This strikingly topical two-part documentary on the Second World War features several of the world’s leading historians and comprehensively covers the debates, discussions and arguments about how and whether Hitler could have been stopped, and the nature of the policy of appeasement prior to and in the early stages of the Second World War. Controversially the film asks whether the war needed to have been fought at all.

Directed and produced by Adrian Munsey (E. M. Forster: His Longest Journey, Thomas Hardy: Fate, Exclusion and Tragedy). 

Could Hitler Have Been Stopped? The Politics of Appeasement explores the failure of politicians and the governed alike to understand the real threat that Hitler posed.  Hitler was stoppable on a number of occasions – if only so many had not misread the alliances that might have been made to prevent what became an inexorable tide towards war, one that need never have happened.  It also describes the extent to which the European war became part of a global conflict, how Britain’s position in the world changed irrevocably because of this, and the emergence of new American and Russian empires.  

The film highlights the little-known fact that the Chinese lost between ten and fifteen million war dead during the Second World War and contributed to the defeat of Japan in great measure. The incredible roles of Britain in 1940, the United States from 1941, the Russians between 1941 to 1945, China from 1937 to 1945 and the loss of Britain’s Empire are also covered in-depth and detail.

With extensive and powerful use of archive footage and an original orchestral score, the documentary includes leading best-selling historians; Sir Richard Evans, Tim Bouverie, Frank McDonough, Jonathan Haslam, John Bew, Andrew Roberts and John Charmley.

Jonathan Ford, Managing Director at AMR comments, “This is a gripping two-part documentary special which we are extremely pleased to have the worldwide distribution rights for. We’re very pleased to have already secured a sale to leading broadcasters Channel 5 & SBS and can’t wait to introduce this story to our many clients around the world.”

Adrian Munsey, Odyssey Television adds, “The seven historians, helped by some wonderful little-seen archive footage, cover all the key – and a number of highly controversial – issues surrounding Neville Chamberlain, Winston Churchill, the policy of appeasement and the fight against Hitler in the Second World War. The programme and the analysis within it seems even more relevant and topical since the Russian invasion of the Ukraine, which so powerfully mirrors the extraordinary events described in this film.”