Churchill: “This was their finest hour” 1940
“This was their finest hour” er den almindelige betegnelse for en tale, den britiske premierminister Winston Churchilll (1874-1965) holdt i det britiske parlament den 18. juni 1940.
Spørgsmål:
Brug kilden nedenfor til at besvare spørgsmålene.
1. Hvad ville Churchill opnå med talen?
2. Churchill sætter det lyse (“sunlit”) overfor det mørke (“dark age”). Hvad er det lyse og hvad er det mørke? Sæt ord på om styreformer og ideologier.
3. Hvad betyder “This was their finest hour” – og hvilken ramme sætter Churchill denne sætning ind i?
Kilde: “This was their finest hour”. 1940. Uddrag
Lyt til uddraget af talen her.
[…]
What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over … the Battle of Britain is about to begin. Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilisation. Upon it depends our own British life, and the long continuity of our institutions and our Empire. The whole fury and might of the enemy must very soon be turned on us. Hitler knows that he will have to break us in this island or lose the war. If we can stand up to him, all Europe may be freed and the life of the world may move forward into broad, sunlit uplands.
But if we fail, then the whole world, including the United States, including all that we have known and cared for, will sink into the abyss of a new dark age made more sinister, and perhaps more protracted, by the lights of perverted science. Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves, that if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour”.