[3] It was created by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, who also served as executive producers, and who had collaborated on the 1998 World War II film Saving Private Ryan.

Over the course of ten episodes, Band of Brothers depicts a dramatized account of Easy Company's exploits during World War II.

[4] Episodes include their training at Camp Toccoa, the American airborne landings in Normandy, Operation Market Garden, the Siege of Bastogne, the invasion of Germany, the liberation of the Kaufering concentration camp, the taking of the Kehlsteinhaus (Eagle's Nest) in Berchtesgaden, the occupation of Germany, and finally the war's end.

Private Albert Blithe, who has been struggling with shell shock, is finally spurred into action by Winters during the Battle of Bloody Gulch.

Winters writes an after-action report on Easy's actions during a German counter offensive on the Nijmegen salient; he is troubled by the fact that he shot an unarmed, teenage Waffen-SS soldier during the battle.

Finding a collection of alcoholic beverages in a cellar at Hermann Göring's house, Winters allows the company to celebrate before they travel to Austria to become an occupying force.

The series was developed chiefly by Tom Hanks and Erik Jendresen, who spent months detailing the plot outline and individual episodes.

On June 7, 2001, 47 Easy Company veterans were flown to Paris and then traveled by chartered train to the site, where the series premiered.

[18][21] Various sets were built, including replicas on the large open field of 12 European towns, among them Bastogne, Belgium; Eindhoven, Netherlands; and Carentan, France.

The scenes set in Germany and Austria were shot in Switzerland, in and near the village of Brienz in the Bernese Oberland, and at the nearby Hotel Giessbach.

[citation needed] This was published by LSU Press, following renewed interest in World War II and more than 30 years after his death in a boating accident.

[3][note 2] The production team consulted Dale Dye, a retired United States Marine Corps captain and consultant on Saving Private Ryan, as well as with most of the surviving Easy Company veterans, including Richard Winters, Bill Guarnere, Frank Perconte, Ed Heffron, and Amos Taylor.

[35][36] German historian and Holocaust researcher Anton Posset worked with Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks as a consultant, providing photographs of the liberators and documentation of the survivors' reports he had collected over the years.

[43][failed verification] Elements of the French 2nd Armored Division, Laurent Touyeras, Georges Buis and Paul Répiton-Préneuf, were present on the night of May 4 to 5, and took several photographs before leaving on May 10 at the request of US command,[44][45] and this is supported by testimonies of the Spanish soldiers who went along with them.

The website's critics consensus reads: "Band of Brothers offers a visceral, intense look at the horrors of war – and the sacrifices of the millions of ordinary people who served.

[48] CNN's Paul Clinton said that the miniseries "is a remarkable testament to that generation of citizen soldiers, who responded when called upon to save the world for democracy and then quietly returned to build the nation that we now all enjoy, and all too often take for granted".

[49] Caryn James of The New York Times called it "an extraordinary 10-part series that masters its greatest challenge: it balances the ideal of heroism with the violence and terror of battle, reflecting what is both civilized and savage about war."

[51] Philip French of The Guardian commented that he had "seen nothing in the cinema this past year that impressed me as much as BBC2's 10-part Band of Brothers, produced by Steven Spielberg and Tom Hanks, and Ken Loach's The Navigators on Channel 4", and that it was "one of the best films ever made about men in war and superior in most ways to Saving Private Ryan.

"[52] Matt Seaton, also in The Guardian, wrote that the film's production was "on such a scale that in an ad hoc, inadvertent way it gives one a powerful sense of what really was accomplished during the D-Day invasion - the extraordinary logistical effort of moving men and matériel in vast quantities.

"[53] Tom Shales of The Washington Post wrote that though the series is "at times visually astonishing," it suffers from "disorganization, muddled thinking and a sense of redundancy."

[62] The show was selected for a Peabody Award for "relying on both history and memory to create a new tribute to those who fought to preserve liberty.

[68] In 2011, HBO aired a documentary entitled He Has Seen War with Tom Hanks as executive producer and Mark Herzog as director about the postwar stories of and lasting effects of the war, including post-traumatic stress disorder, on not only Easy Company members but also members of the 1st Marine Division who were subjects of The Pacific after the division fought at Guadalcanal, Cape Gloucester, Peleliu, Iwo Jima and Okinawa.

[69][70][71] In 2012, the Richard D. Winters Leadership Monument near Sainte-Marie-du-Mont in Normandy recognizing all American junior officers, together with their divisions and corps, who led the way on D-Day, was unveiled on the 68th anniversary of the invasion.

For the occasion, the World War II Foundation, which raised the funds for the monument, produced a biographical documentary entitled Dick Winters: Hang Tough.

Documentary filmmaker and World War II Foundation founder and president Tim Gray is the creator of the overall film, which includes actual photos, photos from the miniseries and interviews with the real-life Winters and other Easy Company members including a number who were portrayed in the show such as Guarnere, Malarkey, Edward "Babe" Heffron, Frank Perconte and Edward Tipper.

Special attention was paid to the Brécourt Manor Assault including the owners of Brécourt Manor to this day — the Vallavieille family, including Utah Beach Museum founder Michel de Vallavieille, who was wounded after being mistaken for a German soldier — and the creation of the 13-foot (4.0 m) bronze statue of Winters by sculptor Steven Spears.