Rise & Fall of the Nazis | Episode 6: Hitler's Biggest Blunder | Free Documentary History

[Music] Adolf Hitler is at the height of his power to Europe for millions of Germans he's the greatest military and strategic Genius of all time yet the German people are about to discover that what they've been told is a tissue of Lies this is the story of how reality starts to break through the Nazi's propaganda machine Hitler commits the biggest military blunder of his career and how hidden from sight his leadership begins to fall apart [Music] [Music] [Music] eighteen months after the start of the war an Adolf Hitler appears to strive the world he's restored Germany to Greatness [Music] once fearful of War are now reassured it will all be over very soon seen as a great War leader who seems to be delivering all the victories without the significant suffering that people still remember from World War One [Music] behind him the German people believe stands a brilliant and United Nazi party leadership but then that facade begins to crack in the early summer of 1941 a lone German officer parachutes into a field in southern Scotland thank you he's quickly picked up by an amazed Home Guard was taken to London to be interrogated [Music] at first nobody believes his story then a remarkable tale emerges the lone parachutist is none other than the deputy fuhrer and Hitler's oldest associate Rudolf Hess Rudolf Hess has been a leading figure in the Nazi party since the 1920s he's been Hitler's personal secretary throughout all of that period so he was a man who was a big part of the Nazi machine very well known very famous throughout Germany the puzzle what's he doing alone in Britain [Music] Hess is held in the Tower of London as the interrogation continues he tells British agents he's come on a secret one-man mission to negotiate peace with Britain the British are astonished there's a sort of General sense of well what on Earth is going on in the British establishment it just appears increasingly as a sort of uh you know a lunatic mission but then a much more revealing story emerges hess's private mission is not really about peace at all his main concern is that amidst the jockeying for power inside the Nazi leadership he's losing his position as Hitler's closest confidante and Ally he imagined that if he could pull off this diplomatic coup it would sort of restore his own image his own importance in the Nazi hierarchy it's a crazy idea [Music] but critically it's the first public sign that the Nazi leadership far from being united is a seething mass of rivalry and infighting it revealed really there was something rotten at the top of the Nazi party [Applause] foreign Hitler learns of the secret mission in a letter left behind by Hess this is absolutely Furious he calls for his his AIDS and his adjutants and shouts and screams this was perhaps the first time that a senior Nazi leader had broken ranks it was a huge crisis and it's probably the biggest embarrassment that Hitler and the party ever experienced yeah has to betrayed the party betrayed Hitler the problem for Hitler how to maintain the illusion of a United leadership when it clearly isn't [Applause] the task of spinning the story to the German public Falls to Joseph Goebbels Hitler's propaganda Minister Goebbels is one of Hitler's most trusted and able cronies up if there's a problem gerbils will be very good at fixing it if there's a problem Goebbels will be very good at representing it if there's a problem Goebbels will be the man to go to since the outbreak of war from his propaganda Ministry in Berlin goebbles has exercised total control over the German media but this is a spin doctor's Nightmare how to restore the image of a United Nazi leadership goebbel's answer to present Hess as a one-off rotten apple gobbles dealt with the defection of Rudolf Hess by simply portraying him as a man who had lost his reason who had gone mad under the pressure of work and his commitments had broken Under The Strain effectively it's an answer many Germans find hard to accept and it certainly didn't play very well with the German public who naturally would have asked well if the deputy fuhrer is insane why is he still in his post the Hess crisis passes but for the first time the image of Hitler's leadership is exposed as seriously out of line with the reality that Gap is about to get much bigger [Music] in the summer of 1941 Hitler does what he's always promised he invades Russia it's something he's vowed to do since the early days of the Munich Beer Halls for the German fuhrer It's the final showdown with his biggest enemy communism it was I saw them either Nazism conquered Soviet bolshevism or sooner or later Stalin and the Soviet Union would conquer and exterminate the Germans [Music] as German troops storm across Russia Hitler is also fulfilling something else he wrote about in Mein Kampf 16 years earlier he's winning laban's realm conquering territories occupied by what the Nazis regard as inferior races so that the German people should have extra living space [Music] had to be found not in the west that was closed but in the East the slav east that area made up of human beings who were barely human and therefore deserve no special compassion [Music] the German troops Advance further and faster through the Soviet Union than anybody imagines possible they penetrate hundreds of miles into Soviet territory the Red Army crumbles they take over 1.5 million Soviet prisons of War it looks like Hitler is going to win the war Operation Barbarossa has its known seems to be an extraordinary success [Music] in Germany there's relief and jubilation Hitler's position as a great leader briefly undermined by the Hess Affair is restored to the German people it looks as though the fuhrer is delivering the short war he's always promised communism will be defeated in weeks and in the Autumn of 1941 Hitler gives a speech he says Russia is destroyed and it will never rise again he thinks he's won the war [Music] [Music] but then progress slows the Russians start to fight back [Music] the Soviet Union calls on its vast reserves of people many millions more than the Germans in private Germany's generals start to worry about the scale of the task in front of them there are stories of generals saying Christ isn't this country big in German Russia was so vast that to cover it was a logistical problem it was very hard to overcome [Music] far from home what most people can't see is that the German war machine is stumbling Hitler the self-styled military genius is about to encounter a harsh reality [Music] at the German High command Hitler's generals planned their next move in the war against the Soviet Union the many are now seriously alarmed by the task in front of them [Music] Hitler won't listen instead he calls them daily demanding they keep pushing forward [Music] have elected generals relax he called them and he would go through some of their timetabling and say go faster which is fine thing to say but you can't make tanks and lorries and Personnel move at a speed other than what is allowed by the logistics of it Hitler's generals do what they can [Music] but then something happens over which they have no control [Music] the Russian winter sets in temperatures drop to -32 Fahrenheit outside Moscow the ground freezes solid to a depth of five feet you couldn't urinate in the open air fuel would freeze and machinery literally the German war machine was just frozen and it wasn't just Frozen it was starving probably the best you're going to be able to get your hands on is raw horse flesh because you wouldn't want to start cooking it because the smoke would leave your Cellar until the Russians where you were [Music] in the face of these appalling conditions the German Army outside Moscow is finally forced to beat a tactical retreat [Music] for Hitler it's a serious setback he's promised the German people the Soviet Union will be conquered in six weeks it's now taken over five months how can he keep his promise of a quick War when the reality is so different foreign once again Joseph gerbil's propaganda machine rolls into action his solution simply to lie he launches a barrage of propaganda [Music] newsreels show German soldiers enjoying the snow and routing a Russian rabble couples made sure that stirring and exciting newsreels were a regular component of the German Cinema goers diet [Music] he had propaganda companies in action literally with the front line troops and he constantly urged his propaganda Crews to get as far forward as possible [Music] to get the most exciting footage [Music] far from misjudging the war with the Soviet Union is presented as a great military and strategic genius [Applause] [Music] but is the propaganda barrage working [Applause] [Music] Goebbels has a well-developed system for finding out he sends out spies to eavesdrop and record conversations the news is all positive there was a cinema in every German Town even in very small towns and we know from internal opinion reports within Germany that the population responded with enormous enthusiasm to these propaganda newsreels they could hardly believe the exciting dramatic scenes of German military success foreign was a lover of movies and took part very much in casting a lot of films and Hitler was a big movie buff as well so they very much felt that Cinema was a great way of connecting with the German people Goebbels has excelled himself it's a brilliant propaganda campaign but then there's a new and totally unexpected development without warning Japanese planes bombed the U.S Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor in Hawaii the following day the U.S declares war on Japan raw has existed between the United States and the Japanese empire [Music] for Hitler it's a critical moment [Music] Japan is an ally should he let the Japanese and Americans fight it out or should he side with his Japanese friends it's a momentous decision yet Hitler Ponders it alone it's against taking on America is obvious [Music] America was an economic power a kind of Sleeping Giant and he knew that it had massive economic resources that if turned into military resources could ultimately affect his ability to win the Second World War [Music] yet for Hitler that's only part of the picture as he turns the situation over in his mind the case for supporting Japan is also strong the two countries have an understanding to back one another there's a good chance Japanese forces will tie down America in the Pacific and prevent her supporting Britain on the Western Front but above all Hitler believes the Americans lack what the Germans have the stomach for a fight Hitler viewed America with complete contempt as a mongrel racial melting plot which was full of Hispanics and Jews and was racially worthless [Music] he thought the Americans rare feet that they'd accept terms that would leave Germany in control of Europe and leave Japan in control of the Pacific finally after only the briefest consultation Hitler makes his decision four days after the attack on Pearl Harbor he addresses the German Parliament Germany will declare war on America what's remarkable about that decision to go to war with America in 1941 is uh how easily it was made Hitler didn't seem to have pondered on it for too long there's a gasp from the assembled ranks but they're all Nazis and he explains that we could not wait for developments to overrun us we have to take the initiative America was seen as somewhere very far away somewhere that couldn't really hurt Germany too seriously [Music] it's a huge decision yet Hitler has taken it almost unilaterally it will go down in history as his biggest blunder [Music] German forces already bogged down in Russia now face the most powerful country in the world Germany is about to be hit by a series of ferocious Hammer blows that will shatter Hitler's image as a great War leader and transform the war [Music] [Music] in Germany the impact of Hitler's decision to go to war with America is felt almost immediately there's a Dawning realization that this is no longer going to be a short war in private there are bitter jokes a candidate for the vaffin SS is asked are you willing to sign on for the whole War no he says only the first 12 years in bars and restaurants gerbal spies listen to the gossip and detect a drop in public morale it's time for a new initiative [Music] in early December in a speech to Nazi party Regional officials Hitler makes a new promise he sees himself as the great military leader this is the remarkable thing about the fuhrer that it's not just a domestic lead here's the great Napoleon he's Frederick the great he's Caesar Hitler argues that Victory is at hand it will still be a short war and it will be followed by a glorious future in which Germany will grow rich on the land and labor of the occupied territories of the East he wants to be seen as the man who knows what best serves German interest military and at first it looks as though Hitler's prediction is coming true [Music] spring on the Eastern Front brings warmer weather the German sixth army goes back on the offensive [Music] the industrial city of Stalingrad is besieged [Music] Soviet Defenders are corralled in a tiny strip of land along the river Volga tens of thousands face a brutal death [Music] Stalingrad is the most brutal type of fighting no one would be the same after Stalingrad Urban Warfare is uniquely messy and Stalingrad was a uniquely messy form of that type of warfare [Music] the Germans appear to have victory in their sights but then the battle changes [Music] everything in a brilliant series of flanking moves the Russians smashed through the German lines from the North and South they meet to the west of the city completely encircling the Germans [Music] suddenly the tables are reversed around a quarter of a million German troops are cut off from their supply lines [Music] the German forces soon run low on everything from ammunition to food you had lice all over your clothes you had to eat and drink the little food you could next to your comrades defecating right next to you because if you try to go out to go to the toilet you'll be shot out by a Russian sniper up on a roof the situation is untenable the only thing that will save the Germans is a tactical retreat [Music] [Music] Hitler by now has moved his headquarters to a huge complex of bunkers in eastern Poland the wolf's Lair as it's known is Hitler's new base over 400 miles from the military command in Berlin here far from the sight of the German people Hitler holds a crisis meeting most of his senior military leaders call for a strategic withdrawal the alternative an entire Army will be wiped out but Hitler takes another unilateral decision the Germans will stand and fight to the last man wouldn't sanction retreat good Nazis the Vermont doesn't Retreat it wins by going forward he believes in staying at your post and dying if you have to but you do not retreat absurd strategically absurd militarily to Hitler's generals this can only spell disaster but one man sees an opportunity pretty good Hermann Goering has a reputation as a powerful and effective leader Hermann Goering had been an able and brave first world war soldier pilot are genuinely won decorations he understood War he'd fought it he'd been in it going has been in the Nazi party since 1922. he had turned the brown shirts from a rabble into a formidable fighting force and he'd been injured in Hitler's 1923 beer hall push as head of the luftwaffe and Hitler's anointed successor he occupies imposing offices in the center of Berlin not far from Hitler's headquarters [Music] Hitler had great faith a justifiable faith in going his policies his strategies seemed to be working build up lufafa into a mighty Force which would provide the means of Blitzkrieg and would rhyme the means of attacking enemies his Air Force had proved decisive in the conquest of much of Europe he proved a very able Commander indeed one of one of the greatest one would say of the second World War he's a man Hitler has learned to respect [Music] bring now backs Hitler's refusal to sanction a retreat from Stalingrad He suggests instead the Army can be reinforced by airdrops using his luftwaffe Hitler enthusiastically Embraces the idea [Music] yet gurring is not the man he once was Nor is his judgment [Music] the man the German people believe is a mighty Commander is in fact a drug addict he's now heavily dependent on morphine changed his behavior and clouded his mind Hermann Goering in his early career had been an intelligent and very capable man had drifted into indolence and apathy he's also developed an all-consuming new interest looted artifacts from across Europe have been pouring into Germany in every country the Nazis occupied their armed forces were rapidly followed by teams tasked with a mission to bring back to Germany cultural artifacts these ranged from literary manuscripts through to paintings and sculptures at the heart of this operation is Gering going thought himself as a connoisseur and a great expert in matters of art and culture but he has an eye to the business he wants money he would draw up an older for the kind of paintings that he'd like to uh have brought to him at his country estate the me me me part of going is fascinating by 1942 he's amassed a huge collection of stolen artworks he has something like 1200 precious objects and paintings in his personal possession [Music] Gering is not alone in his passion for self-enrichment [Music] there's hardly an official in Germany who doesn't dabble in this great project it's on a massive scale which is why it couldn't be controlled because everybody had a skeleton in the cupboard goering's preoccupation with drugs and art mean he's no longer an effective Commander or a good judge of the military situation his relief of Stalingrad is a disaster he doesn't have enough planes or fuel the promised airdrop turns into a farce the estimate that was given was that it would require something like 800 tons daily to keep those those soldiers supplied the reality was that they managed under 100 tons per day a soldier writes home if you live on one piece of bread between eight and a taste of warm water [Music] [Music] thank you the German position in Stalingrad becomes untenable finally at the end of the month the German Commander defies Hitler and surrenders nearly 100 000 German soldiers are taken prisoner including 24 generals foreign [Music] news reaches Hitler at the wolf's Lair he's appalled it's a catastrophe so large it will be impossible to hide from the German people [Music] once again the man who has to break the news is Joseph Goebbels he realizes this is going to require a new message out goes the idea of a quick victory in comes the idea of a uniquely German grit and heroism the theme here as in many other utterances from this time is that true German heroism only comes to the fore in the face of defeat and immense suffering [Music] spells out his new theme in a speech many regard as the high point of his career underneath the big banner saying Total War shortest War Goebbels talks to a audience of 14 000 cheering and admiring fans [Music] it's a an appeal to the morale of the people to in a sense shift gear from support for the war which was based initially on enthusiasm for the quick Victory and the speed of the conquest and now shifts towards this idea of endurance and embracing suffering towards the end of the speech he perites on these 10 rhetorical questions that demand ever increasingly loud yeses from the audience do you want a total war and they'll shout yes [Music] he then says do you want a uh a total war that's even more radical and brutal than you can possibly think of and they go yes of course we do [Applause] but Goebbels also has a second message [Music] the talk of German heroism is underpinned by fear Goebbels increasingly put before the German people a nightmare Vision where they would be driven out of their historic their ancestral lands in the East their women would be raped their young people enslaved and deported to Siberia they had no choice but to fight on [Music] it's a message most Germans are willing to go along with [Applause] but now for the first time there's also open opposition [Applause] [Music] in Munich a group of students calling themselves the white rose group circulate anti-nazi leaflets and dorb anti-hitler graffiti around universities throughout Germany putting up Little posters saying things like Hitler mass murderer or simply the word freedom [Music] it seems a great example of how totalitarian the regime have become that even to post the word Freedom up on a wall was considered against the state [Music] the opposition is quickly snuffed out [Music] the German people are about to face another Hammer blow for 18 months American Arms and troops have been pouring across the Atlantic [Music] the most powerful industrial country in the world has gone on a war footing [Music] what America can do is to turn its factories into places that can produce airplanes and tanks very very swiftly aircraft production source our factories roll out thousands of Tanks typewriter factories convert to machine gun production and the result is predictable it's absolutely catastrophic for the Germans [Music] [Music] in the early summer of that year American troops joined British forces in routing the Germans in North Africa a month later the Western allies crossed the Mediterranean and invade Italy and that is a shock to many German military who say that this is where the war against the USA is now turning against German interests the Americans once dismissed by Hitler is a feat are attacking his soft underbelly within weeks the Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini is overthrown in a popular uprising Germany loses its most important European Ally Italy's new leaders talk of surrender [Music] now at last the full Folly of Hitler's declaration of war on America is apparent Hitler gets the news at the wolf's lair he's horrified Mussolini is one of his oldest and most faithful allies [Music] filled with deeply this despite the failure of Mussolini he'd have had a deep affection for Mussolini as a leader and some say some affection form was a person into flowers they had feelings the fuhrer orders German troops into Italy to hold back the advancing Allied Forces but this means spreading the German Army very thinly they're being pushed back in Russia [Music] they face the threat of a renewed Allied attack in the West and they're trying to hold Italy and the Mediterranean Coast then something happens that's impossible to spin as anything but Dreadful [Music] over the Skies of Germany Allied aircraft bomb the country's cities day and night the bombing of Germany became far more serious in early 1943 and from then on to the end of the war it became an ever-present a nightly horror for German cities in August that year Hamburg one of Germany's most important industrial cities is devastated in a firestorm at least 40 000 people die Hitler responds with a highly significant shift in domestic policy [Music] that summer Hitler appoints Heinrich Himmler the much feared head of the SS minister of the interior [Music] Himmler is a fanatical Nazi a man who likes to Foster the image of a dashing fighter he lives for the fuhrer he lives for the greatness of the German cause and everything subordinated to that frightening man one of the most disturbing of all the Nazis himmler's appointment is a clear sign Hitler can no longer rely on The Good Will of his people from now on his position will depend on repression but even now most Germans have no idea just how awful their situation really is hidden from sight the man they've put their faith in is in deep personal trouble [Music] the fuhrer has withdrawn almost entirely to his bunker at the wolf's lair in East Poland [Music] he simply unable to accept the reality of the situation not to realize that they haven't seen Hitler for a while there are certain key events where Hitler would normally turn up to such as Heroes day a kind of memorial for those who had fallen and that year Hitler didn't come and that was very much noticed [Music] he sits there every evening having his dinner surrounded by his secretaries increasingly because he doesn't want to talk to his generals because they'll only tell him bad news he's not yet 55 years of age but he seems to be a man who's moving more slowly he's not the old Hitler that he was he's losing his energy he goes a long walks with his dog [Music] he became very stooped and he starts to tremble possibly what we think now Parkinson's Hitler is now almost entirely dependent on the company of just two people one is his girlfriend Ava Brown he phones Ava Brown every day which thing he'd never done before to get some Solace from her conversation [Music] the other is his personal doctor Theodore Morrell is administering large quantities of antidepressants and homegrown narcotics not only are the drugs themselves pretty potent and noxious there's also an extraordinary amount of drugs for example we have here one Testo viron he was on tempidorm a barbiturate suppository he was on sympathol and he was on quadrinox which was a sedative he was an orchid crane up to lidon which is a painting or an analgesic he was on something called obstinol which was to help with acute and chronic constipation [Music] yet the German public remain utterly oblivious of the fact that Hitler is a shadow of his former self [Music] his position has always depended on success hiding the shocking reality of his regime but now he's losing the war the German people will inevitably start waking up to the truth [Music] some at last will fight back [Music]

Channel: Free Documentary - History

Views: 1,266,059

Keywords: Free Documentary, Documentaries, Full Documentary, documentary - topic, documentary (tv genre), History, History Documentaries, Free Documentary History, History Documentary, The Rise of the Nazi Party, Rise of the Nazi Party Full Episodes, Adolf Hitler Documentary, Third Reich, Third Reich Documentary, Nazi Germany Documentary, Nazi Party Documentary

Id: 3PiRglhuxz4

Length: 48min 47sec (2927 seconds)

Published: Tue Jun 13 2023