In a world showing signs of unravelling in new ways (as well as in ways that look eerily familiar), we are still unpacking some of what occurred in the horrific second world war (September 1, 1939 – September 2, 1945).
Testimonies, cautionary tales and re-imaginings take the form of podcasts, videogames, archives and books. “Although the era of the post-war world order has ended, the events that led up to World War 2 are still worth studying, because they seem to echo the state of the world today in so many ways,” says culture writer K Narayanan.
New explorations of the war help us re-examine what could have been, and what could be, in our present and near-future, he adds.
Here is a look at five such explorations.
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Attentat 1942
How far would you go, to further the cause of freedom?
In this videogame inspired by real events, a young man in the present day is trying to figure out exactly why his grandfather, Jindrich Jelinek, was arrested by the Gestapo in the Nazi-occupied Czech region, during the war.
Was he really involved in the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, a high-ranking SS officer considered one of the architects of the Nazi death camps?
As part of his quest, the young man can speak to Jelinek’s wife Ludmila Jelinkova, and to other survivors of the Holocaust (a set of video interviews recreate elements of real-life accounts). He can also refer to fictionalised excerpts from Jelinek’s encrypted journal, and archival footage of historical events.
The game is intricate and challenging. Details matter. The player must choose the right questions to pose to Holocaust survivors, for instance, in order to access the video interviews. Use the wrong approach and the survivors may simply shut the door in his face.
Created by the Prague-based independent studio Charles Games, Attentat 1942 was developed in 2017, in association with researchers from Charles University and the Czech Academy of Science’s Institute for Contemporary History, along with the Czech Republic’s ministry of culture.
Part videogame, part history lesson, what the game offers, perhaps more than anything, is an intimate portrait of civilian life amid such a regime.
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WWII Cartoons and Propaganda
Months after the US joined the war, in December 1941 (a day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor), the US Office of War Information (OWI) was created.
By June 1942, it was churning out posters, TV and radio skits, commercials and short films, to bolster support for the American war effort.
It was as part of this campaign that artist J Howard Miller created the We Can Do It poster (nicknamed Rosie the Riveter, encouraging women to take their men’s place in the factories, now that the men had left for war).
Warner Bros used Bugs Bunny and Walt Disney’s Mickey and Minnie Mouse in films such as Out of the Frying Pan into the Firing Line, in which Minnie saves up leftover bacon grease to donate at a collection centre (fat collected from kitchens in this way was used to make the glycerine in explosives).
In Donald’s Decision, meanwhile, the cartoon duck is guided by an angel to take a break from lazing around, stop squandering money on himself, and instead invest with the US Postal Service, as part of the “war savings” fundraising mission.
A collection of these cartoons, posters and stories is available on the US National WWII Museum’s YouTube channel, @wwiimuseum.
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12 Seconds of Silence
In this 2020 non-fiction work, American writer Jamie Holmes tells the story of Section T, a covert American wartime unit that built one of the world’s first “smart weapons”, at Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Lab.
The team of scientists and engineers, led by geophysicist Merle Tuve, worked together to solve a nearly impossible challenge: figuring out how to destroy a moving target (in this case, fighter planes), when the chances of actually hitting it were very, very low.
Anti-aircraft artillery was proving horribly inefficient. The new bomber planes were small, sleek and fast-moving. The Allies were firing as many as 20,000 shells, for each plane downed.
Could a weapon be designed to explode at a distance from the target instead, and still wreak havoc? The Allies eventually created such a device, and named it the proximity fuze. These radio-triggered explosives could be detonated in the air, and shred a plane with shrapnel.
Ultra-confidential and initially used only over water, to prevent the enemy from seizing and replicating the technology, the proximity fuze helped finally turn the tide of the war.
It exploded Nazi V-1 “buzz bombs” in the air over London, before they could hit the ground. It helped take down kamikaze fighters in the Pacific.
12 Seconds of Silence: How a Team of Inventors, Tinkerers, and Spies Took Down a Nazi Superweapon, which gets its title from the 12-second lag between firing and detonation, tells the story of how the devices were invented.
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War and Words
In this BBC podcast, Jonathan Dimbleby revisits two turbulent decades of world history (1936 to 1956), through the voices of BBC correspondents of the time. The most dramatic episodes are those that feature original dispatches, frontline reports and personal reflections from those covering World War 2.
A month before D-Day, for instance, as the Allies launched their attack on Normandy to liberate German-occupied Western Europe, BBC’s controller of news, AP Ryan, issued a poignant message to his correspondents. “Everything we put out is in the nature of front-page stuff,” he said. “Everything we broadcast is liable to be heard by the troops in the field, and you will hear about it if you say anything of their doings which rings false. Let pride in the achievement of our armies come through but never seek to jazz up a plain story.”
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Wolfenstein: The New Order
What would the world look like if the Nazis had won?
There are plenty of marvellous books and graphic novels on the subject, but the world of the videogame Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014) offers a stunning visceral immersion.
It is set in the 1960s. A fascist victory has reshaped science, technology and interpersonal relationships. The Nazis rule Europe, and fascists dominate most of the rest of the world.
The player is an American war veteran who wakes from a 14-year coma to find that all that remains of the battle he fought is a ragtag resistance. He joins this guerrilla war against an enemy now solidified by decades of power, propaganda, public inertia — and new robotic war machines.
Several sequels and prequels have followed. In some, the veteran sees small victories; breaks out of a dungeon; or uncovers Nazi plans for undead “super soldiers”.
The 2014 game offers dramatic plotlines and ultra-realistic immersive graphics, but for those who prefer to start at the beginning, the first Wolfenstein game was released in 1981. The last was released in 2019 (with hackers now helping the resistance too). More games and an Amazon Studios series are in the works, as the battle against fascism continues.
