[Historian/Expert 11]

Once the military leaders saw that firebombs had been used against Germany, they realized that this may be in Japan's future.

[Historian/Expert 9]

The cities that are being bombed in Europe have Big stone buildings in a lot of places, and it's still a nightmare. The Japanese use a lot of wood. These are wooden cities. They are particularly vulnerable to these kinds of attacks. And you don't have to be a genius to figure out that that's going to be an issue if all of a sudden you have round the clock raids.

[Historian/Expert 6]

There's a big difference in civil defense between Nazi Germany and Japan. The Japanese make the decision not to construct huge concrete bunkers and air raid shelters that could hold thousands of people, thinking that it would be better off devoting their scarce resources to the military and not spending much money on defense.

[Historian/Expert 11]

The Japanese government basically said, look, you have to prepare yourselves. You want a shelter, take it yourself. If there was a fire, there would be basically sand and water bucket brigade that would try to put out the fires this way. And then they came up with the strategy to tear down houses, to isolate areas so that the fire wouldn't spread.

[Historian/Expert 8]

So ordinary people are given hand tools, they're given ropes, and in some cases they're literally pulling down their own homes and carting away the pieces.

[Historian/Expert 6]

In places like Tokyo and Osaka, tens of thousands of houses were torn down.

[Historian/Expert 8]

These really cold messages go out from the government that essentially say, ask your family if you can stay with them. Maybe someone will house you. Yet again, there's a sense that the government just consider ordinary civilians to be expendable.

[Narrator]

In the summer of 1944, Japan suffers a major defeat in the Pacific. A key piece of Tojo's inner defensive ring has fallen. After a month and a half of heavy combat, Japan has lost Saipan and the entire Mariana island chain. This puts the Americans and their B29 Superfortress in range of Japan's major cities, including Tokyo.

[Historian/Expert 9]

For the Japanese, the loss of the Marianas is absolutely catastrophic because they understand that there is this new bomber out there called the B29, and they know that bomber will now be within range of almost all of Japan.

[Historian/Expert 8]

The fall of Saipan is, is a huge psychological blow back at home in Japan because there's been this pact that if you do your bit at home, if you sacrifice, if you put up with rations, if you work hard in the factories, we will protect you. The Allies will come nowhere near the home islands.

[Historian/Expert 10]

So the government has failed its most fundamental promise to the Japanese people. And there's only one person who can take the fall for this. Tojo.

[Tom Hanks]

Even in such dire circumstances, we are steadily preparing for the attack, burning with the enthusiasm to crush the whole enemy.

[Narrator]

The loss of Saipan and The Mariana island chain is a serious blow to the Japanese.

[Historian/Expert 10]

Now Japan itself is at risk. Now civilian populations are potentially on the front line in a way they've never been before. Now Japan needs to reflect on its own leadership.

[Historian/Expert 8]

There is an undercurrent in Japan that people are feeling very hostile towards Tojo. There are stories of people phoning up Tojo's wife saying, why has your husband not killed himself yet?

[Historian/Expert 1]

Now it's the government who has to make a sacrifice and they choose a scapegoat. Emperor Hirohito has lost confidence in Tojo

[Historian/Expert 7]

and he steps down.

[Narrator]

Launching from the Mariana, hundreds of B29s begin bombing Japan's cities. Osaka, Kobe, Nagoya, Tokyo. Hundreds of thousands of civilians are killed.

[Historian/Expert 6]

When the serious bombing of Japan starts, it will be unrelenting. The enemy is there, they're right above you. The cities will be become killing grounds.

[Narrator]

Two days after Tojo's fall, there is an attempt on Adolf Hitler's life.

[Historian/Expert 1]

A real turning point in the German homefront story is July of 1944, the assassination attempt on Hitler's life.

[Historian/Expert 2]

A small group of officers realize that the war was probably lost. They believed that if they killed Hitler that they would be able to make peace and start a new German government. And the person that was chosen to go and try and kill him was Graf Schenk von Stauffenberg, who went on the 20th of July 1944 to the Wolf's Lair. He had a meeting with Hitler. He planted a bomb under the conference table where Hitler was speaking and then took off that bomb.

[Historian/Expert 4]

It's positioned underneath this heavy oak table that absorbs a great deal of the blast of the weapon.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Stauffenberg comes back to Berlin thinking that he'd killed Hitler. He saw the explosion. He believed Hitler had been killed. But unfortunately for him, the prior was not dead.

[Historian/Expert 5]

At one o' clock in the morning of the 21st, Adolf Hitler comes on the radio. He says there's been an attack against his life done by traitors.

[Tom Hanks]

I speak to you today for two reasons. First, so that you can hear my voice and know that I am unhurt and well. Second, so that you should find out about a crime that is unparalleled in German history.

[Historian/Expert 3]

One of the first responses when Hitler speaks on the radio is an outpouring of relief and the spontaneous demonstrations across Germany by the civilian population.

[Historian/Expert 5]

Things are not going well in 1944. The Soviets are on the move in the East. The Allies in the west have landed in Normandy. But German society has hitched his horse To Adolf Hitler, it's good to know his hand still on the wheel and that there's a degree of stability.

[Historian/Expert 2]

On the radio, Hitler vows that he's going to take revenge on the traitors who've tried to kill him.

[Tom Hanks]

We shall settle accounts with them in the manner to which we National Socialists are accustomed.

[Narrator]

Stauffenberg and a few other conspirators are quickly arrested and executed. But their deaths are only the beginning.

[Historian/Expert 9]

Hitler had survived assassination attempts before, but this was something on another level. And the people that were trying to kill him. These are some of his most important military figures.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Hitler believes he's been betrayed and he no longer trusts anyone. Not the army, not those in his intimate circle, not even the German people.

[Narrator]

Hitler orders the investigation and arrest of anybody associated with the July 20 plot.

[Historian/Expert 5]

Anybody who had anything to do with this plot, anybody who's related to those people, anybody who might be a problem in the future. He will hunt them down. Adolf Hitler takes this opportunity to clean house.

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[Narrator]

Berlin, 1944. Hundreds of Germans arrested after the attempt on Hitler's life are put on trial. It's referred to as the People's Court.

[Tom Hanks]

A field marshal and a colonel general.

[Historian/Expert 2]

The defendants are brought in front of Roland Friesler, who's the head of the People's Court, who's an absolutely fanatical Nazi. Very often, to humiliate them, their belts have been taken away, so they have to hold their trousers.

[Narrator]

The verdict is never endowed. Every defendant is guilty and every punishment severe.

[Historian/Expert 2]

They're put in a place called Plotzensee Prison and they're tortured, they're beaten.

[Historian/Expert 3]

These people are executed. And Hitler insists that they will be hanged from meat hooks and that it will be filmed.

[Historian/Expert 2]

Hitler's vengeance knows no bounds. He wants to make it clear to anybody else out there in the Reich that if you try and kill me, this is the kind of vengeance you can expect. Not just for you, but for your family and anybody who knows you. So you're never going to be safe.

[Narrator]

Nazi control of Germany is now complete. But Hitler's thousand Year Reich is crumbling. By the fall of 1944, the Allies are on the verge of crossing into the German Fatherland.

[Historian/Expert 1]

Up until this point, Hitler had resisted the call for total war. It wasn't necessary to enlist the entire population. But now, if he ever cared about the German people, he certainly no longer does. And so why not enlist every last one of them and let them get ground up at the front? As far as Hitler is concerned, the entire population is nothing but cannon fodder.

[Tom Hanks]

Volks terms Soldiers of Berlin, raise your right hand to take the oath and repeat after me. I swear by God this sacred oath.

[Narrator]

November 1944. Tens of thousands of Germans gather before Joseph Goebbels headquarters. After swearing a blood oath to Hitler, they enter the ranks of the Volkssturm.

[Historian/Expert 2]

The Volkssturm, literally translated, means the People's Storm or the People's Militia.

[Historian/Expert 1]

These are young boys and old men put together into pseudo military units and sent off to do or die against the Allied armies.

[Narrator]

The Volkssturm units are given very little training and are supplied with the most basic German weapons.

[Historian/Expert 1]

An anti tank missile known as the Panzerfaust, the armored fist. It hits the side of a tank and with enormous force blasts a hole through the armor. Now the most important thing we need to know about it is that it was a single shot and that to use it you had to come very, very close to the tank you were firing at. So we're talking about a 65 year old man or a 14 year old boy given a single shot weapon and sent out as a tank destroyer. You may destroy the tank, but you are almost certainly going to destroy the person wielding the Panzerfaust.

[Historian/Expert 3]

In both the Eastern and the Western fronts, the Volkssturm fight and die in their tens of thousands. It's the Volkssturm which often goes on fighting until the bitter end.

[Narrator]

For five years the Nazis have tried to shield Germans from the consequences of war. But with the Wehrmacht in retreat, their cities in ruin, and hundreds of thousands of their sons dead or grievously wounded, that is no longer possible.

[Historian/Expert 5]

That whole bubble of normalcy is now shattered. All the other things that were being done in society to shield them, sporting events, cinemas, all that, they all get closed down. And the real world war that they are in is now readily apparent to all of German society. This now is the total war vision that Goebbels and speer had in 43. They finally arrive here in 1944.

[Tom Hanks]

Those who had the firm and unshakable will never bow down before the enemies of the Reichstag or surrender cowardly.

[Narrator]

By the close of 1944, the people of Germany and Japan are paying for their country's aggression. The price steepens as the war heads to its conclusion. In Nazi occupied Europe, where violence and terror have become routine, increasing numbers of people begin to resist.

[Tom Hanks]

World War II with Tom Hanks is produced by A E Factual Studios, Utopia Limited, Playtone Productions and Back Pocket Studios in association with Motion Entertainment for the History Channel. This episode was narrated by Tom Hanks and mixed by John Lloyd. Additional voicing provided by me, Jeremy Reagan from the History Channel. Our executive producers are Eli Lehrer and Liv Fiddler for Playtone. Executive producers are Tom Hanks and Gary Goetzman for Back Pocket Studios. Our executive producer is Ben Dickstein.

[Historian/Expert 7]

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