One of Britain’s most respected military historians has warned that Hollywood war movies are giving pupils a dangerously distorted view of history which could give rise to a new generation of Nazi sympathisers.

Antony Beevor, author of Stalingrad and Berlin: The Downfall 1945, told the Prince of Wales’s first education summer school that films such as Pearl Harbor, U-571 and Saving Private Ryan are lending the Third Reich a spurious credibility.

“I’m deeply concerned about the irresponsibility of the entertainment industry, at a time when young people have such an inability to distinguish between truth and fiction,” said Mr Beevor, who was a former officer with the 11th Hussars before becoming a historian and best-selling writer.

“The Hollywood portrayal of Nazis lends them a seductive glamour even if they’re shown to be evil. For boys today, who may be facing behaviour problems for example, the danger is obvious.”

Research carried out last year on the attitudes of teenagers to the Third Reich has produced some worrying findings: in eastern Germany, 41 per cent expressed admiration for some aspects of Hitler’s regime. “I wonder what the figure would be in this country or America?” he asked.

He accused Hollywood of a “distortion of the truth”, picking out a fake sniper duel in the 1992 epic Stalingrad, the implausible love interest in Pearl Harbor and changing the nationality of British heroes to American crew in U-571. Young people, he said, increasingly depend on such portrayals for historical understanding. “There have been one or two exceptional ones. But when you see a triangular love affair imposed on a great moment of history, it’s worrying.”

Mr Beevor was addressing an audience of history and English teachers at Dartington Hall near Totnes in Devon. The education summer school, devised by Prince Charles brought together high-profile speakers including Tom Stoppard, Andrew Motion, John Mortimer and Joanna Trollope, and TV historians David Starkey, Niall Ferguson, Michael Wood and Simon Schama.

Trevor Nunn, director of the National Theatre, used the four-day conference to attack the BBC’s decision to create the specialist BBC4 arts channel. He complained that serious theatrical drama no longer had a place on mainstream TV.

“We don’t do stage-to-screen programmes,” he said. “It’s not in the remit any more.”

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