Revealing the Horrors of the Holocaust | Beyond the Myth | Ep. 5 | Documentary

foreign [Music] God a black order the end result is a crime the likes of which the world has never seen thank you [Music] an evening off in 1943 relaxation from a strenuous job the workplace of these men and women is called sobibor an extermination camp this one absolute guns these were absolutely normal people not different in any way at all absolutely normal people their mission mass murder photographs of the SS officers who were running Auschwitz tells the story of people who seem to feel very relaxed having no moral qualms about what they were doing in that way they're rather shocking pictures I think could seem as if this is a job like any other maybe more heroic and requiring more toughness but nonetheless certainly not one that uh stigmatized you as a brute or as a sadist thousands of Germans become murderers most of them without qualms orders are orders a betrayal of humanity [Music] in Hitler's Germany the SS is an attractive employer dashing smart elitist eighteen-year-old Harry zidle wants to be part of it too my sister raved about it wow she said there were SS men there they're such good looking guys strong and hard-working and clean looking wonderful wonderful uniforms you have to go there she said so stupidly I enlisted Harry's Idol joins the SS death's head units the guards at the concentration camps a safe job one that gets you admired for the Concentration Camp guards and people the bottom these were usually people who had been unemployed during the Great Depression or even earlier with the great inflation families had lost their savings their fortunes I don't think it was just unemployment just the search for a job like with so many questions about what motivated the SS man that was just one motive among many others they were uniform they were armed these were all attractive features and they had an extreme amount of power a degree of power over the prisoners that is completely unimaginable to us today by the end of the 1930s the power of the SS has been concentrated into three branches the general SS the fefugong's tropper and the death's head units the leader of the death's head units is Theodore eicher he has a criminal record no school leaving qualifications and has failed several times in his attempts to become a policeman he sees his troop as the elite of the SS selected to guard the most dangerous enemies of the state we know that Ikea wanted to recruit people who are very young he preferred people under 20 that haven't uh you know had jobs and careers and families so that basically the SS is their family death's head is their symbol the SS did not invent it Pirates and armies have used it for centuries intimidation and a demonstration of power but with the SS the death's head and Germanic runes take on new significance they stand for racial Mania and mass murder it's also a way of identifying yourself we are the toughest of the tough we are the ones who are really willing to go very very very far and I think this martial Aura does something to the victims we are dangerous and are perceived as dangerous that didn't bother us at all but we had a skull and crossbones up there as a Aid on our cap we were proud of it sorry that's how it was coming into heaven were they simply naive in 1938 the deaths had units numbered around 9 000 men [Music] the Dachau concentration camp near Munich a model for all SS camps the school of violence praised by Propaganda [Music] Dachau has two main tasks the training of personnel and the torture of prisoners Communists homosexuals Cynthia and roma and Jews imprisoned and tortured simply because they do not fit into the Nazis worldview death's head unit recruits are specifically incited and encouraged to inflict abuse and violence the aim of this is to break down inhibitions to eliminate compassion anyone who hesitates is branded a coward [Music] is Peter Carl played a very Central role for the death said units it was this being violent together doing things together that actually far exceeded the realm of the norm I'd see things like that as defining features of ikis school of violence following the example of Dachau the regime sets up more camps in early 1939 sixty thousand Germans are subjected to arbitrary violence the men in the death's head units are trained at Dachau buchenwald and saxenhausen Harry's Idol is commanded to go to zaxenhausen he has No Reservations about it [Music] and they hammered that into us so much that we didn't think anything of it at first we carried them out so I don't want to complain I was satisfied I like being an SS man [Music] the many minor offenders make the major crime possible in the first place [Music] 1939 Germany invades Poland by then problems the conquered territories the vermacht and the SS begin to hunt people down civil servants professors teachers priests and above all Jews within half a year more than one hundred thousand polish citizens are murdered or deported to camps the system changed again in the war as the camps became a source of Labor either very cheap or slave labor forced labor at any rate when inmates were supplied to run factories particularly of course Munitions factories [Music] new camps are built a web of Injustice extends across Hitler's growing Empire by the end of the war there will be over 1 000 Main and sub-camps the largest Camp is originally an artillery Barracks west of Krakow Auschwitz [Music] [Music] this part of Auschwitz referred to as the shamlager or main Camp by the SS is not initially designed for mass murder polish prisoners of war intellectuals and Nazi opponents are held here tortured and subjected to forced labor thousands die [Music] in 1941. Germany prepares for the war against the Soviet Union the regime is already planning Germanic Dominion of the East as the planning for the invasion of the Soviet Union began it was really realized that of course once again Germany was going to receive a large population of of Jews particularly you know if they were successful that they were successful quickly and so the idea of actually dealing with this large population started to ferment in the minds of the top Nazis June 22nd 1941 the attack on the Soviet Union Operation Barbarossa the war that Hitler always wanted tutons versus behind the front the hunt for Jews begins again the Nazi newsreel comments gloatingly [Applause] [Music] racial Mania and hate slogans are having an effect [Music] during the first six months of the War einsatz scorpion of the SS and police battalions murder more than one million people the perpetrators who give orders secure the areas and carry out the shootings are often ordinary Germans who want to further their careers certainly the officer Corps was fairly carefully selected and many people were angling to get assignments there because this was going to be the great chance to earn your Spurs gain promotion by action in the East and the rank and file are very diverse and some of them were in fact career SS people others are just very young first time out of Cadet School some are just order places that didn't have SS membership but are put into an SS unit nonetheless so we I guess we could just say that for the anzas group and the officers are pretty carefully selected the rank and file is pretty random SS man Harris Idol is transferred from zaxenhausen concentration camp to einsatz sculpitsi in Russia zeidel was present at the massacre in babia Gorge at the end of September 1941. he says that he himself did not shoot [Music] I just saw the SD men walking past these criminals with cigar boxes or plates and calling out to them to hand over all their gold and silver watches and jewelry [Music] more than 30 000 Jewish men women and children are murdered by einskulpitsi in just two days [Music] we considered all of that necessary they were Jews Bolsheviks they could only be shot [Music] sand is poured over the Corpses [Music] the SS is worried about the perpetrators we know that some people are saying the answers Groupon where they were shooting human beings at Point Blank Range day after day had breakdowns they anesthetized themselves with alcohol and humor recognized that yeah shooting is something that's very time consuming and above all psychologically stressful to one's own men so you feel sorry for the perpetrators who have to do such hard work firing their guns and always having to shoot women and children that means that something else is needed here something that's easier to tolerate so to speak and that also works faster [Music] killing had to become easier another Camp is built in Auschwitz from October 1941 onwards birkenau a harmless sounding name and murderous deception [Music] auschwitzburg canal is an extermination and labor camp ten thousand prisoners have to build it nine thousand of them die from Hunger cold and epidemics Auschwitz has steadily expanded in the center the canal with a ramp and the gas Chambers those who serve here do not have to go to the front also in Auschwitz were also relatively young people who Rose in the ranks very quickly because their superiors held a high opinion of them that way they could Advance their careers and quickly gain higher positions hamon langbein a communist from Vienna the SS makes him a so-called functional prisoner as a typist for the camp doctor this affords him an insight into the camp hierarchy [Music] They promoted the little guys if they were good at beating prisoners they gave them special leave if they did what was expected of them that was the evil system behind it Hitler wants to deport all Jews from the Reich by the end of 1941. 163 000 people are affected they are dragged from their homes in broad daylight [Music] there are no protests from their neighbors so it's absolutely clear that the non-jewish population in Germany Witnesses these deportations the question is to what extent the German population then knows what will happen to these Germans of course in Autumn 41 early 42 we cannot yet assume that they knew that this meant immediate extermination and in fact at that time these deportations did not yet signify immediate extermination the destination of the deportation are ghettos in the East teresianstadt Lodge Warsaw [Music] hundreds of thousands have to live here under inhumane conditions in the Warsaw Ghetto alone up to 450 000 Jewish men women and children thousands die of hunger and epidemics in 1942 the second stage of deportation begins from the ghettos to the death camps [Music] who gave the order for the Holocaust and when exactly has not yet been clarified the only certainty is that the decision was made in 1941. possibly in several stages was there a verbal order from Hitler or did a radicalization within the SS demanded by HIM lead to mass murder the main perpetrators know what they are doing and do not want to leave any traces we don't have a written order from Hitler but this doesn't mean that he did not give the order this was his way of doing things he didn't necessarily write things down and then hand them over on pieces of paper in any way one of the fundamental precepts of the final solution is its secrecy the Holocaust is to be carried out in secret [Music] Hitler sets the objective his accomplices have to carry it out above all the SS the dictator himself never visits a concentration camp battle wagons the prisoners arrive at Auschwitz the train was not quite at a standstill when the carriage doors were ripped open and people started screaming routes routes leave Luggage in the carriage then we jumped out men were ordered to come out on the right women with children on the left meet women without children further out to the list [Music] at the Auschwitz ramp SS doctors separate the arrivals there are only two categories slave labor until death or the gas chamber [Music] Ed it wasn't Hitler Gering Goebbels Himmler whatever their names were who took me away and beat me no it was the cobbler the neighbor the Milkman the postman they've been given a uniform an armband and a cap with a death's head on top and they with a master race the SS men and Auschwitz know exactly what happens to the people who get out of the Wagons at the ramp [Music] how can they live with it we are the chosen ones we're allowed to do this even if it's difficult we're saving the German people from the hereditary enemy foreign performs human experiments as an SS doctor in Auschwitz after the war he's acquitted mainly because he says he did not take part in selections whether this is true can never be clarified Anita laska a Jewish girl from Breslau arrives at birkenau at the age of 18. was lucky again that I didn't go straight to the gas chamber after her arrival her hair is cut by other prisoners [Music] and I told them I played the cello fantastic she says there's an orchestra here an ensemble that really needs a cello I'm told to wait right there I was already naked with my hair shaved off and I stood there waiting for what I didn't know she ran off quickly to call the conductor of the orchestra saying someone has arrived to complete the cello here suddenly I became very important you know the orchestra in Auschwitz has a special function for the SS our job was to be at the camp gate every morning and every evening to play marches because you may know that beer canal and Auschwitz were surrounded by factories he gave far from booner and so on and the prisoners from birkenau and Auschwitz and surrounding camps marched off to work there we played marches everything has to be neat and tidy after all doesn't it thank you [Music] it was the same in the morning and in the evening and we knew very well that as long as they wanted us we wouldn't go to the gas chamber Germany's War economy is growing increasingly weaker prisoners are needed as laborers the SS turns Auschwitz into an industrial site well from fairly early on in the history of Auschwitz it was decided to build a huge Factory complex mon events close by which we'd manufacture or seek to manufacture Buna that is synthetic rubber because the supply problem for the Germans was enormous in World War II in monovitz Auschwitz 3 prisoners work for the chemical company ige Farm SS Chief Himmler personally looks after the investors from German industry the fact that the deaths of thousands of forced laborers have been factored in does not bother the business partners in the least [Music] two Mass murderers who get along well together SS Chief Himmler and odiloglabochnik labochnik is an Austrian a fanatical anti-semite a career Nazi and for a time gaolita of Vienna after the invasion of Poland Himmler appoints him SS and police leader in the Lublin District always coming up with new and ever more radical ideas about what could be done today he would be called a doer these are the men you need if you want to organize a mass murder a genocide [Music] in July 1941 globachnik has a special camp set up in travniki near Lublin on the site of an Old Sugar Factory Soviet prisoners of War are trained for service in the concentration camps auxiliaries for the Holocaust officially they are volunteers is volunteering for work is often simply a question of survival as in white wants something to eat the next day or should I stop that's when people report it to the Trav Nicki Nick's private group we use them for everything he needed them for as additional guards and extra personnel the trevniki are faced with the choice of being accessories to murder or starving to death as prisoners it is from this barracks and Lublin that globachnik organizes the murder of the Polish Jews [Music] Axion Reinhardt named after the assassinated SS General Reinhardt heydrich the crime scenes are Treblinka sobibor there is no forced labor there is no industry like ige farden which produces something and then says it needs workers instead it's absolutely clear that anyone who goes to a camp like belgets sobibor or Treblinka only goes there because they're going to be murdered [Music] the gas Chambers are located beside the railway platform items are told they will be resettled only a few dozen SS men andravniki helpers run the camp they murder more than 200 000 people they picked me out to work but not my brother Heim Engel then 26 has to help dispose of the victim's belongings he never sees his brother again my main work was to all the separating clothes and working with that and when I separated the clothes I found later my brother's clothes and pictures from our family Heim engel's brother has to undress with the others immediately after arrival ostensibly to take a shower they are then murdered in the gas chamber with engine exhaust this is a concept that of course cannot be surpassed in terms of radicalism because it actually makes it clear that this is all about extermination I once described that as the core of the Holocaust but that's what the camps were there for [Music] sobibor today a memorial [Music] only the outlines of the camp are still visible the SS blew up and leveled the buildings and the fence to remove traces Deputy Camp commandant Johan Niemann takes photographs in sobibor which is only show the everyday life of the perpetrators no victims [Music] the Germans who come there are actually supplements very few of them actually have a high school diploma there are people who are just part of the teams they don't somehow Stand Out by being pathological Jew haters and mass murderers [Music] some of these perpetrators there is real sadism with others there's simply the attitude of well if he doesn't obey then I shoot him or I'll beat him with the whip because it doesn't matter anyway whether I kill him now or whether he's gas 10 minutes later what's the problem and they sort of grow into these activities until they become normal only very few traces remain of the victims everyday objects are found during excavations hastily packed for the alleged resettlement [Music] the SS robs the murdered victims taking everything that they can turn into money [Music] [Music] victims of action Reinhardt come from the Polish ghettos [Music] from the Warsaw Ghetto everyday people die here every day trains travel to the death camps [Music] April 1943 the ghetto uprising the courage born of Despair Jewish Fighters defend themselves against German Terror for weeks on end eventually the SS quell the uprising destroyed the ghetto and murder all of its inhabitants it meant that the Jews who knew that they were going to die had made the decision to die fighting to die with a gun in their hand rather than just meekly going to the trains and and that would lead them to Treblinka it was an enormous kind of symbol for people actually all over Europe all over the world Treblinka the youngest of the three extermination camps of action Reinhardt [Music] here too there are no selections everyone who arrives is murdered immediately only a few dozen Jewish men are Left Alive they have to take the bodies out of the gas Chambers and burn them [Music] the removal of corpses is something that is done entirely by the prisoners and the Germans stay completely out of it yes firstly because the psychological strain is unbearable secondly it is simply the heaviest physical work and thirdly of course it is also incredibly Dirty Work August 2nd 1943 explosions at tremblinka the Jewish forced laborers attacked the SS about 200 of them managed to escape [Music] almost all are recaptured and killed the SS operates treblinker for another three weeks then the camp is raised to the ground to cover up all traces of the mass murder here as well the uprising in tremlinka was significant because the action Reinhardt was coming to an end anyway trivinka was running out of people to murder effectively this was one of the reasons that Axion Reinhardt fell into pieces but the Germans were also very edgy and worried about the fact that there had been an uprising in Treblinka and that a number of people had escaped first of all they'd be able to tell the world about what they'd seen foreign [Music] is also due to be shut down death looms for the forced laborers who are still captive there the red plans to make some Uprising in the camp but it was not courage to do the same till one day a transport came with Russian prisoners of war and they picked out about 30 of them to work in in in Camp and it happened to be one of them was our captain in the Russian army and when he when he came out and we told him what is going on here he wants to renovate the first day October 14 1943 under the leadership of a Jewish Red Army soldier the prisoners begin their uprising and his later wife Salma also a prisoner at sobivore join in my wife brought me a nice kitchen a regular free kitchen I dropped them with a knife and I said that's for my father for my brother for all the Jews to kill that's all and finally he came out and he was full mid blood so I tried to clean him a little bit I thought oh and we ran away I better his cleaner had no ID what was going on where we would go what we would do I had no idea I know only one thing we have to run run and run and run around so much as possible 12 as s men are killed the insurgents shoot their way out with captured weapons 200 flee into the forest more than 40 survived the end of the war ehouse the prisoners who did not manage to escape were shot by the SS decided that continuing to operate the camp made no sense this was now the second Uprising that had here in the general government all the Jews had been murdered so they really didn't have any more work to do they had Auschwitz now it was fully functional mission accomplished in October 1943 the Axion Reinhardt comes to an end within 21 months at least 1.8 million people are murdered in belgets sobivore and Treblinka almost one-third of all those killed in the Holocaust more than an Auschwitz the perpetrators keep meticulous records was actually incredibly small there was a complete liquidation everything was collected everything was sold and globachnik then Drew up a balance sheet and he came up with the sum of 178 million Reich smarts of course the costs for personnel for the construction of the extermination camps for the trains of the Reich span which Don't Run for free all had to be deducted from that that meant that in the end less than 50 million of the 178 million remained the Jews were not murdered for the purpose of rubbing them the robbery took place incidentally in order to cover costs so we cannot speak of murder with intent to rub it wasn't that foreign s with victims arrive at Auschwitz almost daily here too ESS forces prisoners into so-called Zonda Commandos they have to take the corpses out of the gas Chambers and burn them photos taken in secret reveal the work of one of these Zonda Commandos [Music] but he sat there and you waited maybe you'll still be alive tomorrow but probably not and while we were playing waltzes people were being burned we were playing and there was smoke coming out that was Auschwitz for the SS Personnel at Auschwitz mass murder becomes routine [Music] the diary entries of ss Dr Johann pal Kramer offer rare insights into the everyday life of the perpetrators September 20 1942 listen to the concert of the prisoners band this Sunday afternoon from 3 to 6 p.m in glorious sunshine Capel Meister conductor of the Warsaw stage Opera 80 musicians roast pork for lunch October 18 1942 attended the 11th special operation in cold and wet weather this Sunday morning ghastly scenes with three women begging for dear life [Music] and ultimately these criminals are human beings too they're never 100 perpetrators and that of course means that they somehow have to have a private life after doing their work and this discrepancy is basically the normality of the Holocaust torturing prisoners during the day listening to classical music after work SS Dr Joseph Mengele for instance loves the Romantic sounds of Robert Schumann knew that Schumann had written a place called that means he wasn't a complete idiot and he came into the block that could always happen and he wanted to hear the toy Mirai by Schumann and it was in my repertoire so Anita played I remember playing it as fast as I could so that he'd leave again foreign female prisoners like Anita laska are guarded by SS women like the men they also want to impress their superiors by being tough some are notorious for their brutality Maria Mandel from Austria for example the head guard at Auschwitz [Music] I remember one thing about Maria Mandel who was a very good looking woman by the way when a transporter arrived That was supposed to go to the gas chamber and women with babies go to gas Chambers anyway don't they in I'm flying skin philipped on heart is a skin she fell in love with a little child and took this child and walked around for days with that pretty little child and one day she sent the child to the gas chamber that's why it was Maria Mandel don't ask me to explain what kind of a brain such a woman had I don't know I [Music] the female guards are not officially members of the SS but employees in the so-called SS gefilga they are a total of about 3 500 female concentration camp guards they are almost worse than the men yes you know that was at a time when women didn't have as many rights as they had today imagine a simple woman from some Village being given boots a uniform a revolver a dog suddenly she's somebody I'd say the women were almost worse than the men [Music] firstenberg Brandenburg just under 100 kilometers north of Berlin on the outskirts of the small town the SS maintains the ravensburg concentration camp the largest camp for women only [Music] at ravensbrook female SS guards are trained for service in other camps they saw this as a regular job this was a normal way to be spending their lives they felt Superior when they were out and about in the town in Firstenburg they walked with a sort of you know Skip in their step a lot of the locals saw them and were now frightened of them because they used to walk around in their uniforms and go go into the shops and so on so they had felt a sense of power and a sense of superiority be it attracted people who like that kind of environment and it attracted people who had sadistic Tendencies without any doubt Japan [Music] in the world of ss Chief Himmler No Mercy is shown to female prison the SS women at ravensbrook prefer to torture their victims in the Cell Block the so-called bunker in the bunker they had one permission from Himmler to beat prisoners and with what was called the prugel strata where they laid them on a kind of horse type um structure and the women were made to lean forward onto this structure and there were guards and prisoners themselves were ordered to beat the women for a certain number of thrashes again Himmler had himself laid down The rules in many cases for this specifically how many thrashes were allowed [Music] located only a few kilometers from the ravensbrook Concentration Camp is the SS Clinic horn Lucan the head doctor here is called Carl Gephardt foreign is a childhood friend and the personal physician of Heinrich Himmler the two men trust each other two illegitimate children of Himmler are born at gephart's maternity ward in Horn Lucian he saw himself as a very Grand you know they some of these Nazi doctors had huge status within the system and were very arrogant they had a lot of power and they were given a lot of status and so his Clinic was very famous it was used to treat top SS men but also people coming in from the front who needed his expert surgery but he was absolutely part of the Nazi system after the assassination of ss General reinert heydrich in 1942 Himmler sends his personal physician to Prague telling him to save heydrich's life the patient has undergone emergency surgery and seems to be out of danger but then heydrich dies of blood poisoning penicillin might have saved him but only the Allies have that the Germans only have sulfonamide but gaypart doesn't administer any to heydrich in the ravensburg Concentration Camp Carl Gebhart conducts experiments with sulfonamide he cuts prisoners calves and sows cloth or wooden splinters into the wounds to cause inflammation human experimentation several prisoners die the bottom line was that they really didn't prove very much at all with these self-underlied injections but they didn't stop there because what you have a very strong sense of when you read and you learn about the um the Nazi medical experimentation is you see this experimentation for experimentation's sake they get a hunger for it photos taken secretly by prisoners at ravensbrook the mutilated leg of Maria kashmirchuk a victim of gebhardt's experiments he survives the war and later testifies against him [Music] 1944 the war is lost Hitler's enemies are advancing towards Germany from the east and west the SS want to eliminate the traces of their crimes thousands of exhausted prisoners from the remaining camps are driven on the so-called death marches into the interior of the Reich those who cannot go any further are shot the destination of many death marches is the Concentration Camp of Bergen belzon epidemics and malnutrition claim thousands of lives there Anita laska is transferred here from Auschwitz at the end of 1944. there was also a rumor going around that they were going to blow up the camps to destroy all the evidence and so forth we really did sit there waiting waiting waiting for the end after ending about it and suddenly we hear this announcement yes announcement that the English is standing in front of the main gate we really saw we were dreaming yeah April 15 1945 The Liberation of bergen-belsen one day later Anita laska reports on the Holocaust in the BBC's German program [Music] all fear that the world will not believe what happened there their living healthy people were thrown alive Into the Fire [Music] unlike in most of the camps the SS guards and bergen-belsen have not cleared out now they have to recover their victims [Applause] [Music] an estimated 100 000 Germans participated in the Holocaust as perpetrators not even a tenth of them are held accountable some Escape their responsibility by committing suicide like ordiloglobuchnik head of aktion Reinhardt [Music] SS Dr Carl Gebhart is captured by the Allies while on the run and is put on trial Military Tribunal one sentences you Carl the Gebhardt who death by hanging and may God have mercy on your soul [Music] guarded Auschwitz Maria Mandel is also sentenced to death I think they were aware that other people outside of Germany would consider what they were doing as wrong but in a sense what the Nazis had been able to do was was to create a kind of world of moral inversion where one's moral duty was only to fellow Germans and everyone else was outside the world of moral obligation so the morality is turned upside down you don't need fanatical or pathological Mass matters or highly ideologized Nazis it also works with other perpetrators other types of people can be transformed into Mass murderers in just the same way um that's actually what I find so terrifying about the Holocaust that it actually works with normal people but the whole society looks the other way or even thinks it's good everyone benefits from it no one has any problem with it that's actually the true lesson from the Holocaust for me more than 90 of the SS perpetrators go unpunished even after

Channel: criminals and crime fighters

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Keywords: holocaust, ww2, world war, adolf hitler, nationalism, full documentary, nazi history, nazism, third reich, nazis ww2, nazis ww1, ww1, history documentary, nazi documentary, nazi hitler, germany, bavaria, history, nsdap doku, nsdap, political system, politics, radicalization, nazis in germany, rise of hitler, German Wehrmacht, hitler power, global power germany, nazi ideology, beyond the myth, Nazi regime, concentration camp, holocaust film, documentary

Id: 6SYN82l6Ves

Length: 52min 16sec (3136 seconds)

Published: Fri Aug 25 2023