What Really Caused The Collapse Of Nazi Germany? | How The Nazis Lost The War | War Stories

[Applause] when you're the Aryan Master race friends don't come naturally people outside the room can hear you know the fists pounding on the table and voices raised there's a great degree of mistrust there however when a World War looms allies become essential we won't attack you if you get involved in a war we won't attack you if you get involved in a war Hitler hadn't thought through the relationship particularly well with only dictators and despots to choose from the risks are high I suppose there's phrase Beggars can't be choosers and the end results it's just enormous disasters unprecedented disasters dysfunction at almost every level [Music] November 1918 Germany had just lost the war she was about to sign a deeply humiliating and financially crippling treaty and she had no friends but this was just how she liked it or at least the right-wing opportunist did by placing the burden of guilt entirely on an embarrassed Germany and by imposing impossibly harsh reparation payments the West unwittingly created the ideal conditions for populist politics and demagoguery to prosper unrest resentment and anger simmered in a desperate and disillusioned public I'm Heron I [Music] and Hitler played them like a violin ruthlessly capitalizing on the massive National sulk Germany had been experiencing since defeat he fermented a xenophobic hatred of Outsiders while encouraging the classic victim hero complex on a grand scale and guess who was putting his hand up for the hero role with the rise of national socialism and Hitler's coming to power in the early 30s all the elements were in place for another massive global conflict Hitler was a politician driven by ideology and that ideology was ultimately confrontational and demanded a great deal from other countries in terms of having to sacrifice economic I power or maybe even territory and Hitler wasn't afraid of Confrontation even if the other countries were as a result of that his the ideology was based upon military power and ultimately military confrontation if required and so in a sense what Hitler was asking for was not going to be given without a fight as World War II loomed the closest friendships Germany could claim were nothing nothing more than uncomfortable uneasy alliances yet they needed allies or at least short-term sham friendships their choices were limited on the available list was an international prior to the east in Russia but a communist state was hardly a natural fit with fascist Germany there was a like-minded predator in fascist Italy and a hyperm militaristic Japan with friends like those who needed enemies on September the 27th 1940 Italian foreign minister count gallat so chano uche's son-in-law arrived in Berlin from Rome at 100 p.m. in the Reich chancell it was announced that Japan Germany and Italy had signed a military Alliance directed against the United [Music] States the axe's powers aligned in a Packa with the devil but all these relationships were doomed from the start tenuous and disinterested at best toxic and sabotaging at worst Germany's choice of strange bed fellows would come back to haunt them and they would ultimately pay a high price for those decisions [Music] Dawn June 22nd 1941 German bombers are attacking Russian cities from Leningrad to Sebastapol it marked the start of the largest military operation in the history of the world operation Barbarosa it was also to become the bloodiest but Russia and Germany were supposedly Bound by a non-aggression pact so how did it come to this welcome to a world of Deceit and double dealing between wartime friends Germany and Russia had been building a secret trist since the early 20s since they first began making eyes at each other they were all always going to make strange bedfellows since any military development had been prohibited by the Treaty of Versa Germany needed a place to begin rearming out of the prying eyes of the West Soviet Russia was the perfect spot in the early 1930s there is actual military cooperation between the Soviets and the Germans we have German officers going Secret to the Soviet Union and they they're subverting the the the constraints of the Treaty of Versailles and they are testing Weaponry aircraft and tanks that Germany is not allowed to have the benefit for the Soviets is they're getting the virtue of this learning curve they're getting the insight into how German staff work and they are also taking photos of some of the pieces of equipment that the Germans are developing in those spaces implacable ideological eny enemies neither side was ever comfortable with the relationship but it was the Germans who did best out of the deal it accounts for the fact that when Hitler rearms after taking power in 1933 he already has the basis for the the reconfiguration of the verok the German Armed Forces into you know you know into tank divisions infantry divisions he already has the bases for a big Air Force the lufa he's got the the shape of the of the of the Cs Marina the the Nazi Navy worked out it's also good for the Russians the Russians are poised to become what they are in 1949 the biggest mechanized military in the world thanks in large part to the training and Technology transfers given them by the Germans in the 1920s and 1930s the Soviets might have secured a bigger Advantage from their relationship had Stalin not set out on a murderous Purge of the Red Army leadership in 1937 with the world lurching towards War it was a policy of utter Madness Stalin basically kills all almost every Marshal in the Soviet Army kills off almost every Army Commander core Commander divisional Commander kills eight of nine Admirals because he fears that they've become tainted by this collaboration with the Germans what he was left with was nothing but incompetence at the top of his [Music] military it is shooting himself in the foot but such is the mammoth weight of the Soviet Union in terms of Manpower and Industrial resources and his ability to replace these people with often less capable commanders but good enough that they [Music] survive Stalin was under no apprehension as as to Hitler's intentions after all he was a man after his own heart he'd already walked into Austria and those areas of Czechoslovakia known as the sedan land inhabited prominantly by German speakers having been unable to reach an agreement with Britain and France against Nazi Germany with whom he'd been playing Foie behind Hitler's back Stalin was left dangerous exposed the problem for the Soviets is they see what happens to Czechoslovakia and they start to realize those Western Powers have walked away from their Eastern Ally they've left them in the Lurch and therefore if we're interested in security we cannot rely on those Western powers and this starts to change the idea for Stalin who's looking always to buy Time by early 1939 he faced the daunting Prospect of having to resist German expansion into the East all alone for his part Hitler needed a pact with Russia so he could invade Poland unopposed after which he could deal with Britain and France to the West importantly he wouldn't have to worry about fighting the Russians at the same time in the East but Hitler was always going to betray Russia and Stalin knew it on May the 3rd 1939 foreign ministers Molotov and ribbon trop with Stalin Gravely looking on signed a non-aggression pact between Russia and Germany how they all kept a straight face remains one of the great achievements of totalitarian International diplomacy the molotov ribbro pack is going to buy the Soviet Army more time time to build weaponry and it's also going to give the Soviet Union the opportunity to watch Germany fight against other capitalist powers and hopefully wear each other down over years for Hitler the idea is very simple this is a tactical maneuver this is going to allow him to have a free hand to fight in Poland discover the past with exclusive military history documentaries and add free podcast presented by world-renowned historians all on History hit watch them on your smart TV or on the- go with your mobile device download the app now to watch everything from the gripping story of the Band of Brothers to operation Barbarosa and D-Day immerse yourself in the dramatic stories of this remarkable era by signing up via the link in the description Germany promptly put Poland to the sword and unfortunately for Stalin then conquered much of Western Europe easily the inevitable eventually rolled around Nazi Germany attack Russia without warning in operation Barbarosa by June 1941 the agreement between Germany and Soviet Russia was dead and [Music] buried did Hitler betray Stalin it's hard to summon any sympathy for either of these two brutes you know uh I think they both knew what they were getting into by signing this PCT with each other so they were both playing a very cynical game it's just that Hitler broke the agreement first Hitler had stabbed his partner in the back who in their right mind would ever trust the Nazis again as the self-proclaimed Master race there was no room for Germany to Foster any genuine or lasting International friendships however expedience ruled and the most natural match for the Nazis was their fellow fascist European power Italy the partnership between the two Powers was to prove an unmitigated disaster as reflected the through the prison of the personal relations between Hitler and musolini you can make a case that both of them were Supreme narcissists now what happens if you put the two of them together do you have Atomic fishing or a nuclear explosion in psychological terms what you really have is the stronger narcissist will win out in the end and if you look at musolini he was a far more complex figure than Hitler and prone to obvious [Applause] [Music] depressions since 1925 the Italian people had been laboring under a fascist regime ruled over by ponito musolini or Uchi Italian fascism was regarded as the original and the best and very much the elder brother of [Music] Nazism in 1922 when musolini LED thousands of fascists and supporters into the Italian capital in his defining march on Rome Hitler was HED well Hitler's an is an early and Ardent admirer of musolini musolini is first on the scene he launches his fascist party before Hitler's Nazi party he ex executes the march on Rome in 1922 and insinuates himself into the Italian government appointed prime minister by the Italian king he immediately embarks on the fascisti of Italy with big public buildings parades fascist monuments Hitler is in awe of this Hitler at the time sort of in love with musolini and he emulates musolini over the coming years the two despots continue to Cozy up with musolini even providing and financial support to the rising Nazi party it's no surprise that in private musolini thought very little of Hitler in fact he considered him a socially awkward galloping boore and of course as musolini had more than a touch of ego Mania about him he maintained that Hitler's rise to the top was far less glorious than his own he was the father of fascism Hitler merely a progeny to his genius and when Hitler came to power in 1933 musolini was quick to bask in reflected Glory claiming victory for himself and his own fascist ideology this fascist thing was really starting to catch on the first actual meeting between them in Venice in 1934 went very poorly Hitler is completely upstaged by musolini who arrives in fascist uniform and looks you know very Marshall and severe and Hitler shows up in sort of a baggy overcoat and a fedora hat he hasn't adopted the na uniform yet and they're particularly exercised over the issue of Austria melini says look you know hands off Austria it must remain independent and Hitler and musini get into this like raging argument people outside the room can hear you know the fists pounding on the table and voices raised they pretend to be good friends but they're beginning to drift apart strategically the meeting served as confirmation for both that neither man cared at all for the other Hitler and musolini were not natural friends or colleagues but Germany required the Italian military machine to do its bidding if you like by proxy in North Africa for example and of course Italy was only too willing to do that Italy also recognized that for musolini to develop his own foreign policy aims he needed the the backing of a a big military machine a nation that was more progressed more aggressive and more feared than his own by 1936 musolini was talking it up declaring that Nazi Germany and fascist Italy shared a common Destiny and that the relationship between the two was the axis around which Europe would evolve on March the 3rd 1938 the weirdness continued when Hitler arrived in Rome with enough Pomp and ceremony to please any dictator it was a wildly over-the-top welcome including a whole new train station constructed just for the Nazis arrival and a new road for Hitler to be driven along VI Adolf Hitler however the king and the Vatican were decidedly cool towards him and despite all the pageantry musolini refused Hitler's offer of military Alliance the Italians were hedging their bets finally the two reluctant friends came together and signed The Pact of Steel in 1939 formalizing the alliance with military provisions joined together by Mutual self-interest the two strong men of fascism view the results of their long struggle for dominance in Europe with unconcealed satisfaction but musolini had already comprehensively failed Hitler with his NeverEnding vacillation and maddening uncertainty his army was completely unprepared for war underfunded poorly equipped with poor leadership and training to match it didn't help that on the eve of War musolini fired his chief of staff with the dictator arrogantly taking on the role of micromanaging the military himself on top of this Italy was on the brink of bankruptcy by any measure a failing partnership and the war had not even [Music] begun Italy was a relatively weak country country in terms of its economy its society and its um its military State as well uh musolini was desperately trying to um raise the standard of of living um in Italy uh was doing that very slowly but like many nations and many leaders in history they looked outside their own borders for a sense of power and gain that would perhaps unite the country around the leader and so provide great internal benefit and that's where of course Hitler and Germany's aims came into play when war finally arrived in September 1939 Italy did not support its Ally from the start instead musolini made the heroic decision to remain on the sidelines musolini very much wanted to see the way in which the wind was blowing he was an opportunist like Hitler and didn't want to attach himself to uh a nation that could possibly due to its grandiose aims and the variety of Nations um against him eventually be defeated and he didn't want to go down with that particular sinking ship and then when it becomes very clear in the French campaign that Germany is going to succeed Germany is going to conquer France remarkable as that may seem musolini is an opportunist like so many of these guys and sees the opportunity to be at that peace table and to get a Slither of France a part of France that he's always wanted as soon as Hitler becomes increasingly successful he decides it's it's opportunity to show his colors finally musini declares war on the [Applause] [Applause] allies and straight away made a mess of things so melini has announced that he is going to join the war but he hasn't considered that 40% of his Merchant Navy is on the high seas or in foreign ports and will immediately be impounded that will all be lost to the Italians it was not a great start for the Italians and it didn't stop [Music] there one of the problems that the Italians have is that they're not made aware that the declaration of war on the Allies is coming so musolini is not just fighting on the Italian French border there is now a new border between Italian occupied Libya and the British possessions in Egypt and one of the first Maneuvers that takes place sees British forces instituting a short raid into Italian positions so a large number of Italian prisoners take place in the initial days of this war partly because those men don't know they're at War to add to this Hitler was keeping all his War plans secret from his allies under the guys that it would spoil the surprise musolini was not at all happy about his obvious relegation to Junior partner in the affair childishly contrived a way to pay Hitler back as he openly put it musolini had wanted Romania but Hitler had already moved in but if he couldn't have Romania in a typically bratty fit of jealousy he ordered his troops to strike out through Albania to try for Greece instead without informing the Germans of course that would show him uh you know the the Italians who are vaunted as this as a great power send you know 200,000 troops into Greece to fight 60,000 Greeks and they're roundly defeated they're they're not only like destroyed on the battle field but they're chased back into Albania which they've conquered in 1939 and the Greeks helped themselves to a third of Albania what had shared Hitler was a debacle The Man In Rome shouts encouragement to his troops proclaims his early victories to the world and then Greece turns his armies upside down and throws them back at it R Goldberg in the New York Sun Germany was forced to rush to Italy's rescue sending in troops to drive out the British and Greek forces Hitler decided to dispatch one of his most respected gun commanders Albert kesslering to take control in the Mediterranean there's a great degree of mistrust there there is not a common sense of commitment to this war when musini takes the decision to invade Greece he doesn't tell Hitler when Hitler takes the decision to invade the Soviet Union he doesn't tell melini now if you had any kind of common cause if you had any kind of common Alliance you'd be setting similar objectives and you'd be working toward those objectives so when we talk about to what extent is their cooperation at the most basic level that cooperation is failing meanwhile things were going south in North Africa for the [Music] Italians in North Africa they invade Egypt hoping to take the Suez Canal and Destroy British power in the Mediterranean with over 200,000 troops facing about 40,000 British troops and they're roundly beaten by the British and uh this is the occasion for Anthony Eden's famous quip that never in the history of warfare has so much been surrendered by so many to so few so they're really a a liability Hitler then decided General roml was to be dispatched in a an effort to bring some order to the North African theater the whole thing proved a massive distraction as well as a drain on German resources the Nazis were wondering what on Earth they' gotten themselves into with the [Music] Italians the fact that Italy couldn't do that job on its own and eventually required increasing German resources was was of course a great disadvantage to Adolf Hitler and Germany because just at the time he was invading the Soviet Union and that campaign was developing he was having to devote more resources unfortunately the Italians didn't have enough strength enough power enough um capability to win those battles themselves and so the Germans find themselves drawn into the the of war that were secondary to them in order to prop up their weak [Music] Ally support for the war effort continued to crumble as officials realized that they were staring at the catastrophic failure of the fascist regime overall we can see it as a failed relationship but when defeat looked as though um it was on the cards for um The Alliance certainly in Sicily that's when the Italian people really realized that musolini had led the nation [Music] astray the Allies quickly took Sicily now they were ready to move into Europe proper that Invasion therefore made the Italian people think if it's Sicily now it's going to be the Italian Mainland next pushing into what Churchill called the soft underbelly of Europe President Roosevelt warns Italy quit the war now and urges Italy to revolt against D Duce musolini came to The Reluctant conclusion that The Jig was up the fall of Sicily was the final store musolini was arrested and imprisoned with musolini banished to the sidelines and the fascist government deposed his former Chief of Staff General Petro bolio quickly negotiated a surrender to the Allies allowing the Americans to land in southern Italy turns out the US was the friend they needed all along Hitler meanwhile sprang into action launching the occupation of Italy he ordered a daring Rescue of musolini from his isolated Mountain Erie Benito musolini Fallen star of fascism is liberated by Hitler's parachutist shown in these captured German films but despite the dramatic rescue musolini was doomed he'd now been reduced to Leading a puppet German state in the north of Italy on October the 14th 1943 Italy's new leader General Petro bolio declares war on Germany throwing in his lot with the allies and plunging the country into Civil [Music] War Italian troops finally cooperated with the Allies to drive the Germans out of Rome Italy was at last feeling the Winds of Change from tyranny to [Music] Freedom American forces receive the surrender of German troops in Milan the city controlled by Italian partisans the Nazis held out in a hotel until in April 1945 with the Allies on his doorstep and partisans on the war path musolini fled disguised in a German uniform trying for the Swiss border but all that publicity he had craved backfired his trademark Baldhead and deeply set jaw giving him away he was recognized by partisans just a few miles from the border he was so close to making it to freedom musolini and his mistress CLA Pachi were shot to death before a firing squad near Lake KO together with other executed fascists his body was hung out in the Town Square to be publicly humiliated and degraded when word of this reached Hitler in his Berlin bunker and with the Russians bearing down on him he is said to have made a vow this will never happen to me days later he was dead by his own [Music] hand Hitler's old Frenemy had succeeded in one final and fatal influence fascist Italy had failed spectacularly socially militarily and ideologically and helped drag their German allies down with them through the 1930s Japanese militaristic goals became more Extreme as the drum beat of fanatic nationalism grew louder the grand plan for Japan to establish a major Asian Empire was driving them further from the west and into the orbit of like-minded Nazi Germany and fascist Italy although self-serving and completely independent of Marzi thinking Hitler could hear the call he now saw Japan as a power he could do business [Music] with well the anti-common turn PCT was a pack signed by Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan in 1936 reflecting the fact that Hitler wanted a an ideological document not a mere military Alliance but an ideological document committing Germany and Japan against the threat of bolshevism against Soviet communism and the Japanese were willing to sign up for this because at the time they were involved in a seven or eight-year border war with the Soviet Union over who would control the disputed regions of mansuria and Mongolia Germany and Japan had if you like Mutual interests when it comes to the Soviet Union the Soviet Union was a huge Nation with great potential capability and there is no way that the Germans could ever foresee themselves advancing across tens of thousands of miles if Japan could attack in the East put pressure on the Soviet Union in areas that Germany couldn't get to physically there was a greater opportunity for Germany to bring the Soviet Union to its knees but events were about to dictate that once again Hitler could not rely on his friends and they could not rely on him and the ramifications were to decide the fate of Nations Japanese expansion into of Northeast China bordering Soviet territory had led to growing tensions in fact there have been border clashes serious border clashes with thousands of casualties in 1938 and 1939 this is undeclared war between Japan and the Soviet Union and those contests are one hands down by the Soviet Union this also then convinces enough people in the Japanese military that a northern strategy is not a good idea and that in an ongoing war against China this is the principal war that Japan is fighting the Japanese had discovered the hard way that the Soviets were Superior in numbers as well as in armaments especially tanks meanwhile an impatient Hitler tired of waiting for Japan to commit to anything to do with the Soviet Union signed the very temporary Molotov ribbon TR packed with Russia as his insurance policy without telling Japan or Italy Japan was utterly outraged they saw this as a complete abandonment of the of the German Japanese anti-common teract of 1936 when they had resolved to fight together against the Menace of bolshevism and now you have Hitler saying that he will take he will take no position in a Soviet War elsewhere that he will not aggress against the Soviet Union thus basically setting the Japanese up for failure if the Soviets decide to sort of push this campaign in uh in Mongolia and mansuria this is a classic example of Hitler's failure to grasp Foreign Affairs and he lost out badly in April 1941 Japan followed the Germans lead and signed their own non-aggression pact with the Soviets now it was his H's turn to be angry he knew he had a big problem Hitler often felt betrayed when Foreign Affairs didn't develop in the way that he had anticipated he felt that um many nations had let him down not thinking that of course they have their own um pressures and influences and they weren't always thinking about what is best for Germany but there's little doubt that with Japan and the Soviet Union um coming together to agree that they wouldn't fight each other that massively undermined his ability to do what was an absolutely central part of his ideological philosophy which was to crush the Soviet Union with the Japanese refusal to play this gave the Russians some breathing room they could now be confident the Japanese would not come them from the East this allowed them to divert massive numbers of troops to the main game the Battle of Moscow in September 1941 this was enough to prevent the advance of Germany and it saved Russia from utter defeat from here on Japan and Germany would essentially be Allied on paper only the two Powers would be in reality fighting two separate Wars in Tokyo Premier Tojo made it official the Imperial rescript declaring war has just been promulgated Hitler had provided himself with so much to do in Europe and in North Africa that he couldn't think outside the Realms of Europe as far as he was concerned the Japanese were in their theater of operations he was in his and eventually the two might be able to cooperate more significantly together but that wouldn't happen until the Soviet Union was brought to its knees like all Hitler's dealings it was a relationship characterized by mistrust resentment and Petty jealousies on either side rather than any sense of shared values or objectives German alliances are characterized by dysfunction we see that in the way in which Hitler engages with his allies he never gets together there's no Supreme command to bring together ideas there's no free flow of information he deals with the fellow dictators one-on-one and he can often play them off against each other that's very much how he constructs his alliances such as they are and Hitler did this beautifully with his other European [Music] allies apart from her so-called best friends Germany kept strategic company with a number of smaller Powers mainly in East Central Europe whom Hitler hoped would help him construct a strategic Corridor to the east one of the big points in the Eastern front Is the participation of the Romanians which are one of the most important powers and the hungarians but the Romanians and the hungarians have a tremendous degree of antipathy between them and Hitler's always able to talk about the post-war settlement and he's always able to talk about whoever serves best in their contribution to the common war effort might just be the one who gets what they want in their own rivalries in the end Slovakia Romania Hungary Bulgaria Croatia and Yugoslavia all joined the Axis powers either willingly or very reluctantly they signed from many different reasons economic dependence on Germany protection from the Soviets or just outright fear of the Nazis but it was a tradeoff Germany was the major power in the area the smaller States provided their natural resources in exchange for Nazi military protection this proved a drain on Hitler's Troop troops and supplies which could have been better employed elsewhere the failings of these smaller Partnerships became evident during The crucial Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 by August 23 the Germans were in the suburbs fighting the Russians amongst the rubble it was then Stalin issued his Infamous order not one step back he was never going to give up the city that bore his name to make his point there were squads stationed just behind his troops to shoot deserters meanwhile Hitler desperately countered by ordering more and more men into the battle way more than they could afford as the fighting reached fever pitch the Russians came up with their Master stroke they proposed a massive double encirclement of the entire German sixth Army another disastrous failure of Hitler's alliances was about to play out Germany always had to look at how it used troops from other countries because they never quite matched the professionalism and the capability of their own homegrown troops and as a result of that they were often used as what we' call lines of communication troops those that weren't necessarily doing the fighting but were doing the supporting of the fighting or they were used to hold the flanks and of course the Soviets knew that they recognized that there were certain weaknesses within this broader German Alliance that they were fighting and that they could exploit [Music] them on the snowy foggy morning of November the 19th the Soviet struck 1.2 million Soviet soldiers drove into the weakly guarded flanks a two-prong pincer attack led by Soviet tanks smashed right into the hapless hungarians Romanians and Italians they folded quickly and the entire German Army was surrounded it was now a freezing living hell for the German soldiers but Hitler the did they fight to the last condemning them to almost certain death with supplies cut off it was hopess January the 31st 1943 Field Marshal Powers disobeyed Hitler and surrendered together with the remaining 91,000 sceletal troops only 6% of these would survive the total axis losses Germans Romanians Italians Ians and hungarians are estimated to have been 800,000 it was the psychological turning point of the war as German prisoners shuffled out of Stalingrad an old Russian colonel was heard to yell this is how Berlin is going to look it became clear in most people's minds stanning grad signified the Germany was going to lose the war the Nazis had suffered not only its first major defeat but one that essentially paved the way for the collapse of the Third [Music] Reich it was a failure of leadership a failure of planning and a failure of partnership and Alliance at the heart of the Nai Credo was an utterly misguided belief in their own superiority which meant them incapable of mutual trust and of forging alliances that could be anything other than [Music] self-serving but Germany Italy and Japan all failed each other and their people and so they failed to win the war for Hitler more more often than not it was a case of style over substance Hitler's fantasies lead him into the realm of the gigantic but when it comes to arming yourself in major world conflict that might not be the way to go suddenly there was a sparkle in his eyes at seeing its potential it was also quite useless so when it comes to weapons of war it pays to Choose Wisely what the Germans needed was more of what they had rather than a few shiny new toys if you can be the aircraft manufacturer that wins the war for the fer you know you're [Applause] Immortal everyone makes mistakes but when you're running the biggest war in history against a formidable and Resolute enemy you better not make too many but that's exactly what Nazi Germany did one mistake after the other some small some Monumental but they all added up in the end to abject defeat at the hands of the [Music] Allies in the first world war in which Hitler fought Germany made catastrophic mistakes sacrificing thousands of men and seeding territory due to inadequate machinery and supply lines so why didn't Hitler take hard-learned lessons from Germany's decimation in World War I and apply them to the new war Hitler recognized that Germany was a small state with limited resources so he needed short sharp War he needed what was to become known as Blitz Greek he needed new weapons particularly fast moving tanks aircraft Airborne forces these are weapons that could be packaged together to create a psychological shock to an enemy and hopefully win a campaign far more quickly than had ever been seen before Hitler had been fatally seduced by the Brilliance of the technology he' witnessed being developed by the allies during the Great War including the ever larger artillery guns and the Advent of tank warfare he' wrongly assumed that it was this heavy armor above all else that had produced victory for the Western forces to Hitler size mattered giant tanks huge battleships and massive guns were his thing in his mind imposing and indestructible these mindblowing machines with their devastating capabilities and Firepower were destined to carry Germany to a world crushing victory a natural product of Aran Ingenuity unmatched in history we see Hitler trying to take a shortcut rather than growing the economy an industrial economy that could feed the war expanding his army with um more tanks more aircraft that were easy to manufacture we see him putting a great deal of emphasis upon Wonder Weapons heavier tanks with new technology that took up huge raw resources and Industrial processes that were very complicated the V weapons a great deal of intellectual uh Firepower went into developing them as well as the jet engine for example but all of these weapons were no match for the mass and the Simplicity of the military machine of the United Kingdom the United States of America and the Soviet Union the one thing we have to remember here is technology doesn't make war simpler it makes it exponentially more complicated and therefore the technology are just objects the only way to Marshall this into something that's really going to constitute a war-winning Advantage is to be able to integrate that with Doctrine with training and with application that requires real skills at the human level everything from the people who operate those machines to the people who are commanding all of this together and that is extremely complicated and as the Armored Division Thunder by the world forget reality for the Nazis it was all about appearances and so the idea of the W raer or wonder weapon was born colorfully named by the Joseph gal's Nazi propaganda Ministry these Wonder Weapons were trumpeted as shock and or super weapons that would turn the tide of the war and save the Reich but gerles promises new Vengeance weapons to his people huge new rocket bombs to follow V2 their propaganda was so effective they even managed to convince themselves of their capacity to win Germany ultimate Victory continuing faith that these super weapons were actual Magic Bullets was a sign of the deluded Nazi leadership especially Hitler himself and I think this is very important partly because they don't see another option so this becomes very much a clutching at straws but there is a degree of belief in this it is also extremely effective at the propaganda level I mean if there's one thing that Germans have seen time and again in the Third Reich is seemingly brilliant victories being won especially in the early periods when people didn't believe this was possible and this is what good this is what GBL is going to rely on in trying to sustain public support for the war effort some weapons were rushed into service before they were ready with lukewarm results but most were so Advanced or absurd that they never made it past the drawing board or prototype phase but the question we always have to remember when we're talking about new weaponry and new technology is not how good is the end product but rather how much does the R&D cost how much is the unit production cost of any one of these weapons platforms and what is the ultimate utility on the battlefield that they're going to have to fight there was an increasing draw on these Wonder Weapons to provide a solution that couldn't be found in if you like more conventional and traditional weapons and that was a drain on Germany it was a misdirection certainly the commanders at the front would just have liked more of the traditional tanks more of the traditional aircraft more ammunition they weren't perfect by any stretch but then nor were the Shermans or the t-34s but what the Germans needed was more of what they had rather than a few shiny new toys that were unreliable and took up a huge amount of industrial raw resources and manpower to develop and [Music] build before huis incompetence and overreach eventually kicked in the Germans enjoyed a flying start to the war and it was largely thanks to the brilliant armored strategist Heins Garian who had studied tank tactics and laid down strong blit Creek principles long before 1939 the idea was that highly mobile tanks would rush in with the Infantry while combined with sufficient air cover overwhelming the enemy with speed force and Advanced Communications and it worked light tanks such as the Panza 1 and Panza 2 helped to make short work of Poland and France as they forged a ahead supported by infantry as well as stooker dive bombers and BF 109 Fighters overhead Hitler and his gang were elated as these early successes and Superior Tactics surprised everyone and saw them overcome most of central and Western Europe in a devastatingly short time it seemed European domination for the Reich was just over the next battle scar rise but soon Britain awoke from its Slumber and the Allies dug in and fought [Music] back as pressure increased it wasn't long before Hitler and his generals began drifting from garan's core teachings bogged down on two fronts they were relying more and more on the promise of their beloved V aren their obsession with flashy complicated and unreliable tanks would eventually lead them to being outnumbered and [Music] outmaneuvered the first of these tanks was the famous tiger and she came fully optioned but she was quickly followed by the King Tiger and then the panther and then the elephant and once you have an elephant naturally you need a mouse the ultimate example of the failed vunda in terms of tanks for the Nazi military was a project called the mouse which was a gigantic tank that was supposed to be the largest and most impressive armored weapon ever seen unfortunately it was also quite useless as the father of Blitz Creek Hein Garian wrote in his Memoirs Hitler's fantasy led him into the realm of the gigantic it was so big and heavy that it could not fit on any rail car it could not cross any bridge in Europe and was extremely vulnerable to Air Attack where its thinner armor would allow bombs to easily penetrate its massive Hull it was so heavy that in order to cross rivers it had to have a snorkel attack to it and it would drive across the bottom of the river and emerge on the other side as with most Weaponry spat out by an increasingly desperate Nazi war machine it was all way too rushed one would think that in a rational State you would streamline the production of vehicles and you would have one way of producing them but actually the truth is there are multiple different series within any one of these named tanks and the series are constantly being changed they're only producing a few hundred at a time before they say hey we could graft on new changes hold the production lines retool now we will produce the new series and it's still called a panther it's still called a markv but it's a different slightly tank and if you thought the Germans had a problem with tanks what about trucks to give you an example of how absurd that becomes the German Army is fighting with something something like 150 different models of truck now truck seems to most people like well that's not the most important piece of technology but it absolutely is given how fundamental movement is and every time you have a truck that breaks down which spare part do you have the German Army has to have a list of something like a million spare parts just for its trucks because there are so many different varieties now part of that is the different number of German development programs that they have over the years part of that is the fact that they are accessing all of European truck resources so they've got Swiss trucks they got French trucks but the problem remains Germany is dealing with a system that is in no way rationalized and thereby so inefficient on the other side the Allies had turned midwar development into getting serious numbers of tested weapons through their Munitions factories and into Service as a result of tough and bloody battle lessons the German trouble with tanks was never more exposed than at the Battle of K in 1943 it was the last great Blitz Creek offensive and the biggest tank battle of World War II Hitler even postponed the attack until he had all his new and improved Panther tanks available the trouble is that although the panther that was a very good medium come heavy tank it was not worth Hitler postponing his offensive for because when it eventually got to the fighting front it was there in few numbers it was unreliable the troops weren't trained in its use in the way that it really um required those troops to be trained and they couldn't get the Panthers where they needed in time for the beginning of the offensive and in a sense therefore he was putting the cart before the horse he was putting the technology to the front of his campaign thinking when in fact there were many other priorities that should have driven him to an earlier Attack Phase the smaller Russian t-34s literally ran rings around the German behemoths engaged in Mass tank assaults and using their superior mobility the t-34s swarmed all over the cumbersome Panthers elephants and feram knocking them off easily at close range wrote One German officer about 150 to 200 m in front of me appeared 15 then 30 then 40 tanks finally there were too many to count the amount of emphasis that Germany put on the Development and Construction of the Tiger 1 the tiger 2 the panther was out of all proportion to what Germany really needed its tank production to be processing it needed more tanks perhaps of the lighter grade that could actually do damage and take on the mass of the t-34s but Germany's economy just couldn't produce the number of tanks that were required when up against the industrial might of the Soviet Union defeat at the Battle of KK meant the end of Hitler's dream to control Russia while providing Stark proof that bigger was not necessarily better above all in World War II there was one indisputable fact when it came to the critical conflicts air cover was everything and because the Allies maintained air superiority throughout no vava for jet tank gun or ship no matter how ultra high tech was ever free from Relentless Air Assault as well as constant observation of their every move and it was driving Hitler crazy to try and appease the fura the Lu raer was developing and introducing a vast array of different groundbreaking flying weapons but this was the problem you need to have a rationalization not just in terms of how you organize spare parts but you need to have a rationalization in what production lines you pursue I mean ultimately if you're interested in efficiency you choose a select number of uh models that you want to produce and then invest everything in producing as many of these as possible and that's not NE necessarily the way Germany Works they are in competition so there are competing models and competing planes which means that even pilot schools are not necessarily transferable you learn on one plane uh and that means you only fly those planes and and how many other planes can you fly or have you got expertise in and the battle between the aircraft manufacturers to secure defense contracts was almost as intense and bloody as what was happening in the skies above Europe just like the various branches of the military subscribed to the vunda idea in order to gain political favor and Industrial allocation so did the various manufacturers of these weapons such as the aircraft manufacturers me Schmidt and vka wolf were constantly fighting with each other in order to get allocation for their weapons and undoubtedly this competition between the different aircraft manufacturers within Nazi Germany in order to secure the F's favor and his funding um surely paved the way towards vunda as well because they were needing to come up with these more Unique Designs with these radical designs and if you can be the aircraft manufacturer that wins the war for the fer you know you're Immortal this talented industrial Hot House worked feverishly to impress the fura and head of the lufafa Herman guring they emerged with Incredible Cutting Edge Concepts such as rocket propulsion and even gigantic Hightech gliders a sensible leadership would have concentrated on economical but conventional designs that could be mass-produced with the resources at hand in fact due to a lack of fuel many of these shiny new flying marbles never made it into the air they were destroyed while sitting at airfields waiting for fuel that never came in 1944 too late to make much difference an incredible little machine burst out of the clouds the measure SMI 163 Comet it was designed as a rocket powered Interceptor aimed at disrupting and destroying enemy bombing raids in reality it was a rocket with a pilot seat the idea was for the comet to sit on the tarmac like a SP rer in its web waiting for the Drone of an Allied bomber formation above it had this amazing capacity for Speed it was relatively agile but it came with an awful lot of bugs and a lot of dangers so it had the issue with the fact that it needed to land in its early prototype days on a skid which of course was incredibly uh precarious the fact that its fuel was so corrosive that it could burn through human flesh was of course a catastrophe and ultimately it sort of had potential that truly couldn't be realized because of the pressures that were mounting on the National Socialist regime it was so fast and so powerful that Nazi Pilots only had about 1 or 2 seconds of firing time as they approached the Allied bombers the tremendous speed of the Comet also came at a cost of fuel It could only stay in the air for about 7 Minutes afterwards it had to glide back to base and perform a belly landing as the comet did not have any undercarriage it lost its Wheels as soon as it took off in the air brilliant it may have been but despite all the engineering and Technical breakthroughs the comet finished up shooting down a mere 16 Allied bombers a massive failure for such a pioneering aircraft if it had come earlier another fantastic jet fighter that had the potential to change the course of the air war was the mmith 262 swallow jet fighter how could such a Cutting Edge aircraft possibly the best fighter to ever enter the war and one that ultimately shot down over 500 enemy aircraft still end up on the long list of vva blunders contrary to popular belief the jet engine was actually available before the outbreak of World War II the Germans had a working prototype in 1938 and in 1939 however these engines are tremendously unreliable and at times provided not enough thrust to even get the airframe off the ground the initial BMW engines could only last about 5 to 6 hours before they had to be torn down despite these weaknesses this was a propulsion system that was deemed the future for fighter aircraft and hence the Germans developed the me262 swallow the me262 was a little bit held back by the fact that Hitler didn't fully commit to to its development until 1942 when it had seen it in its second uh demonstration in its second test flight and suddenly there was this sparkle in his eyes at seeing its potential but the problem is is that Hitler saw it differently to the lwaa he deemed that the me262 should be a bomber as there was a need currently for a fast tactical bomber to support the vermo forces in Europe unfortunately the design of the 262 up to that point was for a high performance high altitude fighter and it thus had to be completely redesigned in order to be a bomber aircraft or strike aircraft added to that it was also vulnerable on Landing as it had to slow right down on a very long approach if the Allied mosquito and typhoon Fighters didn't pick it off then they attacked it on the ground where most swallows were destroyed so the m262 could have changed the tide of the second world war but it was simply held back far too often by you know delays in its production in delivering engines in making all the necessary modifications in order to make it operational and it simply appeared far too late in the war in order to make the sizable impact that it could have been capable of making once again even though it was flawed so many things were right about this wonder weapon but there was never enough time to properly test and refine it and the swallow ultimately proved next to [Music] useless new technology needs time to develop to trial to bed in and then to have a Doctrine built around it for its use it needs to be bought into by the military the Germans rush through their technology a lot of their weapons that they eventually used were still developmental pieces had they started this process of developing their technology earlier then the scenario could have changed in 1943 a rather desperate Herman guring presented to the German aviation industry a novel challenge guring envisioned this sort of three times a thousand goal so that his bombers would be able to uh carry a payload of a th000 kilg that they would be able to travel 1,000 kilometers and that they would be able to fly at 1,000 km hour this was through traditional prop aircraft impossible and the only airframe that was able to do it was jet propelled this led to the development the lengthy development of the Horton 229 which was to be a high altitude strike aircraft that was able to fulfill this requirement of the 3x 1000 the Horton 229 was revolutionary in the fact that it was a flying wing design it did not have any Rudders was very very fast extremely maneuverable but it took forever to develop development was cut short when during flight one of the engines caught fire the test pilot was killed as the plane burst into flames and spiraled into the ground as ultimately did the entire project but the wunden that struck most fear into the British people were the infamous V1 and V2 Rockets these were quintessential Terror weapons or Revenge weapons as German propaganda like to call them in a sense German fighting methods were always about having a psychological impact on the enemy so if one looks at Blitz Creek the speed of of the tanks was very very important the same is true of the the V weapons not so much in their Precision but in their Randomness the doodle bug could fall pretty much anywhere um the V2 rocket was was quite unreliable they were great psychological weapons but probably at the wrong time by the time the doodle buug and the V2 were being used we're seeing that the British people had made such a sacrifice that they weren't going to be cowed and demoralized fundamentally by these Wonder Weapons flying over South Southern Southern England they would see the war through and so in a sense these Wonder Weapons came too late to have the psychological impact that Hitler desired them to have the V1 was in essence an early cruise missile Hitler turned to these flying bombs as retaliation for the massive German losses inflicted by Allied bombing raids in cities such as Hamburg the V1 however was very unreliable and remained wildly inaccurate throughout its deployment it was powered by a Ramjet engine burning ordinary lowgrade petrol across the engine air intake was array of small flaps air was forced through these flaps by the forward speed of the machine the fuel was injected and the mixture ignited by a simple spark plug it sounded not like a car engine with a fractured [Music] silencer without adequate launch capabilities the V1 Rockets had to be launched by catapults and ramps from the French Coast towards Targets in England and Belgium the rocket featured a rudimentary liid system on board to carry its Warhead to the Target though these flying bombs were fast many of the Allied Fighters like the Mustangs updated Spitfires and tempests could just about keep up with [Music] them providing opportunities for it to be shot down or for it to be Wing tipped off [Music] course but despite so many missing the target the weapon caused fear and Mayhem in Britain with children evacuated from the cities to the countryside but there was no defense against the more advanced version the V2 an early ballistic missile it smashed into cities with a ton of explosives on board it was the most powerful weapon ever deployed until the atomic bomb there's absolutely no question that the V2 rocket probably best among all of them is a remarkable scientific achievement but the real question is what does it cost to develop a V2 rocket and what is its real military utility the V2 uses over 12,000 lb of liquid oxygen and alcohol though it has has no explosive head the fuel renders it highly lethal these incredibly Advanced weapons that took immense resources and Manpower and scientific knowhow to create were in essence ineffectual in any way in affecting the war they are perhaps the best example of the failed vunda and how they did not save Germany from defeat the Stark truth is that more forced laborers died building and testing Germany's secret weapon then were killed from its deployment and impacts in Britain post war the United States Air Force does a study of these V weapons to try and work out how much was invested in them and the conclusion it comes to is that if the Germans hadn't pursued the V weapons and instead invested all of that financing an industrial resource into just producing Fighters they calculated Germany would have been able to produce another 25,000 Fighters and the disparity there is huge and it reflects the choices that are being made in the Third Reich and that grasping at straws that Wonder Weapons might in fact actually turn the war when in fact that wasn't going to happen apart from the famous V Rockets the Nazis wasted their time on a number of other futile wonder weapon missiles and projectiles even airto a missiles none of which ever reached combat ultimately ging's Luft raer failed to own the Skies over Europe and without winning in the air the Nazis were always staring down the barrel of defeat a lack of decent Frontline Fighters bombers and attack aircraft to replace obsolete machines proved telling as historian Gart vinberg put it the Germans would have been better off in World War II if they had not built a Navy at all and devoted those resources to the Army and LT raffer from the beginning the Cs Marine was no match for the British and United States navies both in strength and numbers at least as far as the surface Fleet went on February the 14th 1939 the 823 ft bismar was launched at Hamburg for Hitler this state-of-the-art Battleship heralded The Rebirth of the German surface Fleet in 1941 she was ordered to break out into the Atlantic where she began a brief raiding spree but her movement had been detected and almost the entire British fleet was hot on her t ale she was intercepted near Iceland by two British battleships where after an intense battle the British HMS Hood one of the most advanced of the Royal Navy's battle Cruisers exploded and sank with over 2,000 crew lost it was a serious and bitter blow for the Royal Navy 2 Days Later the bismar was cited and attacked by British aircraft again and again until she was reduced to a smoking wreck the pride of the German Fleet sank with almost all hands after the sinking of the bismar in 1941 Hitler was afraid to use the rest of his service Fleet he had powerful surface vessels such as the bismar sister ship the tpet or in battle Cruisers such as the shanor and nisen now but he did not readily commit them to Frontline battle the sinking of the business bismar was a serious blow to his pride and he did not want to suffer that again so therefore the shanor and NIS andau spent most of the war in birth in Port and dock or in secondary conflicts the tpet itself constantly was in dock being shuffled around despite the fact that he didn't commit them to Frontline battle Hitler lost all three of those vessels the Shor was sunk by the HMS how and other Cruisers off the coast of Russia the the nenow was constantly a target for Allied vessels so much so that Hitler got fed up and sank it as a block vessel and took its cannons off to form a defensive Armament at the Atlantic Wall and the tpet was constantly bombed and being refitted until the end of the war as the War years went on Hitler became increasingly disillusioned with his surface Fleet there's no question that the German Navy should have been configured in entirely differently than it was under Adolf Hitler uh but you know like his predecessor Kaiser vilhelm II Adolf Hitler was a uh very weak and insecure and vain glorious figure who saw his status reflected in the size of Warships so he wanted big battleships you know big showy battleships like the tiits like the bismar to show you know Nazi progress in Nazi might and Nazi power but these things were useless against you know better armed and better equipped navies and Air Forces like the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force which could strike these things from the air or from by submarines or Surface fleets and Destroy them he would have been far better off investing his money in submarines from 1943 the focus of the Creeks Marine was directed beneath the waves into the feared wolf packs patrolling the Atlantic and the seas around Britain the fact that Hitler viewed his attack submarines as shining lights on his Marine forces was made Crystal Clear when the head of the uboat fleet Carl donets replaced Admiral Raider as commander of the CES Marine donets had previously said if he had 300 uots or uny boot he could strangle Britain and win the war no wonder these were the weapons that could have proved decisive against the Allies the kri Marine were constantly trying to perfect the designs of the uots the first type seven was more of a coastal goinging uboat it had limited Armament and limited range the type 9 was a much larger Oceano ubot that could actually reach the North American Shores and these designs were constantly being revised throughout the war uots were fitted with special tiles to mask a sub's acoustic signature snorkel were developed to allow the uots to recharge their batteries underwater without revealing their position on the surface but even though Hitler was a fan of the uots the sneaky Subs went exactly the type of weapon that reflected the Glamorous showy image of the Nazi machine the more exotic and high visibility aircraft guring was pushing though far less effective were a much more glamorous propaganda proposition so that's where the funding went money that donet so desperately needed to keep his uots competitive another example of how the three arms of the German forces fought and under mind each other critically hollowing out the entire war effort they all produced more fanciful and exciting weapons to show Hitler in order to gain that favor new Jets new aircraft new tanks all these very exciting and technologically advanced weapons were produced mainly to gain his favor and gain military allocation but if you can't have Grassi and shy how about tiny the Germans even managed to waste time in many Subs not one one but several varieties Nida seun and bber some were inhuman death traps where the submariners needed to be administered drugs to even get them to go on board these mini submarines were manned by one or two uh Sailors they would go down in those mini subs and the plan which was executed was that they would spend 5 days to a week in the those mini subs uh travel all the way to the temps Estuary was even to travel to United States and torpedo American ships or or launch bombs against Manhattan for example problem was that uh if you're alone in one of these mini submarines for a week um you basically die as soon as you fall asleep because you cannot operate your vehicle anymore so they had to stay awake for extremely long periods of time longer than even methampetamine [Music] allows in 1937 Hitler met with industrialist Gustav K he liked what he heard he was spooking the design of the 80 cm Railway gun known as the sh gusta or heavy gusta named after Gustaf kup himself it was to be the world's biggest gun it's not known how Gustav felt about the Monica but he shouldn't have worried because construction workers nicknam the monster gun Dora and it stuck predictably the construction deadline of 1940 was missed the Gustav or Dora as it was affectionately called by the troops that used it was a gigantic 80 cm Railway gun this was an Antiquated idea for a modern problem to deliver High ordinance on an enemy Target it was used a few times on the Eastern Front until it warped its Barrel it was rebuilt and never deployed again accounts vary as to whether there were actually two guns built the Gustaf and the Dora or was it just the one gun with two names as far as the verar was concerned one was probably enough more and more Google talks about these elusive Wonder Weapons more and more he frames them in the terms of enzik the idea of final Victory and while people don't really know what they are he can show small Snippets of rockets being launched and people think wow okay so these are a real thing we are going to get the Wonder Weapons and in spite of everything that they're seeing the reality of the War the closing in of the borders there's always this reservoir of Hope at some point we're going to get these magical weapons that are going to turn the tide and have we seen this before in the war we have in the end laran did achieve a critical and Lasting Legacy but not the Glorious version Hitler had been counting on instead they became a byword for false hope unrealistic expectation and wasted money they were ridiculed by Western satirists and became a feature of the whispered Gallows humor among the defeated German populace so how did it all go so wrong for the Germans from a position of superior technology a subservient population a highly motivated Warrior ethos and early tactical Brilliance a blind belief in technology as the ultimate savior of the Reich became a critical drag on the Nazi war effort the vavaa was by and large a massive marketing or propaganda Ploy it they were the weapons that were going to win the war for Germany when other weapons were seemed to be failing unfortunately this really was not the case what Germany needed was sufficient numbers of good enough weapons not the best but good good enough in order to produce in sufficient numbers and have them be effective and reliable on a large scale so they can fight their multiple opponents that they had this premise may seem obvious enough but the logic somehow eluded the Nazis at least it eluded Hitler they've made a fetish out of military technology that's why the rocken show when we see these uh propaganda films that Gobles has been showing in the early part of the war it always always emphasize technology the idea of the resurgent luffer coming in and winning campaigns he he has the idea to fit cameras onto the front of the plane so you get this magnificent footage of them conducting these these bombings and these uh these stuer raids and so on well they're doing the same thing again and when people are questioning at the most basic level where are we going with the war the two answers you get are well we still have Adolf Hitler and there is the potential for these Wonder Weapons who knows what they are the truth was that the Nazi war room was a spiraling Echo chamber of Illusion and vanity a place where Hitler and his crazed Visions were fed by scants and yes men the engineers and industrialists often found themselves in an impossible situation forced to Pander with positive reports and predictions just to keep a contract keep favor and even just to stay alive from a brilliant start to the war within a few years through courageous resistance at home and abroad the Allies had ground the Germans down by 1943 all Germany had left in their Arsenal was to stoke fears about becoming Wonder Weapons with wild claims of mass destruction Vengeance and ultimate victory for Germany when what they needed were designs that were simple and cost effective and advanced enough to be reliably deployed in combat in large enough numbers if they done this things might have turned out differently fortunately for us the Nazis failed to do any of [Music] it mended what kind of leader murders millions and takes on the world's major powers on multiple battlefronts Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniac he had a God complex he had all of these different issues that have been stemming since his childhood this gives Hitler a feeling of almost Messianic superiority that he knows things that even his professional mark Marshals and Generals don't know that he has these gut instincts that are unerring could a disease caught in the trenches during World War I have accelerated this delusional personality it was described by some as instant psychopath and these people became criminals particularly convincing conmen could another contributing factor have been a raging drug addiction Hitler is is a heroin addict he's also getting up with you know crystal meth you know pervitin and also taking cocaine he's really a wck it was a recipe for disaster which led to Ultimate crushing defeat for Hitler and the Nazis and the deaths of [Applause] [Music] Millions [Music] in the last days of the reich's Reign Adolf Hitler revealed the depths of his capacity for self- delusion Germany was under attack from both east and [Music] west defeat was inevitable but Hitler ordered his men to fight to the death Hitler's war room was conducted in a fortified underground bunker in Berlin's chancell Gardens when he's in the bunker in 1945 awaiting the Soviet attack on Berlin and you know he's trembling and some say this is Parkinson's Disease others say this is you know with withdrawal symptoms from uh the the morphine he'd been taking and was unable to get because the German pharmaceutical factories were getting bombed out by the British and the Americans so um no he's he's a wck how did Hitler in a handful of years go from Germany's apparent savior to her Nemesis a broken and deranged dictator hiding in an underground bunker ordering his troops to certain death in the Years leading up to World War II Hitler achieved a string of remarkable victories his apparently Flawless military judgment nurtured a Messianic conviction of his own indestructibility this coupled with his carefully stag managed public speeches and appearances turned Hitler into a Fier weed military Chief at the head of an unbeatable Army in fact his military skills remained largely those of the lowly Corporal he had been in World War I and his blundering coupled with his increasingly unstable personality proved ultimately to be one of the Allies greatest weapons but was there something else going on behind the scenes that even the Allies couldn't guess at there's no question that Hitler's decision making deteriorated in the course of World War II uh people noticed it at the time he became more and more self-pitying modling sleepy just kind of imprecise as the war went on and he became physically more and more debilitated we can see in those weeks uh in the bunker how he self-destructs by becoming self-abusive picking his own skin with tweezers he just becomes a very unhappy unhealthy horrible person maybe that's the true Hitler that he always was now it really comes [Music] out Hitler's spiraling decline while he was Chief decision maker was in part due to years of drug abuse from 194 41 on a regular basis Hitler was injected with methamphetamin and morphine a syringe was his preferred method was the man in charge of the biggest war machine in history little more than a junkie Hitler is is a heroin addict I mean this is a guy who by the end of the war is taking intravenous heroin every day other other opiates he's also getting up with you know crystal meth you know pervitin and uh he's also taking cocaine he's also injecting himself with vitamins testosterone bull testosterone he's really a wreck Hitler was displaying all these appalling symptoms yet he was still able to cling to [Applause] power on the 20th of April inside Hitler's bunker the fur's most loyal supporters lined up to mark his 56th birthday kilometers away on the edge of Berlin a puny number of German soldiers were desperately defending the city a few thousand Germans against the massed ranks of the Red Army as his delusional world collapsed all around him Hitler's drug idled mind kept alive his fantasy Germany would Prevail Hitler's private secretary troud Yer observed the worst the situation became on the front the happier Hitler was to discuss his plans for the future Hitler imagined he would surround himself with artists academics and civilians When The War was over he was becoming ever more delusional it wasn't just drug use the drugs were amplifying an already deranged character Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniac he had a God complex he had all of these different issues that have been stemming since his childhood and which made him a Broken Man Hitler is a pathetic individual you know he grows up he's bullied by his father his his mother and father die when he's a teenager he's sort of shiftless youth he ends up in art school doesn't do well he ends up sort of painting postcards on the street and sort of drifting around in the fringes of society so you know he endows himself with all these Powers as a way of I go I suppose pumping up his fragile self-esteem all the leading politicians look at him with contempt you know the Bohemian Corporal he the feckless youth living a penniless destitute life found a home in the German army fighting against the Allies in World War I this you know German enlisted man from World War I of ab no distinction who's trying to rise to the top of German politics and they and they see as as as his contemporaries saw that he's truly a pathetic figure but Hitler did have this kind of ability to Simply simplify matters for for people and narrow them down to a couple of key grievances that people could cling to and this is what brought him Fame and [Applause] power so how did Hitler's experiences during World War I shape his capacity as a war leader was he up to the task of being a combat Soldier let alone the military leader of [Music] Germany all of the soldiers that lived through the Battle of era were promoted to Lance corporal including Hitler his new role was to carry messages between the front line and regimental headquarters a job fought with danger many dispatch Runners were killed in the line of duty but Hitler excelled by all accounts Hitler was a very good soldier he he has uh a number of awards that he receives and citations not least of which the Iron Cross we also know that he's exposed to very real dangers he gets wounded twice once in 1916 once in 1918 in fact in 1918 it's a gas attack one soldier from his regiment Hans men described Hitler as odd and peculiar who preferred to paint and read rather than mix with the other soldiers men claimed Hitler would sit in the corner in silence then all of a sudden jump up and start ranting attacking Jews and marxists who Hitler claimed were subverting the war effort Hitler's nickname was crazy Adolf according to Hitler's close friend Ernst hangle fellow soldiers mocked Hitler when they saw him in the washroom claiming his genitals were almost freakishly underdeveloped hum stangle was one of Hitler's few friends and he queried whether Hitler's genital abnormality contributed to his terrifying and murderous rages he knew from a very early stage that he had congenital deformities which he was desperate to hide now Freud famous said Anatomy is Destiny and I think we have to say to a very large extent more so than most cases you look at this explains Hitler and at the same time this man is building gigantic impossible structures well you don't have to be a Freudian to see there's a connection between the two and it's it's a simple projection of his inadequacy Hitler's career in the Infantry wouldn't last long when he was wounded in a British mustard gas attack in 1918 at EA in Belgium he became temporarily blind and was evacuated to a German military Hospital lying in his bed a local Pastor would bring him the devastating news of Germany's surrender Hitler claimed the news was so traumatizing it sent him into another bout of blindness and in the darkness he claimed to have had an epiphany he would be the one to liberate Germany he said I would make Germany great I knew immediately that it would be realized Hitler's m enre complex had begun was this a vision a moment of delirium or something else entirely latest theories suggest something else was at play a medical theory that might help us understand where Hitler's delusional mind and Psychopathic nature came from a disease caught in the trenches in late 196 16 on the Western Front a new illness that had never been seen before broke out and the people affected by it mostly went into a deep sleep from which they could be awakened uh they developed a range of neurological and psychiatric symptoms 40% of them died with the first episode but if they recovered they would remain in a deep state of sleep they would have Parkinson syndrome not Parkinson's disease which you get when you're older or they would have a major personality change it was described by some as instant psychopath and these people became criminals particularly convincing conmen now we know that Hitler was right at the spot in the German front lines where the outbreak happened shortly afterwards he went to Munich which was a place where there were a lot of cases so the theory goes that Hitler had intis lethargica he survived it and it led to two things his dramatic personality change and his well-known Parkinson's whether Hitler had analitis lethargica remains a theory but what's not in doubt is Hitler believed his Divine Destiny was to restore Germany's standing in the world as we know now Hitler could not deliver on all his promises and his diseased delusional mind would eventually lead Germany down a path of humiliation and destruction but how would this socalled Providence take Hitler from his hospital bed to a podium in 1918 Hitler returned to Munich the city was in a state of civil unrest his job was to help the Army infiltrate the German Workers Party an anti-marxist and anti- capitalist political party instead he joined them the German Workers Party would later become the National Socialist or NY party Hitler Rose through the ranks quickly prepar hel by the sheer power of His delusional self-belief and his ability to sell the Nazi party message to the masses I think that explains why Hitler was the most successful demagogue in history that away from the stage the plenum uh where he was talking to a massive people he was utterly insignificant there was just nothing there it was if you could take a personality and make it into jelly and you just your finger would just keep going through it and this was remarked on by everybody who knew him around him when Hitler got on the stage and he had to give a talk it was like a complete change of personality but of course we got to remember that he was speaking words that people wanted to hear here as a result of that uh he he could um capture that desire that was certainly within the German people for strong leadership and the Fulfillment of a great vision Hitler started to really love the sound of his own voice and we start to see all the characteristics of a true narcissist come to the surface it's reasonable enough to take the general acceptance that a narcissist is somebody totally self-obsessed they are the center of the universe everybody around them either has to make them feel better or be punished for not doing that another way of putting it is simply that a narcissist is a psychopath who hasn't been caught yet because n narcissism as people generally conceive of it means you can rationalize and justify any Behavior so you could argue if you use that structure that Hitler was the greatest narcissist in history by August 1933 Hitler had become the chancellor head of the government and with the death of head of state Paul Von Hindenberg in 1934 Hitler then declared himself the [Applause] president he was now the furer Germany's supreme leader crazy Adolf as he'd be known in the trenches was now one of the most powerful leaders in the world as military leader AV vengeful Hitler instructed his generals to prepare for a massive expansion he ordered his troops into the ryeland an area that had been stripped of its military power under the Treaty of Versa next Hitler took control of his homeland Austria it was a bloodless Invasion he was welcomed with open arms Hitler rode in Triumph into Vienna even the very name of Austria disappeared from the map and he reclaimed the German sedon land in neighboring Czechoslovakia Hitler saw himself as bulletproof and Germany as unassailable it was only a matter of time before he turned his attention to the rest of Europe without even bothering to declare war the German armies launched a coordinated attack I think there's a good good case to be made for Hitler is overconfident in some ways that's also the secret to his success the fact that he's really to take so much risk but that feeds his narcissism that feeds his sense of inherent destiny that he is the chosen one that he is going to lead Germany and in some ways that's part of the reason why so many people are buying into this Hitler's arrogance let him to believe Poland's allies wouldn't fight back Hitler was contemptuous towards the Allies he saw them as weak and indecisive Hitler would later tell his generals the Allies are small worms referring to Britain's prime minister Neville Chamberlain Hitler said If ever that silly old man comes interfering here again with his umbrella I'll kick him downstairs and jump on his stomach in front of photographers I think this was characteristic of Hitler from a very early age uh and it exemplified the fact that he was totally self-centered totally obsessive incapable of having any opinion that he did that disagreed with him and he simply reacted in kind while the Panzer divisions roll through the Polish countryside England and France present a cold ultimatum to withdraw Hitler's generals knew an invasion of Poland would provoke a response from the Allies they asked Hitler for more time to fortify Germany for what they believed was certain War Hitler dismissed their concerns in a matter of days the swastika had plunged the world into Total War could this have been the moment when Hitler's diseased delusional mind tipped over into outright psychopathy what we see in Hitler is the worst example possibly the only example of somebody achieving absolute power this is somebody who came from being a complete non- entity in 1919 to a man in 1942 who was the greatest conqueror of Europe since Napoleon and Caesar had the absolute worship of all the Germanic peoples and the belief that he was going to conquer the world so this just segwayed perfectly into his self-image I am the greatest man in the world I should control the world and it picked up from there going forward into World War II itself Hitler feels that you know he's been touched by God that the generals are far too conservative and that he has this sort of divine ability to find the weakness of the enemy pounce on it and destroy the enemy he saw himself as invincible and his judgment impeccable the Divine furer was now Beyond [Applause] [Music] reproach Britain and France honored their agreement to stand by their Ally Poland and on the 3rd of September 19 1939 World War II was declared Hitler was a great opportunist and somebody that would very much want to ride the wave of success Hitler believed there was an opportunity to exploit and therefore he went after his ideological AIMS in terms of foreign policy like a dog after a bone and he just wouldn't give up at any point during the war until there was even either death or Victory Germany crushed Poland in less than five weeks Hitler was emboldened Britain and France were next and it took only 6 weeks for France to fall he's counseled against the invasion of Poland he goes in defeats Poland he's counseled against the invasion of France France Falls this gives Hitler a feeling of almost Messianic superiority that he knows things that even his professional Marshals and Generals don't know that he has these gut instincts that are unerring he was a rockar to the German people delivering on all his promises but wherever there's a rock star drugs are often not far away 3 years earlier in 1936 Hitler had fallen in with Dr Theodore Morel Morel was an experienced physician he' amassed fortunes building pharmaceutical factories he made everything from lice powder to Chocolate vitamins Hitler's Inner Circle regarded him as a quack he was known by Nazi party insiders as the third reich's syringe Master Morel always gave drugs by injections um he he thought pills work too slowly and he said to Hitler you have to make fast decisions you cannot wait for a pill to dissolve you need the instant effect they they had a special word for it they called it instant recovery so forell so the the the injection actually works very fast I mean you feel terrible you get an injection uh intravenously you will feel like in heaven 5 seconds later this is this is what impressed Hitler the irony is that when the Nazi party came to power it was p panical it had adopted a stringent anti-drug stance now its supreme leader was an addict they were the first anti-drug government uh in German history so all of this drug freedom of the VMA Republic of the 20s was suddenly gone drug users were put in concentration camps because the Nazi movement tried to present itself as a clean movement cleansing the German German population from uh poisonous influences it was instrumental in the beginning when they took power to connect Jews with drugs so they said the Jews among amongst us they take more drugs than the proper than the Arian German the non-jewish German so they they tried to push all the poisons this the so-called poisons out of the German Society in 1937 the German pharmaceutical manufacturer tler developed a new drug pertin a methamphetamin and within a year pertin was on the streets so when this product hit the market in 1938 it was not considered to be a drug it was considered to be a performance enhancing medicine this spread so wildly in the German population that for example methamphetamine laced chocolates came onto the market they were advertised as being perfect for the German housewife because with those um beautiful chocolates laced with methamphetamine the housework would be done easily and would would even be fun to stay at home and do the housework uh so in the morning like we drink coffee the Germans in 1938 39 used u a little bit of methamphetamine to get ready for the day and pervitin sold as a medicine not a drug soon found its way into the German Army there was a professor he was called Ranka and Ranka found out that in in the attack on Poland already a lot of soldiers were using ptin so he suggested to the Surgeon General of the army that for the next phase of the war which was was the attack uh against the West pavinee should be an official uh medication for soldiers it should be supplied and every Soldier should take this on the first day of the attack so 35 million dosages of methamphetamine were being ordered from the German Army from the TLA company were being shipped to the front lines and then were being taken on May 10th 1940 when Germany attacked uh the countries in the West in fact in the panac core they refer to it as panach chocolada tank chocolate there's also other names that people use like the stcker pill and this gives you an idea of just how powerful this stim was they didn't have to sleep at night the Brits and the French got tired after 8 hours of fighting they they they they slept at night like every soldier on the planet has always slept at night like the Germans they just continued fighting all through the [Music] night it's particularly widely used in the medical core because they are overwhelmed by casualties nurses and doctors are taking per because they have access to it and it gets to the point where people are taking it so much so that they stop sleeping they stop sleeping for up to a week on end and seemingly can function conducting operations looking after wounded then they talk about these enormous crashes that they that they sleep for a day or two on end but of course it's also addictive so it becomes a real problem was the entire Nazi war effort a drug fueled Rampage across Europe on the highly addictive methamphetamin pertin Hitler's right-hand man Herman ging had been a morphine addict since he was wounded in the bear Hall pch in 1923 and he was in charge of the luffer and with Hitler now in the hands of the syringe Master Dr morel drugs were now part of Nazi Germany from the top down but drugs and feelings of invincibility don't explain all of Hitler's plunders in 1940 when Germany failed to obliterate the Allies at the Battle of Dunkirk Hitler was not yet injecting hard drugs Hitler made a lot of good decisions early in the war but he also made a very bad one uh concerning dun per when he stopped the German tanks and this decision uh had nothing to do with drugs because he wasn't using heavy drugs uh in the spring of 1940 at Dunkirk the Allies had been losing the battle to keep France out of German's hands the Allies were in Retreat and the beach at Dunkirk was one of their only Escape Routes back across the English Channel the Allies were sitting ducks then Hitler decided to Halt the offensive Hitler sometimes had a what could be termed a schizophrenic style of leadership where he would sometimes do exactly the opposite of what would be expected of him previous victories would indicate that he would be very confident yet sometimes he would have cold feet and sto short he also had a tendency to listen to the general that last spoke to him and then that would become policy had Hitler not stopped the panzas at this critical point around Dunkirk there is little doubt that the bef the British expeditionary Force the best part of the French army and some Belgium would have been destroyed they would have been taken out of the game what that would have done for British and fren French morale Can Only Be Imagined it didn't matter to Hitler that the betrag bef was allowed to make its way back to Britain with its tail between its legs he already had his sight set on a much greater prize Hitler's errors of judgment came thick and fast as Hitler grew more maniacal his micromanaging became more intense after he and the morphine addict ging blw the Battle of Britain he turned his attention to the East and planned to invade Russia to keep on top of things Hitler needed something stronger from Dr Morel so in 1941 in August when the Germany attacked the Soviet Union when Hitler wanted to divide the German troops part of the troops should go up to lingad part should go to Moscow and the other uh heading for the oil reserves of the Soviet Union um his generals disagreed with that they wanted to take Moscow first they said if we take Moscow that's how we win the war Hitler he became quite sick for the first time he had um what was called the Russian flu so he asked Morel to give him something stronger than just Vitamins because he wanted to get up and Morel then for the first time gave him uh an opioid and Hitler got out of bed walked into the military briefing room and was able to command uh the the ongoings so this was the first time he tasted something stronger and he would not forget that was this the moment that turn the war where opiates the unknown secret ingredient that would cloud Hitler's judgment and fatally undermine the German Army's efforts in the East Hitler was confident the war would last two months three at the most Hitler was wrong again here 27,000 Nazi soldiers died the war against Russia lasted almost four years the early victories give Hitler the self-confidence to press ahead for for more military action right the way through until 1941 in the invasion of the Soviet Union Hitler's generals were saying to Hitler we shouldn't be doing this we don't have enough time we do not have the plans we do not have the resources to undertake the military campaigns that you want as the war progressed Hitler's drug use accelerated by 1942 Hitler's morning ritual was injections from his doctor Theodore Morel Hitler would become a heavy user of cocaine and ucad dool a morphine cousin of heroin Hitler's narcissism his belief in his Divine Mission and his drug addiction made for a deadly cocktail just like anyone high on drugs is not that much in contact with reality and and if you are the leader in a war you have to be very much in contact with reality you cannot live in a dream world this ultimately has to lead to terrible decisions Hitler's generals were noticing how their F's Behavior was changing in Daily military conferences Hitler's armament Minister Albert Spear observed Hitler lacked the Ingenuity he possessed prior to [Music] 1942 Hitler's mad plan to take Russia the Eastern Front unraveled instead of admitting he was wrong Hitler purged the high command of the Nazi Armed Forces he surrounded himself with more and more Yes Men further feeding his narciss M and consolidating Power in his own hands Hitler always had a uh a tendency to be incredibly self-confident and only believing in his own ideas and beliefs his behavioral uh Tendencies towards um not allowing contrary opinion comes to the for and he alone takes the key decisions in Nazi Germany supported by his henchmen who are protecting the power base that he's built end of the path of Glory for this once proud Nazi army the German front in Russia was collapsing the Soviets had gained the upper hand and would soon Advance on Germany by now Hitler was also losing against the Allies on the Western Front and the fura had another problem closer to home multiple assassination attempts on his life there were at least 42 assassination attempts on Hitler between the 1930s in the end of the war uh and certainly the most famous is the 1944 staenberg plot there were dozens of other plots some of them near misses some of them Hitler never knew about you know uh he was a vet vegetarian they'd poison some meat on the table and he wouldn't eat it so he wouldn't get sick or or die or they'd put a bomb in a plane that he was on but the bomb would fail the fact that he survived them reinforced his view that he was sort of a Superman that had been you know chosen to lead Germany in this you know struggle for survival and that nothing could do him in and that and that these merely confirmed his greatness but the famous Von Stenberg attempt on Hitler's life on July the 20th 19 44 had a more profound effect it sent his drug use into overdrive Hitler psyche also suffered tremendously from that assassination attempt this is when he started to use the cocaine uh he used cocaine over 50 times after the assassination attempt and on the days when he didn't use cocaine he used um ooal the the strong um opioid that was injected into his veins so the assassination attempt by Stenberg didn't kill him but really turned him into a drug addict and actually turned him into a junkie cuz someone who receives an opioid intravenously every other day for several months can can be called only a junkie Nazi prisoners some of them say that Hitler's war is lost but they fought to the last bullet as Germany's defeats mounted was hit's conviction that he was indestructible influenced by his dependency on hard drugs did Hitler's drug use affect his decision making historians and clinicians believe met amphetamines cocaine and heroin altered the fur's mental state and played a role in Germany's defeat there is absolutely no doubt that the medical attention that hit Le was getting the drugs that he was taking was in a sense driving an exhausted man further and further they were perhaps addling his brain affecting his decision making in a negative way for example when he's awakened uh during the D-Day invasion on June 6 1944 he's sleeping late as usual at berus Garden uh you know he's groggy and drowsy and doesn't really begin functioning until mid afternoon because he so hung over from this cocktail of drugs that he takes all day and night as his judgment became more impaired Hitler became ever more determined to focus military decision making in his own hands so complete was his self- delusion growing paranoia and Neurosis that he was losing touch with reality by January 1945 the Russians were advancing on Germany Hitler had retreated to his fortified underground bunker in The Gardens of the Reich chanelly in Berlin Allied plans to assassinate Hitler had been aborted they believed that the deluded drug addled and unhinged Hitler with his increasingly poor judgment was more valuable to them alive than dead as news came through that Soviet troops had entered Berlin Hitler feared he'd be captured and subjected to the same lued public humiliation that his one-time friend and Ally Bonito musolini and his mistress CLA patachi had suffered he'd heard rumors that the Red Army planed a parade into the streets of Germany in a cage the prospect was too much for Hitler and he opted to take his own life fittingly his suicide was to come from one last drug cyanide plus a revolver just in [Music] case like their beloved fura Germany had descended into smoldering [Music] ruins hollowed out a shell decayed and defeated by the end of April Soviet soldiers were only a few blocks from Hitler's underground bunker on the 1st of May 1945 at 10:20 p.m. Grand Admiral Carl dernitz commanderin-chief for the North north of Germany made an announcement on Hamburg radio with the strains of a Vagner Opera playing he announced that the fura was dead he said Hitler had fallen in battle fighting at the head of his troops but it was yet another fiction to a party desperate to keep that myth alive Al Hitler had not Fallen as a hero but died as a [Music] coward these are some of the most influent men of the Nazi regime the furer adol Hitler Hitler was utterly ruthless anything that stood in his word way he could justify to himself that it was worth getting rid of the fighter is Herman ging a bon vivant he liked women he liked wine he liked drugs the spin Doctor Joseph Geral the ultimate Sian just tells Hitler always what he wants to hear and makes Hitler feel great about himself head of the SS Hinrich himler he enjoyed the trappings of power he enjoyed his relationship with Hitler and he would do whatever it took to ensure that that continued the gatekeeper Martin Borman he was a ruthless man he had blood on his hands he was the sort of man that Hitler needed to do his Dirty Work each name conjures its own special nightmare but could they work together to bring the grand NY Vision to fruition or would their toxic and dangerous self-interest cause dysfunction and [Music] ruin the Nazi leadership was ambitious it was ruthless it was Cutthroat it was absolutely backstabbing and you couldn't trust anyone so much as look at them what is the pathway to promotion how do you assume a leadership role in the third roich it's by telling Hitler to no small extent what he wants to hear without question it is inherently dysfunctional Hitler's leadership was often contradictory and self-serving intentionally handing out confusing and overlapping duties to his underlings keeping them busy fighting among themselves rather than plotting against him was part of his ploy well Hitler's management style was notoriously shambolic I mean here was a guy who went to bed early or else stayed up all night watching movies invariably slept past noon had a notoriously short intention span didn't listen to briefings didn't read stuff always operated on his gut and uh thought his gut was superior to the professional views of others who were really reading intelligence reports and doing real analysis of problems so it tended to be he would try to reinforce his prejudices if he wanted to do something he would find reasons to do it or find people who would tell him it was doable and he would ignore or Purge critics and the toxic attitude poisoned any chance of a proper functioning [Music] Elite stay on the good side of Hitler or else was an excellent policy failure meant a swift fall from favor and in Nazi Germany this could be very bad for your health one of the tactics that Hitler used is not only in Germany but within his own government is dividing and ruling setting one sector of society up against another one Department up against another one individual up against another always making sure that neither faction really knew where they stood if individuals are dling for position they are perhaps not creating any opposition to Hitler but the upsides were very alluring to make it into his inner circle brought with it security immense power and often wealth to get there was not so much a matter of abilities more for a need to demonstrate slavish devotion and a ruthless drive to make it through the ranks one man who excelled in the traits that went to making a successful Nazi was Herman ging Garing was a a bon vivant you know he he liked women he liked wine he liked drugs he liked uh partying he liked ceremony he liked decorative uniforms uh and he loved art and real estate Garing was flamboyant Vain and downright weird he built a palace in a hunting Reserve dressed in Period clothes and tried to have extinct animals re-engineered back to life so he could hunt them like in the good old days of German mythology being hopelessly hooked on morphine which he originally started taking for injuries suffered in the beer hall PCH of 1923 may explain some of this Behavior giring had the talent to rub people up the wrong way throughout his life he was arrogant he was vain he was bombastic and if you didn't know him too personally people were often sort of drawn into his personality and they found him Charming but once you actually realized that you had to work with him you knew you were dealing with you know a morphine addict who was inconsistent who had mood swings guring was deserving of his top spot but equally he condemned himself to his Fall From Grace despite often looking like one gerding was no clown when he put his mind to it he was as efficiently evil as the next Nazi and he caught Hitler's eye ging had been a commander of the Flying Circus Squadron in World War I under the famous Baron von Roven the Red Baron and had proved his skill with 22 kills to his name giring had all the star power and the Swagger of being a fighter Ace in the first world war Hitler really latched on to that he needed that sort of of sense of Gravitas and almost flamboyance to make the National Socialist movement stand out it was a wedding of convenience for the two you know Hitler had the star power and guring had this sort of sense of needing to restore Germany to its greatness particularly as he had seen the German air force be utterly smashed to pieces and demoralized after the first world war and he had sworn to restore German Aviation to the skies so Hitler was the man to do it with him guring Rose quickly through the ranks in 1923 Hitler placed him in charge of the stap or sa which ging quickly shaped into a large and Powerful organization of agitators and thugs operating way outside the law they were essentially Hitler's bully boys targeting any opposition to the Nazi agenda gering's arrogance made him hugely unpopular with the men under his command but it emboldened the burgeoning Nazi party to attempt to seize power by force by 1923 the party had grown confident enough to attempt a Brazen coup the national socialists made a stand under Hitler at a beer hall in Munich with a plan to overthrow the federal government but the plan failed 16 party members were killed and ging was badly wounded ging suffered with that wound for the rest of his life it created this morphine addiction that made him balloon in weights and ultimately it did change his personality you know even though he had been seen as a bit of a a difficult man and an arrogant man he was a smart man and the morphine sort of blunted that intelligence the plot may have failed catastrophically but for one old friend of Hitler's it had its advantages Ern ROM who had been front and center during the fail PCH displaced the incapacitated guring as head of the sa under his command ROM saw the numbers swell to almost 3 million strong but trouble was brewing the signature backstabbing and double crossing that was to define the Nazi Inner Circle was about to show its ugly face in July 1932 the Nazis won the election due in no small way to the intimidation by the sa Hitler was now Chancellor and ging was named as president of the rag and his rightand man all seemed to be going well for the Nazis but the factions and power centers within were beginning to attack each other an early trigger for the internal Wars was the rise of the sa many worried it had become too big and the leader Ern ROM was publicly moving away from Hitler's ideology Hitler was always concerned that there might be factions within the Nazi party that could challenge his own leadership and we see him really trying to consolidate his power base and removing those enemies that could potentially pose a challenge uh to his leadership and his Supremacy ROM and the sa were a powerful potential force that he would find very difficult to control to keep the essay in check Hitler created the SS security service and then expanded the gasto the infamous secret State Police placing them both under Heinrich himler this new version of organized thuggery could now counteract the power of the essay and their leader Ern throm not leaders Herman Gering Deputy Nazi Chief Rudolph Hess propaganda Minister Joseph GBL and SS leader Heinrich himler began to coales around a deadly plan to rid themselves of earnst RAM for good in 1934 the cabal began their campaign against Rome they planted rumors and fake evidence that Rome was planning an overthrow of the regime swirling talk of homosexuality was also given plenty of air neither ROM nor the sa ever plann to seize power in Germany but the truth never got in the way of a good Nazi conspiracy despite ROM being one of his oldest friends Hitler seized the opportunity and charged himler and the SS with carry ing out a massive and deadly Purge of the sa officials including ROM it was to be Swift and merciless it would become known as the night of the Long Knives Hitler was utterly ruthless anything that stood in his way he could justify to himself that it was worth getting rid of so if rahen the sa had to be exterminated then why not do it on June the 28th 1934 the knives were sharpened for a bloody and brutal evening as the regime prepared to turn viciously on itself Hitler ordered Rome and the sa leaders to gather at a Bavarian Spa where SS units surprised disarmed and arrested them after being taken to prison most were shot on the spot without trial sa supporters took to the streets in protest while an enraged Hitler ordered a s of mass arrests and killings thousands were arrested the next day on orders from Hitler ROM was shot in his cell his last words were H Hitler after the night of the Long Knives and the death of on we see Hitler make a very bold statement that he was no longer willing to put up with those that threatened his power base he became a dictator he became a tyrant because of course he had to stamp on that opposition that might otherwise OU him from Power the Nazis had shown they were prepared to murder their own to achieve their goals from now on nothing nothing was out of bounds nothing too extreme lawlessness and brutality was now a weapon of the regime fear had taken root in his circle of leaders no one ever felt safe again this was a ruthlessness that he not only exposed the party to but also the nation to the idea here that there was only one leader for Germany he was building himself an edifice from which he couldn't be toled Hitler's next Target was the Army two top commanders who felt the cold grip of Nazi infighting were war minister Verna Von blomberg and frit the head of the Vermont uh Hitler had sat down in 1937 with his military leaders Chief among the Bloomberg the minister of war and frit the commander-in chief of the Vermont and he had kind of outlined his aggressive plans for German expansion uh principally in Eastern Europe then even the Soviet Union these guys were really alarmed and they began to push back inside the German military saying you know Hitler might be off his rocker you know I mean these These are pretty ambitious plans and Hitler gets wi to these Rumblings inside the German Army he decides I got to get rid of these guys I need to put in place men who will be loyal to me and will carry out my orders without hesitation and so he kind of Trumps up a couple of scandals the first Scandal involved Von Bloomberg in January 1938 he married 26-year-old typist Erna grun with Herman Gering as best man and Hitler himself as the witness but the course of true love never did run smooth particularly in Nazi Germany some pornographic images of Bloomberg's new wife surfaced together with evidence that she had once been a prostitute Bloomberg's days as minister of War were numbered and Hitler had the perfect replacement a man with Craven ambition who could be relied upon to do his bidding Herman Gering it was very clear that Hitler wanted to ensure that he placed at the head of the military individuals that he could manipulate Hitler ordered blumberg to anull the marriage in order to avoid Scandal and preserve the Integrity of the army when he refused ging threatened to publicly expose Bloomberg's wife's sworded past finally blumberg gave up and resigned all posts flush with their success at d destroying Bloomberg Hitler and ging now turn their attention to commanderin-chief of the verar Verna Von frit the next to fall is frit you know the commander-in-chief of the Vermont uh then Hitler concocts this wholly outrageous story that that frit is a closeted homosexual and he's bringing dishonor on the Prussian and German officer core and so frit who you know demands a military court of honor says this is not true is forced in turn to resign his post and Hitler then moves in as commander-in chief of the Vermont with both blumberg and frit gone ging was able to cement his position as the man who could get things done for Hitler his star was on the rise with his luer dominating in the blitz attacks on Poland and France ging was rewarded by Hitler and appointed his successor as fura of all Germany ging was now the highest ranking soldier in Germany answering only to Hitler which of course made the rest of the Nazi party leadership insanely jealous early on in the war the successes in Poland and in in the French campaign this gives uh guring a kind of elite status among the Inner Circle Hitler is purposefully manipul ating his inner circle and as loyal as these men are and they are not just loyal they are real siant I mean it is adulation to Hitler partly because they understand that the more Hitler gives them the greater their Prestige so they're always seeking Hitler's favor and this is the reason why guring lasts so long within the Nazi regime it's for what he provided within that inner sanctum what he provided Hitler with in terms of confidence and advice it was his trust it was his loyalty and that is what Hitler demanded perhaps above all else it would prove a precarious position with ging having to constantly look over his shoulder for the knives of his Rivals they would not hesitate to bring him down at the first sign of weakness increasingly throughout the war Hitler was concerned at ging's military capability which meant that there was a significant question mark surrounding guring as the war progressed that started during Dunkirk when the evacuation took place despite the attentions of the lft raffer the lft raffer couldn't produce the sort of strategic victories that guring suggested that it could as the war goes on and his star begins to decline partly because of his obvious failures guring defaults back into his morphine addiction becomes ever more problematic and he kind of Falls away from the scene but if ging was Hitler's closest Confidant in the military leadership his most trusted partyman was undoubtedly Minister for propaganda and Enlightenment Joseph geros but Hitler's fanatic little propaganda Minister Paul Joseph Geral the most Nazi of all the Nazis he was fanatical loyal to his fura and power mad Geral had immense power because Hitler's image depended upon gal's manipulation of information and the development of Hitler as an heroic figure all of the leading Nazis whether we're talking about you know Gobles Borman himler Garing they all figure out early on that Hitler's a weak man and that Hitler's easily manipulated Gobles cuz he's a the ultimate scopan just tells Hitler always what he wants to hear and makes Hitler feel great about himself and he's always at Hitler's side and he's always spouting Nazi propaganda he's a key player propaganda Minister GBL told them Germany didn't want a war at all Geral had proved his Mastery of the media and Nazi marketing as he rose through the ranks of the Nazi party he adapted recent developments in advertising with use of catchy slogans eye-catching posters and cryptic headlines to further the Nazi party cause and image he penetrated the very fabric of German Society taking the voice of the Nazis directly into Lounge rooms by making radios cheap deep and readily available they were even handed out free on his birthday like Hitler he practiced his speeches in front of the mirror perfecting his body language to convey power with highly choreographed hand gestures and vocal inflections he always knew how to make an entrance to give the most emotional impact he used the old trick of keeping the audience waiting then hitting them with [Applause] everything with his striking eyes and attractive voice Geral was the Undisputed Nazi pinup boy and a prolific womanizer despite a club foot which had prevented him from enlisting as a fighting soldier with the outbreak of War Geral began using his propaganda machine to shape messages and control information about what was happening on the fighting fronts his word spread as gospel throughout Germany in 1943 Geral was appointed Minister for total war after pressuring Hitler to adopt the policy which included measures like closing non-essential businesses conscripting women into the labor force and enlisting more men into the verm the whole idea of a of a total war idea it's a wonderful propaganda message it shows the uh ability of Geral to seize a moment to say it is now very clear that the war is being lost that we've suffered a great setback and we need to respond to this we need to respond to this by seizing the moment allowing people to believe oh we do have excess capacity oh the war is now seriously going to be fought by Germany now we're going to take the other hand out from behind our back and fight this war as with every new maneuver and promotion within the Nazi hierarchy someone was going to end up feeling overlooked and threatened this time it was ging geres was pushing for changes in Armament production and Industry which put him directly in conflict with ging after his failures at the Battle of Britain and inability to reduce losses on the Eastern Front his precious LT raffer was about to be given a vote of no confidence as armaments for his aircraft were reduced ging was starting to feel disrespected and marginalized when Total War becomes a reality in 1944 led by Geral we see that guring is beside himself with rage that he isn't giving the responsibility that he had expected that he had demanded that he had put a great deal of thought into and felt that those that were responsible for it didn't have the experience to produce a total war economy and he was probably right Central to the Nazi vision of a total war economy was a fearful and utterly subservient population together with hundreds of thousands of slave laborers this would be the job of the feared Reich State security police force the SS led by another of Hitler's trusted Inner Circle Heinrich himler himler was one of Hitler's most trusted allies he was given probably more ability to go his own way than other peers being in control of the national Administration was a huge responsibility and provided him with a huge power base also having responsibility for the SS if you like the the party's own political military force himmler's SS death squads were to become universally feared throughout Europe and were responsible for the deaths of millions of Poes and slaves in the east Nazi commanders were well advised to keep on the right side of himler falling out with him as some commanders did meant a swift removal from power or Worse his power derived from the trust of the furer he was very loyal to Hitler and Hitler was very loyal to him there's no doubt that the nature of his responsibility for internal security meant that he could use that power base to turn upon his enemies very very quickly and very quickly removed them and he did that on on many occasions and so there's no doubt that the inner sanctum around Hitler will wary of himler because he himself was incredibly ruthless he was given free reign to carry out his diabolical Mission orchestrating and administrating the extermination of the Jews and anyone who was not of so-called pure Aryan blood himler was responsible for the creation and management of the death camps during World War II at the behest of his political mentor and sponsor Adolf Hitler himler begins you know studying the the progress of the Aryan race and its contrast with other races impelled in part by Hitler because of his own sort of ambiguous past but also by himler who begins to you know cumber Nazi Germany with a particular evil that finds its fullest expression in the Holocaust the final solution himler it seems was Untouchable in the fur's eyes even after the attempted assassination of Hitler by senior Army commanders in 1944 the infamous Von Stenberg plot he went unpunished for his failure to detect and diffuse the plot in advance it was a massive embarrassment for himler to soothe his shame he promptly rounded up and executed thousands of suspects as his way of demonstrating his loyalty to Hitler and restoring the reputation of the SS though he was inthrall of his fura himler like other ambitious Nazi officials had aspirations to suceed Hitler as Germany's leader one man he suspected of standing in his way was Albert Spear the original architect of the great Berlin buildings and monuments to the glory of the Reich spear so impressed Hitler with his architectural visions of a New Berlin that he appointed him to the critical post of Minister for armaments and Munitions now some people say he was a part of the Inner Circle but he was an architect who Hitler enjoyed having conversations about new design he wasn't a power broker but there in lies the decision he's a new player Hitler doesn't allow any one man to assume too much power and he is absolutely loyal to Hitler therefore he becomes the perfect person in this system to assume that position we see a tremendous disfunction in Hitler's Inner Circle because the people who are running things are not necessarily appointed because of their competence the spear appealed to Hitler's vanity that Hitler thought he and spear were fellow Architects and artists and creative Geniuses and uh so he he loves spending time with spear and looking over plans for a new Reich Chancery or the a new imperial capital of Berlin Hitler was so admiring of Shar that himler considered him an especially dangerous rival both in the administration of the Reich and as a potential successor to Hitler as a means of getting sh on side himler offered him the prestigious rank of ss obas group and fura but spier was having none of it the last thing he needed was to be under himmler's watchful eye he knew it would be hard to say no when himler wanted to say in arm's production he begins to rework the German Armament industry he's now competing for resources and the underlings of the Third Reich are all seeking to both protect their own Empires and make Shar look bad Shar then looks to Geral Geral has got his own competition with with himler and they become natural allies but that means that the central focus of the Inner Circle are not necessarily focused on the best outcome for the war but on protecting private interests after the war spear was spared execution and spent 20 years in prison during which time he wrote accounts of his experience in Hitler's Inner Circle according to spear the powerful men under Hitler including Joseph Geral Herman gerding and Heinrich himler where from early on jostling for favor and watching each other like a pack of childish Pretenders to the throne but perhaps the greatest threat to all of them was Hitler's personal secretary Martin Borman from the start he made himself seem insignificant while imperceptibly building his influence until he was arguably the second most powerful man of the Nazi Reich referred to by some as the secret leader I see Borman as the Dorman that would only allow entry into the inner sanctum of the Nazi party if you could add value if you were loyal if you were to be trusted he was a ruthless man he had blood on his hands he was the sort of man that Hitler needed to do his Dirty Work and as a result of that he was a trusted Confidant the first sign of borman's ruthlessness and brutality came immediately after World War I when he worked closely with the nationalistic paramilitary group The Fry cor whose tactics could get very nasty indeed Borman enjoyed getting involved in the more robust activities of the fry Corp in 1928 he joined the National socialists and was welcomed into the SS by himler himself Borman creatively managed Hitler's finances with various schemes such as extracting royalties from Hitler's book and His image on postage stamps as well as setting up the impressive sounding but actually very shady Adolf Hitler endowment fund of German industry which was really a thinly veiled extortion operation on behalf of Hitler to collect more money from German industrialists no wonder Hitler loved him he took charge of all Hitler's paperwork appointments and personal finances by now Hitler's trust in Borman and his world view was so overwhelming in one meeting he is said to have yelled to win this war I need Borman Borman was now the final word before Hitler in pretty much everything to do with keeping the country running if you wanted to get to Hitler you had to get through Borman first Borman is the head of the r chancellory and essentially what that gives him is the ability to control access to Hitler he also is a repository of a lot of knowledge the various State leaders around Germany they talk to him and this gives him an indirect power with Hitler he selectively can take a lot of information that is coming across his desk and use it to manipulate the message to Hitler and this is a real problem for any of the other uh Rivals very few of them have in that sense a direct access to Hitler so Borman becomes very much a gatekeeper and he proved to be a master of intricate political maneuvering he was able to effectively nullify any power plays by the big names he ruthlessly and skillfully sabotaged the agendas of all of them when he sensed any kind of threat to his power the inner sanctum themselves are always fighting for time with Hitler Martin Borman seemed to be able to get Hitler on his own talk to his ear and influence him perhaps more than any other member of the close team that developed around Hitler and as a result of that he was seen as someone who was dangerous in February 1943 the German defeat at Stalingrad triggered a crisis in the regime true to form Borman exploited the military disaster with his moves sparking a massive power struggle within the Inner Circle Borman had a proposal to which Hitler agreed the creation of a three-man committee with representatives from the state the Army and the party which would harness the country's productivity for the benefit of the war effort the committee of three was an attempt by the Germans in the middle of World War II to really make more efficient the German use of resources and production for this multi-front war effort and the idea was you'd have a representative of Industry a representative of the Nazi party and a representative of the German military would all sit around a table and decide what plans had to get funded and where resources would go the committee of three members were Hans lammer influential chief of the right chancell who worked alongside bourman Field Marshal philh Helm kitel from the armed forces and of course Martin bourman Hitler seemed to like the idea of the committee as none of the members posed any threat to his leadership nor would they disagree with him the committee was to propose the best independent course of action regardless of the views of the respective Ministries with Hitler to make the final decisions which did not suit some people at all the committee of three were immediately brought under attack by sort of the Nazi hierarchy people like Garing people like himler people like Gobles people like spear who all resented their intruding onto their little turfs and so the committee of three which was meant to rationalized the German response to World War II ended up being a complete fizzle despite the committee of three administrative chaos continued to dog the German war effort ultimate responsibility for this dysfunctionality lay with Hitler and his control freakish Behavior as Geral well knew referring to it in his diary as a crisis of leadership but Geral was too much under Hitler's spell ever to challenge his power as the war turned steadily against Germany as desperation and doubt seeped into the atmosphere those in the Inner Circle began to viciously turn on each other blame went in circles and the air around Hitler's table became more toxic and unproductive than ever and the mighty would begin their inevitable Falls from Grace Garing is increasingly marginalized by himler because he sees all of ging's vulnerabilities lack of a work ethic his buffoonish behavior his drug addiction and he basically increasingly Sidelines Garing in Hitler's Eyes by the end of the war there's no question that the the in circle becomes almost unworkable and I think it's illustrative of the dysfunction in the Inner Circle that someone who has suffered as many defeats uh both on the battlefield and personally as guring that he stays in that role that he's never replaced and that's just well it's absurd even though he was marginalized in the final months of the war ging would have one last shot at the top when it was reported to ging that Hitler had essentially lost his mind and was planning suicide he decided to try to assert his claim to the leadership based on the agreement Hitler had signed naming him as his successor guring sent a very carefully worded telegram requesting to take command of the Reich forces as per the agreement but it was intercepted by Borman who took full advantage of Hitler's paranoia to Brand ging a traitor Hitler replied to ging with much help from Borman through threatening him with treason and execution unless he resigned all posts well at the end of the war you know Garing always thought he had been anointed by Hitler as you know Deputy fur you know so he thought that he had the chops to take over the job and he made the mistake of you know volunteering to take over because I know you're in Berlin I know you're in the bunker fure and oh that really angered Hitler Hitler that was the final straw for Hitler he'd already been souring on Garing and then and when Garing tried to sort of move and take over the uh the fur's office while Hitler was you know hunkering in the bunker waiting to blow his brains out he said no Hitler takes the job away from Garing and gives it to D in a fit of spite ging resigned and started heading westwards with his family to surrender to the Americans which was a good move Borman had ordered his execution anyway if Berlin fell next to make a rash grab for power was Heinrich himler himler was second only to Geral in loyalty to the feuer but he threw what remained away when in May 1945 he attempted to broker a peace deal with the Allies behind Hitler's back you begin to see just how many cracks there are only at the very end when it's become clear that in spite of all the promises even among the men who were supposedly the most loyal guring and himler that they would seek to open negotiations with the Allies once it becomes clear that there's going to be a post Hitler Germany for Hitler it is the final betrayal and I guess in some ways it also shows how these men at the end of the day they're ultimately self-interested the Allies refused his generous terms and for himler the game was up as a final insult to the Holocaust Mastermind Hinrich him was officially branded a traitor and along with ging stripped of all Nazi rank and power not that it mattered Germany was moments away from losing the war and himler was days away from committing suicide after being captured by the Allies only Geral remained steadfast in his loyalty and with the suicide of Hitler and the fall of Germany IM ENT he became Chancellor he served less than a day before he and his wife poisoned their six children and themselves Martin Borman had proven ruthless and conniving right to the end and having had the satisfaction of defrocking his great Nemesis ging tried to make a run for it although mystery long remained over his whereabouts he was later confirmed killed by Soviet artillery as he made his last desperate bid for Freedom the walls were literally coming down around them and they were still exacting revenge and intent on settling scores with one another until The Bitter End right from the beginning the seeds was sown for the destruction of the Reich from within self glor ification and personal power for these Craven sociopaths had proved more important than actually winning the war Hitler and his Nazis swept to power on a brutal racist platform Hitler and Geral actually truly believed that the Jews and other groups were seen as lethal to the Aryan race of the third R Hitler had said that the Jews were standing in the way of racial Purity and pure bloodline there was this curious new pseudoscientific Nazi idea that the Aryan race you know was Better Built handsomer smarter purer ethically better morally better it was complete nonsense but this becomes a big part of the Nazi state so the Nazis decided to fight two Wars simultaneously one ex external and one within they didn't see Killing these groups as a detraction from the war effort they saw it as fundamentally linked for certain groups to be exterminated so that they were able to ideally realize this Aryan ideal but this additional idealogical War would greatly undermine the Nazis ability to win World War II ideology got in the way of good military [Music] sense [Applause] fighting on the grand scale across the vast Eastern Front past town after liberated Town through cities whose shattered masonry is the cracking wall of Hitler's rank itself on July the 23rd 1944 Red Army soldiers stormed the Polish city of Lublin overthrowing the Nazi occupies on the outskirts of town they confronted a vast building with a towering chimney High walls covered in barbed wire and an iron gate the soldiers couldn't comprehend what they were looking at was it a prison or with its smoke stacks and Barracks was it a factory what the Soviet soldiers didn't know was that they had entered a Nazi extermination [Music] camp a death camp for the mass genocide of Jews what they saw that day was so obscene that had eclipsed anything they'd seen before one soldier reported seeing shoes in the thousands all sorted men's Women's and Children's Shoes p M High a mountain of Ash was nearby warm to the touch they opened the door to a gas chamber and then a crematorium most of the German SS guards had fled there were no signs of Life only death the Red Army had come across their first Nazi concentration camp [Music] Maj 3 weeks later on August the 10th 1944 the first newspaper report on the camp was published Russian journalist Constantine simoff described what he saw as as a medieval concept of Hell stories followed in the international media wh Lawrence wrote In The New York Times I have just seen the most terrible place on the face of the [Music] earth a world shock beyond belief sees the barbaric work of the dying Nazi Beast as the extent of Hitler's atrocities slowly dawned on a disbelieving world Nazi jman his SS officers continued on their genocidal Mission as the allies and the Red Army Advanced what else would they discover what other atrocities were concealed Behind Enemy Lines how many camps did the SS set up that is every kind of Camp imaginable labor camps Transit camps also death camps 42,500 camps that shows that this is an empire built on camps Hitler's tyrannical control over Nazi Germany had given him and his party the opportunity to act on the leld hatred of the Jews and of Communists Hitler had compared Jews to maggots in a rotting body and the Nazi propagandist the spin Doctor Joseph Geral saw them as nauseating an object of disgust the Nazis had a term they used to describe human beings who they believed didn't deserve to live leanon verus leben life Unworthy of Life the phrase was applied to those who were racially inferior sexually deviant as well as enemies of the state or mentally impaired what we saw in the context of Nazi Germany is that in the 1920s a lot of groups such as the Jews the Roma the cinta poles slaves homosexuals Communists were all subjected to various different processes of dehumanization but what happened is that throughout the 1920s and 30s and into the 40s those practices became more extreme and so the extermination of the Jews in particular was seen as a necessity in order to allow the Arian race and the third re to [Music] flourish the eradication of Jews was considered vital to the Nazi war effort and the new Germanic world order they hoped to create the Nazis believed they descended from a m race at the apex of the human species there was this curious new pseudoscientific you know Nazi idea that the Aryan race you know was Better Built handsomer smarter purer ethically better morally better more self I mean it was complete nonsense right but this becomes a big part of the Nazi State this superiority complex would shape Germany's war against the world the genocide the Holocaust was just as important to the Nazis as the war effort they fundamentally at least presented in the propaganda that these groups were irreconcilable to the flourishing of their effort and to the Third Reich they didn't see Killing these groups as a as a detraction from the war effort they saw it as fundamentally linked for certain groups to be exterminated so that they were able to ideally realize this Aryan ideal we now know the extent of the horrors the Nazis committed but how did this evil shape the outcome of the war Hitler's Messianic belief that the German people were the master race rule the Nazi parties thinking when it came to war strategy under Nazi IDE ology friends became foes and foes need to be destroyed a God complex rarely ends well and for the Nazis this delusion would ensure their defeat the master race would be crushed in World War II coalition government could be formed to satisfy all the the major parties with that in mind Wy politician Fritz Von Poppin convinced president Von Hindenberg to choose Hitler as the new Chancellor there is no clearer turning point in the course of Germany's dark racial history than on January the 30th 1933 the day Hitler seized power in a landslide Victory as Chancellor Hitler and the Third Reich could make good G on their Obsession to purify Germany of what they saw as the Jewish problem there was quite a bit of anti-Semitism in in Germany in the 1920s as it was but as we rolled into the 1930s and into the 1940s the Jews in particular were described as being parasitical onto the body politic of the Third Reich as Chancellor Hitler summoned his spin Doctor Joseph Geral to develop a strategy to act on their pathological hatred of Jews Gobles a master manipulator was key to the nazzi success in glorifying the Reich Gales played an essential role in projecting an image of the regime and of Hitler not just to the German people but worldwide and that was very modern for the day it showed great Forward Thinking on the part of the Nazi party and it made an essential element in whatever success the Nazi party had he designed the Sile and the hand movements in a way that would be quite intentionally exhausting so it meant that by the time audiences and these huge mass Gatherings that Nazi rallies uh had finished with the Sig kyes it meant that they were more susceptible to propaganda being spattered by Adolf Hitler and by Gales himself life and Hitler knew they had to win hearts and Minds the German people were suffering the humiliation by the defeat of World War I the pain of an economic depression where millions of Germans were out of work had [Applause] bitten Geral and Hitler played on this desperation and offered hope they promoted Nazi Germany as a growing prosperous and proud Nation but with only half a million Jews in Germany Geral knew the German public would need to be convinced that the Jews had been the source of their misery the Enemy Within in order to fulfill Hitler's vision for a racially pure Germany Hitler's particular genius was was to take uh this kind of latent suspicion of Jews particularly after there were big migrations of Jews Westward during World War I so there was some uh resentment of these of these new Jewish immigrants there and Hitler inflames this he appeals to his working class and sort of un mlan lower Petty Bourgeois lower middle class base and sort of rils them up against the Jews what I think really allows him to launch is the the Wall Street Crash the depression that settles over Germany the economic crisis the feeling of desperation fell by so many people to search for Solutions and Hitler's identification of this scapegoat that if we deal with this scapegoat we're going to have this kind of Rebirth of German prosperity and greatness Hitler's Mantra was that Germany's defeat in World War I was because Germany was stabbed in the back by socialists and in particular Jews when Hitler comes out with a message that says we are the good people we are the people of people of culture and learning and our real demise is very simple it's not political calculations it's not that we didn't fight the war well it's not that we chose the wrong allies it's not that we didn't have access to resources it's the Jews it's the Jews at the end of the day and that subsequently is a theme not just in anti-Semitism but then how he Styles subsequent enemies one of the first steps in this campaign was a nationwide boycott of all Jewish businesses propaganda Minister geros ordered SS Troopers to be stationed outside Jewish stores States sponsored anti-semitic graffiti was painted on walls and propaganda Billboards were erected but it didn't wash with the German people there was always a fringe in Germany susceptible to anti-semitic propaganda on the basis that the Jews control International capital Capital the Jews control business the Jews control the media the Jews manipulate our politics but you know intelligent Germans didn't fall for this and you know there were so many Jews that were embedded in the German government the German Civil Service the German military that had fought bravely in World War I been decorated for Valor so um I'd say most Germans were not anti-semitic at all many walked straight into the Jewish grosses and stores gal's plan was a flop the people were not on board it was going to take more than a boycott to turn a country of civilized people into terrorists Geral tried another attack he would use the power of the media to broadcast Nazi anti-semitic propaganda he seized control of all German radio stations and nationalized all German media gerb's plan was to to broadcast Nazi propaganda into every home and on every street in Germany the spin was that the Jews have too much influence they run the banks the institutions that have too much power ysph Geral really pushed hard to have radios be very cheaply available so that all German households could have access to them but then meticulously monitored the types of news that were presented on those radio broadcasts at the same time the Nazis SS leader and chief of police Heinrich himler established Dao the party's first concentration camp initially set up to incarcerate enemies of the state SS leader himler created his first prototype for the Nazis extermination camps the camp would be dwarfed by what was to come himler Wars one of Hitler's most trusted allies being in control of the national Administration was a huge responsibility and provided him with a huge power base also having responsibility for the SS if you like the the party's own political military force gave him the ability to project his own power throughout Germany and also onto the battlefield the SS is not just running an extermination program they're not just the terror organization of the Nazi party they have a whole economic Empire that they are building and that they're going to be raising more and more vaff SS and arming those men through their own Private Industry the Nazi party accelerated their policy of control over the lives of Germany's Jewish population the Reich limited the number of Jews allowed in public schools Nazis burned all books the Reich deemed as ungerman people with physical and mental disabilities were steralized the September 1935 nurburg rally became a chance to enrin in law the persecution of Jewish people the socalled rally of Freedom was a massive Nazi propaganda event propaganda Minister Joseph Geral delivered a Savage and malicious attack on the Jewish people he declared the Jews enemies of the state and the assembled Nazis responded with enthusiasm Hitler then authorized new legislation to be drafted a legal framework for the Nazi anti-Semitism the new laws were called the nurburg race laws the nurmberg laws defined a Jew not by a religious faith in Judaism but by Blood the Nazis determined that anyone with three grandparents that were Jewish could be classified as a Jew and as a Jew they were stripped of German citizenship marriage was forbidden between Jews and other Germans and they were denied access to an education with Gerbes the Spin Master the wheels were now in motion the Nazis were building a racial State Hitler and Geral actually truly believed that the Jews and other groups were seen as lethal to the Aryan race of the third re but Hitler had said that the Jews were standing in the way of racial Purity and pure [Music] Bloodlines by late 1938 the attitudes of ordinary Germans towards their Jewish neighbors had shifted Nazi propaganda and fear was cutting through what once had been considered radical measures like boycotting Jewish stores was now part of everyday life on November the 7th 1938 a 17-year-old polish student herel grinspan fatally shot Ernest vrath the third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris when the young Jew was arrested sobbing he told the French police that being a Jew was not a crime and he had the right to live and exist on Earth and not be chased like an animal when news of the diplomat's death reached Geral his reaction was clear the German Jews would have to pay and pay they did the Nazi race War had begun Jews have no other service other than competition I mean the whole idea of narcism is built on this social darwinist conception of competition in the natural world but Hitler's adapting that to the human world and seeing races such as he understands races to be in competition and the anthesis of the Arian is the Jew and therefore the Arian must fight the Jew two nights later on November the 9th 1938 the sound of glass shattering Was Heard throughout Germany broken glass littered the streets after the vandalism and destruction of Jewish own businesses synagogues and homes the crowds cheered the SS on this event was called Crystal KN the night of broken glass by the following morning 7,000 Jewish businesses were destroyed more than 900 synagogues damaged 91 Jews were dead and thousands more injured or disappeared the Nazis deported around 30,000 Jewish men to concentration camps the Nazis grand plan to R Germany of its Jewish population was a step closer to being [Music] realized the second world war gave the Nazis an opportunity to act on their racist Vision the mass extermination of the Jewish people would be carried out in the chaos of War but how the Nazis managed the Jewish problem as they referred to it would contribute significantly to Germany's downfall on January the 30th 1939 7 months before World War II was declared Hitler made a speech at the Reich stug revealing how far the Nazis were prepared to go to purge Germany of their Jewish population Hitler wasn't predicting the future under the cover of a war he would bring about he was planning the extermination of the Jewish race in Europe the New York Times published excerpts of Hitler's speech but did not include his passage on the annihilation of the Jewish race how could the international press pay so little attention to Hitler's naked threat to wipe out the Jews the alarm Bell should have been ringing but the Allies couldn't comprehend the depth of Hitler's Madness over and on September the 1st 1939 Germany invaded Poland as a result the Allies declared war on Germany Germany invad Poland and the free state of Dan World War I had begun settlement transformed into the B of gunfire Germany's assault on Poland was a bloodbath the German Army took Poland in less than 5 weeks the Nazis immediately identified and rounded up Poland's Jews many were killed or transported to Warsaw Poland's largest city around 30% of warsaw's entire population was crammed into a ghetto 400,000 Jews were forced into a 1.3 square mile Block in Germany anti-Semitism was rif the Tabloid newspaper dmer writes that the Jewish people ought to be exterminated root and Branch then the plague of pests would have disappeared in Poland at one stroke a curfew is imposed on Germany's Jewish population they are forbidden to be on the streets after 8:00 p.m. in Winter and 9900 p.m. in summer somewhere in Germany probably SC du on the Battlefront having skirmished indecisively with the British Hitler's next major Target was Russia on June the 22nd 1941 Hitler launched operation Barbarosa it was one of the largest military operations in human history with over 3 million German soldiers in three different offensives marching towards the Soviet Union he doesn't refer to it as the Soviet Union it becomes Jewish bolshevism with the Russian Revolution installing a Bolshevik government it seemed that this is already the beginnings of a state that is not just opposed to Germany because of strategic interests but that exists largely to destroy Germany but the majority of the Soviet population was Slavic a detail Hitler dismissed to Hitler anyone not Aryan not a member of the master race was immediately inferior most of the Soviet population is not Jewish but they are slaves and that already puts them lower on this racialized pecking order and allows Germans to think less of them and once you've dehumanized them you see how much easier it is to treat them very [Music] poorly we have only to kick in the door and the whole rotten thing will come down he believed the German Army would crush the inferior Russians and now we see the German armies more than 3 million men mobilizing for the great Showdown against Jewish bolshevism but Hitler underestimated the challenges ahead Russia was a vast country with Subzero Winters terrain unfit for tanks Russia had the Strategic Advantage by 1941 Germany was also fighting the allly in the west and the Mediterranean against the advice of his military strategists Hitler insisted on the Russia offensive confident Germany would overwhelm Russia in a matter of months what is National Socialist military thinking the National Socialist way allows you to go further in what is possible because that's the language of the time and if you're not allowed to voice critical views then it allows you to think that the impossible is possible Germany was unprepared and not equipped for the Russian offensive the snow covered truth about the the German Army had no winter clothing miles of roadside ditches full of Frozen Nazis many soldiers died of pneumonia and as the battle progressed the German Army suffered massive casualties Hitler's deluded belief in Germany's racial superiority over Russian slaves cost his army dearly he underestimated his enemy for these men the goep has become a slow march to defeat the Germans would have done far better in their invasion of the Soviet Union had they have not entered that space with all of these racial ideas if they had entered as a liberating Force rather than a crusading conquering Force but Hitler will never consider any of these options Hitler failed to recognize that the Russian people could have been an asset instead the Germans made them a foe ideology got in the way of good military sense we've got to remember that um when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union particular the Ukraine in 1941 that part of the Soviet Nation hated Joseph Stalin but what Hitler did rather than turning them towards the German Nation perhaps even getting that part of the Soviet Union to fight on the Germans behalf was actually to take them prisoner to put them into concentration camps and eventually to execute them and therefore more broadly we see that ideology had a great impact upon the number of resources human resources and eventually industrial resources that the Germans could put into the battlefield at every turn Nazi ideology the belief in the Aryan Master hum stood in the way of Germany ever winning a war in September four months after the Russian invasion the Nazis began killing Jews in the Soviet Union Hitler sent in SS mobile killing squads the einat grouin tasked with Exterminating entire Jewish communities as the German Army Advanced the SS would follow rounding up the Jewish populations in villages and towns one particular Slaughter in babiar near Kiev would later be described described as the largest single massacre in the history of the Holocaust SS offices rounded up men women and children they made them dig huge burial pits and then one by one ss soldiers shot them almost 34,000 men women and children were slaughtered over two days some SS officers struggled affected by their role in the massacre news of the solders torment reached himler who sought another solution to exterminate the growing number of Jewish prisoners there was rampant PTSD among many of the soldiers who were charged with committing these egregious crimes in mass shootings that ultimately ended in Mass grave and so the establishment of the concentration camps and the death camps was a way to further disassociate how close many of the Nazi soldiers were to the actual killing of the Jews a plan was developed to eliminate all European Jews on January the 20th 1942 Nazi chief of the secret police Reinhard hydr met with high ranking Nazi officials at vany in Berlin under discussion was the most efficient way to exterminate the 11 million Jews in Europe are they talk about look we've got to deal with the Jewish Problem what is the Jewish Problem well the Jewish Problem arises from the fact that the Germans have invaded Poland and the USSR where 8 million of Europe's 11 million Jews reside so by invading Poland and the USSR Hitler has raped this massive population of Jews into the German Embrace what can you do with them suddenly I've annexed 11 million Jews so the next step is well we're going to kill them [Music] all code named the final solution the Nazis would construct extermination camps with fixed gas Chambers to murder on an industrial scale himas henchman developed an arms length cost affected method of mass murder that could kill thousands of people in [Music] minutes in Poland six extermination or death camps were [Music] established by now news of the atrocities in Poland was reaching the West in December 1942 the British House of Commons condemns the massacre of Jews during a broadcast on the BBC British foreign minister Anthony Eden attacks Germany describing their coldblooded extermination of Jews as beastial Parliament held a one minute silence for the victims of the Nazi Holocaust a tribute usually reserved for deaths in the royal family while the Nazis ideological war on Jews is costing them on the Battlefront it's also galvanizing the Allies for the Allies any peace agreement is now off the table it has become a hand toand struggle between Good and Evil impos Land The Killing continues Hitler is pouring vast resources into the extermination camps it's difficult to put a number on the Personnel that were required to handle the hundreds of thousands of of prisoners from the Eastern front and of course the extermination camps the Holocaust required the building of great s they needed security Personnel they needed to be Administration the Nazis are running parallel campaigns one a massive military operation and the other an ideological campaign to ensure their Master race this was unsustainable the irony for the Germans thinking that they were kind of cementing and solidifying the Nazi state by purging the Jews was that purging the Jews almost ensured the destruction of the Nazi State why well I mean consider for that in March of 1942 80% of the victims of the Holocaust were still alive in March of 43 80% of the victims of the Holocaust are dead so this 42 to 43 is a killing spree a large fraction of Germany's precious resources needed for this multi-front war are diverted into collecting Jews from all around Europe transporting them to ghettos then transporting them again to death camps then killing them then disposing of the bodies and that sort of I mean it's a huge diversion of of logistical resources for the final solution and what's happening in this period Operation Torch in North Africa the Battle of Stalingrad on the on the on the Eastern Front the Allied invasion of Sicily and Italy all requiring massive infusions of reinforcements material ammunition none of which the Germans can afford because of these big diversions made for the Holocaust Germany was now suffering immense casualties at the hands of the Allies the Nazis ideology denied Germany a great resource in Manpower and expertise there's no question that targeting the Jewish population is harming the German war economy from the fact that a lot of Jews have very good education they have technical skills they have professional skools those could have been utilized for the war effort I mean there are a lot of German Jews who are wondering why am I being targeted because I served in the first World War I won medals for Germany and I am a good German they would perhaps in a different world have served the German Army and forwarded its aims as absurd as that might sound given its national socialism but Hitler begins this process and pursues it even to the point of economic self harm in 1933 Jews made up only 1% of the population but they accounted for almost a third of the country's Nobel Prize winners Jewish German and Hungarian scientists including Albert Einstein had fled to the West fearing Nazi persecution 12,000 to France 1 1200 to Spain 3,000 to Czechoslovakia 6,000 to America some refugees made crucial contributions to the Manhattan Project in America the team that built the atomic bomb the Third Reich drove their best and brightest into the Open Arms of the Allies by 19 1945 the Allies were on the final road to Victory as the Allies Advanced through Poland and Germany news of the horror of the Holocaust spread across the world the liberating allies encountered Camp after Camp heartbreaking and shocking scenes of unbelievable depravity confronted the allies emaciated barely alive prisoners others dead Mass Graves gas and torture chambers testimony of what the survivors had endured was unimaginable their Discovery had a galvanizing effect in the final battles the Allies now approached the enemy with a renewed conviction once the Holocaust was recognized ensured that the Allies um would fight Germany to a point of unconditional surrender but knowledge of it came at a very important time it was really necessary to ensure that the moral justification for the war the reason why they were fighting was reinvigorated and reemphasized the horrors that certainly the Western allies saw once they' crossed the German border and the Polish border was something that was an extra motivating factor at a particularly difficult time in April 1945 General Eisenhower American supreme commander of the Allied Forces and his battle hardened Lieutenant General Patton toward ordol camp in Poland according to one witness General Patton dashed behind his shed and vomited he was so sickened by what he saw Eisenhower later said it was Indescribable horror overwhelming evidence of Cruelty and mass murder ad Hitler who and in Berlin the perpetrator of his cruelty Adolf Hitler the idealogue who had determined his master race should rule Europe had retreated to his bunker protected from the red armies Advance facing certain defeat Hitler maintained his delusional war on the Jews ordering the SS to continue their Slaughter into the final hours of the war it was as if the military war against the the Allies was merely a sideshow the Allies continued to liberate Camp after Camp death camps labor camps work camps 42,500 camps in total and as bombs drop from above Hitler determined never to surrender committed suicide in his underground bunker on the 30th of April a week later on May the 7th 1945 Germany surrendered history's deadliest war was over the surrender of Hitler's defeated soldiers ended Nazi rule in [Music] Europe to this day World War II casts a dark shadow over [Music] history Hitler's Savage racial War killed around 6 million Jews 2third of Europe's entire Jewish [Music] population millions of soldiers political prisoners gypsies homosexuals disabled people and civilians were killed across occupied Europe Nazi spinmeister Joseph Geral has been much quoted since his death by suicide in 1945 he once said we shall go down in history as the greatest Statesman of all time all the greatest criminals he was right about the latter [Music] [Music]

Channel: War Stories

Views: 4,248,068

Keywords: Dan Snow podcasts, History Hit Network, Hitler's alliances downfall, Hitler's drug use, Holocaust atrocities, Matt Lewis history, Nazi Germany collapse, Nazi Germany documentary, Verdun war, War Stories, Waterloo battle, World War II downfall, Wunderwaffe impact, historical analysis, historical battles, historical lessons reflection, in-depth analysis, war crimes discussion, war events examination, war tragedies storytelling, wartime studies

Id: x6v757NwqxM

Length: 223min 58sec (13438 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 25 2023