Which years did many WWII documentaries first begin being shown on TV and were watched by average person?
1950’s onwards – before that few people had sets in Britain, although many were sold for the Coronation of Elizabeth II the first televised Royal Event. It was not taught in schools – most history curricula ends with 1914 – but then many people on knew had first hand accounts of course. As a topic most were keen to forget about it – and move on. There had been lots of proaganda films made and shown in the picture houses during the war and these were transferred to television. They tended to be feature films rather than documentaries at this time – eg The Miniver Story, Noel Coward’s various films which tended to gloss over facts. The big productions came in the 60s and the Hollywood treatment rather gave the impression the the Americans won it all single handedly. There were lectures, eg AJP Taylor, rather than documentaries – mainly because there wasn’t much footage available for general release. In the 80’s Channel 4 commissioned The World At War – one of the most comprehensive and u
