How Fascism Managed To Consume Germany | Hitler: Germany's Fatal Attraction | All Out History

[Music] [Music] [Applause] the 1930s saw germany turn from a shattered nation into a military powerhouse it was to wage war on the nations which just 11 years earlier had left germany a broken country and a population bereft of pride in the wake of world war one one man created this transformation adolf hitler hitler was one of the few people in germany who welcomed another war he wasn't scared etl's magnetism was not only something which could convince enormous crowds but was also incredibly powerful like a potent narcotic how did he become the most powerful man in germany who were the nazis and how did they reinvigorate this fractured nation in weimar germany there was a new kind of energy very visible on the streets they wanted perpetual acclamation they wanted constant support from the people terror played a very important part in a dictatorship nothing would be tolerated but undermined the german national revolution thousands were taken in by one man's magnetism which proved to be germany's fatal attraction hitter at this stage uh sees himself not as the messiah but as the john the baptist it's only at his time in landsberg prison that he actually realizes my god i am here [Applause] [Music] to fully understand the doomed love affair of germany and hitler we must first look into the german nation of the late 19th century germany had become the most powerful country the most prosperous country the most advanced country on the european continent it was a rather authoritarian state on the one hand but it also had a national parliament with elections with some limited powers but those powers are most likely growing a highly militarized imperial state under the hereditary monarchy of the horn zoller dynasty having given support to the unification of germany after the franco-prussian war britain had become fearful of this new power its growing industrial and military capability threatened to overshadow britain's diminishing empire after the franco-prussian war germany powered ahead economically overtaking britain as an industrial power by the time of the first world war second only to the united states there was a great deal of catching up to do a great deal of nation building of creating unity of creating vision it was ambitious really to join the other great powers as one of the major european imperial states alongside that both envy and arrogance of the british empire it was envy because it was so world powerful it was 25 percent of the world's surface and 25 percent of the world's people but in in a different very strong sense of superiority many historians would say a dangerously expansionist power with ambitions in europe that were certainly threatening to the continuation of any existing balance of power [Music] it was a massive seething tensions germany was beginning to be a colonial power late in the race it is not in germany however where our story begins but in neighboring austria-hungary we don't know much about hillary's early life he was born in brownell on the river inn on the 20th of april 1889 the son of a minor austrian official his father wasn't a very nice man knocked hitler around a bit because of that hitler's mother took on a very protective role we can gather that much he had a rather unhappy childhood he had four siblings who died before before he was born hitler's childhood leads us to believe it was a fairly ordinary upbringing comparable with his peers at the time a problem for historians is that hitler reinvented quite a bit about his childhood he was um an indifferent student it has to be said it was not that he was not very intelligent he certainly was but he was unable to focus a bit of a learner as he continued to be but always a virus reader he read everything he could get his hands on continued to do that he created in a sense a kind of self-education which was about bizarre bricolage of all kinds of sources of his own authorship in other words what he didn't get was really a coherent education because he didn't pay attention in 1907 a young adolf hitler made his way to vienna to pursue a career as an artist vienna at the time was the city leading europe in new artistic practice and philosophical thought hitler's plan was to apply and enroll at the academy of fine arts he went to vienna when he was about 16 and really knocked around didn't do a lot he never lived as rough as he later claimed he was rejected from art school i think probably rightly looking at his that his artworks he knew about art in general terms he knew about neoclassical art he knew the power of art above all the great historic images had enormous moments so although his watercolors didn't advance the nazi course he knew what art could do hitler claimed throughout his life that he was an artist who was torn from his easel by the love of germany his mother was generous to him she provided him with a series of allowances possibly without the knowledge of his father so some biographers of hitler say that he was really a bit of a lay about he frequented cafe society in vienna and met up with a deeply flawed cafe intelligentsia who fed him a lot of the ideas that hitler later said in mein kampf became the granite foundations of my thought everyone assumes that it was strongly influenced by austrian anti-semitism there was a lot of it around before 1914 but actually it's very hard to pin down that he was influenced by it all of the associations with jewish people with whom there are a great many in hitler's early life were not merely positive but benevolent the doctor who treated his mother when she was sick the family doctor who treated all of them he was jewish the dealer who uh bought and sold the paintings hitler painted in in vienna to keep the wolf from the door again was jewish [Applause] in receipt of the inheritance bequeathed to hitler from his father's estate and finding little fortune as an artist in vienna hitler decided to move to munich in 1913. hitler was very conscious of being ethnically german as a german nationalist hitler believed that he belonged more in germany than in austria austria-hungary remained a great power in the scheme of things dominating a large part of southeastern europe but i was getting into crisis because of the growth of nationalism czech nationalism hungarian south slav and the clash of these national groups in the parliamentary assemblies made the parliament the rice rat and its hungarian equivalent more or less unworkable ungovernable every meeting just erupted into shouting matches between the different national groups either in austria or in hungary and that i think gave hitler a contempt for parliamentary rule he saw it as being ineffective he saw the empire this large ramshackle organization and he thought that an authoritarian director strong leadership even a dictator was the only way to solve these problems [Music] it was the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand of austria in sarajevo that would be the catalyst for the start of the first world war within weeks austria-hungary were at war with serbia germany then mobilized invaded luxembourg and belgium and began to march on france this prompted britain to declare war on germany hitler although an austrian citizen living in munich at the time managed to sign up to the german army in the chaos of mobilization in august 1914 his papers were kind of disregarded and and he got into the into the army the austrian authorities were after him he deluded conscription from the austrian army and was living in germany he didn't want to fight for something he didn't believe him and he certainly didn't believe in the habsburgs and in their empire with war erupting all over europe germany would arrive in the position of fighting a war on two fronts to the east against the russians and to the west against britain france and belgium hitler had joined the army in support of the german empire the experience of war would change the trajectory of his life and in turn the lives of millions of others forever having failed as an artist hitler found himself in munich a city in the modern german empire he signed up to the german army and was sent to the western front here he found germany at war with britain and its allies adolf hitler played but an obscure part a corporal in the german army hitler was fascinated by the prospect of war the first world war turned a nobody into a somebody on the whole most report showed that he was a good soldier well disciplined he was promoted into an nco rank he survived it from start to finish no of course not everybody did he served as a battalion runner close enough to the front line though he didn't spend as much time as a frontline combat infantry soldier as he later claimed but he was in danger he was within firing range of british and french artillery was at the very least if you're a runner you had to get messages up to communications trenches and he was seriously gassed in 1918. people have tried to belittle what he did in the war actually but he won the iron cross second class and then the iron cross first class on the recommendation ironically of a jewish superior officer this idea that he was some kind of of card as rubbish he actually manifested enormous courage but messengers were often regarded by the fighting troops as having a rather cushy time the enigma is why he was never promoted an officer of course maybe apocryphal but i think it's been said that he remained a corporal because he didn't have leadership qualities [Music] hitler does not seem to have been well liked or well respected by his fellow soldiers he was a bit of a loner regardless a bit of an eccentric he himself looked back on the first world war as a time of unity fellow feeling brotherhood and so on and mythologized it in his own mind until he came to want to recreate the spirit of 1914 when all germans united behind the kaiser in the third reich in 1933. russia mobilized its military and defeated austria-hungary but was stopped in prussia by the german forces germany being the far stronger military power forced the bolsheviks to sign the treaty of brest-litovsk the baltic states were given to germany along with the recognized independence of ukraine early in 1918 they had actually assigned the treaty of brexit office with russia and so they'd acquired an empire in russia the dreaded two-front war now no longer existed from march 1918. so that was taken as a sign that germany was doing really well in the war and it all hung on the western front but with the united states in the war germany wasn't going to win on the western front swiftly the menace of war grew into dread reality as american ships and ships carrying american citizens were torpedoes sent to the bottom by the ruthless campaign of the unseen tigers america entered the war after germany had started attacking all commercial ships heading for britain which had meant the sinking of american ships in the north atlantic on april 6 1917 america declared war on germany with the superior resources the americans brought the german army faced an impossible situation on november 11 1918 the armistice was signed which ended the war the problem was that the political and military establishment had not led germans to expect defeat it's all near the end and their prayers are not telling them just how effective the counter-attack of the allies has been propaganda was still being pumped out saying that they were going to win so in late october when they finally conceded defeat and began to sue for peace this came as a terrible shock it was very very sudden to most germans and then on top of that there were the armistice terms and then even more the peace terms in 1919 which almost all germans regarded with absolute outrage the treaty of versailles was a series of provisions and conditions placed on germany by the allied nations one of these being germany accepting the responsibility for all lost and damaged caused by the war this was known as article 231 which later became known as the war guilt clause the treaty also forced germany to make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to the allied countries in addition germany was only allowed a military force of no more than one hundred thousand men the sigh was to them the stab in the back what they'd uh given was an armistice not a surrender the germans had to surrender their combat aircraft they weren't allowed to build any combat ships their army was restricted to a hundred thousand hundred thousand seems quite a lot to me actually this meant all the cooks and bottle washers and pen pushers were counted in the hundred thousand men it wasn't a hundred thousand fighting men they had to pay massive financial reparations for the damage that german troops had caused in the occupation of northern france and southern belgium and they rested on the war guild clause which most of all germans disputed germany had not been guilty for starting the first world war being caused by the encirclement of germany by the uh the allies they felt that the allies had deceived them uh had abandoned all notions of honor by treating them as a conquered people when they didn't think they were the things that had been promised to them specifically by president woodrow wilson and david lord george had not been delivered instead they'd been violated they're honored being degraded very large proportion of them felt a very great deal of resentment against the rest of the world hitler was devastated by that like huge numbers of germans hitler like many others couldn't explain had to find some way of explaining it to himself unlike tens of thousands of others they blamed the home front he blamed socialists marxist jews people who undermine germany from within [Music] the stab in the back theory surfaced in right-wing circles after the end of the war as a way to explain the sudden defeat it was believed that the left-wing republican and jewish populations of germany who had made up the home front had lost the war from within most germans did not believe in the stab in the back legends the independent social democrats and the mainstream social democrats and then the communist party in the early 20s uh were a major part of the german political system about a third of the electorate so this belief in this dab in the back and a jewish conspiracy in 1918-19 was very much a lunatic fringe group on the right the first world war had seen the young hitler in a role which suited him however the sudden loss for germany was too much to take not only for hitler but for the entire population this along with the humiliation of versailles hitler and a dangerous minority of the right wing population looked for a scapegoat the search would see the birth of a new party and bring together some of the most dangerous men germany has ever produced [Music] the shock defeat of germany in world war one left the nation humiliated the signing of the treaty of versailles saddled germany with being responsible for rebuilding the allied nations [Music] added to this germany had seen its own revolution in 1918. however it was not until 1919 that the weimar republic was established with the coming together of a national assembly in weimar a town in central germany [Music] germany had to pay reparations to the victorious allies this was really what accelerated the great inflation it started in 1916 when the german government started printing money to fund the war effort and as we know printing money causes inflation post-war german governments didn't make the slightest effort to arrest inflation they could pin that on the peace treaties and on the allies it got so out of hand in 1923 the allies stepped in the americans stepped in particularly with the doors planned the doors and young plans to schedule germany's reparations payments are evolved and they failed the doors plan was the brainchild of the american banker charles g dawes the plan was to lend the german government the money to pay back the reparations which had not been given to the allied countries [Music] america stabilized the german currency so that the americans could give loans to germany so that germany could pay reparations to britain france and others so that britain france and others could repay loans to the united states during this time of change and uncertainty hitler was keen to continue in the vocation which had given him personal success after the war ended he stayed in the german army which was vastly depleted he didn't want to leave he liked the army whatever inventions he may have resorted to about his own service he felt at home within the secure structures and hierarchies of the army he attended the courses for soldiers at camp ledgefeld these courses were taught some of them by the most famous academics of the era and what they retailed was a dart of sturdy german ethnic nationalism and patriotism they're a way of combating the activities of the bolsheviks right-wing political propaganda masquerading as political education hitler proved not only a worthy pupil but he actually became one of them he was recruited to actually do this speech making this kind of incendiary pedagogy himself and proved remarkably good at it it's there that he learns his oratorical techniques he was actually sent by the army to which he still belonged to observe a far-right group called the german workers party the german workers party was a group founded in munich in january 1919 by anton drexler a leading member of the occultist thule society the party would meet regularly and discuss ideas of nationalism the binding ideas of the german workers party were entrenched in racism and the hatred of jews it was during this period of observation that hitler became more and more involved with the party's politics he started speaking in its meetings and soon became clear that he was a very gifted speaker and took on board very much these radical anti-semitic ideas in which the war had been lost by some conspiracy the imagined the jews have been been undertaking against germany hitler has been said had a mind a bit like a hoover he just sucked up and absorbed everything he read people like her idol lance a practicing racist and a teacher of really bastardized darwinism there's a whole kind of mishmash of ideas that he puts together to form the national socialist ideology [Applause] having shown his strength as a public speaker hitler began to take a bigger role in the german workers party he took on more responsibility soon becoming the head of propaganda he starts not as leader that remains and ansel draxler but as their pr man and what he does is produce these amazing inflammatory exciting posters and have these mass meetings which increasingly large numbers of people come to in 1920 hitler decided to rename the german workers party in an attempt to broaden its appeal he called it the national socialist german workers party a year later after an angry dispute which saw him threaten to leave the party hitler was named president now he would start to gather around him a loyal intelligent and brutal inner circle in a situation of great post-war turmoil in bavaria and germany as a whole rampant inflation unemployment street disturbances strikes militant political action by workers and by the left so hitler was certainly looking for a political home and he appears to have found one hitler also gathered around him bit by bit as his reputation as a speaker the radical right increased a group of acolytes a group of disciples who uh brought their own particular techniques and their own ideas personalities and reputation hitler's closest ally at the time was rudolf hess who had been born on april 26 1894 in alexandria egypt like italy he had this extraordinary reaction at the end you know that how could we have lost and so on who was there to blame uh he drifted off into a university life but he was a frustrated radical nationalist and when he met hitler he was absolutely transfixed by him hess saw again international politics and this notion of sort of struggle between different races he was a fanatical admirer of of hitler's you can see it in the films that were taken of him at nuremberg rallies his face just glowing with naive enthusiasm [Music] the most decorated of hitler's men was hermann goering from rosenheim bavaria born january 12 1893 guring was an unusual recruit to the infant's national socialist party at that time in the 20s a very dashing figure with a big military reputation he'd been quite a distinguished air force pilot during the first world war he had succeeded baron von richthoften as head of the von richthofen squadron after the shooting done of the red baron so he was an amazingly glamorous figure and he maintained this astonishing persona of the jolly x fighter pilot which the german people found adorable he was not the kind of person who gravitated easily to these radical political movements but going to heard thought that hitler somehow articulated his own sense of resentment and loss and became a committed follower from that point on one of the party's most sinister figures was heinrich himmler from a roman catholic middle class family born october 7th 1900 in munich himmler's father was a teacher who'd been actually tutored to the bavarian royal family himmler had something rather school masterly about him i think himmler's life was really dominated by the fact that he wanted to fight him first of all but was too young he always had that sense with himmler that he was frustrated in not being able to fight on germany's behalf he had this very pedagogic kind of scholarly dreamy manner of course we don't know what was going on inside him he was a rather eccentric patriot a strong anti-semite and he gravitated towards national socialism because it seemed for him the natural home martin borman became hitler's most trusted disciple the son of a post office worker born june 17 1900. bormann is very much the soonest machiavellian manipulator of course very soon joined one of the free corps the vigilante groups that grew up in germany in the early 1920s were sent to prison for murdering somebody when he emerged he again hurt hitler and thought well you know this man articulates the things i feel the resentment i feel the loss um in 1918 that all germans shared and he too became a devoted follower but the common the doubt cements mrs finally arguably the most intelligent of hitler's men joseph goebbels from the rural valley born october 29 1897. goebbels was something of an oddball in the national associates movement he had a university education he got a doctorate he studied german literature in the 19th century he's also a romantic nationalist and writes a novel before even knowing hitler called michael which is absolutely a description of a hitler type figure this idea that hitler had of germany where all germans were united on an equal basis had a very powerful appeal to goebbels and he was looking for a political movement that somehow represented his personal position he became a good recruit for the national associates movement and the supreme ability to organize propaganda in the most ruthless possible way [Music] the common feelings of loss despair frustration and anger from losing the first world war united these men however these were not uncommon sentiments in germany at the time something else activated and fueled their extremism all had experienced some kind of revelation whilst listening to hitler he seemed to be an outsider somebody almost sent to germany to help germany regain its trajectory to great past status to help germany revenge itself on the allies he was fulfilling a kind of pre-figured role which had always existed in uh german history and culture kaiser frederick barbarossa king redbeard the man who would deliver germany from her enemies and specifically now those enemies were gathering thick and furious around them for hitler all the signs were pointing towards a burgeoning national socialist political party he had managed to gather around him a loyal following and some meetings were running into the thousands it was events in italy however which ignited hitler's imagination they would have huge consequences on the fate of hitler the national socialist party and the rest of the german nation [Music] hitler had gathered some of the brightest and most dangerous men from the far right his national socialist meetings often brought in around 2000 participants but hitler's perception of himself and his party was grossly exaggerated he's a kind of man in a dirty raincoat standing on a soapbox in the middle of a town square talking to half a dozen people standing on platforms on street corners and so on um in an old-fashioned kind of political activity there were other far more powerful far more publicly visible um right-wing parties in germany at the time well it really was just a an assembly of people who come together who shared roughly the same kinds of views events in italy inspired hitler [Music] the bombastic newspaper editor with a gladiator's jaw led his black shirted legions in a march on rome in october 1922 the fascist leader mussolini and his black shirt army marched on rome king victor emmanuel iii was forced to hand control of italy to mussolini at least this is how hitler saw it and almost immediately began to plot his own coup hitler was very influenced in 1983 by the successful coup staged by mussolini the hitler conceived the idea of a march on berlin so he began to fantasize in 1953 that the german mistake was so weak the height of the inflation the crisis and so on he took advantage of the disintegration of german politics in 1923 and at the presence of hyper-inflation the french occupation of the roar to seize reparations which won't be delivered to stage a coup d'etat in munich mussolini was also well aware of the power of propaganda he knew how he wished to be perceived by the rest of europe hitler was one of the victims of mussolini's propaganda king appointed mussolini head of government in a perfectly constitutional way it was not a coup d'etat it was a perfectly constitutional act on the part of the king if a rather weak willed one it was all a bit of a gamble from hitler's point of view on november 8th 1923 hitler along with 600 storm troopers surrounded the burger brow keller a large beer hall in munich here the state commissioner of bavaria gustav von karr was holding a meeting of around 3 000 people hitler marched in fired a shot into the air and announced that the revolution had broken out and no one could leave overnight hitler attempted to take power from fond carr but failed it was decided early in the morning of november 9th that they would march out of the beer hall towards the bavarian ministry of defence on the way they were confronted by the bavarian police hitler hoped that the new german army the post-imperial creation of the reichswear would support them it wasn't backed by the army the industrial elites refused to support it the civil service regarded it with contempt when the munich police opened fire most of them turned tail some of them were hit some wounded a few killed but it was built up into an iconic episode in the history of the movement hitler was arrested put on trial [Music] his trial began on february 26 1924 and ended on the 1st of april other conspirators such as rudolf hess were also arrested and tried in court the whole episode seemed to be a complete failure on the part of hitler and the national socialist party what the bill hall porch does which is marvelous for the nazis is provide them with martyrs and provide them with a myth a legend and a whole new symbol structure for example the blood flag which is the flag carried on that very day and when they fall is after that time the core sacramental edifice of the nazi process so that at nuremberg all of the standards of the storm troopers are touched by the blood flag the martyrs are symbolically reburied in vast marble sarcophagi in the center of munich after the nazis take power and every um year there is the famous reenactment of the porch where they march down the streets there is a death watch held throughout germany the night before there are radio link-ups everything is broadcast great films smoldering beers flames the whole work and if it sounds quasi-religious it is the nazi flag the swastika which hitler purported to have designed himself was taken from an ancient symbol embodying early aryan history the swastika is an ancient buddhist symbol you see it all over india and and china and uh it has always been around it was originally a symbol of the sun but ah it began to be acquired by the german right in the late 19th century as one of their symbols because they felt it stood for the idea of being an aryan it was hitler's changes to the design which marked it out as the nazi symbol the story he tells is that he invited people to submit designs and swastikas came in and none of them he said quite did the job so he said i'll do it myself and that's what he worked on it's a series of simple design formulae which are applied to it the flag is in the colours of red black and white which are the old imperial colors to contrast with the red golden uh black of the republic what he did very brilliantly and i'm so much reluctant to say this it's fantastic piece of graphic design he took it he rotated it to give it a sense of dynamism he then calculated the widths of the bars very brilliantly he then set it in this circle and it doesn't quite touch the edges which gives it a kind of vibration and dynamism and then this red outer bit so in all the aesthetic there's a massive amount of red to stand for the sexualist part and it just goes poof and by the 1920s it had become the authorized symbol he said it was going to be the nazi symbol and it was the nazi symbol at his trial hitler had taken sole responsibility for the push it is reported that the judges found it hard not to acquit hitler due to their pro-nazi sympathies finally the sentence of five years of confinement was passed he was also banned from public speaking testament to the fact that his oratory was a key factor in the rise of the national socialist party the enforced silence and confinement gave hitler time for introspection the outlet for his thoughts now came through the pen the german state the bible of the nazis he didn't actually uh think until the porch it doesn't seem to us that he was the chosen one he was the messiah it's only at his time in lansbury prison that he actually realizes my god i am he and is somehow liberated into becoming what he does in fact become he served less than a year of his sentence he served with rudolf hess amongst others and he used the time to write mein kampf democracy is a manchester city born of filth and fire it's interesting that hitler decided when he was sent off to prison in 1924 that he would take this opportunity to sit back and write a book about his experiences how he'd reach the point it reached why he had the beliefs that he did but it was very important for him to do that i think to to sit back and take stock of you know of how he arrived there the headless title for the original manuscript was my four and a half year struggle against lies paradise and stupidity a final reckoning with those who would destroy the german nation well his publishers recommended to amigo for something that might be a little snappier and catchier for the market so they extrapolated the two words my struggle mine camp [Music] the really interesting part of it is the famous fifth chapter which is a theory of propaganda the rest of it are really a a collection of emotional spastics it's not a recipe for a system as uh for example marx's with the communist manifesto and as capital god has made germans a race of supermen almighty god bless our german blood the publisher shifted 300 000 copies and many more for perhaps obvious reasons after after that the big book big the original thing hefty volume you're talking about 600 pages [Music] the writing of minecamp fueled his desire for power and the need to lead germany however hitler knew he would need a different route to domination but without being able to speak publicly it would have to wait stopping him from speaking was going to keep the peace he was regarded as an influential speaker i think you were looking for an explanation for why it took a long time for the party to revive again and for the public to really take it but seriously again it was the ban on his speaking he alone in germany is not allowed to speak so use that as propaganda really to attack the weimar government for censorship in 1927 the ban on hitler's public speaking was relaxed and later lifted completely once more hitler took to the stage something about his performance is something about that which really attracted people you know like modern day pop stars there are people who do appear to have been mesmerized by him [Applause] as soon as he could start speaking you have that run up to the successful parliamentary elections in the night late 1920s when i look at hitler on the stage i think of him as being in a political theater but i don't believe that what he says is great oratory at the time of hitler's silence germany began to see a certain recovery thanks to american investment unemployment was declining and the economy was improving a sense of optimism rippled through the german nation a lot of americans invested so germany looked as if it was prospering by 1928 [Music] the national socialists could have been banished to the history books as a marginal far-right political party with their eccentric leader and the failed beer hall push of 1923 however fate dealt them a favorable hand the post-war economic recovery under the weimar republic which was genuine enough while it lasted that had collapsed as a direct result of the wall street crash in new york it was a saying of the time new york sneezed london caught cold and germany nearly died of influenza [Music] the implications of the crash would eventually lead the national socialist party to total power the continuity of the great depression was absolutely critical seven million men became unemployed there seemed to be no lifting and once you got the worker in the dole queue you had him as a potential nazi a potential stormtrooper what further measures would be imposed on the german population to consolidate the nazis power and what terror would be unleashed before the dramatic toppling of this evil regime [Music] [Music] world war one had left germany in a state of shock two million fatalities spiraling inflation and unpaid debts to the allied countries caused the nation to feel stripped of its identity and pride they felt that the allies had deceived them had abandoned all notions of honor by treating them as a conquered people hitler was a war hero he won the iron cross first class the first world war turned a nobody into a somebody adolf hitler had survived the conflict and found a political home in the german workers party a right-wing organization with racist and anti-semitic roots hitler like many others had to find some way of explaining it to himself unlike tens of thousands of others we blame socialist marxist jews people who undermine germany from within climbing the ranks he changed the name to the national socialist german workers party and took control he was fulfilling a pre-figured role which had always existed in german history and culture the man who would deliver germany from her enemies as leader he started plotting the takeover of munich and in turn germany the infamous beer hall push was a resounding failure it was built up into an iconic episode in the history of the movement hitler was arrested put on trial hitler was later imprisoned his intentions however were still for total power and to return the nation to a state of pride hitler knew that he would need a different approach first of all he had to get the army police civil service and business on his side and secondly he had to develop a propaganda apparatus which would win votes if we can't outshoot them without vote them and we'll do it by winning support he would fuse violent acts of terror with slick propaganda which would all fuel this fatal attraction [Applause] [Music] in the late 1920s the nazi party found themselves with diminishing support as the german economy became stronger in 1928 germany was in quite reasonable circumstances there had been a recovery from the depression after the war recovery from the inflation with the stabilization of the currency in 1924 the economy appeared to be booming this was largely because there was an enormous influx of american money the germans spent a lot of the loan money on things that were very desirable like concert halls and swimming pools and so on but they weren't productive so germany looked as if it was prospering unforeseen events in the world economy would end up having huge ramifications for germany [Music] post-war economic recovery under the weimar republic which was genuine enough while it lasted that had collapsed that had gone into free fall as i had a direct result of the wall street crash in new york october 29 1929 black tuesday the new york stock exchange is in a panic frantic investors have scrambled to unload their stocks at any price everyone wants to sell no one wants to buy suddenly even the most guilt-edged securities are practically valueless the stock market crash has come and the great depression has begun they just pulled the rug out from germany they just withdrew their investments american banks withdrew the loans on which a german recovery after the hyperinflation of 2023 had depended german banks collapsed they withdrew their money from businesses businesses collapsed so many of the loans particularly had been made on a 14-day basis they could just withdraw them so the german economy contracted very suddenly very quickly every european country was affected germany was disastrously affected there was a saying of the time new york sneezed london caught cold and germany nearly died of influenza it really was first and foremost a crisis of industrial society and the major unemployment was in industry particularly the building trade by 1932 there was 35 to 40 percent unemployment in germany that is how catastrophic the depression was when you throw manual workers out of jobs of course the people who are the clerks in these occupations suffer as well the continuity of the great depression was absolutely critical and once you got the worker in the door queue you had him as a potential nazi a potential stormtrooper the people of germany were down and out and the now called national socialist party had found a cause to champion that would increase their visibility and popularity in that atmosphere of crisis when governments were only able to rule by decree because the parties couldn't get together and get behind a policy to deal with this massive economic collapse in that situation people voters thought this is the last straw we've had hyperinflation we've had international humiliation we've got political chaos the nazis seem to be the one party that's led by youthful determined energetic individuals they promoted the party actually in 1930 particularly as the hitler movement the hitler bevegun this of course was after hitler had had the ban on his public speaking lifted and so he had been going around speaking a great deal it's very difficult to find anything to which the party was willing to commit itself they were very very vague on what they intended to do they seem to have to offer something to every constituency in germany the worker the manager their middle class women [Music] what he was saying in one place wasn't necessarily compatible with what he was saying elsewhere in in terms of say economic detail we're going to make germany great again we're going to recover we're going to have work for everybody put germany back on the international scene we're going to rescue the german family we'll give german women a much better life these are all cliches and when you probe they really don't have any particular policies that they can actually present in a rational way to the general public much of it rested simply on that germany will be rescued germany will become a great power and hit the leader person to achieve it electoral success would come to the nazis at the beginning of the 1930s and their popularity continued to rise as the population grew more disillusioned with the established government i think that the electoral success of hitler's party in 1932 didn't necessarily reflect the strengths of the party itself or its ideological appeal it really reflected the extraordinary crisis that germany had gone through as a result of the wall street crash and i think what a lot of german people did was they just looked around for some kind of messiah and that's how hitler was being sold to the public the appeal was many sided and of course their vision was of what they called a fox mine shaft a folk community in which the party could represent all social classes and groups hitler stands for election as president in april 1932 against hindenburg who had been president since 1925 and he loses but he comes second he comes a pretty creditable second and given him a much higher profile than he'd previously had the propaganda continues and in the election of july 1932 the nazi party gets 37 of the vote and it's the largest single party in the reichstag with 230 seats more than doubling its 1930 total that's a tremendous success but hitler is not offered the chancellorship actually it was his democratic right to be offered the chancellorship but he's not he is offered the vice chancellorship and he turns it down a large proportion of the middle class voted for the national socialist party in the july elections of 1932 as a protest to the hindenburg government by november they had retracted their support there is another election in november and the nazi vote declines to 33 so i think 196 seats in in in the reichstag but uh it's a matter of considerable disappointment to a lot of followers so what they do they seem to be uh on the verge of their death cough their death rattle there is now not such a pressing need to offer hitler the chancellorship local election votes and so on at the time are showing a decline in the nazi vote i mean they might just have fizzled out there is then a minor election in the state of lippy and what the nazis do is flood it with their marketing resource they throw everything at this miniature state of lippy and they win and it's at that point that hindenburg finally invites hitler to be part of a coalition government the small country of conservative politicians decided they could manipulate hitler offered him the chancellorship and that was the start adolf hitler leader of the german national movement is made chancellor of germany and berlin goes wild in celebration of his victory having secured the role as reich chancellor it took one more twist of fate in favor of the national socialists to see the future of germany take a deadly turn and hand hitler complete control the wall street crash had sent germany into economic crisis the nation was subjected to a second wave of spiraling inflation and soaring unemployment however it gave the national socialist party the means to win a large proportion of the vote in a relatively short space of time in january 1933 hitler was appointed reich chancellor his plan of total power was almost tangible four weeks later on february 27 1933 at 9 25 pm an alarm call was taken in a berlin fire station fire had broken out in the reichstag building the home of the german parliament by 11 30 pm the fire was extinguished but had left the building a gutched shell on searching the smoldering ruin a young dutch communist marinus vandalubo was found he was arrested for starting the fire according to police he acted out of rebellion a call for the german workers to rise up against the oppression of fascism the nazis saw the communist party as a huge threat to national socialism and also knew that a large proportion of the german population was suspicious of the far left stalin having come to power late 1920s you have the first five-year plan in 1928 you have collectivizations starting in 1929 word gets back about what it means and the last thing german peasants want is collectivization a lot of german peasants a lot of small holders they don't want collectivization neither do the big land owners the fire allowed hitler to pass two sets of legislation the first of which was the reichstag fire decree this was drawn up the day after the incident and signed by president hindenburg the decree allowed the enforced imprisonment of anyone opposed to the nazi regime and action to be taken against any publication deemed critical of the cause the decree led to the enabling act passed in parliament on march 23 1933 it gave the nazi party power to enforce laws without the intervention of the reichstag passing of the enabling act essentially handed power to hitler and the national socialist party they immediately let it be known throughout germany [Applause] fritz lustig a jewish immigrant who now resides in north london was living in berlin in 1933 i was born in 1919 i had a very happy childhood i was the youngest of four siblings and i had a very happy time at school although i experienced the nazis coming to power we were rehearsing for a play at school and suddenly we heard martial music sounding and we looked out of the window and there was a nazi demonstration passing with lit torches and a band at the at the head of the procession we read in the papers the next day that there had been similar possessions all over berlin and we just had been happening to watch the one which took place in that particular part of town [Applause] the national election of march 1933 saw the national socialist party take 43 percent of the vote but they still failed to win a majority unbeknownst to the german population this would be the last democratic election until world war ii so people still thought in march april 1933 that the democratic system was not dead but it was we look at it backwards we can see what happened people even say why did all these people vote for a party that unleashed war and genocide well they didn't know that's what they were going to do [Music] the nazis had taken germany by lawful means hitler's plan had worked and although his party had still not managed to gain a majority they had total power they believed there was still an enemy who may stand in the way of this domination that would come from within the party itself the termination of this enemy would culminate on july 2nd 1934 the incident known as the night of the long nights would see the murder of ernst's room the head of the stamp thailand hitler and the party leadership had arrived at the point where they felt they had to take on the sa the sturm up thailand various senior paladins of the reich feared the power of rome they coveted it for themselves specifically himmler and so they began to tell hitler that rome was plotting against him which was not in fact true the army hated them because their rival source of power i think from hitler's point of view the real problem was that he he was worried that rome really would develop a popular following more popular perhaps in the end than the following for hitler there's a real distrust about rome's motives and rome's political ambitions material is very definitely number two to hitler and therefore is some sort of potential rival to his power and they had already made weapon and that was the ss the shoots stuffle the ss were originally a small battalion of the much larger sa but in 1929 heinrich himmler was appointed leader and taking inspiration from rome began to rapidly expand the unit initially they were hitler's bodyguard but by 1933 after the seizure of power it became the internal security of the nazi regime by 1934 they were growing into a real unformidable private army equipped famously with their black uniforms black helmets with their own weaponry and they did much of the business when hitler decided it was time to move against the sa using falsified evidence himmler had assembled a file which cited that rome had been paid 12 million deutsche marks by france to overthrow hitler in addition to this rum's homosexuality was used as a way of discrediting him he and others in the essay leadership were accused of acts of drunkenness and debauchery this was used as a way of excusing the action which hitler was about to take so it's an easy matter to set them up with allegations of internal corruption particularly of homosexuality and it was a chance to settle a lot of old scores on the morning of june 30th hitler with a large number of ss marched into the hotel in bardvisay where rome and many leaders of the sa were staying they were arrested at gunpoint and later executed it was a brutal business when the move was made essay were taken totally by surprise and much of their leadership was was wiped out with the brutal execution of rome and other potential opponents hitler sent a clear message to all that opposition would not be tolerated the jewish population and those on the left were already living with constant persecution yet the nazi party's popularity amongst the german nation grew the threat of violence intelligent propaganda and the complete monopoly of all institutions in germany gave people no choice but to support [Music] the national socialist party had not won a majority in any of the elections of the early 1930s however the passing of the enabling act saw hitler gain complete control of germany in turn the night of the long nights had killed off any potential political threat he may have had the german nation found themselves living under a dictatorship jews communists social democrats were all targeted as enemies of the state persecution imprisonment and systematic execution were all threats to these members of society working closely with hitler it was joseph goebbels who saw to it that the veneer of the nazi party would appeal to the masses this campaign intensified once power had been consolidated but its roots were set long before the self-image that they wanted to create was of a movement of youth the existing politicians were all in their 50s and 60s and nazis are in their 20s and 30s the embodiment of all the energies of a new germany a new uncorrupted generation the one party that's led by youthful determined energetic individuals [Music] the hitler youngand or hitler youth were the personification of the nazi image and gave the national socialists a vibrant youthful image [Music] because hitler believes that too much education is dangerous the young nazi gets his only schooling after working hours a daily lecture on germany's need for expansion and the triumph he will share when german armies march into the rich wheat fields of the russian ukraine the hitler youth eventually became almost compulsory the nazis market them very very heavily in other words what we'd imagine them to be as a rigidly a hierarchical organization with cruel discipline and bullying and so forth is not actually how they're self-presented they're actually self-presented as a kind of adventure holiday at 18 every young man must serve six months in the arbeitz teams there was one boy in my form whom i quite liked who was in the hitler youth i was very keen on associating with him i think he was less keen to associate with me the man who was first given charge of it baldur fonshira was an able organizer good at recruiting but the real take-off was only after the nazis took power within 18 months they were able to claim three and a half million members and that doesn't count of course the women's and girls organizations that were set up in parallel too the girls organization was called bund deutscher medal the league of german girls a lot of young people who gravitated to the hitler movement actually then influenced their parents not the other way around it wasn't just youth groups that were monopolized by the nazi party all organizations were in turn affected the nazis forced every single voluntary society organization in germany to join the nazi party become part of a nazi apparatus that meant all orchestras opera houses singing clubs amateur dramatic societies all of that they had to become part of the reich chamber of culture which is under the propaganda ministry and of course if you wanted to practice art and exhibit your work you had to be admitted to the chamber of culture and if you're jewish you wouldn't be admitted if you're a modern artist you wouldn't be admitted so this is a way of imposing control all aspects of life were effectively taken over by the national socialists these changes were witnessed by the school child fritz lustig [Music] we had a new headmaster our current headmaster was not jewish but he was a social democrat and therefore his politics were not acceptable to the nazis and a new headmaster was appointed he introduced several new measures one of them was that the weekly monday morning assembly was completely transformed after everybody had sat down one of the boys who was stationed at the entrance door shouted achton attention and then the headmaster walked in along the central aisle all through the hall with his arm outstretched in the hitler salute turned smartly around when he reached the podium shouted tile hitler and the whole school had to answer with the same [Music] i suppose i must have outstretched my hand in the hitler solute because not to do that would have thrown attention to me i didn't want to draw attention to myself by raising the question of whether i was excluded today the nazi propaganda machine is seeking to make adolf hitler the only god of the german people how to destroy every established religion as the party took control of all areas of society and permeated into the lives of every german citizen the need for greater more effective propaganda became paramount there was uh nothing which wasn't propaganda of one sort or another every surface was interrogated for its propaganda potential the press was censored and nazi newspapers really had the lion's share of circulation the folk semfenger the people's radio was an affordable device manufactured on the orders of joseph goebbels more people owning radios meant a larger audience for propaganda the propaganda to confuse to make them lose faith to divide and conquer to lull the fears of the little neutrals propaganda minister gerbils told them germany didn't want a war at all it was britain and france that caused all the trouble radio was taken over and there was a reich broadcasting company and radio of course was dominated completely by state output 70 of german homes owned a radio by 1939. there were loudspeakers installed on lamp posts and trees and when any of these features took place of course you were expected to stand still and listen to them film production was taken over by the nazis as well jose goebbels was very much aware of the fact that people would get bored very quickly if they were subjected to constant barrage of propaganda about how wonderful the nazis were he was rather upset when hitler commissioned a propaganda film at the nuremberg valley of 1934 from young actress lenny riefenstahl triumph of the will was a film directed by lenny riefenstahl which documents the 1934 nuremberg rally its main themes are unity and returning power to germany it was no mistake that nazi symbolism and imagery are prominent throughout the film hitler understood the power of the nazi brand you actually have a core brand symbol system you have obviously uh the swastika you have the stylized eagle uh you have the other things like the oak leaves the acorns then of course there's the uniforms i once counted up the number of uniforms in nazi germany are about 150. these uniforms are highly symbolic for example the ss uniforms were vaguely modeled on the death's head hazards of german history which was a black uniform with the scarlet crossbones and the the stark silver this was a way of boosting morale of boosting identity of of priming solidarity the brown shirts were the first organization to be costumed by hugo boss and it's just impossible to imagine in fact almost any other historical leader in history going to a catwalk showing of new clothes for the soldiers only hitler and for reasons unique to him and unique to the third reich the national socialists found success in running both well-planned propaganda and brutal acts of violence simultaneously however it was the olympic games of 1936 which would see a halt to the terror and the suppression of anti-semitism hitler understood the power of the games and exploited them in order to show europe and the rest of the world a false image of a peaceful tolerant germany captain eric brown was a spectator at the games along with his father it was clear that the nazi propaganda machine was sending out the message it desired but it was a black american athlete who stole the show i was 17 when we went to the olympics it was a wonderful occasion of course to me the highlight of that time was to see this wonderful athlete jesse owens [Applause] meters at 200 meters 100 meters relay and the long jump quite incredible he was poetry and motion the lanky star from ohio state shatters all existing records as he takes the gold medal in the men's broad jump with a sensational leap of 26 feet 5 and 5 16 inches owns in particular was staggered by his reception in germany as he got off the boat wherever he went the crowds chanted owens owens all over the place and for a brief time an american black man was more popular in nazi germany than adolf hitler himself the olympics had placed hitler in a favorable light throughout the world however once the games were over the nazis would renew their persecution the jewish population would soon face a greater terror than they had ever previously suffered [Music] the 1936 olympics allowed hitler to project to the world a vision of a tolerant progressive nation his popularity within germany was also rising those parts of the nation who were not seen as a threat were being shown that the nazi party would deliver on the promises they made but as with all aspects of the regime there was a more sinister subplot the thing that had led people to vote had been the unemployment problem of the early 1930s and the promise that the nazis would solve that well they did with a vengeance if anybody was unemployed or they were rounded up and made for example to chop wood which was given to the elderly or the very poor certainly by 1938 there were 400 000 unemployed in germany i mean it is nothing but there were always offers to um tempt them to join the nazi party you join the ranks be paid be uniformed seems quite attractive although it seemed that the whole nation was behind them the main anti-semitic message of the jewish conspiracy was still being played out by the department of propaganda the idea of a jewish world conspiracy was not one that was present in more than a very tiny fragment of the german population they were successful in business up to a point they controlled some of the big departmental stores in germany but in no sense were they in control of the life of the weimar state in every village in every town and city are stormtroopers from whose headquarters the local party leader directs his district campaign of terror marks victims for persecution hitler was keen on keeping the suppression of jews at the forefront of nazi policy as germany and the german nation were historically not known for their anti-semitism it had been the place that many jews had gone to from countries that genuinely were anti-semitic uh there's strong anti-semitic tradition in in austria strong anti-semitism and romanian uh surveyed anti-semitism was always kept under wraps but it was certainly there and of course polish anti-semitism where a very large proportion of europa students lived a young eric brown teaching in germany could see from an objective point of view the effect of the nazi's anti-semitic policies i was very aware of the fact that the nazi regime was building up into a very very glamorous political body and a very ruthless political body too the nazis began to unroll and their own brand of anti-semitism radical anti-semitism there was an evil aspect if you like to put it that way to the nazi regime on november 7th 1938 ernst von russ a german diplomat in paris was shot by herschel grinspan a young german jewish man his motive was a direct response to nazi anti-semitism two days later vomirath was pronounced dead orders were given to the sa and ss to take to the street and destroy all jewish-owned property and businesses and arrest all jewish men the following two nights were an orchestrated and systematic series of attacks on jews throughout germany it would become known as kristallnacht 91 jews died and 300 000 were arrested and sent to concentration camps on november 9th after a chamber music performance in which he was playing cello fritz lustig returned home when i reached home i saw that there was a great crowd in front of the entrance to the building where our flat was situated the window had been smashed and the people outside the shop was having themselves freely to any our home alcoholic drinks that were there i went up to our flat unmolested was told by my parents that this crowd had been there for some time and they hadn't said in fact set fire to the shop fritz and his father found hideouts at two different houses in the suburbs of berlin neither faced arrest but the events of kristallnacht were immediately felt there were too many jewish men in berlin to arrest them all because in the provinces we knew that there had been no exemptions i went to my office the next morning it was a jewish owned firm and when i arrived i was told that both our boss and his two sons had been arrested and put into conversation camps when i went to the bank the cashier asked me whether it was true as he had heard that my boss had been arrested and i said yes it was true and he shook his head and said and i always thought he was an honest man i think the german population obviously knew it because it was there happening in front of their eyes but to them the stakes were so high in getting their pride back i think about 80 percent of them were prepared to put up with anything if they could become what it wants to be a proud nation once again hitler commanded his popularity amongst the german nation through a series of non-violent territory gains in the latter half of the 1930s most germans are terribly anxious they do not want another war they're afraid that their cities will be bombed they don't want to go through another first world war so there's huge relief when the various crises of the re-militarization of the rhineland in 1936 angeles of austria 1938 the czechoslovak crisis they're all sold uh basically without without bloodshed that gains hitler a reputation in popularity in germany but not because he's being militaristic his idea is to re-fight this first world war but on a better basis so his aim very early on is to conquer eastern europe use it as a kind of bread basket as a source of supplies because one of the reasons why germany lost in 1914 to 18 is because germany did not have enough supplies more than half a million germans died from starvation on malnutrition in the first world war so he wants to right that wrong although hitler was re-militarizing at an unprecedented rate the german nation nor the rest of the world could see war on the horizon we did not know how close war was going to be we did know that the nazis had started re-arming very soon after they came to power all the other great powers realized that germany was rearming in the 1930s it was secret of course until 35 and declared openly they had good intelligence on what was going on but on the other hand i think a great many politicians abroad i thought it was a bad idea to disarm germany anyway the modest realm might satisfy german ambitions they would allow germany back into the family of nations again everybody who was anti-nazi thought that the allies would take steps to prevent further rearmaments but they never did the only reason i can think of why they didn't do it because there was a great anti-war feeling in all those countries none of the populations in britain france or poland wanted the war to happen i knew there'd be trouble but not i certainly didn't think all that war after the events of kristallnacht thousands of jews had been forced to emigrate and those that hadn't realized it was time to leave after the events of november 1938 it became obvious to everybody including my parents that to stay in germany might be termed suicide because one could no longer be sure that was one's life was not in danger fritz lustig's parents managed to find refuge in portugal where his eldest sister lived as war became inevitable eric brown had no choice in leaving i was asleep on sunday morning at the 3rd of september when there was a thunderous knock at the door when i opened it there were two uss officers said our countries are at war which was technically incorrect at six o'clock in the morning because it wasn't until eleven o'clock we are at war but i didn't think that was a very strong point to argue and um the ss chaps said uh you'll have to come with us so get dressed and get ready eric brown was detained for three days and then dropped at the swiss border from here he made his way back to britain where he immediately signed up to the war effort having stayed in england in 1936 fritz lustig found refuge with the quaker family with whom he had lodged when i emigrated that was on a transatlantic stream up which was going from hamburg via sherborough and france and southampton and england we interlanded in cherbourg and this was the first time i was able to walk about without being aware of having to look over my shoulder to see whether anybody was listening to what i said in other words to feel free that that was a marvelous feeling which i remember to this day [Music] in just 10 years hitler and the nazis had moved from a marginal fascist party with a small following into a military dictatorship ready to wage full-scale war the promise of rebuilding germany and reinstating pride to the nation fueled hitler's popularity despite acts of savage violence that left thousands dead and a great deal more seeking refuge in other countries when the curtain was raised on the theater of combat germany rallied behind their fuhrer the victory over poland was certainly welcomed it it righted the wrong as people saw it of the territorial settlement at the end of the first world war i think most germans would have been very happy to leave it at that the high point of hitler's popularity was undoubtedly in the summer of 1914. after the very rapid conquest with relatively little bloodshed the victories of 1939 1940 created what proved to be a short-lived period of absolute mass euphoria in germany one victory after another all of this is ecstasy because the prophet is what he says he is he is real he is an earthly god by this stage and of course the trouble is he begins to believe his own mythology [Music] the beginning of the second world war would see the decline of nazi support it would take a costly and bloody war to end this horrific regime [Music] [Applause] in 1933 adolf hitler was made chancellor of germany this allowed the nazi regime to seize complete power the wall street crash the reichstag fire and the death of ernst von wrath all enabled the nazis to further their tyranny german military rearmament was prioritized and in 1935 the wehrmacht saw its reincarnation following the disarmament after world war 1. britain and france turned a blind eye to this contravention of the versailles treaty the german people were excited by the prospect of the country becoming great again exploiting all aspects of the media joseph goebbels masterminded the slick propaganda which was fed to the population great insight was that the best propaganda is disguised as something else it's carried on the back of entertainment coupled with this the violent persecution of all those opposed to the regime became progressively worse a strong powerful street presence uniformed marching men and boys and a lot of them the repetitive power of violent brutal street theater when it came to dealing with opposition terror played a very important part in a dictatorship throughout its entire length no political dissent would be tolerated the nazi party delivered on their promise of higher employment and although the german nation was not oblivious to the violence and persecution they allowed it to continue in the hope that hitler would restore their pride [Music] the only real long-term aims were to stay in power win back territory for germany and to win back respect for germany i knew there was a lot of unrest but i didn't think it would blossom into all-out war the second world war would see the height of nazi popularity but it would also be their ultimate downfall his idea is to re-fight the first world war but on a better basis his aim very early on is to conquer eastern europe once it became clear that victory was not going to be easy then a great many german people realized that this had been a gamble and that they'd lost he maintained his faith because it was a matter of will he'd come to believe that he was a messiah blessed by providence he just believed that there was something of the divine about him [Music] to fully understand the outbreak of world war ii we have to look back to 1936 and the start of the nazi reoccupation of land lost from the versailles treaty one of the fundamental principles of the gfsi had been national self-determination every nation should have its state so the hazard molecule being broken up the austrians hungarians the czechs yoga styles they got their own why should this be denied to the germans hitler certainly sets out an agenda for moving into the rhineland which should become a demilitarized zone under the terms of the versailles treaty german soldiers again breaking a treaty marched into the demilitarized rhineland the island was sovereign german territory it's a re-militarization it's having military installations on it it had been occupied up to 1930. the deal was that the germans would have it under their own control that the occupation forces would leave but that there would be no military installations in it 1936 of course hitler sends his troops into the rhineland and big military show on march 12 1938 the german army marched into austria they were met with cheering crowds as they crossed the border hitler's appeal was growing rapidly [Music] the anschluss is popular with a lot of people in austria perhaps not as many as it looks because the previous regime of had done the work for hitler by banning the left in 1934 the social democrats had been banned they were underground so there's no opposition really in austria either i mean it's a dictatorship as well hitler said that he had no desire on any territory which had not had a historical memory of a german presence the germans were a pan-european tribe they are not a nation in a country as the rest of us really are they were everywhere they are not in the iberian peninsula they were not in the british isles but they were everywhere else stretching deep into russia so there's no resistance in europe to the german takeover of german-speaking austria the german demand for the incorporation of two million german speakers and the western boundaries of czechoslovakia in 1938 is exceeded too because it fulfills that principle on september 30th 1938 germany france britain and italy signed the munich agreement which attempted to appease hitler's designs on czechoslovakia following the angeles of austria meanwhile at munich misguided statesmen were lulled into believing that hitler would cage his stormtroopers in return for a sizable hunk of czechoslovakia they signed away the sudetenland in a move to appease a rattlesnake a rattlesnake who having once flooded himself on the rich food of another nation's lands would become ravenously hungry again and again [Music] the agreement handed hitler the sudetenland area of czechoslovakia which left the country weakened and on march 16 1939 germany took control of the country i think it may be true that hitler felt he had been cheated of his war over the sudetenland he had a peculiar hatred for the checks i'm not entirely sure why maybe it was just checks and pools as slavs it seems as if he may have felt denied a war in the autumn of 1938 at a time when he felt his potential adversaries were too weak really the re-militarization of the rhineland angelus of austria in 1938 the czechoslovak crisis they're all sold basically without without bloodshed that gains hitler a reputation in popularity in germany but not because he's being militaristic the sequence of territory gains made by the nazis in the late 1930s won back the majority of land lost by the signing of the versailles treaty after the first world war winning the foreign policy successes of the 1930s without having to resort to war was a major gain that was appreciated by a lot of people and restored german pride in a big way the turning point only comes in march 1939 when hitler marches in to the rest of czechoslovakia which is inhabited not by germans but by czechs at that point there's a general realization in particular elites in other countries in europe that he's after more than simply recreating a kind of german nation state hitler gambled in the fact they get away with doing these things without war and his gambling instincts served him well the britain france the western democracies did not respond militarily for all kinds of reasons the real gamble was 1939 when it came to the move against poland signed in 1939 in moscow the non-aggression pact would establish nazi germany and russia as allies by then he knew he could get away with it or he did by early august after the extraordinary turnaround in the rice policy of signing a mutual non-aggression pact for the soviet union that was the moment at which the field was cleared for hitler to move against poland germany invades poland and the priest state of damsing the efforts and hopes of diplomats for peaceful settlement are transformed into the roar of gunfire warsaw is bombed blasted and shelled poland is in ruin where the gamble went wrong was that britain and france honored their treaty obligations to poland hitler had never thought they would do that the eve of war was upon the german nation it would be a conflict which would bring about the demise of the nazi regime but it would also facilitate mass genocide brutal murder and bloodshed on a scale which no one could have imagined possible [Music] [Music] territory gains made by the nazi regime were carried out with minimum of bloodshed and resistance the german nation was buoyant their fuhrer was delivering war has struck again however on september 1 1939 germany invaded poland with regard to the treaty of versailles this attack proved a step too far for britain and the allies i have to tell you now this country is at war with germany the second world war had commenced the wrong of versailles had been righted they haven't got alzheimer's back they could live without them the polish corridor was the big issue territorially they had that they had austria people would have been very happy to leave it at that but the war was not concluded and you you do get complaints even in the autumn of 1939 this war has been going on too long in the winter of 1939 hitler would unleash his blitzkrieg upon western europe and over the following months germany would go on to conquer many more countries one victory after another the fall of france the fall of belgium the fall of holland the fall of norway all of this is a kind of ecstasy i think the euphoria is partly that now it really is all over and we've done really well people were pretty pleased with that and hitler had been done under his leadership so he got a lot of credit for that the prophet is what he says he is he is real he is an earthly god by this stage and of course the trouble is he begins to believe his own mythology very rapid conquest with relatively little bloodshed not much loss on the german side very short war all of this was treated with huge enthusiasm by the german people partly because they then thought the war would come to an end that was certainly enough for the overwhelming majority of germans i think that all those crowds you see in the news fields waving flags and screaming it's all true i mean i couldn't believe it that in a few weeks they defeated an enemy they couldn't defeat in four years of grueling war hitler was one of the few people in germany who welcomed another war he wasn't scared the first world war had made him somebody but for other germans two million german men had been killed during the first world war and an awful lot had been wounded you just had to look at the the maimed ex-servicemen on the streets so it was a terrible prospect for an awful lot of people in a drive as speedy as that to the channel nazi units pushed southward and rapidly outflanked the famous french maginot line following the french surrender hitler arranged for the armistice between germany and france to be signed in the same train carriage in the same location which 22 years previously had been used for the signing of the armistice of 1918 reaching the english channel in may 1940 and outmaneuvering the british causing the retreat to dunkirk the german army looked to be the far superior aggressor britain was on the brink of seeking terms with germany but winston churchill argued that nations which went down fighting rose again but those which surrendered tamely were finished hitler gave a rather empty speech offering peace terms which weren't very specified to britain and when churchill rejected them it was universal outrage and in comprehension in germany churchill knew that a piece with germany at that point would mean german control over britain would get greater and greater he would probably be ousted fascists like mosley would become the prime minister that it would be in effect a surrender in stages and he was quite right to reject this very vague peace offer but an interesting aspect of this is his view of churchill whom he respected as a fellow artist and for a long time his plan for churchill in the event of german victory was to just leave him in a country house where he could paint and not spring him up like all the others or put him in a concentration camp [Music] trying to bomb britain into submission over the winter of 1940 1941 was a huge miscalculation they did not have the offensive air power to do it hello america this is edward murrow speaking from london there were more german planes over the coast of britain today than at any time since the war began anti-aircraft guns were in action along the southeast coast today fought in the air the battle of britain would start on july 10th and would finish on october 31st 1940. i was speaking to captain eric brown who interrogated gary that guring at nuremberg told him that the battle of britain was a draw i said to him what are your views on the outcome of the battle of britain and he said i think it was a draw and i said how did you arrive at that conclusion he said well if you look at the analysis of the final weeks of the battle of britain the last week we were in the ascendancy in other words we had less pilot and aircraft casualties to the brits now if you look at the animal analysis this is perfectly true although the british had claimed victory hitler's popularity within germany was still strong the nazi commanders were all firmly behind hitler however on may 10 1940 one would take action which would signal fractures within the regime hitler retained his charismatic control over the second rank of nazi leaders going goebbels and so on during the war hess was the only exception because he was really eased out of the central decision-making circles of nazism and thought he'd try and get back in a rather muddle-headed way one of the great mysteries of world war ii there is some speculation as to where the hitter in fact authorized it because if we take hitler's actually wanting a negotiated peace with britain not a conquest it would actually make sense in the most bizarre and astounding event of the war so far rudolph hess number three nazi seen here going about his activities as confidante and chief party leader for the nazi warlord hitler is now a prisoner in scotland after a mysterious solo flight from germany simply got into his head but to restore his um status with hitler he would fly to britain and negotiate a piece it was very easy for the nazi media to project hess as deluded indeed what he did was remarkable firstly he learned to fly specifically for this purpose the nazi leader took off from augsburg and headed straight for western scotland where an old friend of his the duke of hamilton has an estate his mission who knows he flew and crash landed on the estate of the duke of hamilton in scotland the choice of landing was significant because hamilton had actually been very sympathetic to germany before the war and some suggested a kind of crypto fashion to himself but by this stage he's very anxious to clean out his act so he delivers hair straight to the authorities hitler was furious because he didn't know about it a furious particularly because it was just before the invasion of the soviet union as goebbels and the nazi propaganda machine were covering themselves from the hess debacle hitler was implementing the start of another battle led by arrogance and self-belief he would soon embark on the largest invasion in the history of warfare the attack would stretch along a 3 000 kilometer front and would send four million soldiers into soviet territory it would mark the beginning of the pivotal phase in deciding the victory of the war which would see nazi popularity plummet in germany it would bring death and destruction to millions of people [Music] 1940 had seen the height of hitler and the ngati regime's popularity within germany the battle of britain had been unsuccessful but support was still strong despite hesse's flight to scotland what would come next however would be a battle led by prejudice and vanity on the part of hitler his own self-belief convinced him to march on moscow and conquer russia the very campaign that charles xii and napoleon had failed to achieve in a sudden coup germany's military might has been thrown against her former ally russia in a gigantic attack by land as well as by air along a 2 000 mile front from the arctic to the black sea at first he was lucky his self-confidence paid off took the rhineland and walked into australia all that built up his self-confidence not only with the people but with himself this was the dangerous thing there are two reasons why hitler attacked soviet union first of all it was a way of bringing britain to terms because he thought already in 1940 that he wasn't going to conquer breton by force uh he was going to have to leave ben totally isolated without any allies at all and if he conquered the soviet union the british surely would see sense they'd have the entire continent against him secondly his derision of the bolsheviks uh them being inherently incompetent and his racial dismissal of the russians he believed it would collapse like a house of cards the bolshevik state was rotten to the core you had only to kick the door in and the whole edifice would come crumbling down that's what they thought and i think flushed was success from the blitzkrieger in western europe they thought all they had to do was attack in a way it was a bit silly actually because that had been the mentality of 1914 with a bit of luck if he had gone earlier he may have succeeded in temporarily conquering russia today american news agencies report russia is strongly counter-attacking and that less than one-fiftieth of russia's vast area has been invaded these pictures show them the beginning of the blitz that turned into a siege there was some encouragement in that stalin had done a great deal of damage to his armed forces through the purges of the mid later 1930s but how it would ever police it for the rest of this time i don't think he'd even begun to think it through hands or troops in action from the baltic to the black sea great clashes between russian and german tank squadrons have been reported in the autumn of 1941 the germans were on course just cutting through butter going to take moscow going to take leningrad and they didn't and they were stopped [Music] operation barbarossa would be a definitive turning point in the fortunes of the nazi regime the march on moscow was the end of what had started as a successful campaign hitler had gained many territories in eastern europe but it was the harsh soviet winter and the tough belligerence of the red army that would finally see the nazis defeated and home support of the regime finally turn here apparently the germans got their first sight of the russian scorched earth tactics scorched earth tactics that american reporters say should be even more effective now that winter has set in and hitler's photogenic army must face general snow and general mud once you get into 1942 they're now fighting on quite a number of fronts army leave is being cancelled so people aren't getting home food rationing is getting more stringent people are becoming depressed and disillusioned it was not just the german population who were becoming despondent many officers in the german army were also starting to question their fuhrer's actions throughout the war there were attempts to assassinate hitler many of them orchestrated by anti-hitler generals and soldiers but they could none of them manage it all the former social democrats and communists i say a third of the electorate in the last free election in 1932 they had effectively been brought in line their resistance movements mostly distributing leaflets and kind of keep the flame going as it were they'd all been suppressed by the gestapo it was very difficult to resist in the third reich because denunciation was widespread if somebody ever heard you or got a clue that you know you're doing x y and z then they would go down to gestapo headquarters and and turn you in so the only people who could really resist as a group were the senior army officers with a few conservative politicians attached and they are the ones who then prepared the assassination of hitler as things were beginning to go really seriously wrong in 1943 two to four klaus von stauffenberg was a general in the german army who had been injured serving in north africa losing his right hand two fingers on the left and also his left eye von stauffenberg was the most unlikely assassin he'd been seriously injured he could prime the ball many with great difficulty and so on but nobody else could be found to do it and he was determined now that his german patriotism could only be expressed by destroying hitler hitler would destroy germany if you were a patriot your job is to destroy although the bomb von stauffenberg detonated killed four people hitler was shielded by a solid oak table and was only left with minor injuries von stauffenberg was found guilty of high treason and subsequently executed having survived the assassination attempt adolf hitler was still convinced that the war was for winning even though the german nation suspected the worst he's always hoping when he looks back at history that something will happen something will happen politically the alliance will fall apart or germany will invent an amazing new weapon but somehow or other you can pluck victory from the jaws of defeat just as his great hero frederick the greater done i'm not sure there's ever a point actually in which hitler says i recognize it i failed we're going to be defeated the battle on the eastern front turned into a long war of attrition the german army was ill-prepared for this and the russian army with the far greater resource would in 1944 finally defeat the attacking german army the paradox of the attack eastwards was that the more territory hitler gained greater was the jewish population he acquired the war changed everything and germany's victories across europe and then in the east after june 1941 from having a population of 600 000 jews in 1933 the number of jewish people under the rice in inverted commas administrative military control soared to many millions of people hitler's problem self-inflicted problem is he attacks poland and the largest concentration of european jews falls into his hands and as he moves elsewhere in eastern europe more jews come under his rule the original idea had been to expel german jews from germany and jews were expelled into poland for example but that doesn't solve the problem once you've invaded poland the madagascar plan was an idea to establish a jewish colony on the african island of madagascar it was subsequently shelved in 1942 i don't think anybody ever asked madagascar to settle a jewish colony there to ship out european jews but that was i think was never really going to come to anything there had been talk about enforced deportations of a captive jewish population out of germany out of europe how were they going to do that that by its very nature would have been a brutal murderous exercise the van says conference was a meeting of nazi officials in vance a suburb of berlin to establish a final solution to the jewish problem they formalized the operation of the holocaust while it was already underway while it had already started people like eichmann heydrich showed up to take the decisions in a chillingly managerial way no need for hitler to be present they didn't need him they knew hitler would sanction what they were going to do [Music] the extermination camps would eventually operate around the clock in the last acts of this brutal conflict adolf hitler would unleash one final command that would order the futile resistance of his party faithful [Music] war on the eastern front was a battle too far it signaled the end for the nazi regime the german nation was heavily rationed and those dwelling in the urban centers were facing ever-increasing bombing raids by the allied forces hitler however remained defiant later on hitler lived in a fantasy world of his own even in the last days of the war he was conjuring up in his own mind imaginary armies secret weapons extraordinary make-believe scenarios he maintained his faith because it was a matter of will the 1934 party rally was called triumph of the will and hitler and goebbels to a very great extent and some other close followers maintained this belief that their will would prevail nobody had the nerve to try to disabuse hitler of his fantasies even in the last days in the autumn of 1944 a group of generals come to hitler's headquarters the generals go in and say to hitler we are convinced that the war is lost they're in there for about i don't know an hour and a half or something and they come out again their eyes shining saying the fuhrer has convinced us that we could win the war by then he'd already decided that the german people had betrayed him they had proved unworthy of their great destiny and deserved the fate that was descending upon them extraordinary mental and moral universe to inhabit june 6 1944 saw the d-day landings and would be the start of the allied invasion of occupied western europe germany found they were retreating from all fronts as the red army marched from the east close to defeat hitler issued what became known as the nero decree on march 19 1945 an order was sent out that all german infrastructures must be destroyed to prevent the allies utilizing them as they advanced it also called for every last house and street to be fought for it happened in small villages which had nothing to do with the war they had to stand and fight when when american tanks came that kind of thing it just was absolutely criminal so he blamed reverses and defeats on the lack of willpower in his generals not on the lack of material or the superiority of the enemy it had terrible repercussions for germans because it meant that the whole of germany had to be invaded fought over occupied by foreign troops in a way that had not happened in the first world war because hitler wouldn't surrender in the closing stages of the war a large number of the nazi faithful realized that the war was effectively lost this resulted in mass suicides throughout germany there's this feeling of gotta damarang the twilight of the gods we all die together because life after the reich isn't worth living now that's an extraordinary uh sensation and i think one can't fully explain it you you have to understand the extraordinarily rigid heart the regime had on people the great many of the party faithful committed suicide because they simply couldn't face the idea of german defeat they've been fed propaganda for years the defeat would mean the partition of germany it might mean the deliberate impoverishment um there were rumors that all german males would be castrated and all kinds of extraordinary things went around in 1945. historians have tried to quantify the numbers but in the ghastly chaos of the third reich in its final days mass murder nicholistic orgies of killing by the nazi state and its death throws it's hard to know what the actual figures really were knowing that the soviets were advancing swiftly towards his bunker hitler gave his last will and testament making joseph goebbels as reich chancellor and naming no one as his successor as fuhrer the next day april 30th 1945 hitler shot himself two of hitler's immediate circle joseph goebbels and martin borman remained loyal to him right to the end they stayed in the bunker in berlin uh for gerbils there was nowhere else to go he felt that if if if the third right collapsed if it was killed that was it that was everything was over an extraordinary sense of apocalypse seemed to overtake them and they felt that that was the only course of action open to them on may 1st joseph goebbels and his wife magda committed suicide but before doing so killed their six children by drugging them and then poisoning them with cyanide both himmler and goring would commit suicide as well but this was not before they were interrogated by the allies captain eric brown posted to germany to look for jet wind tunnels was tasked with the job of identifying himmler and was able to interrogate goring himmler was arrested near the danish border with false papers the wand officer phoned headquarters at lunenburg and said we've picked up somebody who we think might be him could you come up and identify him you said when you saw him learn civil life that he used to walk with a slightly peculiar gate and uh could you come up and try and identify this guy so i went up the bottom step as soon as i walked in i knew it was him mean many without making him walk absolute coward i think he was frightened after his life always trying to evade anything that directly threatened him accompanied by these two ss men heinrich himmler most hated man in europe was captured by british troops outside this town concealed in himmler's mouth was a tiny vial of deadly poison while being examined he swallowed it goring was in american custody and eric was able to ask him key questions about nazi aircraft strategy he was charismatic very intelligent he came out of world war one with great honor had a huge reputation in germany a good man who went very wrong he was corrupted by the system he joined and he lost all his qualities of honor and began to really lust for power and luxury and uh that of course was his total downfall at lunaberg germany before a british military court the greatest mass murder trial in history these nazis were guards at notorious belson concentration camp where four million prisoners died the end of the war signaled the beginning of peace for many across europe and the rest of the world there was a tangible sense of relief in the air but as occupied land was liberated the full horror of the nazi regime was revealed eric brown was part of the liberation of berg and belson piles of dead bodies piles of walking dead really just a horror story now baleson the human slaughterhouse where numberless victims were once burned to death is itself put to the torch nearby nazi women guards are lined up for questioning he wanted me to interrogate the camp called my dad who was called joseph karma and uh the lady cam coming down here mcgregor kramer's chiefs artist was irma gracer in curls whose name struck terror into the hearts of belson's inmates she's the worst human being i've ever met cruelty was a trade there was nothing too cruel for this woman to do when it came to interrogating her i asked her if she had her time over again would she do all this she refused to answer after about four or five times like this she suddenly left her feet and gave the nazis look shouted heil had to sat down and refused to talk but um we executed the lot you can hardly defend yourself when outside the window there's a pile of bodies as high as this ceiling in a pit newsreel films of the atrocities at belson shocked the world even death for kramer and his gang cannot avenge the crimes of the beasts of belsk [Music] what started as hitler's strong anti-semitic beliefs in the wake of world war one ended as what we now know as the holocaust six million jews were murdered along with tens of thousands of gypsies homosexuals communists mentally ill and the physically disabled in the aftermath of the war the allied forces would soon stake their own territorial claims which would leave the conquered nation divided germany in 1945 was an extraordinary mess sixty percent of his urban area had been obliterated from the air germany was occupied by the allied powers the soviet union the french british americans very heavy military occupation [Music] it was economically impoverished it was difficult to see in fact in 1945 where germany was going to go how germans were going to survive widespread hunger even starvation in places there were all kinds of measures to stop any recrudescence of nazism nazi laws are revoked there's a re-education effort of trying to educate germans in the evils of narcissism but in a sense that's all less important than the fact that nazism had brought in the end nothing but death and destruction after the war the nation of germany would be split in two to the east the soviet-occupied area became the german democratic republic the area to the west which britain france and the u.s occupied became the federal republic of germany this division was most notably illustrated in berlin the berlin wall was erected in 1961 and would be a chilling visual reminder of a nation divided i was sent back to germany in the mid 1950s i found it difficult to reform the relationship with some of them whom i knew what they had done in the war but in general i realized that some of them had been led likes shipped to the slaughter i think first war germany is a great epic in the act of remembrance and admission for a nation to confront its guilt like that is extraordinary because a lot of other nations have a lot of other skeletons in the cupboard [Music] hitler remains a source of intrigue for many people throughout the world hitler exerts a kind of fascination that you could never really imagine we spend so much time writing books about programs about hitler and so on i think hitler would have been amazed by the extent of historical attention that's paid to him you'll always get young bloods who will be attracted to the style of their nazi relation they've actually given us the image not of themselves but of their ideal it is an extraordinary story how this nondescript man stateless radical politician with a whole lot of wacky ideas in the 1920s could suddenly become germany's dictator then unleash the largest wall and embark on the biggest crime the world has ever known and i i think that the public 70 years old is still fascinated by those paradoxes today germany is a nation united the economic miracle that west germany experienced in the 1950s supported by the marshall plan gave them the basis to develop a strong economy and political stability the real miracle however should be credited to the people of germany by confronting their own brutal history they have allowed the world to learn from the mistakes made in their past although persecution hatred and war is still a global problem germany has sanctioned its history to be used as the marker of a cruelty which should never again be repeated [Applause]

Channel: All Out History - Premium History Documentaries

Views: 1,143,957

Keywords: full documentary, history documentary, history documentary bbc, All Out History, Nazi Germany, ww2, WW2 documentary, History, Hitler, AlloutHistory, Allouthistory, allouthistory, AllOutHistory

Id: C2OTixgxvZg

Length: 131min 17sec (7877 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 05 2022