German Experts Reveal Why Germans Followed Hitler & How They Felt About It

the fear was god he had an unbelievable influence on masses unbelievable to me and not only to me he was a genius if if some by some miracle he had suddenly changed his ways in 1939 and not gone any further he would have gone down in history as a great man my question always why all the germans followed him why did the germans follow him adolf hitler's early life was a recipe for failure rather than fame he was an ugly hostile child some say abused by his harsh father a minor official in an obscure austrian town so he grew up uh deprived of comfort he was also deprived of of love [Music] charles is former senior historian for the us army center for military history the son of a german diplomat he served in the german army in world war ii he he was a lousy student he had a terrible study habits and he had a sequence of failures in the middle school which was the only stepladder for him to get out of his old family years so to speak and this habit uh followed him throughout example was uh we're told by people who lived with him and shared a room that he would not get up until noon and was basically lazy now some of the important decisions in world war ii could not be made because hitler was sleeping at 11 o'clock in the morning on the day of the allied invasion in normandy the commander-in-chief west runstead demanded that the armed forces high command release the armored divisions that were standing on the channel coast north of the saint river and they couldn't get an answer because hitler could not be disturbed he was still asleep young hitler's life is marked by rejections he drops out of school and goes to vienna to become an artist he scratches out a living by selling paintings like these to tourists few of them have human figures twice he applies for enrollment to vienna's academy of fine arts twice they turn him down because one other great ambition of hitler's was to become an architect and the course of world history would have changed if he had been allowed to the academy to become either a painter or an architect or both but not a politician it is 1918 world war one is coming to an end still another career ambition will be denied adolf hitler he has served as an enlisted man during the war he has been wounded he has won the iron cross he likes the army and wants to stay in but the army says no he never achieved any rank in as uh a worth speaking of but apparently he still liked it dr earl zimke is an author and professor of history at the university of georgia he served as consultant to time life books on its world war two series so you could say really that it's possible that the reduction the forced reduction of the german army gave the world hitler the seed of the future adolf hitler emerges from its shell in munich it is 1919 with no other career open to him he decides to become a politician hitler came across a small party that didn't really even apparently have any members it only had a board originally it was called the german workers party later on it became the national socialist german workers party the nazi party hitler found some things in that party that he particularly liked namely one it was extremely nationalistic and two it was anti-semitic he became the speaker for the party and all of a sudden he found out he could draw crowds his speeches were all essentially about the same thing he was always the persecuted person germany was always the victim power beckons it is 1923 hitler and his nazi followers try to seize the government [Music] the coup fails he is convicted of treason and sentenced to five years in prison he serves nine months while there he writes mind conf my struggle an autobiography in which he presents a master plan of astonishing boldness the jews will be eliminated [Music] germany will kill off and enslave the slavs to provide leyden's realm living space for germans in the east at the time few read the book this was a rather remarkable thing a fellow there sitting convicted of treason serving a five-year sentence uh eligible to be thrown out of the country as saying what he was going to do when he came to power released from prison hitler decides the best way to reach his goals is to destroy the system from within it he bond storms the country by airplane a novel thing to do at the time and tells people that only the nazi party can right the wrongs they have suffered he's become an effective speaker an intuitive politician he courts and attracts money from rich men who think he may become a useful tool in election after election the nazis lose but steadily gain political power by 1932 they win a third of the total vote and become the largest party in germany the age of president paul von hindenburg appoints chancellor after chancellor trying to form a majority that can govern the bankrupt and divided country all fail in 1933 it is hitler's turn hitler now asks the legislature to pass an enabling act that will give him dictatorial powers for four years tired and intimidated they pass it when he asked for the enabling act he really didn't have a two-thirds majority but he didn't need really to have one because he had the rest of his majority standing along the wall in brown shirts and the parties knew how they had to vote if they wanted to stay in good health from the summer of 1933 on there was only one party in germany namely the nazi party after world war one the tragedy was when germany was defeated the overwhelming majority of the germans never accepted being defeated they believed in military victories and they couldn't understand why in the final and they lost world war one then this propaganda came stabbed in the back we were betrayed and who was responsible for this then they found the scapegoats most of all the german jews or others dr hans adolf jacobson of the university of bomb is a noted historian of world war ii who served in the german army the second very important aspect in this period supporting hitler was that the overwhelming majority of the germans were no not democrats they didn't understand what does it mean a democratical political system they believed in an authoritarian system uh obedience honor greatness of germany and so the parliamentarian system they don't like very much and they always were looking for what they call a substitute emperor

Channel: David Hoffman

Views: 2,948,732

Keywords: Hitler, Adolf Hitler, World War II, German history, Hitler's early life, Hitler history, military history, 20th century history, World War II history, Nazis, David Hoffman, documentary, history documentary, PBS documentary, PBS Hitler documentary, Ww2, Wwii, Nazism (Political Ideology), German political history, family documentary, Family-friendly

Id: p9YJyUGdyz4

Length: 8min 33sec (513 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 24 2019

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