What is the point of BBC Two? According to its remit, it exists to provide “knowledge-building programming”. Really, though, it has become a channel on which to put any shows that won’t get a BBC One-sized audience.
This came to mind while watching Rise of the Nazis: Dictators at War. It is the story of the Eastern Front, a three-part history documentary in which historians and military experts give their considered views on the campaigns of Hitler and Stalin. It is knowledge-building programming, yet it stands out because there are so few series of its type on this channel.
Take a glance through this week’s BBC Two schedule. The Great British Menu, again. Your Garden Make Perfect, yet another makeover programme. Amazing Hotels: Life Beyond the Lobby, a bit of PR puffery and a chance for presenters Giles Coren and Monica Galetti to go on holiday. A selection of Morecambe and Wise sketches, for pity’s sake. Fans of history and arts programmes have mourned the slow demise of BBC Four, but BBC Four wouldn’t need to exist if BBC Two actually fulfilled its remit and upped its game. Perhaps Tim Davie will be addressing this very issue as he works out how to slim down the BBC.
This is the second Rise of the Nazis series; the title is slightly confusing because this series begins in June 1940 with the fall of Paris and follows Hitler’s disastrous decision to invade the Soviet Union. It follows the standard format of combining archive footage with talking heads. There are also reconstructions, tastefully done (there is nothing worse than the am-dram sort). The production company, 72 Films, has made a number of good series, including The Rise of the Murdoch Dynasty and The Mighty Redcar.
The interesting thing here is that the programme looks at some of the key figures who surrounded Hitler and Stalin, and each expert assesses a particular person. Hence we had Sir Antony Beevor on Friedrich Paulus, who led the German siege of Stalingrad, and General Sir Mike Jackson, former head of the British Army, on the Soviet general Georgy Zhukov. Jackson was an excellent contributor, taking us inside the thinking of the Soviet leadership when they learned that the Germans had invaded: “You can imagine that hearts would be in boots in the Kremlin.”
Initially, I missed the name of the Russian man speaking authoritatively about the psychology of dictators. I rewound at the end to discover it was the chess grandmaster Garry Kasparov. Television that is informative, intelligent and surprising – if only there was more of this on BBC Two.
