I couldn't watch it because it was so horrible. For instance, the segment on Hitler was so painfully inaccurate the channel has no business to claim its name. They made it seem like Hitler was some hardcore soldier bravely firing off from the front line. The scene were they showed him stoically shaving his face into the iconic mustache while in the trenches under fire caused me to literally yell at my tv screen.
In reality, Hitler spent the war far behind the front lines as a runner. To quote from a review of Thomas Weber's Hitler's First War:
"The reality was, as you might have suspected, somewhat different. True, as a dispatch runner he did occasionally have to risk gunfire; but for the most part he had a cushy war, sleeping on a proper bed with a proper roof an hour's walk behind the front, and most of the time he was well out of danger.... But after the war, and as he became more powerful, and the myths started being built, those from his regiment who knew better were intimidated, imprisoned, or killed."
Link: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2011/oct/04/hitlers-first-war-review
Here is another Der Spiegel:
"In reality, however, Hitler spent almost the entire four years of World War I a few kilometers behind the main battle line and therefore often outside the most dangerous area"
After watching the scene of Hitler shaving his mustache with a bayonet(!) while staring menacingly at the audience, and seeing Patton ride what looked like a Stuart tank into battle during the first world war, I almost stopped watching it. Almost.
Instead I decided to watch the show fall into a slow spiral of dramatization, talking heads, and just plain old lack of detail. I couldn't make it through the final episode though, when they jumped from the Battle of Britain to the invasion of Sicily, leaving out the entire Africa campaign.
so TL:DR.
Dont waste your time. The mini series only saving grace is that it might pique the interest of those who lack a general knowledge of the first half of 20th century history and encourage them to do more research.
Ironically, most things on History channel are completely and shamelessly inaccurate.
I don't believe Hitler had an Irish accent. I turned it off very fast. I don't remember its specifics, but the segment on the March on Rome was incredibly inaccurate
It's pretty miserable. I shut the TV off when I saw German soldiers using British-issue SMLE rifles, and incorrectly at that. They were dropping/replacing Enfield magazines, when in fact that wasn't how they were ever used. The mag was removable for cleaning only, and fed from the top with stripper clips.
Ugh.
They wasted a lot of time recapping things, and with dramatizations. They went into very little detail and almost everything they covered i learned about in my middle school history classes. They skipped over Africa completely, Or at least if they did cover it, it was so quick i missed it while i was in the bathroom.
It's pretty bad in terms of accuracy. According to the documentary, at Midway the American fleet started it's attack when they saw the Japanese come over the horizon, and sank all four enemy carriers sank at the same time, when in reality Hiryu survived after the Akagi, Kaga, and Soryu had been destroyed and launched several counter-attacks before being sunk the next day, and the battle was conducted without either fleet being in visual range.
I also recall Stalingrad being presented as a target of no strategic importance.
I found the 1st episode reasonably interesting in terms of the backstories of the primary actors. Young Hiltler, Stalin, Mussolini etc.
seemed to be portrayed decently by the performers, but the general action scenes were ridiculous. Wrong weapons, wrong uniforms, wrong ships (Japanese warships with modern radar arrays), wrong planes (German Falschirmjager parachuting from c-130s I think, German B-17s bombing London). The list of anachronisms was endless. The next 2 episodes were progressively worse.
The Dramatic reenactments were pretty awful but yet were an improvement over past History Channel attempts. If anyone remembers watching Patton 360, it was brain numbingly bad.
At one point, an Obvious WW1 Map of Europe was right behind him. Another point is when the Japanese Fleet of Aegis class Destroyers go are heading to Pearl harbor. (Very brief skin). Many of the Uniforms for all the countries were waaaaaaaaaay off. It pissed me off so much seeing this shit on the "History Channel." I stopped watching at the first hour mark.