On 16th June 1940, Paris fell to the Nazis, and the German conquest of France was almost complete. In Bordeaux, an almost stranger Under-Secretary of State for War decided to secede and to rebel openly against the policy adopted by French Prime Minister Henri Petain, who was preparing to ask for an armistice. The following day, this Under-Secretary flew to England. This episode tells the story of how a provisional general in a subordinate function became De Gaulle, leader of Free France, without whom the country would have ended the war in the camp of the vanquished.

Hitler's downfall began well before the official end of the war in 1945. It was exactly on 22nd June 1941, when Hitler launched the largest military offensive in history against the Soviet Union: Operation Barbarossa. By opening this eastern front, the Führer, blinded by his firepower, signed his own death sentence. This episode relates, through archives and re-enacted scenes from historical documents, this fateful day. Why did Hitler open a second front after always saying he wouldn't? Why did he suddenly attack the Soviet Union, which did not want to be an obstacle to its enterprises on the west and south fronts? And, why did Stalin foresee the attack?