David Starkey - The Churchills episode 1

David Starkey weaves the stories of two great British war leaders: John and Winston Churchill. Hear how John Churchill rose from obscurity to be King James II's right-hand man.

WINSTON VOICE ACTOR
Since the duel between Rome and Carthage,

there had been no such world war.

It involved all the civilized peoples.

It extended to every part of the accessible globe.

There was a peril that the
supremacy of one race and culture

would be imposed by
military force upon all others.

In no world conflict had
the issues been more real and vital.

In none, has the duty to defend a righteous cause

(Starkey reads with narrator)
been more compulsive upon the British nation.

STARKEY
The tone is unmistakable.

The words could only be by Winston Churchill,

Prime Minister of Great Britain during the
tragedy and triumph of the Second World War.

But, they're not about the Second World War.

Instead, they're about another great,
though now largely forgotten, conflict,

fought 300 years ago,
at the beginning of the 18th century.

NARRATOR
It was a war to save Europe

from domination by Louis XIV's France.

And it was the first truly
global conflict of the modern age.

The British were victorious in that war also.

They were even lead by another Churchill.

Winston's great ancestor,
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough.

But John Churchill was more
than just Winston's ancestor

He was his inspiration and he was his subject

for Winston spend the 10 crucial
years before the Second World War

researching and writing
a massive biography of him.

Marlborough: His Life and Times

It's almost impossible for us, now,

to think of this as a serious
activity for a great politician

because, very clearly, none of our politicians,
none whatever could possible undertake such a task.

They like the ancestry, they
like their—they like the experience.

They like the appetite and they like the talent.

And the most they can do is
have their memoirs ghosted.

I think this matters, for what [two voices overlay]

was writing his biography,
Marlborough, which, above all,

transformed Churchill from a politician,
and, frankly, a rather rackety one, into a statesman.

It sharpened his retoric, it clarified his ideas,

and it prepared him for the immense intellectual
task of leading the Allies to victory over Nazi tyranny.

So this is the work of history, which changed history.

It's a book about a great war leader

which helped make another, greater, war leader

in an even bigger, bloodier war.

This is Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire,
where our story begins.

Winston Churchill was born in this
room on the 30th of November, 1874.

The baby was a typical product
of English rank and American money.

His mother, Jennie Jerome, was a New York heiress.

His father, Lord Randolph Churchill there,
was the third son of the 7th Duke of Marlborough.

This room is one of over
40 bedrooms at Blenheim Palace

which was designed and build for
John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough.

and remains his family's seat to this present day.

Winston never lived in Blenheim, but as the
duke's grandson, he was a frequent visitor.

So we can imagine him as a small
boy roaming these spectacular rooms.

But Blenheim is more than just another
stately home, however magnificent.

Above all, it's a building designed,
inside and out, to tell a story.

The story of war and victory.

Inside, a glorious series of large tapestries,
a sort of 18th century graphic novel

shows a historically accurate detail.

How Marlborough fashioned his troops
into the greatest fighting force in Europe.

Outmaneuvered and outfought Louis XIV

and turned the new nation
of Britain into a superpower.

So it's no wonder that the young Winston developed
an early and lifelong fascination with soldiering.

This shows in his first surviving
letter, written when he was age 7

from Blenheim and addressed to his mother,
to thank her for his Christmas presents.

BOY
My dear Mamma.

I hope you are quite well. I thank you
very much for the beautiful presents.

Those soldiers and flags and castles.

They are so nice. It was so kind of you.

STARKEY
At Harrow School, Winston was in the army class

and then went on to Standhurst, graduating
as a cavalry officer in the Hussars.

He was no toy soldier.

He saw action in India, Sudan and South Africa.

His experiences provided material
for another great passion and talent:

Writing.

His dispatches as a war correspondent and several
well-received books made him a public figure

and helped get him elected to Parliament.

While he sat in the Commons most of his life,

Winston never stopped writing, producing
a constant stream of articles and books.

He even tried a motion picture screenplay.

But the project closest to his heart,
where soldiering and the writing came together,

was his biography of Britain's greatest general,
his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough.

This is the long library at Blenheim, where Churchill
came to research Marlborough's luminous papers.

The resulting book would take
him almost 10 years to write.

It would have 1,000,000 words,

and it would fill 4 huge, magnificently
bound, heavily illustrated volumes.

It's one of the most remarkable
works of history ever written.

And it is so because it's the work of
someone who wielded power, a sword,

as well as the pen.

Yet, the book was written when it seemed
that Winston's days of political power were behind him.

In 1929, when he signed the
contract to write the book,

he just lost office, after spending
nearly 20 years at the Cabinet

where he'd been Home Secretary
in the liberal government

and Chancellor of the Exchequer
in the conservative one.

All though the 1930s, Winston
languished on the backbenches.

It was a period that bears a
strikingly similar to today.

A financial crash led to a
prolonged economical depression,

that which heavily indebted
governments struggled to cope.

In Britain, the upheaval led to the
downfall of the first labour administration

and a period of coalition government.

In Germany, it led to the rise of fascism,

and in Europe, to a seemingly inextricable
drift towards another World War.

It was against this background that the four volumes
of the Marlborough biography were published

one by one, between 1933 and 1938.

One hesitates to use a word like "magic" when
you're talking about something as sober as history,

but with this book there is repeatedly a sense of

you're not quite sure which century
and which tense anything is referring to.

Marlborough is the great war leader,

the great war leader who is not simply the great general,
but the manager of the great international coalition

in exactly the same way Churchill in the
Second World War is going to be just that.

Except, of course, Churchill is writing about
Marlborough almost as if he was in the present

before Churchill himself has
moved into that future.

You see what I mean?

It's as though Churchill has
suddenly made the past

a story that runs into the
present and then into the future.

Chartwell, Winston Churchill's
house in the country.

It was a considerable extravagance for a
man with only a backbench MP's salary.

Fortunately, Churchill was also
the highest-paid author of his day.

For the biography of his ancestor
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough,

his publishers advanced him a total of £20,000,
not far short of a million in today's money.

That gave Winston the means to employ a
small team of specialist historical researchers.

The Marlborough biography begins with a
brilliant display of Winston's historical imagination.

The man who built Blenheim palace was the
richest and most powerful aristocrat in Britain

but he was born plain John Churchill,
the son of the man in this picture

an impoverished country gentleman.

With his long hair and lace cravat, the
first Sir Winston Churchill is the atypical Cavalier.

a supporter of King Charles I and his
war against the Roundheads of Parliament.

When the Cavaliers lost the Civil War,
King Charles lost his head,

and Sir Winston lost his estates.

Without the means to support his family,

Winston the Cavalier was forced
to move in with his mother-in-law

who would back the other side in the civil war, and
was an ardent a Roundhead as he was a Royalist.

In Chapter 1, Winston the historian fashions
an unforgettable picture of the household,

straightened in circumstances, and
bitterly divided in ideological and allegiance

into which John Churchill was born, in
1650, when England was briefly a republic.

(intelligible)

WINSTON VOICE ACTOR
Hard must those years have been.

A crowded brood in a lean and war-scarred house,

between them and whose owner lay
the fierce contentions of the times.

STARKEY
Then, Winston speculates, subtly and sensitively,

about the effect of such an upbringing
on the boy and his character.

WINSTON V/A
The two prevailing impressions which such

experiences might arouse in the mind of a child

would be first, a hatred of poverty and dependence,
and secondly, the need of hiding thoughts and feelings

from those to whom their
expression would be repugnant.

STARKEY
That ability,

to keep his true feelings hidden,
would serve John well.

Fortunately for the Churchill family, England's
experiment with republicanism lasted just 11 years.

On the 25th of May, 1660 at Dover

the two sons of Charles I
stepped foot again on English soil.

MAN ON RECORDING
James, Duke of York, the king's brother,

that of a vastly different temper.

His Gracious Majesty King Charles II, whose
charm and ease of manner is matched only

by his ceaseless energy [bate?] in the
affairs of state, or of love.

STARKEY
Charles II fathered many children,

but none of them was legitimate and so
James' brother was heir to the throne.

At last, Sir Winston's steadfast
loyalty to the throne was rewarded

with a position for his daughter, Arabella,
as a maid of honour in James' household.

Her brother John soon followed her as a page.

What happened next is described
by Winston with mock prudishness.

WINSTON V/A
Our readers must now brace themselves for

what will inevitably be a painful interlude.

We must follow the fortunes and misfortunes
of a maiden of 17 and her younger brother

as they successively entered a desolate court.

STARKEY
King Charles II is famous for his string of mistresses,

but his brother James was, if
anything, an even more avid womaniser.

Winston tells a story of how Arabella here was out
riding with the duke when she was thrown from her horse.

She lay senseless upon the ground with her
skirts thrown up to reveal her naked limbs.

And more, for remember then,
ladies did not yet wear knickers.

WINSTON V/A
We are told that while Arabella's face

presented no more than the ordinary feminine
charms, her figure was exceedingly beautiful

and that James was inflamed by the spectacle
of beauty in distress and also in disarray.

STARKEY
After this beginning,

it didn't take long for James to seduce
young Arabella, who became his mistress.

And this was just the beginning of a
long, intimate and complex relationship

between the Churchill family
and the Royal House of Stuart.

NARRATOR
Thanks to James' patronage,

John Churchill was soon a
rising young officer in the guards,

equally dashing under fire and at court.

STARKEY
He's this god, this vision.
equally dashing under fire and at court.

STARKEY
He's this god, this vision.

This-this man of sublime
handsomeness, beauty of figure.

He is infinitely charming. He is a courtier.

NARRATOR
But now John courted royal displeasure

by beginning an affair with the King's
longstanding mistress, Barbara Villiers.

WINSTON V/A
She was 28, and he 20.

For more than 3 years, this wanton and joyous
couple shared pleasures and hazards.

The cynical pernicious sagacious indulgent
sovereign was outwitted or outfaced.

STARKEY
Eventually the story goes, Charles II discovered John

hiding in the closet in Barbara's bedchamber.

The young man fell to his knees in terror.

The King laughed the matter off.

"Go," he's supposed to have said. "You are a rascal, but I
forgive you, because you do it to get your bread."

Winston doubts the story but his research has
proved that Barbara did indeed pay John's for services

by giving him £5,000.

This was a colossal sum, which John
characteristically used to buy himself an annuity

that gave him financial security for life.

This is the temple of Diana
in the grounds of Blenheim Palace.

It was here on August
the 11th, 1908 that Winston Churchill, MP,

proposed to and was
accepted by Clementine Hozier

a 22-year-old beauty with whom
he'd fallen in love earlier that year.

Winston knew that Blenheim was in
part the fruit of a successful marriage

for John Churchill would've probably never amounted
for much if it had not been for the girl he met in 1675.

Her name was Sarah Jennings.

WINSTON V/A
At the mature age of 15

she was already a precocious charming figure.

Fair flaxen hair, blue eyes sparkling with audacity, and
a nose well-chiseled but with a slightly audacious upward tilt.

She also was entirely self-possessed and by inheritance,
she owned, when roused, the temper of the Devil.

STARKEY
John and Sarah were eventually married in 1677.

It turned out to be a lifelong love match,
complete with the occasional lovers' quarrel.

Winston, who himself was the
beneficiary of a deeply happy marriage

writes movingly about the
Marlboroughs' relationship.

but not as movingly as Sarah herself,
who, long after Marlborough was dead,

turned down a proposal of marriage from the
Duke of Somerset, the grandest grandeur of the day,

with magnificent contempt.

SARAH V/A
If I were young and handsome as I was

and not old and faded as I am, and you
could lay the empire of the world at my feet,

you should never share the heart and hand
that once belonged to John, Duke of Marlborough.

NARRATOR
For both John and Winston,

marriage was the rock upon
which their whole lives were built.

STARKEY
In one important respect, however,

the two marriages were very different.

Clemmie had the good sense not to
get too involved in Winston's political career.

John and Sarah, on the other hand, were
that very modern thing, the power couple.

And Sarah's power depended on her
relationship with the woman in this portrait.

NARRATOR
This is Anne, the daughter of James, the King's brother

and was third in line to the House of Stuart,
after her father and her elder sister, Mary.

STARKEY
Anne and Sarah probably first met

when Sarah came to court in 1673.

Anne, aged 8, formed a schoolgirl
crush on Sarah, age 13,

and it blossomed into a passionate, though
platonic, love affair that was to last almost 30 years.

But there was dissension in James' family.

While Anne and her sister Mary
had been brought up as Protestants

sometime in the 1670s, their father James
converted to Roman Catholicism.

It was a decision with devastating
consequences for the House of Stuart.

Sarah's relationship with Anne placed her on
the very fault line of the schism that ran through the royal family.

A schism that was both religious and political.

It was a position of unique influence which John
and Sarah would use to shape the course of history.

Germany, 1932.

The government, reeling from the economical affects
of the Depression, is under siege from right and left.

Communists and followers of the National Socialist
Workers' Party fight bloody battles in the street.

As they steadily gain ground in the elections,

it seems that the National
Socialists, or Nazis,

under their leader Adolf Hitler,
may soon be in power.

To foreign observers, the Nazis
were a perplexing phenomenon.

Were they a bunch of buffoons, a menace to the peace
of Europe, or a useful bullwhip against communism?

At first, even Winston Churchill
himself was ambivalent.

WINSTON V/A
I had no national prejudices against Hitler at this time.

I admire men who stand up
for their country in defeat.

He had a perfect right to be
a patriotic German, if he chose.

STARKEY
Winston's main preoccupation

during the autumn and winter of 1932

was trying to finish volume 1 of his biography
of his ancestor, the Duke of Marlborough.

In many ways, the most remarkable chapter in this
first volume is the one that should really be deadly,

which is "This is the background of foreign policy".
Ah, as it's called, ah, "The Europe of Charles II"

but in fact, it's a brilliant analysis of choice.

Essentially what he says is there are
2 choices facing England at this point.

One is to be swallowed up by this
hegemonic totalitarian ideological France,

and the second is to resist it.

WINSTON V/A
The supreme affect upon the continent

in the latter half of the 17th
century was the might of France.

As civil wars were over, all
internal divisions had been effaced,

and Louis XIV reigned over a united
nation of 18 or 19 million souls

possessed of the fairest region on the globe.

STARKEY
The wealth and power of France

was symbolized by Versailles,
the great palace built by Louis XIV

a monarch who wielded absolute sway over his
subjects, and was worshipped almost as a god—

—the Sun King.

Versailles is a hymn in gilt and
stone to Louis' military ambitions.

This room indeed is known as the
Hall of War, the Salon de la Guerre

and its principal feature is this
great bas-relief of Louis XIV,

dressed as a Roman emperor and forcing a crossing of
the Rhine as he tramples German barbarians underfoot.

It commemorates an actual incident,
the capture of Strasbourg,

which carried the frontiers of
France right up to the Rhine.

Churchill thought that Louis'
ambition stretched even further,

and that he aimed to reconstitute
the empire of Charlemagne

which had once embraced, on either
bank of the Rhine, France and Germany.

With ambitions like these, none of
Louis' neighbours could rest in peace.

Instead, in Winston's words again, they cowered
beneath his unrelenting lash in pain and fear.

WINSTON V/A
During the whole of his life,

Louis XIV was the curse and pest of Europe.

No worse enemy of human freedom has
appeared in the trappings of polite civilization.

Insatiable appetite, cold calculating
ruthlessness, monumental conceit

petty and mediocre in all
except his lusts and power,

the Sun King disturbed and harried mankind
during more than 50 years of arrogant pomp.

STARKEY
What I think is striking

is Churchill's ability to, if you like,
personalize ideology.

He highlights Louis' colossal vanity.

The sense of a king all strutting
in front of a mirror.

What we would call the cult of personality.

Louis is the god of war, Louis is a Roman emperor.

It's this image of war as vanity as
this supreme expression of the leader.

And, of course, he sees the
very beginnings of the Nazis.

He doesn't meet Hitler but he watches him and
he sees this enormous overblown personality.

He notices the cult of war.

He realizes just like Louis XIV's France,

Louis, remember, dies on his deathbed saying
"I have loved war too much."

And he sees Hitler as somebody
who loves war too much

creating a nation which is—every
aspect of which is mobilized for war.

But, in the 17th century as in the 1930s,

it was not England that was Louis' immediate
neighbours who were most threatened by France.

Louis coveted the rich towns and
cities of the Spanish Netherlands

roughly speaking, modern-day Belgium, then
a province of the declining Spanish emperor.

But the Dutch to the north, fearing that they would
be next, determined to fight for the Netherlands.

Their leader, William of Orange,
became Louis implacable foe.

England's vital century-old concern
with the control of the channel

meant that it was more or less
inevitable that she would join in the war.

But would she ally with France against Holland

or Holland against France?

And again, as in the 1930s, this choice
was not just a matter of power politics

it was also a question of ideology.

Not of fascism or democracy

but of Protestant or Catholic.

Following the great 16th century schism
in western Christianity known as the Reformation

both England and France had fought a civil war
about religion, but with the opposite result.

In England, Parliament and Protestantism had won.

In France, it was the monarchy
and Catholicism that was triumphant

as here are the royal and religious splendours
of the great chapel of the Palace of Versailles.

In both countries however, there survived an
important minority of the defeated religion

Protestants in France and Catholics in England

but they were viewed with profound suspicion by both the
government and the majority as potential subversives or worse.

To Louis XIV, Protestantism was a hostile ideology
he was determined to uproot from France.

He began a campaign of forcible conversion.

It climaxed in the revocation
of the Edict of Nantes

an act which Louis had commemorated in this
allegorical painting which hangs in Versailles.

The edict, which was issued by
Louis' grandfather, King Henry IV

had brought the terrible French Wars of Religion
to an end by offering toleration to Protestants

but in 1685, Louis decided
that he could no longer endure

what he saw as an affront to his
Catholic conscience and his kingly dignity.

The edict was revoked and
Protestantism was outlawed throughout France.

The allegory of the painting depicts the revocation
up here as all sweetness and angels and light.

But the reality hinted at, just
hinted at down here, was very different.

It was confiscation, extreme violence,
imprisonment, exile and even death.

In short, what we might call religious cleansing.

As Winston worked to
finish volume 1 of his biography

events in Germany began
to echo Louis XIV's France.

Elections in 1932 established the Nazis
as the largest party in Parliament

and in January 1933, Hitler became
Chancellor in a coalition cabinet.

To most observers, it all
seemed democratic enough

but within weeks, legislation was passed
which granted Hitler power to rule by decree.

Soon after that, legal discrimination,
persecution against Germany's Jewish citizens began.

In Britain, criticism from both
politicians and the press was muted

as no one wished to offend Germany.

However, on the 13th of April, Winston rose in the
house to warn, bluntly and in unambiguous terms

about the real nature of the new dictatorship
which had seized power in Germany

about its persecution of the Jews

and about the threat that it posed to
the whole peace and security of Europe.

JOSEPH GOEBBELS
[Das zeitalter] eines überspitzen jüdischen intellektualismus
[This era] of exaggerated Jewish intellectualism

ist nun zu ende...
is now at an end...

Churchill was astonishingly quick off the mark

and the reason is he's watched
Louis XIV doing exactly the same thing

and I think, it's the experience, it's the soaking
in the world of the late 17th early 18th century

that enables Churchill not only to understand
the 1930s better than his contemporaries

but to understand them faster.

As exactly the moment that
everybody else in Britain is saying

"Mr Hitler is a man that we can do business with,"

Churchill says, "Look what he really is!"

"He's murdering the Jews, and if
you don't stop him he'll murder you."

In January 1685, King Charles II
of England suddenly fell ill.

IN CLIP
The King is dead.

Long live the King.

GROUP
Long live the King.

STARKEY
Charles was succeeded by his brother James.

For John Churchill, the occasion of his
long-standing patron and friend

could have been, should have been,
the gateway to influence and wealth.

But James was a Catholic whilst John and Sarah,
like James' daughter Anne, were sincere Protestants

and James was determined
to coax, or if need be, coerce

his realm back to her ancient
allegiance to the Roman Church.

Soon, John Churchill the courtier would
have to choose between his king and his god.

By late 1865, Louis XIV's brutal campaign
against French Protestants was gathering force.

Thousands and thousands of
refugees began to pour into England.

To the English, these refugees were living proof
that Catholicism meant persecution and tyranny.

James, so more and more of his subjects felt,
was plotting to become the English Louis XIV

and subvert the liberties
and religion of his people.

But though James was a Catholic,

his heirs, his two surviving children from his first
marriage, Mary and Anne, were both Protestants.

The elder, Mary, was married to William of
Orange, the military leader of the Dutch Republic

and so everyone knew that when King James II died

England would once more have a Protestant queen,
and consort, the leading opponent of French aggression.

It was a comforting thought

but in June 1688, after 15
years of childless marriage,

James' second wife, Queen Mary of
Modena gave birth to a healthy baby boy.

This changed everything.

James was no longer a Catholic
apparition in an otherwise Protestant family.

Instead, he was the founder of a new Catholic
dynasty that might rule England forever.

The thought, as Winston put it, was
unendurable to Protestant England.

The solution was to invent a lie.

A noble lie, in Plato's phrase.

The baby prince, it was claimed,
wasn't James' child at all.

Instead, it was a changling, smuggled
into the Queen's bed in a warming pan.

For many in England, the only salvation
from a fraudulent Catholic succession

now lay across the North Sea with
William the Orange and his Protestant army.

In a coded message, 7 leading
Parliamentarians invited William

to bring a Dutch army to England
to defend the Protestant faith

and assert his wife, Mary's claim to the throne.

As William weighed his options,
a Mr Sidney arrived with another letter.

It was from John Churchill.

Winston reproduces it
facsimile, as well he might,

for it is one of the most
significant letters in British history.

JOHN WINSTON V/A
Mr Sidney will let you know

how I intend to behave myself.

I think it is what I owe to God and my country.

If you think there is anything else
I ought to do, you have but to command me

and I shall pay an entire obedience to it.

Being resolved to die in that religion that it has
pleased God to give you both will and power to protect.

STARKEY
First sight, this letter seems somewhat elliptical

as John Churchill describes his motives
for action—patriotism and Protestantism—

but not the act himself.

But that's hardly surprising, since
the act, neither more nor less,

to which he was committing himself, was treason.

As William would have realized the
moment he read the letter.

Here was England's leading
general and James' right-hand-man

committing himself to help William invade England,
and by extension, to overthrow James.

On October the 15th, William embarked
15,000 troops in an armada of over 500 ships.

In England, everybody, including James,
knew that the invasion was coming.

The rebellion even had a theme song, "Lillibulero"

whose lyrics mocked the Irish Catholic troops

that James was supposed to be
bringing over to defend his crown

♪ Lero, lero, lillibulero ♪

♪ Lillibulero bullen a la ♪

It was sung in taverns and
street corners across the land.

♪...lillibullero bullen a la ♪

♪ Lero, lero, lillibulero...♪

It's said that James already knew
there was a military conspiracy

when he heard the sentry
at his door whistling the tune.

(bell ringing)

On the 5th of November, Symbolic Day,
1688, William landed at Torbay in Devon

but James quickly concentrated 25,000 men
on Salisbury Plain, between William and London.

His army was larger, but would it be loyal?

James hurried from Windsor to join his troops

with John Churchill at his side,
newly promoted Lieutenant General.

By 23rd November, James held a council of war.

John Churchill, as usual believing
that attack was the best form of defense,

recommended advancing towards William.

But the French general that James
had put in overall command

instead advised falling back towards London.

James concurred.

That same night, John Churchill
and 400 officers and men

crept out of the royal camp and
rode for their lives to join William.

It was the end.

James fled England for France.

With scarcely a shot fired, the
English had got rid of the last king

who would every try to claim
absolute authority over them.

From now on, Parliament would be sovereign,

and the monarchy, in the shape of
William and Mary, would be Protestant.

And England at that point embarks on a new path

not simply dependent, a satellite of France,

but a new arrived power representing
a new different way of doing things.

And at that moment, in 1688, with Marlborough's
choice with that letter that we looked at,

a new chapter, or rather a new book! a new volume!
in English and European history opens

and it continues through war after war

with first of all France as
the enemy, then Germany.

And that of course, is what
Churchill sees his own career about.

It's what he's trying to remind
people in 1932 and 1933 is at stake.

Representative government, democracy, the legacy of 1688
is our ancestors' legacy.

These are all at stake and
Churchill feels it will be his destiny

to take up Marlborough's sword to defend them.

STARKEY
Writing that first volume of Marlborough

had opened Winston's eyes and helped him to
be the first to recognize the Nazi threat to Britain.

Over the next 6 years, his work of the
remaining 3 volumes took him still further.

It gave added weight to his repeated
warnings of the dangers of Germany rearmament

and as time went by, it marked him out,
more and more, as the man

to lead Britain in the forthcoming life and
death struggle with Hitler and the Nazis.