Armin Siegwarth

It was arguably the deadliest conference in human history. The topic: plans to murder 11 million Jews in Europe. The participants were not psychopaths, but educated men from the SS, police, administration and ministries. The invitation to the meeting at Wannsee came from Reinhard Heydrich, head of the Reich Security Main Office. The Wehrmacht's campaigns of conquest in Eastern Europe marked the beginning of the systematic murder of Jews in Poland and the Soviet Union. In mid-September 1941, Hitler made the decision to deport all Jews from Germany to the East. Although there had been transports before, Hitler's order represented a further escalation in the murderous decision-making process. Persecution and discrimination had been part of everyday life since 1933. But as a result, the living conditions for the Jews in the Third Reich became even more difficult, among them the Berlin Jew Margot Friedländer, born in 1921, and the Chotzen family.

If, at first, human being used stars to find its bearings, mankind can nowadays count on science to measure the Earth at a millimetric scale. Because land surveying of our planet is still in full swing. Satellites, cameras or drones : technology progress allows the scientists to explore it all. They can measure oceans, volcanoes, or even the atmosphere. But scientists are walking a tightrope, torned between their desire to gather more and more informations, and a population concerned about personal data's protection. This documentary shows a glimpse of actual scientifical research, and interrogate numerous scientists about the interest of land surveying in their specific field of research.

While the First World War and its battles on the Western Front are still very much anchored in our memory of history, the simultaneous battle in the East appears now to have been largely forgotten. During the course of this military action, a peculiar, state-like entity was created, a German colony in Eastern Europe, a military utopia: the Land of Ober Ost. The occupied region was to become a productive state, completely under military command; a state that was to serve not least as a deployment zone for the impending war.

Follow one mammoth expert as he traces the legendary giants from Africa to the Yukon.