George MacK­ay staves off World War Two in the Munich: The Edge of War trailer

By the year 1938, the Nazis had spread through Europe with enough aggres­sion to draw the con­cern of oth­er super­pow­ers in the region, but the British gov­ern­ment was con­vinced war could still be avoid­ed. A sum­mit was con­vened in Munich to hash out an agree­ment between Hitler and his west­ward oppo­si­tion, with a goal of find­ing a res­o­lu­tion that would appease the fas­cists while stem­ming their expansion.

The new film Munich: The Edge of War walks view­ers through the moti­va­tions, events, and after­math of this momen­tous gath­er­ing by focus­ing on two of its key play­ers. In the upcom­ing Net­flix release, the first trail­er for which arrived online just today, George MacK­ay and Jan­nis Niewöh­n­er star as a pair of diplo­mats scur­ry­ing to keep both of their nations out of the anni­hi­la­tion we all know they were pow­er­less to stop.

MacK­ay plays Hugh Legat, a civ­il ser­vant of the crown tasked with find­ing a solu­tion along­side his old friend and col­league, the Ger­man attaché Paul von Hart­mann, por­trayed by Niewöh­n­er. Jere­my Irons also stars as Prime Min­is­ter Neville Cham­ber­lain, remem­bered today pre­dom­i­nant­ly as the guy who allowed Hitler to con­tin­ue his geno­cide until things got out of hand in Poland one year after the Munich meeting.

Legat is tasked with retriev­ing a cru­cial doc­u­ment expos­ing Hitler’s true inten­tions – not to estab­lish peace, but rather con­quer the world – from von Hart­mann, who shares his old uni­ver­si­ty mate’s wish to avert cat­a­stro­phe despite the Führer’s wish­es. The two must col­lude to get the evi­dence in the prop­er hands, all under the watch­ful eye of the Third Reich, includ­ing an appear­ance from Hitler him­self at a high-pow­er din­ner for state officials.

Direc­tor Chris­t­ian Schwo­chow may be per­fect­ly suit­ed to this trans-Euro­pean job, as a Ger­man film­mak­er whose most note­wor­thy item on his CV is a stint direct­ing episodes of The Crown. Judg­ing from the trail­er, he’s checked all the cru­cial box­es for the genre – furtive ren­dezvous, nar­row­ly evad­ing expo­sure, bilin­gual mur­mur­ing, a race against the clock. His­to­ry buffs will be chuffed.

Munich: The Edge of War will come to UK cin­e­mas on 7 Jan­u­ary and then Net­flix on 21 January.