"Hidden in a forest in what is now the eastern part of Poland, near the border with Russia, lie the remains of a concrete town." "For three crucial years during World War Two, this was home to one of the most infamous figures in world history..." "..a man who said he and the nation he led would create an empire which would outlast any other." "(ADOLF HITLER) ..dieses deutsche Volk emporführen durch eigene Arbeit, durch eigenen Fleiss, eigene Entschlossenheit, eigenen Trotz, eigene Beharrlichkeit, dann werden wir wieder emporsteigen, genau wie die Väter einst auch Deutschland nicht geschenkt erhielten," "sondern selbst sich schaffen mussten." "..eigenen Trotz, eigene Beharrlichkeit... (BACKGROUND MUSIC:" "GERMAN MARCHING SONG)" "Here at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in the forest of Rastenburg in German East Prussia," "Adolf Hitler took decisions which shaped the course of World War Two." "The result was a level of destruction and suffering unprecedented in the history of war." "55 million people died in World War Two." "The Germans took five million Russian prisoners of war alone." "Only two million survived." "And during the war, Hitler authorised a policy unique in all history - the mechanised extermination of an entire people." "All this was possible because the Nazis ruled Germany." "How could it be that a cultured nation at the heart of Europe allowed such a man and the Nazi Party he led to come to power?" "Leading Nazis explained their success easily." "It was inevitable given the "superhuman" qualities of their leader, Adolf Hitler." "But the true reasons for the Nazis' rise to power are not that simple and are much more alarming." "Nazism, which was to create the Second World War, was born out of the First." "On November 11th, 1918, to the surprise of German front-line troops, the war suddenly stopped." "The myth grew among many surrendered German soldiers that they had been stabbed in the back, that the front-line troops and two million war dead had been betrayed by Marxists and Jews who had fomented dissent back at home." "As these surviving troops returned to the newly democratic Germany, they took their bitterness with them." "It would grow and flourish into Nazism in the south of Germany...in Bavaria." "(BAVARIAN FOLK SONG)" "Bavaria is a picture-book land famous for its Lederhosen and beer halls." "But at the end of World War One in this traditional heartland of Germany, conditions existed which would create a revolution." "After the war, the Allies continued to blockade Germany, and the returning troops marching through Munich were shocked to discover how much their families were still suffering." "Millions of Germans were hungry and thousands more were dying of tuberculosis and influenza." "Politics were polarised." "Conservatives and socialists each became radical in the face of crisis." "With the whole of Germany in turmoil in the spring of 1919, the unrest in Munich led to a left-wing takeover of the city - the Räterepublik." "This culminated in April 1919 in the Munich Soviet Republic, an attempt to create a Soviet-style government of the city only 18 months after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union." "Government troops were sent in to quash the rebellion and there was open fighting on the streets of Munich." "(GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS)" "More than 500 people were killed." "The soldiers were supported by the Freikorps - right-wing mercenaries paid for by the government." "Sometimes the Freikorps shot members of the Räterepublik out of hand." "Other Freikorps members, like Fridolin von Spaun, approved of the brutal measures used to suppress Communist revolutionaries in Germany." "Eugene Leviné's father was the Communist leader of the Räterepublik." "He was executed in June 1919." "I understand from my mother that he had been very brave the way he met his death." "And, in fact, he called out..." ""Long live the world revolution!"" "And I realised that an honourable person would die sooner or later, either on the barricades or put up against a wall and shot." "Eugene Leviné's father was Jewish." "And the anti-Semitic prejudice of those on the right was further fuelled by the fact that of the leadership of the Räterepublik, most were Jewish." "To the Freikorps who celebrated after the suppression of the Räterepublik, the Jews were convenient scapegoats, held to blame for all the country's ills." "And the Freikorps had the support of right-wing officers in the regular army, like Captain Ernst Röhm, a man with a simple philosophy." ""Since I'm an immature and wicked man," ""war and unrest appeal to me more than good bourgeois order." ""Brutality is respected," ""the people need wholesome fear." ""They want to fear something." ""They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive. "" "In Munich, Röhm was heavily involved in the violent politics of the extreme right, and in 1919 he joined the small German Workers' Party." "Here he met a 30-year-old veteran of World War One, Corporal Adolf Hitler, a man who shared with Röhm a deep hatred of Communists and Jews." "Hitler had also joined the German Workers' Party in 1919." "His membership card said he was Member 555." "But in reality he was Member 55 because the party started numbering people from 500 so it looked like they had more members." "Hitler was like thousands of ex-soldiers in Munich - drifting without a regular job - but he had one natural talent." "He could channel his hatred and anger at the way the war had ended into powerful speeches." "Hitler spoke repeatedly about what he claimed was the iniquity of the Versailles Peace Treaty signed at the end of World War One." "Under the Treaty, Germany lost large amounts of her own territory and was forced to pay reparations to the victors." "In the early 1920s, inflation spiralled out of control." "In Bavaria, by 1921," "Hitler had become leader of the small German Workers' Party, renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or the Nazis for short." "It was still one of many different right-wing parties in Munich, and they still all said the same " "Versailles was a crime and the Jews were behind it." "But Hitler's dynamism, together with the uncompromising tone of his speeches, began to attract other prominent Bavarians to the fledgling Nazi Party." "In 1922, a World War One flying ace joined the Nazis, the holder of the "Pour Le Mérite" award for gallantry and commander of the Richthofen Squadron - Hermann Göring." ""I joined the Party because it was revolutionary," ""not because of any ideological nonsense. "" "The Nazi Party began to spread its appeal into the Bavarian countryside." "One agricultural student, who was to become a chicken farmer, found in the Nazis an expression of his own obsession with the mystic relationship between German blood and German soil." ""The yeoman of his own acre is the backbone" ""of the German people's strength and character." ""Cowards are born in towns, heroes in the country. "" "The words of another Bavarian, Heinrich Himmler, chicken farmer and later commander of the SS." "In January 1923, Hitler and the Nazis exploited the discontent caused by the French occupation of the Ruhr." "French troops came to enforce reparation payments." "They alienated the Germans." "In Munich in 1923, in the atmosphere of crisis caused by the occupation of the Ruhr," "Hitler and the Nazis acted." "Hitler stood on the stage of the Burgerbräu Keller on November 8th, interrupting a right-wing political meeting." "He called for a national revolution to start in Bavaria and overthrow the left-wing government in Berlin." "The next day, the Nazis, with other right-wing parties, marched through Munich to gain support." "They were stopped by the police at the war memorial at the Feldherrnhalle." "The Nazis hoped the army and police, many of whom supported right-wing parties, would join a march on Berlin." "The police didn't support them." "Shots were fired and the marchers were routed." "Hitler fled from the scene." "Four policemen and 16 Nazis lost their lives." "Hitler was tried along with the other leaders of the putsch in early 1924." "The trial was a media sensation, with entrance to the court by ticket only." "The Nazis hadn't just killed four policemen outside the Feldherrnhalle." "They had also organised a bank robbery." "A defiant Hitler told the court..." ""You may pronounce us guilty a thousand times," ""but the goddess who presides over the eternal court of history will, with a smile," ""tear in pieces the charge of the public prosecutor and the verdict of this court," ""for she acquits us. "" "Hitler became famous for his apparently brave stand, but it was a con trick, for he knew as he spoke that the judge would be lenient towards him." "Hidden from the public was the truth about Hitler's previous appearance in a Bavarian court." "More than two years before, at the Löwenbräu Keller," "Nazi thugs egged on by Hitler disrupted a left-wing meeting, dragged the speaker off the stage and beat him up." "Almost all the documents about the trial which followed were seized by the Nazis when they came to power and later burnt." "But one or two from this earlier trial survived hidden in the archive and they tell truths the Nazis wanted to hide." "Hitler was given the minimum sentence possible - three months in prison." "But the sympathy of the judge didn't stop there." "He wrote to the Appeal Court in support of Hitler and asked them to reduce his sentence." "As a result, Hitler served only one month in prison and a period on probation." "The judge in Hitler's first trial was called Georg Neithardt, the same judge whom the authorities allowed to preside over the putsch trial." "It must have been obvious to Hitler that the court would be lenient towards him." "And they were." "Hitler had attempted revolution, incited murder, and his followers had robbed a bank." "He served nine months in Landsberg prison." "But even so, by 1924, it seemed that Hitler and the Nazis had become an irrelevance." "(GERMAN CABARET MUSIC)" "In the mid-1920s, the German economy recovered as inflation was reduced to single figures." "The Weimar government borrowed money from the Americans which it then used to pay the French and British their reparations." "The good times were financed by short-term credit." "There were Germans who disapproved of the "Weimar decadence"." "They joined non-political groups like the Wandervogel, who called for a return to an older, simpler way of life." "One small political party sought to capitalise on this longing for old-fashioned values." "In the mid-1920s, the Nazi Party was small but radical." "Their party programme promised that if the Nazis came to power," "German Jews would be stripped of German citizenship and even expelled from the country." "(QUESTION IN GERMAN)" "The fantasy of a world Jewish conspiracy was openly preached by the Nazis and believed." "Along with anti-Semitism went the belief that violence was an indispensable part of the political process." "The party had its own paramilitary wing, the brown-shirted Storm Troopers, whose job was to protect Nazi meetings, intimidate the followers of other parties and drum up support." "Towering over the small party was the personality of the man now called the Führer" " Adolf Hitler." "The way the Nazi Party was evolving around Hitler was the way it would be structured when the Nazis ruled much of Europe - and the structure was strange." "Though these images of Nazi Party offices in the 1920s seem ordered, the administration of the party was chaotic." "Hitler hated committee meetings and disliked arbitrating between rivals." "The Führer was disorganised and often late." "One prominent Nazi, Gottfried Feder, complained to Hitler..." ""I regard your time management as very damaging for the entire movement. "" "Yet the party still functioned." "Hitler was a passionate believer in the law of natural selection - the rule of the jungle." ""Men dispossess one another" ""and one perceives that, at the end of it all," ""it is always the stronger who triumphs." ""The stronger asserts his will." ""It's the law of nature. "" "Hitler's obsession with this idea of the survival of the fittest meant that when a party member wrote to him in 1925 and asked to be appointed leader of his local branch, the letter was answered by Max Amann, one of Hitler's closest confidants." ""Herr Hitler takes the view that it is not the job of the party leadership" ""to appoint party leaders." ""You state that almost all the local members have confidence in you," ""so why don't you take over leadership of the branch?"" "(CHEERING)" "But now, seven years after Hitler had become leader, the Nazi Party was failing dismally in the great struggle." "Despite the obvious enthusiasm of the party faithful, the Nazis could not get themselves elected to power." "In the 1928 election, the Nazis got just 2.6% of the vote." "The vast majority of the German electorate, over 97%, rejected them and their leader." "This secret government report, compiled just before the 1928 election, says that the Nazi Party has "no noticeable influence on the great masses of the population"." "The Nazis were a tiny fringe party, almost a joke." "Yet just four yearsand eight months later," "Hitler was Chancellor of Germany." "For the Nazis were helped by circumstance." "Germany suffered." "A sudden drop in world agricultural prices brought poverty to the countryside and then the Wall Street Crash heralded a world economic slump." "The Americans called in their loans." "German unemployment rose to five and a half million in 1931." "Unemployed lived rough inside the cities as Germany became economically the worst hit nation in the world." "And then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse, they did." "The five major banks crashed in 1931." "More than 20,000 German businesses folded." "Now the middle class was suffering." "In the economic crisis, the Nazis' vote increased." "They still said the same " "Versailles was a crime, Jews should be denied citizenship and Germany must be reborn." "Their message hadn't changed, but now more Germans were ready to hear it." "In this economic crisis, people who had never seen or heard Hitler still voted Nazi." "(RECORDING OF HITLER SPEECH)" "In a remote town in German East Prussia like Neidenburg, in 1928, the Nazis got 2.3% of the vote." "In 1930, their vote leapt up to 25.8%, yet Hitler didn't visit here and there was no Nazi Party organisation in the town." "It wasn't just the Nazis who began to do well." "The Communists started to pick up votes too." "Something sinister was happening to this new democracy." "It seemed to be splitting apart as voters rushed to the extremes." "Alois Pfaller had joined the Communist Party in the late 1920s and now started taking on the Nazis in the streets." "(SONG)" "(NEW SONG)" "Hitler said that he was the strong man who could solve the economic crisis at the head of a dynamic party that promised to rebuild the country around national unity." "And Hitler campaigned in a fresh way." "In his 1932 "Hitler over Germany" presidential election campaign, he travelled by aeroplane to 20 cities in seven days." "Though he was to lose the election to President Hindenburg," "Hitler had established himself as a credible alternative leader of Germany." "The Nazi Party proposed little in the way of detailed policies, but it offered order, discipline and the personality of Adolf Hitler." "Fridolin von Spaun met him in the early 1930s." "By 1932, the majority of Germans, in voting for Communists and Nazis, were voting for parties openly committed to overthrowing German democracy." "Democracy had arrived in Germany at the end of World War One." "Now the majority of Germans wanted to be rid of it." "Hitler made it clear that a vote for the Nazis was a vote for dictatorship." "As a result of the elections of July 1932, the Nazis became the biggest party in Germany, with 37% of the vote." "Now only one man stood between Hitler and the Chancellorship " "President Hindenburg, the man Hitler challenged for the Presidency and lost." "Hindenburg met Hitler on August 13th, 1932." "Hitler demanded to be Chancellor." "Hindenburg refused and his State Secretary recorded the reasons why." ""He could not bring himself to give government power to a single party" ""which did not represent the majority of the electorate" ""and which, furthermore, was intolerant, lacking in discipline" ""and frequently even appeared violent. "" "But then different pressure groups began to lobby President Hindenburg." "A group of businessmen, including the former President of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht, wrote to Hindenburg, saying Hitler must get the Chancellorship for the good of Germany." "New pressures came as the results of an army war game arrived." "The author of the report said that in the event of civil unrest, the army couldn't control the Nazis and the Communists." ""It's been shown that the forces of law and order of the Reich" ""and of the German states" ""would in no way be strong enough to protect the country" ""against National Socialists and Communists and protect the borders. "" "But if there were pressures on Hindenburg as 1932 came to a close, there were also pressures on the Nazis." "The crowds waiting outside the Nazis' headquarters in Munich in December weren't aware of the problems the party faced." "The party was going bankrupt because of the cost of fighting so many elections." "One of the key figures in the party, Gregor Strasser, had just resigned, and the Nazi vote had dropped to 33% in the November 1932 election." "It looked like their support had peaked." "But powerful figures on the traditional right felt they had to negotiate with Hitler." "They too wanted to eliminate democracy and destroy the Communists, and without Hitler and the Nazis they had no access to mass support." "A former Chancellor, the aristocratic von Papen, came up with a deal." "Hitler could be Chancellor if he, von Papen, was Vice-Chancellor and only two other Nazis were in the Cabinet, surrounded by conservatives." "The theory was Hitler would be "tamed"." "(CHEERING)" "As a result, Hindenburg offered Adolf Hitler the Chancellorship on January 30th, 1933." "Von Papen crowed, "We've hired him,"" "and the new Cabinet posed for the cameras." "The Nazis later tried to rewrite history to say that Hitler became Chancellor simply because it was his destiny, but Hitler had been helped into power by economic circumstance and the support and miscalculation of others." "It all happened so fast in those days." "After one had seen it come gradually, the Communist Party line - to which I still officially belonged - was that it doesn't matter if Hitler gets to power." "He'll soon have proved himself incompetent and then it's our turn." "For some extraordinary reason, they didn't realise that he would change the law once in power, which he did very smartly." "On January 30th, 1933, the same day Hitler was appointed Chancellor, the Nazis held a torchlight celebration parade in Berlin." "The revolution had begun." "(DRUMS BEAT, SINGING)" "There were a few Storm Troopers who had Jewish girlfriends." "And therefore a lot of German Jews thought," ""Oh, well, it's not going to be so bad." ""They have Jewish girlfriends." "They can't hate us all."" "Oh, it's heartbreakingI" "Immediately after Hitler's appointment as Chancellor, one of Hindenburg's closest comrades from World War One," "General Ludendorff, wrote to him..." ""I prophesy to you solemnly" ""that this accursed man" ""will take our Reich into the abyss. "" "The Nazis were obsessed with images of order." "In their museums, exhibits like this glass man showed how the perfect human body was ordered into one interlocking whole." "Through their parades and pageants, they sought to show how one individual human being was but a part of the ordered national community." "But in Germany, the Nazis only created an illusion of order." "On January 30th, 1933," "Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany." "Chief among those who rejoiced at this were the Nazi Storm Troopers, the party's paramilitary wing led by Hitler's old party comrade, Ernst Röhm." "(MILITARY BAND PLAYS)" "(SINGING)" "In '33, you thought it was the beginning of a new, German, wonderful period." "It was a true, enthusiastic movement in the people, except the people who were, by their hearts, socialists, and were, from the beginning, prosecuted and had to emigrate or went in concentration camps." "One knew of these concentration camps." "We said, "So what?" "The Communists would have done the same thing." ""This is a revolution."" "First to be imprisoned in this revolution were the Nazis' political opponents," "Communists and socialists, who were rounded up and thrown into hastily-built concentration camps." "Hermann Göring boasted that scores were being settled, all in an atmosphere of chaotic terror, as one Nazi Storm Trooper admitted." ""Everyone is arresting everyone else," ""avoiding the prescribed official channels." ""Everyone is threatening everyone else with protective custody." ""Everyone is threatening everyone else with Dachau." ""Every little street-cleaner today feels" ""he is responsible for matters" ""which he has never understood. "" "Amongst the first to suffer was Josef Felder, a Social Democrat MP." "He was sent to the newly-opened Nazi concentration camp outside Munich," "Dachau." "Josef Felder was released from Dachau after 18 months." "The majority of those imprisoned here in 1933 were released after less than a year." "The regime here was brutal." "Beatings and psychological torture were commonplace." "But the Nazi extermination camps were not yet born." "The camps were a tool of oppression, not yet of systematic murder." "In 1933, to many Germans, they were an acceptable part of the Nazi revolution." "The closest is the French Revolution." "To be a French nobleman in the Bastille was not so agreeable, either." "So people said, "This is a revolution." ""It was an astonishing, peaceful revolution, but partly it is a revolution."" "And that sort of thing." "The concentration camps, everybody said," ""The English have invented them in South Africa with the Boers."" "You know..." "People couldn't look ahead." "It's impossible for somebody in '33 to look ahead to '45." "You can't." "It was only 12 years, but it seems to be too much to look ahead for 12 years." "But Germans only had to look fewer than 12 weeks into Hitler's chancellorship to see what the status of the Jews would be in the new Nazi state." "On April 1st, 1933, the party organised a boycott of all Jewish shops, which lasted one day." "The Nazis had made the Jews scapegoats for the loss of World War One, and much else besides." "In those early months of the Nazi reign," "German Jews also fell victim to the Storm Troopers' violent attacks." "In 1933, the Storm Troopers came and took my father away." "Together with many other Jews in Nuremberg, they were taken to... a sports stadium with a lot of grass." "They were made to cut the grass with their teeth by sort of eating the grass." "But I found that out afterwards." "My father never talked about it." "They used to humiliate them to show them that they were the lowest of the low." "Simply to make a...a gesture." "Nazi Storm Troopers made other violent gestures." "In 1933, together with sympathetic students, they organised burnings of unsuitable books, particularly those by Jewish authors." "(SINGING)" "Röhm wanted his Storm Troopers integrated into the regular German army." "The army was horrified." "Hitler sympathised with the revolutionary zeal of Röhm and his Storm Troopers, but by the summer of 1934 he knew that their power had to be curbed - and not just curbed to please the army." "Röhm had made a more dangerous enemy than the army leadership." "Heinrich Himmler, ambitious for power, and still technically working to Röhm in the Nazi hierarchy, plotted his downfall." "He concocted a story that Röhm was plotting a coup, and Hitler believed him." "On June 30th, 1934, when Röhm was on holiday in Bavaria, he was arrested and taken to a nearby prison." "Two days later he was shot." "The armed forces were grateful, glad to see the power of the Storm Troopers moderated." "In gratitude, they volunteered to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler - the man who, on Hindenburg's death, was not just Germany's Chancellor but also her head of state." "(TROOPS REPEAT)" "Somebody was reading, and we had to lift our arm, and at the end say, "That's my oath. "" "(INTERVIEWER) And how seriously did you take this oath?" "Very serious." "I mean, a soldier..." "This accompanied my life till the very end." "I mean, er... oath is oath." "There's no doubt that I can't break it." "Otherwise I'm meant to commit suicide if I planned something else." "But this...this...this is... very serious, the oath, for a soldier." "With Röhm dead, Hitler appeared to have restored order." "Revolution on the streets had subsided." "With his hold on power secure, Hitler would come here to relax in the mountains above Berchtesgaden in southern Bavaria." "In 1938, a tea house was built on top of the high Obersalzberg so that Hitler and his guests could enjoy the view." "Hitler's house was lower down the mountain." "A complex of buildings grew up around it." "This was the official guest house." "But all that remains of Hitler's own house, the Berghof, is rubble." "The building was demolished to prevent it becoming a memorial, and quick-growing trees planted to obscure the famous view." "When Hitler stayed here, as well as when he was in Berlin, the Nazi regime revolved around him." "His personality determined the way in which Germany was governed." "His was not the regime of a workaholic." "Hitler was indolent, as those who worked closely for him discovered." "Hitler appeared shortly before lunch, read through the newspaper cuttings of Reich Press Chief Dietrich, and then went in to lunch." "When Hitler stayed at the Obersalzberg, it was even worse." "There he never left his room before two in the afternoon, then he went in to lunch." "He spent most afternoons taking a walk." "In the evenings, straight after dinner, there were films." "In the 12 years of his rule in Germany," "Hitler produced the biggest confusion in government that has ever existed in a civilised state." "I've sometimes secured decisions from him - even ones about important matters - without his ever asking to see the relevant files." "He took the view that many things sorted themselves out on their own if one did not interfere." "A different picture of Hitler was projected here at the vast complex of stadiums built in Nuremberg for the party's annual rally." "(ECHO OF MASSED VOICES)" "What the public saw of Hitler in Nuremberg in the 1930s was a confident and strong leader whose oratory promised a new, dynamic and powerful Germany." "Heil, mein Jugend!" "Heil, mein Führer!" "(CHEERING)" "He was meant to be seen as the all-powerful, all-knowing leader who prevailed over a system of total order, but the contrast between image and reality was a stark one." "Far from it being a very orderly structure of command, in fact it was very disorganised and rather chaotic." "It is really quite a remarkable system, if you can call it a system at all, where there is no collective government, but yet where the head of state actually doesn't spend all his time dictating." "# Wochenend und Sonnenschein" "# Und dann mit dir im Wald allein" "# Weiter brauch' ich nichts zum Glücklichsein" "# Wochenend und Sonnenschein!" "#" "Hitler and the Nazis created a unique and peculiar form of government." "Hitler was surrounded by acolytes who knew that their future depended on pleasing their Führer." "They strove always to be near him, accompanying him on whatever trips took his fancy." "# Tief im Wald nur ich und du" "# Der Herrgott drückt ein Auge zu" "# Denn er schenkt uns ja zum Glücklichsein... #" "Though Hitler had little interest in regular hours of work or the detail of policies, he had visions of what he wanted for Germany." "As Hitler talked in an endless monologue, ambitious Nazis listened to him closely." "# Wochenend und Sonnenschein Und dann mit dir im Wald allein... #" "Then, on their own initiative, they tried to think of ways in which his vision could become a reality." "They made up the policy and said they were acting on the will of the Führer." "From the first, Hitler openly said he didn't have detailed policies." "(CHEERING)" "But Hitler was open in saying what he wanted from the German economy - weapons to build a new German army." "Rearmament became his economic priority." "The Nazis increased the army's budget so much in their first year of power that the army wasn't even able to spend all of it." "The Nazis also promised to rid Germany of unemployment, and they did - mainly through work creation schemes like the autobahn building programme." "But building armaments and autobahns could only be a short-term solution to Germany's economic problems." "It would take time for these inflationary pressures to be felt." "And so, for the moment, everything looked rosy, especially when Hitler ordered troops into the demilitarised portion of Germany, the Rhineland." "There was little international protest." "Germans saw all this as one more sign that they were regaining self-respect." "Nazis organised pageants to entertain, like the Nacht der Amazonen, the Night of the Amazons, held in Munich in the 1930s, celebrations in which only those the Nazis considered racially pure could participate." "But if you didn't fit the Nazi image of the perfect German, life was very different." "Here in Munich, the same city where the Night of the Amazons was held, the Nazis demolished one of the biggest synagogues in Germany." "They said they wanted the space for a car park." "The Jews were excluded from German life." "The 1935 Nuremberg Laws outlawed marriage between Jews and other Germans and declared that Jews were not German citizens." "Other discrimination followed." "(INTERVIEWER) Wasn't it a problem for you that you were working in a system that allowed Jews to be pushed out of this...?" "Out of their position." "To lose their wealth, their property." "Surely this was a great injustice." "How did you feel about that?" "Anti-Semitic propaganda exaggerated the number of Jews in professions like the law or the theatre." "Nazis never gave the reason why Jews were concentrated in some walks of life - that the Jews had been banned from other careers for hundreds of years." "Thousands of Jews emigrated from Germany during the 1930s, realising that there could never be a safe place for them in German society for as long as the Nazis ruled." "Those who remained always risked the attentions of the secret state police, the infamous Gestapo." "Here in the town of Würzburg lies a clue to how the Gestapo operated under the Nazis." "Almost all Gestapo files were burnt by the Nazis as the Allies entered Germany, but in Würzburg, American soldiers prevented their destruction." "Only recently have the files been studied, and a surprising picture emerges of how the Gestapo functioned." "To start with, far from there being a Gestapo officer on every street corner, there were only 28 secret police officials for Würzburg's nearly one million people." "I think the Gestapo could not have operated without the cooperation of the citizens of Germany." "By that, I mean it would really have been... structurally impossible for them to do so." "There were simply not enough Gestapo officials to go around." "Somewhere between 80 and 90% of the crimes that were reported to the Gestapo came from ordinary citizens." "The main job for the Gestapo was...sorting out... the denunciations." "This seems to have been their preoccupation." "(NARRATOR) The citizens of Würzburg didn't so much have to fear the Gestapo as what their neighbours might tell the Gestapo." "Every German was at risk from denunciation." "A woman who lived in this house on the outskirts of Würzburg in 1938 first came to the attention of the Gestapo when she was denounced by a relative." "She was called Ilse Sonja Totzke, and her Gestapo file lies in the Würtzburg archive." "After years of denunciations and Gestapo harassment, she was sent to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where she died." "Her crime was simple." "She didn't fit in." "She avoided her neighbours and had Jewish friends." "She is put under very general surveillance, not by the Gestapo but by the Gestapo asking her neighbours to keep an eye on her." "What happens is that one neighbour after another, for one reason or another, come forward with information." "But all of it adds up to really one thing." "She may be just too unconventional for her own good." "Of course, what this does is that small-town mentality people keep after her." "They keep noticing her." "And it's fuelled again and again by yet another denunciation." "(NARRATOR) The denunciations in her file contain mostly gossip about her - that she is acting suspiciously and has shady friends - but her file contains little that amounts to firm evidence against her." "One denunciation hints that she may be a lesbian." "It says, "Miss Totzke does not seem to have normal predispositions," in red." "It is signed only "Heil Hitler."" "One denunciation bears the signature of a 20-year-old neighbour, Resi Kraus." ""Since March, 1938," ""Ilse Sonja Totzke is a resident next door to us in a garden cottage." ""She rarely has visitors." ""Now and then, a woman of about 36 years old comes," ""and she is of Jewish appearance." ""She has always been sympathetic..." ""Miss Totzke never responds to the German greeting 'Heil Hitler'." ""To my mind, Miss Totzke is behaving suspiciously. "" "We used to think that the population was manipulated and brainwashed from above." "Now what we're beginning to see by looking at the social history of the kind one sees in these Gestapo dossiers is that the system is actually manipulated from below by lots of people for all kinds of reasons," "some of them selfish;" "some of them - fewer - idealistic." "But what we get now is a dramatically different picture of what the system was like." "Ordinary Germans could influence the Gestapo through denunciations, but no major policy could be successfully instituted unless Hitler blessed it." "So for members of the Nazi élite, the search was always on for a new way of pleasing their Führer." "One way to his heart was to feed his anti-Semitism." "Josef Goebbels, propaganda minister and hater of Jews, sought to do just that." "Goebbels boasted that the Nazis had excluded Jews from German cultural life." "In the autumn of 1938, Goebbels saw a chance to please Hitler more when he heard the news that Ernst von Rath, a German diplomat, had been assassinated in Paris by a Jewish man, Herschel Grynszpan," "angry at how his family had been treated by the Nazis." "The Nazi élite were in Munich for the anniversary of the Beer Hall Putsch." "Goebbels asked for Hitler's permission to let loose the Storm Troopers in an act of vengeance against innocent Jews." "Hitler agreed, and so began Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass." "In the early hours of the morning, they broke the front door down and started to smash the place up." "Hordes of Storm Troopers." "And we had two lots." "One lot just concentrated on smashing things up, and left." "And then the second lot arrived." "Three elderly ladies were living on the first floor with us." "One was dragged out and beaten for no reason except she probably got in the way of something." "I was sort of knocked about, and finally ended up in the... in the cellar, where the kitchens were." "In a back room, I was being knocked about." "When I came back, I went upstairs and found my father dying." "Dead." "I tried, erm... as far as I could to, erm... artificial respiration, but I don't think I was very good at it." "In any case, I don't think..." "It was too late for that." "I was absolutely in shock." "It was beyond my comprehension." "I didn't know the people." "They didn't know me." "They had no grudge against me." "They were just people who'd come to do whatever they thought they should do." "(NARRATOR) More than 800 Jews lost their lives as a result of Kristallnacht, and as many as a thousand synagogues were destroyed." "What was the reaction of the non-Jews you knew when they heard of your circumstances?" "You'd been badly beaten up." "Your father had been killed." "Did anyone say what they felt about it?" "No." "In fact, erm..." "Er..." "The people passing the next morning, ordinary Germans, threw stones at the windows." "Nobody expressed any sympathy?" "No." "In the aftermath of Kristallnacht," "Hitler's popularity did not seem to suffer." "As Hitler never spoke in public about it, it was possible to believe, for those who wanted to, that the responsibility lay with the hot-headed Storm Troopers." "The love affair between Hitler and his followers continued." "(MALE SINGER)" "In 1938, a new Chancellery was built, symbolising the power and order of Nazi rule." "But inside, Hitler was pursuing methods which resulted in administrative chaos." "The Grand Reich Chancellery was a hive of political infighting and backbiting, as rivals with ill-defined jobs fought against each other for Hitler's favour." "Hitler's working life was organised not by one private office, but by five:" "the office of the Reich Chancellery, under Hans Heinrich Lammers;" "the office of Hitler's personal adjutant, under Wilhelm Bruckner;" "the office of the Presidential Chancellery, under Otto Meissner;" "on the second floor, the office of the Chancellery of the Führer, under Philipp Bouhler;" "and finally, the office representing the Führer's deputy, under Martin Bormann." "Although based in another building," "Bormann was most often at Hitler's side." "All of these different offices claimed to represent Hitler." "A large portion of their time was spent fighting each other." "One of the more vicious power battles was over access to the mail, to the thousands of letters that arrived each week addressed to "Mein Führer", and which begged favours or blessings from Hitler." "There were trivial letters asking if church bells could be named after Hitler, and serious ones from individual Jews pleading that they should be exempt from the Nazis' discriminatory laws." "Access to this mail meant access to Hitler and a chance to form Nazi policy." "Philipp Bouhler, an ambitious Nazi, managed to gain control over the mail and exploit it to his benefit." "In late 1938 or early 1939, one letter which Bouhler's office showed to Hitler had a devastating effect." "It was from the father of a mentally-disabled child." "He asked the Führer's permission to have the child killed." "Hitler agreed." "He had already ordered the sterilisation of the disabled." "Now this one letter was to be the catalyst to their murder." "Bouhler was authorised to devise a policy for the selection and killing of disabled children within days of their birth." "This form had to be filled in every time a disabled baby was born." "Three doctors read the form." "If they thought the baby should be killed, they each marked it with a cross." "Within months, it was no longer just babies who could be killed, but disabled children as well." "Gerda Bernhardt's brother Manfred was one of more than 5,000 children who suffered as a result of this policy." "Manfred was mentally disabled." "But Aplerbeck was one of the Nazis' special children's units." "By now, two years after the policy had begun, doctors in homes like this had stopped filling in Bouhler's form." "In a typical example of how policies could spiral away, staff here, on their own, selected the children they wanted to kill." "The official record of deaths at Aplerbeck lists Manfred Bernhardt as dying of measles on June 3rd." "That same week, 11 other children died." "Manfred Bernhardt was murdered because he was not wanted in the Nazi's perfect state." "The catalyst that caused his death was a chance letter to Hitler on a subject close to his heart, brought to his attention by an ambitious Nazi." "Any idea in this system could, with the combination of a leader who spoke in visions and enthusiastic supporters anxious to please, grow radically to an extreme almost in an instant." "This was the way Germany was ruled in the 1930s." "Now the world was about to suffer the consequences of the radical way decisions were taken in this Hitler state." "In the mountains of Southern Bavaria, on the slopes of the Obersalzberg," "Adolf Hitler built his retreat - the Berghof." "He would relax by watching feature films, on one subject in particular." " So it's war." " Unless we're quick." "From China to Afghanistan, they're making one great confederacy." "Good Lord!" "A machine gun!" "(HEAVY GUNFIRE)" "To Hitler, British rule of India was perfect proof of Aryan superiority." "Later, in 1941, he said," ""Let's learn from the English, who, with 250,000 men in all," ""including 50,000 soldiers," ""governed 400 million Indians." ""What India was for England, the territories of Russia will be for us."" "Yet, in 1939, Hitler ended up at war with the country he most admired - Great Britain - and allied to the country he most wanted to colonise" " Russia." "How did he end up fighting what was, from his point of view, the wrong war?" "(SINGING)" "On 30th January, 1933, the same day Hitler became Chancellor, the Nazis paraded by torchlight in Berlin." "After the years of unemployment, inflation and political uncertainty," "Hitler promised Germany would be reborn, national pride restored." "Germany would be a world power again, her foreign policy decided in a new way - by the desires of one man." "Every true German, especially the Nazi Storm Troopers, now had to be obedient to the will of their Führer." " Alles ist Reich!" " (CHEERING)" " Sieg!" " Heil!" " Sieg!" " Heil!" "(SINGING BEGINS)" "Under Hitler, the German armed forces would have all the guns, tanks and planes they needed - and more besides." "These armaments were paid for by a series of sophisticated loans which mortgaged Germany's future." "The plan was masterminded by Reich Minister of Economics Hjalmar Schacht." "Hitler wasn't interested in how Schacht worked this apparent economic miracle." "In a typical example of how he dealt with subordinates, he simply told Schacht to get on with the job any way he liked." "He later said," ""I never had a conference with Schacht to see what means were at our disposal." ""I restricted myself to saying this is what I require and what I must have."" "Hitler was obsessed with the survival of the fittest." "Goebbels' propaganda films reflected this obsession." "Hitler believed human beings were simply animals and that the strongest animal would always win." "If his subordinates were strong enough, they would succeed without his help." "Just as it was with animals, so it was with great men and whole countries." "Hitler believed the entire world was locked in a permanent struggle in which the stronger must prevail." "This was the theory he developed in "Mein Kampf", the book he wrote in 1924." "In it he also wrote that the Germans were a nation who needed to expand." "Like the British, they needed colonies." "He was clear where they should find them." ""We are putting an end to the perpetual German march south and west" ""and turning our eyes towards the east." ""And when we speak of a new land in Europe today," ""we must principally bear in mind Russia and the border states subject to her." ""Destiny itself seems to wish to point the way for us here."" "In the years immediately after he became Chancellor, though he never publicly said he wanted to conquer the East," "Hitler repeated his country's central problem - Germany wasn't big enough." "Deutschland, Sieg Heil!" "Sieg Heil!" "Sieg Heil!" "Hitler did openly announce one foreign policy goal." "He wanted, as he saw it, to "right the wrong of the Versailles Treaty"" "by which Germany had lost territory at the end of World War One and was restricted to an army of 100,000." "At that time, young people were enthusiastic and optimistic and believed in Hitler and thought it was wonderful to overcome the consequences of Versailles." "We were in a very high mood." "To help overcome Versailles, the Germans looked to the English." "England and Englishmen were widely admired by the German ruling classes." "They embraced what they took to be the ideals of the English gentleman - country estates and fox hunting." "I always hoped..." "I always hoped that England " "I'm talking to you as an Englishman - that England would see what Germany was planning to do, was building up too much, and would agree in sharing Europe, or whatever." "Whilst the English may not have wanted to share Europe with the Germans, they did think some accommodation should be reached with their former enemy." "The general view in Britain was that the French had imposed, and we had obviously been connected with it, too harsh a settlement on Germany in 1918 and that this should be rectified." "And to that extent there was a slight feeling we ought to have done better." "If you call that a sentiment of guilt, all right." "I'm not sure it was guilt, quite." "The first fruits of Hitler's attempt to woo the British came in June, 1935, when a naval agreement was signed between Germany and Britain allowing Germany to rebuild her fleet beyond the level permitted by Versailles." "Hitler said the day the agreement was signed was the happiest of his life." "Hitler sought to capitalise by sending the Nazi who negotiated the deal," "Joachim von Ribbentrop, to London as German Ambassador in the summer of 1936." "The task was 100% to find a German-British alliance," "because he had arranged before, quite well, the naval agreement." "And that should be crowned by a German-English entente, agreement." "And he..." "At the beginning, he worked on this." "Ribbentrop was not a success in Britain." "Not only did the British not want a treaty of alliance with Nazi Germany," "Ribbentrop himself committed faux pas, like giving a Nazi salute to King George VI." "No, Ribbentrop was regarded as not a gentleman, you know." "And he wanted to be considered a gentleman." "He was VON Ribbentrop, not just one of the rough Nazis." "But I don't think that went down at all well even in circles which, on the whole, felt we must get on with the Germans." "His mission was rather disastrous." "Sometimes he shouted, sometimes he was furious, he threw pencils at the secretaries." "So, privately, he behaved very simple and stupidly and very pompous." "And the British don't like this - pompous people - and he was very outspoken and very loud voice." "Goebbels said of Ribbentrop," ""He bought his name, he married his money and swindled his way into office."" "Count Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister, revealed that Mussolini had remarked," ""You only have to look at his head to see that he has a small brain."" "Ribbentrop was loathed by almost all the other leading Nazis." "They thought him a humourless upstart." "And yet Hitler supported him." "Hitler one day said, when Ribbentrop wasn't present," ""With Ribbentrop it is so easy." ""He's always radical." ""Meanwhile, all the other people I have, they come here, they have problems," ""they are afraid, they think we should take care," ""and then I have to blow them up, to get strong." ""And Ribbentrop was blowing the whole day and I had to do nothing," ""I had to brake, give brakes there." "Much better."" "(NARRATOR) Ribbentrop had a great insight into how to deal with Hitler." "He knew that Hitler always smiled kindly on a person who came to him with a radical solution to any problem." "Even if he didn't adopt the suggestion, he still praised the person who made it." "This was an insight a more intelligent member of Hitler's regime didn't have." "Hjalmar Schacht thought Hitler would listen to reason when he told him the German economy was overheating and armament production should be scaled down." "Instead, Hitler was furious with his Economics Minister." "Schacht was sidelined." "The economy was now put in the hands of a man who, though ignorant of economic theory, was certainly a proven radical..." "Herman Göring." "(CHEERING)" "He was, you would say, a jolly good fellow." "Ajolly good fellow." "Loved to show off." "And loved rings and diamonds and had had funny hobbies." "Loved paintings." "And loved to live in luxury in Karinhall, which was near Berlin in the Schorfeide, where he built some kind of castle for hunting purposes." "That was more than a castle, just wonderful." "And, upstairs in the attic, he had an electric train built, various trains running around." "He played there like a child." "Loved, loved to be there." "So therefore, besides being a true, dependable vassal to Hitler, he was a big child." "What did Hitler want his new army for?" "At first it seemed the answer might be just to overturn the worst consequences of Versailles." "In 1936, Hitler moved his troops into the demilitarised Rhineland." "There was little international protest." "Then at a secret meeting in November, 1937, he told his generals that Germany must expand to survive and announced that Germany's problem could be solved only by the use of force." "Austria and Czechoslovakia were named by Hitler as the first targets." "Leading generals were not enthusiastic." "They offered sober objections to Hitler's ideas, not the applause he wanted." "In three months, the War Minister and Commander of the Army were removed after personal scandals." "Hitler took the opportunity to appoint the most radical Nazi of all as Commander-in-Chief of the German armed forces - himself." "It was in the mountains above Berchtesgaden in Southern Bavaria that Hitler liked to dream of Germany's forthcoming greatness." "He later said that his greatest ideas came to him in these mountains." "In the afternoon he would go on walks between the great peaks of the Obersalzberg." "He would return to the Berghof, a house run for him by Herbert Döhring, a member of Hitler's own personal guard, the SS Leibstandarte." "At the Berghof, Hitler indulged himself by planning the great cities he would build in his new Germany." "Herbert Döhring would constantly be folding and unfolding huge building plans so his master could dream his dreams." "Sometimes it seemed Hitler did little else." "When not dreaming of future German cities or of German expansion," "Hitler would watch feature films - at the Berghof, always two a night." "He preferred escapist entertainment and Goebbels always made sure there was plenty on hand." "At the Berghof in the spring of 1938," "Hitler saw an opportunity to take the first step in achieving a cherished dream - to bring other German-speaking people under his rule." "He capitalised on political instability in neighbouring Austria, a country which had already come hugely under Nazi influence." "After checking that no foreign power would interfere, he ordered German troops to cross the border." "(CHEERING)" "(BAND PLAYS)" "The majority of Austrians welcomed the Germans into their country." "They too had suffered as their empire was dismantled at the end of WWI." "Now, united with Germany, they were a power once again." "It was one of the nicest days of my life when we entered Austria." "I was with Hitler in the sixth car." "I had tears in my eyes." "All my dreams of reuniting Austria with Germany." "Don't forget, Austria was ruling Germany during 600 years." "So for me, after the defeat of the year '18 and Versailles, for us it was a dream." "I suppose a lot of people in England would say, "They are Germans after all. "" "You know, if that's what they really want." "But it was, after all, a pretty nasty sort of takeover." "(CHANTING) Sieg Heil!" "I think we cried." "Tears were running down our cheeks." "When we looked to our neighbours, it was the same." "And when Hitler came to me, I nearly forgot to give him the hand." "I just looked at him... ..and I saw good eyes." "And in my heart I promised him," ""I always will be faithful to you."" "I kept my promise." "All my free time, besides school," "I gave to the work because he had called us." ""You all..." He had said that to us." ""You all shall help me build up my empire" ""to be a good empire" ""with happy people" ""who are thinking" ""and promising to be good people."" "(NARRATOR) But this was not going to be a "good empire"." "Heinrich Himmler, Commander of the SS, was one of the first Nazis into Austria." "Like Hitler, Himmler thought himself a radical and a visionary." "This former Bavarian chicken farmer made Wevelsburg Castle the spiritual home of the SS - the élite group which had emerged from Hitler's own personal bodyguard." "(SOLDIERS SINGING)" "Himmler believed these were the superior beings who would crush Germany's enemies." "Himmler fantasised that the leaders of the SS would meet in this room, like the Knights of the Round Table, subordinate only to their own King Arthur" " Adolf Hitler." "Here they would plan how to rule over their own empire." "Himmler said in 1938," ""Germany's future is either a greater Germanic empire or a nothing." ""I believe that if we in the SS are doing our duty" ""the Führer will create this greater Germanic empire, this Germanic Reich," ""the biggest empire ever created by mankind on Earth."" "In Austria, the first territory of this new Greater Germany, the SS and the other Nazis revealed how they intended to rule - with intolerance and cruelty." "Just as in Germany, the Nazis made the Jews their scapegoats." "You were completely outlawed, no protection anywhere." "Anybody could come up to you and do what they want, and that's it." "Austrian Jews were forced to perform a variety of tasks to humiliate them, like scrubbing the streets clean." "I once had to scrub the streets as well." "Can't remember anything except that I saw in the crowd a well-dressed young woman and she was holding up a little girl - a blonde, lovely girl, you know, with these curls, and she was smiling, so that she could see better how that, maybe," "a 20-year-old kicked an old Jew who fell down." "They all laughed and she laughed as well." "Sort of, how happy, that was a wonderful entertainment." "The Austrian Jews were so persecuted that many simply fled, after, of course, the SS had robbed them of most of their money." "17-year-old Walter Kammerling was seen off at Vienna Station by his parents." "It's a nightmare situation." "I remember leaving Austria." "It was like in a haze." "It was only days after that it struck me, when I wanted to talk to my parents and they weren't here." "After the Nazi takeover of Austria," "Adolf Hitler returned to Berlin to a tumultuous welcome." "He was more popular now than he had ever been before." "His new Reich contained over 80 million Germans." "The humiliations of Versailles were almost forgotten, but not quite." "In this euphoric mood, Hitler turned his eyes towards Czechoslovakia." "He focused his demands on the Sudeten Germans in the border areas, proclaiming that they too, as Germans, should be under his rule." "But not all German generals went along with Hitler's ambitious expansion plans." "Some, like General Beck, were frightened that he was leading Germany into another world war." "They secretly communicated this to the British." "From then on, of course, Beck and that group of generals - they didn't represent all the generals - kept in touch with us by underground means." "They used to come through me and it was the sort of thing of," ""If only you and the French will stand up to Hitler, then we'll do something."" "And we said, "Hadn't you better start doing something and we can help?"" "But as Hitler went on having success after success, the possibility of this group of generals getting rid of him became less and less." "As Germany threatened Czechoslovakia, the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, tried to prevent war." "The crisis grew as twice he met Hitler and on each occasion Hitler increased his demands." "Finally, Chamberlain left for one last meeting on 29th September, 1938." "When I was a little boy," "I used to repeat," ""If at first you don't succeed, try, try, try again."" "That's what I am doing." "When I come back," "I hope I may be able to say, as Hotspur says in "Henry IV"," ""Out of this nettle danger, we pluck this flower safety."" "(CHEERING)" "Chamberlain sat alongside Ribbentrop, now German Foreign Minister, as the motorcade made its way to the conference hall in Munich." "Finally, an agreement was reached, brokered by Mussolini and Göring." "Hitler could have the Sudetenland as long as he promised this was his final territorial demand." "Chamberlain, naturally, knew public opinion in Britain." "That's not the Foreign Office's job." "He knew public opinion in the Dominions, which mattered a good deal, and felt, I think quite rightly, really, that public opinion would not understand" "getting involved as an ally of France, so to speak, in a war with Germany in Europe, to prevent Germans being attached to other Germans." "But Hitler was still disgruntled." "Shortly after the agreement was signed, he was saying he had been tricked." "I heard that...say..." "the day after the Munich conference, by some people who had been in the same hotel with Hitler or with his surrounding people, adjutants and so on, and Ribbentrop and so on, and they said that Hitler had the idea that he had failed to get his war," "that he had taken..." "One German soldier took a home movie camera as he entered the Sudetenland and filmed scenes reminiscent of the victorious German entry into Austria just six months previously." "German army officers were ecstatic, too." "They now controlled the Czech border defences - the barbed wire, pillboxes and minefields with which the Czechs had sought to defend their country." "The rest of Czechoslovakia now lay naked in front of the German Army and their Commander-in-Chief, Adolf Hitler." "Hitler asked the ageing President Hacha of Czechoslovakia to Berlin in 1939 for talks." "Hitler humiliated Hacha by keeping him waiting." "He was busy that evening watching one of Goebbels' romantic comedies " ""A Hopeless Case"." " Papa, Papa!" " Jenny!" "(SHIP'S HORN BLOWS)" "Hitler eventually saw Hacha at 1.15 in the morning." "He announced that in a few hours' time German troops would invade his country." "At 4 a.m., the distraught Hacha signed over the Czech people into Hitler's "care"." "As dawn broke, Hitler held a celebration." "Manfred von Schroeder was there." "That was a sort of private party and a sort of victory party with champagne." "Hitler had his mineral water." "It was amazing to see how he behaved when he was among his friends, alone, and hadn't to behave like a statesman." "So he was sitting first of all like this." "Everything here open, hair's like this." "Drinking his mineral water." "And then the interesting thing - talking like this the whole time." "In the meantime, he dictated to two secretaries a proclamation to Germany and another proclamation to the Czechoslovak people and a letter to Benito Mussolini to be transmitted by the Prince of Hesse." "All at the same time." "I was a youngster of 24, so that's how a genius looks at home, you know?" "The German troops who assembled to cross into the Czech Republic were about to take a momentous step." "This boundary post marks the old border between the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia." "By crossing this line, Hitler showed that his claim that he wanted only to unite German speakers was a sham." "This country had never been German and had no German-speaking majority." "This was an invasion." "Gone were the cheering faces of Austria and the Sudetenland." "This time the German military parade was watched by a silent crowd." "Hitler visited Prague and its castle, the old residence of the Czech kings, less than 24 hours after he had first made his demands to President Hacha." "Looking over Prague, Hitler was full of joy." "But not all Nazi supporters were as pleased as their Führer." "That changed the whole history." "It was clear Hitler was an imperialist and wanted to conquer whatever he wanted to conquer." "It had nothing more to do with the self-determination of the German people." "That was the sort of task one could accept, but this was really terrible." "And, of course, this came as a great shock to Chamberlain because he thought at least Hitler would consult him before doing anything." "It opened Chamberlain's eyes." "It was rather like Saul on the road to Damascus, in some ways." "The British knew that Hitler's next demand would be for the return of former German territory in Poland." "Chamberlain pledged to resist." "If an attempt were made to change the situation by force," "in such a way as to threaten Polish independence, why, then, that would inevitably start a general conflagration in which this country would be involved." "Hitler demanded the return of Danzig to Germany, a city that sat in the so-called Polish corridor of land between East Prussia and Germany." "As the crisis intensified, Hitler retreated to the Berghof." "Hitler's dream of a grand alliance with Britain lay in ruins." "In its place he faced war with Britain and France if he invaded Poland." "He needed a radical solution to his problems." "(NEWSREEL) Von Ribbentrop leaving Berlin for Moscow ushers in a new, incomprehensible chapter in German diplomacy." "What can Russia have in common with Germany to throw over the peace front?" "Since spring 1939, on the back of trade negotiations with the Soviet Union, the Nazis had been making tentative moves towards an alliance." "On 23rd August, 1939, Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union, which protected Hitler from fighting a war on two fronts." "A secret part of the pact guaranteed Stalin a share in the spoils once Hitler invaded Poland." "Hitler was now allied to his ideological enemy." "At the same moment as the pact was being signed in Moscow," "Hitler stood with his guests on the Berghof terrace and stared at the sky." "A Hungarian woman in Hitler's entourage looked at the sky and spoke to her Führer." "On 1st September, 1939, Germany invaded Poland." "One country suffered more than any other under the Nazis " "Poland." "Nearly one in five Poles died during World War Two." "This was where the Nazis conducted one of the most brutal acts of ethnic cleansing in history." "(GUNFIRE)" "One of the chief architects of this policy lived here on a 70-acre estate in the western part of Poland." "His name was Arthur Greiser." "In 1946, Arthur Greiser was put on trial for war crimes." "He cut a pathetic figure." "He claimed he too had been "a victim of Hitler's policies"" "and that he was merely "a scapegoat for the crimes of his masters"." "(SPEAKS IN POLISH)" "Arthur Greiser, like other leading Nazis, claimed he'd simply been "acting under orders"." "But he lied." "For when Arthur Greiser sat in the drawing room of his 60-room palace, he possessed the independence and power of a mighty feudal baron." "This is the story of the first 20 months of the Nazi occupation, when men like Greiser tried to turn Poland into the model Nazi state." "The Germans invaded Poland on 1st September, 1939." "(GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS)" "Within five weeks, the Polish army had been crushed." "(GERMAN MARCHING SONG)" "Hitler's popularity soared." "To German soldiers, he was the military genius who let them regain all the German territory in the East they had lost after World War One." "(CHEERING)" "Germany was a world superpower and Hitler was the man to thank." "Now Hitler revealed his vision for Poland - a fundamental re-ordering of the country based on Nazi racial theory." "In August 1939," "Hitler and Stalin had agreed to share Poland between them." "The Nazis created three new districts in their part of Poland." "Hitler wanted two of them, the Warthegau under Arthur Greiser and West Prussia under Albert Forster, to be ethnically cleansed and incorporated into Germany." "And in a typically vague order," "Hitler told Forster and Greiser that they should Germanise their districts, but he would ask no questions about their methods." "A crucial part of Germanisation was the grading of the population according to how German they were in terms of looks, language and attitude." "One group could be Germanised instantly." "They were the ethnic Germans who lived in the parts of Poland which were German before World War One." "They welcomed the German army as their saviours." "Charles Bleeker Kohlsaat lived with the rest of his family on a 1500-acre estate in Greiser's province of the Warthegau." "The Nazis renamed the area around his house "Bleekersdorf" after his family." "The Nazis believed the Germans were racially superior to the Poles." "Poles that were not thought German risked deportation to another district or arbitrary arrest." "Poles who could stay in the Germanised areas were treated as slaves." "And the Nazis encouraged the ethnic Germans to settle old scores with their former neighbours." "(GUNSHOTS)" "And in the Nazi kingdom of Poland, the SS could do anything it liked, as one German soldier witnessed." "Some senior German army officers were appalled at these atrocities." "One general's complaint reached Hitler." "The Führer's military adjutant recorded Hitler's reaction to it." ""Hitler makes serious criticism of childish attitudes amongst the army leadership." ""One can't fight a war with Salvation Army methods. "" "Hitler may have had a vision for what he wanted in Poland, but he also believed men like Greiser should run their domains as they saw fit." "That meant they all ran them differently." "Arthur Greiser's rival and neighbour, Albert Forster, who ran Danzig/West Prussia, chose to conduct the ethnic cleansing in his district in a completely different way." "Albert Forster, though himself a committed Nazi later found guilty of war crimes, did not believe rigidly in Nazi racial theory." "His view was that if the Führer wanted this part of Poland Germanised, the quicker it was done, the better." "He simply declared that whole groups of Poles were now Germans without checking their ethnic origins." "But Romuald Pilaczynski's uncle lived in Posen, within the area run by Arthur Greiser." "There he and his family suffered a different fate." "So Romuald Pilaczynski's uncle was, according to Arthur Greiser, a Pole, whilst he, according to Albert Forster, was a German." "As a result, he and his family weren't deported and he could still receive an education, but he didn't FEEL German." "Albert Forster believed he was acting within the discretion given him by Hitler." "His neighbour, the fanatical racist Arthur Greiser, was furious." "Greiser wrote letters of complaint to his mentor, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS." ""I avoided trying to win cheap successes by Germanising people" ""who could not provide proof of their German origin." ""As I have frequently discussed with you," ""my ethnic policies are threatened by those pursued in Danzig/West Prussia" ""insofar as the policy attempted there" ""appears to the superficial observer to be more successful. "" "Like Greiser, Himmler was fanatically committed to racial theory." "He believed it was possible scientifically to distinguish a Germanic race." "But Forster had been heard to joke that if he looked like Himmler, he wouldn't go on about the idea of race so much." "When Himmler heard that Forster was Germanising en masse, he wrote a letter of complaint to him, telling him to Germanise each Pole only after detailed ethnic examination and reminding Forster..." ""You, as an old National Socialist," ""know that just one drop of false blood that comes into an individual's veins" ""can never be removed. "" "But Albert Forster wasn't worried by Himmler's threatening letter." "As a Gauleiter, or district leader, he had direct contact with Hitler and he believed that Hitler would let him govern his own area as he liked." "He was right." "Hitler didn't intervene and Forster never changed his policy." "Greiser had another problem." "In the autumn of 1939, hundreds of thousands of ethnic Germans arrived in Nazi-occupied Poland." "Under a deal between Hitler and Stalin, they were allowed to leave neighbouring countries and come home to the Reich." "Greiser had to find homes for many incoming Germans in the Warthegau." "German propaganda film shows the incoming Germans being welcomed by the indigenous German population of Poland." "The reality could be very different." "But if the local Germans weren't impressed with the new arrivals, many of the new arrivals were equally disappointed." "They were told they were being resettled in Germany." "According to the Nazis, they were, but that depended, of course, on how you defined Germany." "The new arrivals needed somewhere permanent to live." "In Greiser's district, that was easily solved." "Polish families like the Jeziorkowskas simply received a late-night visit from the German security forces." "The Nazis distributed the property they had stolen to incoming ethnic Germans." "Each head of a family was given a key, a map, and told to go and find their new flat somewhere in the city." "Propaganda pictures show the pristine glory of the fresh accommodation." "For the Eigis, it wasn't like that at all." "The incoming ethnic Germans now had homes to live in, but they didn't have jobs." "That difficulty too was swiftly overcome." "Before coming to Greiser's Warthegau," "Irma Eigi's father had run a hotel and restaurant." "Irma Eigi's father eventually found a restaurant that was still in Polish hands." "He informed the local Nazis and they stole it from the Polish owner for him." "In the depths of the Polish countryside, the forced evictions could be even worse." "Whole villages could be uprooted in one action." "One night in the summer of 1940, the Nazis arrived at Odrowaz, an isolated village in the heart of Greiser's fiefdom of the Warthegau." "They planned to remove every inhabitant of the village at three in the morning." "Franz Jagemann was an interpreter assigned to the German forces carrying out the action." "Appalled at this barbarism," "Franz Jagemann later warned other Polish villagers in advance of their fate, but he still carried on participating as an interpreter in the evictions." "(MOURNFUL VIOLIN MUSIC)" "In Greiser's Warthegau, in little over a year," "700,000 Poles were evicted from their homes." "Greiser deported many south-east, to the part of Poland he saw as the Nazis' racial dustbin - the General Government run by Nazi Hans Frank." "The Jeziorkowskas were simply thrown off the train once it reached its destination." "In spring, 1940, 15,000 Poles a month were sent to the General Government." "These massive deportations from Greiser's district enraged Hans Frank, the man who ruled the General Government." "(FAINT ITALIAN OPERA)" "The country house of this Italian-opera-loving Nazi was outside Kraków in a palace seized from a Polish prince." "(OPERA)" "Hans Frank was proud of his long relationship with Hitler, a relationship characterised by Frank's total sycophancy." "Frank was confident that such abasement to the Nazi cause could help him win the argument over the deportations, but Himmler showed he knew best how to deal with Hitler and timing could be everything." "He wrote Hitler a memo emphasising that the General Government should remain a racial dumping ground." "He gave it to Hitler when the Führer was euphoric in May 1940 after German successes against France." "Hitler discussed the memo with Himmler." "Then Himmler wrote that Hitler found the memo to be "sehr gut und richtig"," ""very good and correct"." "In a typical example of how key decisions could be taken in the Third Reich," "Hitler never put his own views about the subject down on paper." "Himmler had won the battle." "Armed only with a nod from Hitler, he told Arthur Greiser to carry on deporting Poles down to Hans Frank." "Hans Frank dealt with his disappointment in his customary way." "He led his subordinates to believe that he supported Hitler's decision and that he hadn't been defeated at all." "Himmler's victory ensured that Poland was still the scene of gigantic upheaval and even the ethnic Germans did not escape cruel treatment." "Ethnic German farmers in a resettlement camp refused to be relocated because they were homesick." "Dr Fritz Arlt helped deal with the problem." "In our interview with him," "Dr Arlt emphasised that he tried to help the occupied population." "But this letter about these ethnic German farmers shows a very different side to his character." "It bears the dictation mark "Dr A" for Dr Arlt." "We reminded him of its existence." "The letter calls for the ringleaders of the ethnic German farmers to be sent to a Nazi concentration camp." "Dr Arlt joined the Nazi Party in 1932." "Is he now ashamed he did?" "But another group suffered most at the hands of the Nazis in Poland - the three million Polish Jews." "Early on in the German occupation of Poland, the Nazis gathered together Polish Jews and then transported them into ghettos within the major towns." "The Nazis had not yet decided what the final fate of the Jews would be." "The biggest ghetto in Arthur Greiser's district was in Lodz." "Here in the spring of 1940, 160,000 Polish Jews were ordered to congregate in a ghetto area of less than two square miles." "Within weeks of the ghetto being opened, the Nazis sealed it, imprisoning the Jews behind barbed wire." "In order to escape starvation, the Jews had to buy food at inflated prices, either from the Nazis or unofficially from locals who lived outside the wire." "Eugen Zielke was an ethnic German living in Lodz." "His family owned a food shop and some of his relatives were involved in extorting money from the Jews, a crime from which he benefited as well." "The Jews, trapped behind the barbed wire, began by using their money to buy food." "When that ran out, they sold jewellery, ornaments, even their clothes." "When they had nothing left they could sell, they began to starve." "This was the office of the ambitious Nazi who ran the Lodz ghetto, a former coffee importer from Bremen called Hans Biebow." "He quickly discovered that in the ghetto he could do anything he liked, even attempt rape and murder." "Biebow began to do well for himself as a result of extorting money from the Jews." "But as spring turned to summer in 1940, the death rate in the ghetto began to rise, the victims buried here in the Jewish cemetery within the Lodz ghetto." "A debate raged among the local Nazis as to what they should do." "Biebow's deputy said the Germans should let all the Jews die." "But Biebow knew that if all the Jews did die, then he couldn't exploit them any more, so he came up with the solution which prevailed." "The Jews became slave workers, making goods which could be exchanged for more food." "Biebow made even more money, but he realised that he had to share the profits around, particularly with his boss, Arthur Greiser." "At the end of this road constructed by slave labour," "Arthur Greiser sat in luxury in a palace also built on the suffering of the Poles." "(TRIUMPHANT GERMAN SONG)" "Far from being a victim of Hitler's policies," "Greiser was their greatest beneficiary." "Far from acting under orders, he had interpreted the vague instructions he had been given from Hitler in a way that brought greatest profit to himself." "Far from being a scapegoat, he chose to be a thief and a murderer." "In the first 20 months of their occupation of Poland, the Nazis showed they were amongst the cruellest conquerors the world has seen, but even worse was to come." "For 13 months between July 1942 and August 1943, trains ran through the Polish countryside along this siding, disgorging thousands of men, women and children in this clearing." "This used to be the SS barracks." "This, the undressing room." "And this, the route to the gas chambers, known by the Nazis as the path to heaven." "This killing factory, one of six the Nazis built in Poland, is near a tiny hamlet whose name is still infamous today" " Treblinka." "How could it happen?" "How could such places ever come to exist?" "(BELL CLANGS)" "The Warsaw Ghetto." "In 1940, the Nazis imprisoned Polish Jews in ghettos like this." "A temporary measure, whilst they decided what the Jews' fate should be." "The Nazis brutally persecuted the Jews." "They thought them racially inferior, but dangerous." "They believed a world-wide Jewish conspiracy would destroy Germany, that Jews were carriers of Bolshevism." "As a result, there had been Nazi rhetoric saying that all Jews should be destroyed." "But even as late as 1940, there was still no Nazi plan systematically to exterminate the Jews." "Up to now, the emphasis in Nazi planning had been on expulsion." "The most bizarre plan was that proposed in June 1940 by an official in the German Foreign Office, Franz Rademacher, to resettle the Jews on a tropical island under German police control." ""France must make Madagascar available for the solution of the Jewish question. "" "The Madagascar plan came to nothing." "By the time these pictures were taken in the spring of 1941," "Hitler had decided on a radical action that was to alter the course of the war and change Nazi policy towards the Jews." "Hitler had decided, as the fulfilment of his great ideological dream, to invade the Soviet Union." "The German Operation Barbarossa began on June 22nd, 1941." "(GERMAN MARTIAL SONG)" "Since the 1920s, the Nazis had been ideologically opposed to Communism." "To them, this was not just a normal war." "This was a crusade." "Unlike the conflict in the West, German soldiers knew that the war in the East was to be fought without rules." "As they entered Soviet-held territory, the Germans encountered hundreds of thousands of Eastern Jews." "Nazi propaganda made it plain what the German public should think of them." "Hitler intended to colonise the captured territory and settle Germans there." "Special killing squads" " Einsatzgruppen - were now ordered the cleanse the area of undesirables." "In charge of the Einsatzgruppen was one of Hitler's most ruthless subordinates," "Reinhard Heydrich, 37-year-old head of the security police." "He issued this directive immediately after the invasion of the Soviet Union." ""The following are to be executed." "All officials of the Comintern." ""Officials of senior and middle rank" ""and extremists in the party, the central committee and the district committees." ""The people's commissars, all Jews in the service of the party and the state." ""No steps are to be taken to interfere with any purges" ""by anti-Communist or anti-Jewish elements in the occupied territories." ""On the contrary, these are to be secretly encouraged. "" "Heydrich was a cold, desk-bound murderer who prided himself on being a man of culture." "Heydrich was a talented musician, and held weekend parties for his friends in the SS castle of Wewelsburg." "Heydrich and his boss, the head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, would organise this quantum leap forward for Hitler - the murder of Communists and Jews as the German army advanced eastward." "Hitler said the Jews were behind Communism." "The crusade in the East was to attempt to crush both." "Under Heydrich's command were four Einsatzgruppen, or killing squads, each with between 600 and 1,000 men." "Each was led by an educated German." "Einsatzgruppe A was led by Walther Stahlecker." "He held a doctorate in law." "Einsatzgruppe B was led by Arthur Nebe, head of the German criminal police." "Einsatzgruppe C was led by Otto Rasch." "He held two academic doctorates, one in law and one in political science, so he was known as Doctor Doctor Rasch." "Einsatzgruppe D was led by Otto Ohlendorf, a gifted economist, the most intellectual of the Einsatzgruppen leaders." "Bloodiest of them all was Stahlecker's Einsatzgruppe A, which operated in the Baltic states." "Einsatzgruppe A followed the German army into Lithuania in the early days of the invasion." "Lithuanians were a staunchly Catholic people, but Stalin's Communists had invaded their country and oppressed their traditions and their beliefs." "So when the Germans reached Kaunas, Lithuania's second city, they were welcomed as liberators." "Throughout Lithuania, symbols of Communism were destroyed." "And not just symbols." "To Lithuanian nationalists, as to Nazis, Communism was linked to Judaism." "In Kaunas, locals rounded up Jewish men, particularly those they believed had Communist sympathies." "They turned on them here, in an act of revenge of the type Heydrich asked the Einsatzgruppen to encourage." "A German army photographer witnessed what happened." "Once all the Jews had been bludgeoned to death, one of the killers climbed on top of the bodies with his accordion." "(ACCORDION MUSIC)" "But the Nazis played the major role in organising the rounding up of those Heydrich had called to be executed." "In the Baltic states, Einsatzgruppe A took Heydrich's directive as a minimum, and soon began to arrest not just Jewish leaders, but all young Jewish men." "They were taken out of the towns and shot." "That August, less than two months after the German invasion," "Himmler visited Minsk, one of a series of morale-boosting visits he paid to the Einsatzgruppen, the police and other SS units in the East." "A crucial part of Himmler's itinerary was not filmed for this propaganda newsreel." "It is mentioned in his appointment book, recently discovered in the Moscow State Archive." "The entry for 15th August, 1941, during Himmler's visit to Minsk, reads," ""Vormittags - before lunch." ""Attend execution of Jews and partisans just outside Minsk."" "Among those attending the execution was Lieutenant Frentz, a German cameraman." "Himmler witnessed a similar Einsatzgruppen execution to this, filmed in the sand dunes of Liepaja in Latvia in 1941." "Himmler now announced an extension of the cleansing in the East." "As the Nazis thought that every single Jew was a supporter of Bolshevism, they now said that every single Jew was a military threat." "So women and children in the newly conquered territories were to be killed." "Himmler later tried to justify the killing of Jewish children by saying that the Nazis could not allow a generation of avengers to grow up, as they'd cause problems in the future." "But Himmler was worried about his killers." "Arthur Nebe, commander of Einsatzgruppe B, told him that the psychological effect of murdering at such close quarters was clearly affecting some of his men." "So Himmler pressed on with experiments to find a more humane method of killing." "Humane for executioners, not victims." "The Nazis experimented with gas as a means of killing, and filmed some of their experiments." "Whilst gassing experiments continued, the shooting carried on in the East." "The Einsatzgruppen meticulously recorded their killings." "In that summer of 1941, their records show the murders drastically increasing, coinciding with a massive increase in the number of police units sent to the East." "The killing squads based in Kaunas in Lithuania had killed 4,400 Jews in July 1941." "In August, they killed more than 38,000." "Including women and children." "Stahlecker, the commander of Einsatzgruppe A, boasted that "new possibilities in the East" ""allow a complete clearing up of the Jewish question"." "In the Lithuanian village of Butrimonys, the consequences of this extension in killing were felt on September 9th, 1941." "Before the arrival of the Germans, Jews here had been tolerated by Lithuanians, though many villagers had envied the Jews their supposed wealth." "Now, with the prospect of theft and plunder, some locals were happy to respond to the German order to march the remaining Jews along this road out of the town." "Riva Losanskaya and her mother escaped." "The remaining Jews were driven off the road towards where this thicket of trees now grows." "Here, in scenes repeated throughout the Einsatzgruppen area of operation, the Jews were ordered to undress." "Villagers had come to watch, some out of curiosity, others out of greed." "The killing was carried out by Lithuanian collaborators, under German orders." "The suffering is recorded in the Einsatzgruppen killing book as 9th September, 1941, Butrimonys." "67 Jewish men, 370 Jewish women," "303 Jewish children." "A total of 740 Jews killed." "The same day in nearby Alytus, the killing book records 1,279 Jews murdered." "The next day in Merkine, 854." "And in Varena, 831." "In the Baltic states, more than 80% of the killing squads were made up of locals acting under German Einsatzgruppen orders." "Men like Petras Zelionka." "After the war ended, the Soviets sent Petras Zelionka to a Siberian gulag." "His former comrades, against whom he gave evidence, were executed." "That autumn of 1941, whilst Zelionka and his comrades carried on killing," "Hitler directed the war in the East from here at the Wolf's Lair, his headquarters in a forest near Rastenburg in East Prussia." "Hitler's talk was of annihilation." "In 1941, he said that Leningrad should vanish from the surface of the Earth." "In this atmosphere of blood lust and destruction, he was also privately expressing his undying hatred of the Jews." "That race of criminals has on its conscience the two million dead of World War One, and now, already, hundreds of thousands more." "To his staff at headquarters, Hitler talked of taking revenge against the Jews." "But even before America entered the war, Hitler showed no mercy to Jews in the East." "Now he was about to show no mercy to Jews in the rest of the Nazi empire." "In September 1941, two new measures showed that German Jews were under increased threat." "Hitler agreed to an order which said that German Jews must wear a yellow star." "And a secret order from Himmler said that Hitler had authorised that, beginning that autumn, all Jews from Germany, Austria and the occupied Czech lands should be transported east." "350 miles to the west of Hitler's headquarters," "Berliners relaxed by the capital's lakes." "So far, they had heard only good news from the war in the East." "But that autumn there was one new sign that showed that life was changing, at least for some of the population." "Now the Jews were marked." "There's nothing to say." "It's bad." "It's bad you are signed." "You have a sign on you." "Nobody would have thinked that I am a Jew." "But this..." "We had to wear it." "The hate grew up." "We felt it." "The Germans always said, "The Jews are not Germans."" "And I said, "I am a German" ""of Jewish faith."" "And, for them, I am not a German." "But I am a German." "As autumn turned to winter in 1941, and the war bogged down in the mud of the East, the Nazis knew there would be no easy victory over the Soviet Union." "There was a new enemy to contend with." "After Germany's ally Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in December," "Germany declared war on the United States." "Hitler had a series of meetings with Nazi leaders that December to discuss the consequences of all this for the Nazi cause." "The fate of the Jews was also discussed." "A new piece of evidence from Himmler's appointment diary shows that on the 18th of December, 1941, Hitler met with Himmler and the topic was the Judenfrage, the Jewish question." "The entry is written in Himmler's own hand." "Himmler writes cryptically alongside," ""to be exterminated as partisans."" "We can't know exactly what this means." "It's likely that it's camouflage language to justify the murder of the Jews in the East to the German Army." "But the diary entry clearly links Hitler with the killings." "In January 1942, a conference was called here at the Wannsee on the outskirts of Berlin." "By now, Hitler had authorised that all Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe should be deported to their deaths, and the meeting here was called to work out the details." "The discussion was chaired by Reinhard Heydrich." "He had been asked to compile a plan for the final solution to the Jewish problem." "The minutes were taken by Heydrich's specialist in Jewish matters," "Adolf Eichmann." "The minutes are deliberately euphemistic and talk of the "evacuation" of the Jews." "But this was code for "extermination"." "Hans Frank, the Nazi who ran part of occupied Poland, told his senior officials what the Wannsee conference was really about." "What will happen to the Jews?" "Do you imagine they will be settled in the East?" "People said to us in Berlin, "Why should we go to all this trouble?" "Liquidate them. "" "Now deportations were occurring all over Germany." "The forced eviction of Jews in Dresden was filmed by an amateur cameraman." "This was the final act in a series of persecutions which the Jews of Germany had suffered." "First they had been denied Reich citizenship, then the right to a state education, then they had had their property confiscated." "Now the Jews were told they were to be sent east, to work camps." "More Jews were deported from Berlin than any other German city - 55,000 " "many of them from the freight station here at Putlitzstrasse." "We were trucked there." "The truck was empty." "And...the people were... conducted immediately inside the car." "And then... in the moment they went in, they had the package of four slices of bread..." "..given from the community, from the Jewish community." "It was an atmosphere of... fear." "An atmosphere of big fear." "There were babies." "There were little children." "And they cried." "And the mothers said, "Behave well." ""Don't cry."" "We couldn't think." "We couldn't...think." "(NARRATOR) There were Germans who helped Jews." "Some even hid them." "Most acted as Erwin Massuthe did as he saw the deportations at Putlitzstrasse across the street." "The fate of these Jews was supposed to be a secret." "Just how big a secret, switchboard operator Alfons Schultz learnt when a colleague overheard a conversation at the Führer's HQ in May 1942." "Hitler wanted the Jews annihilated, and he wanted it kept a secret." "But it couldn't be kept secret from everybody." "As the train carrying Günther Ruschin travelled east, he learnt his intended fate from an unexpected source." "At Frankfurt Oder, the train stopped at the station." "And then we shouted, "Please," ""give us some water." ""We are thirsty."" "And we heard crying back," ""You damn Jews." ""Didn't they kill you yet?"" "The workers at the station in Frankfurt." "If they knew..." "Because they told, "Didn't they kill you yet?"" "The population must have known it, or must have imagined what will happen, or what they are doing us." "Nazi propagandists didn't want the public to dwell on the possible fate of the Jews." "In the winter of 1942, as the Jewish deportations continued, this was the image of Germany that Goebbels preferred to sell to the public." "(CHOIR SINGS)" "It's impossible to tell how many Germans knew what was happening to the Jews." "The same month this propaganda film was shown in cinemas, December 1942, a Nazi intelligence report records disquiet among some Germans in the south." ""One of the strongest causes of unease" ""among those attached to the Church and in the rural population" ""is based on news from Russia in which extermination of Jews is spoken about." ""The news leaves great anxiety, care" ""and worry in those sections of the population." ""According to opinion in the rural population, it's not at all certain that we will win the war," ""and if the Jews return to Germany they will extract dreadful revenge upon us. "" "By the time this secret report was written at the end of 1942, the Nazis' successful experiments with gas had led to the creation of extermination centres at Auschwitz/Birkenau," "Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor," "Majdanek and Treblinka." "It wasn't just German Jews who were sent to the new camps." "Now that the Nazis had developed an efficient means to kill the Jews, they wanted to eliminate them everywhere, from Holland to Greece, and France to Poland." "Other groups the Nazis considered a threat were also to suffer, most prominently Europe's gypsies." "Trains converged on Nazi-occupied Poland and its extermination centres." "This film shows Jews from Bulgarian occupied territory being transported to Treblinka." "In this remote spot, about three quarters of a million people were murdered, though we can never know exactly how many died." "Because a handful managed to escape, we can know what the camp looked like." "This drawing was done by one of the escapees, Samuel Willenberg." "It shows how sophisticated the Nazi killing machine had become since the early days of the Einsatzgruppen shootings in the East." "Treblinka station was designed to look normal, with train timetables and a waiting room." "New arrivals would be driven through to the undressing barracks." "They were told it was a hygiene stop." "and they must take a shower to be disinfected before continuing their onward journey." "A connecting path led from the undressing barracks through two high fences to the gas chambers." "If any of the arrivals said they were sick, the Nazis directed them to the hospital." "Samuel Willenberg is one of fewer than 70 known survivors from Treblinka." "More than 99% of those who arrived here were murdered, the vast majority within three hours of arriving." "The Nazis didn't just kill." "They stole." "Once the victims had been murdered, their clothes and valuables were sorted and the plunder sent back to Germany." "In 1943, their murderous work completed, the Nazis tried to eliminate all trace of the camp, but not because they were ashamed." "That same year, 1943," "Himmler spoke to his SS colleagues about the extermination of the Jews." "We know what it means when 100 corpses are piled together, when 500 are piled together, or 1,000." "To have endured this and, at the same time - ignoring moments of weakness - to have remained decent, this is what has made us tough." "It is a glorious chapter in our history, which has not, and may never, be written." "But the crimes of the Nazis would be discovered, because they were losing the war." "In the East, the Nazis saw the enemy they feared the most, the Russians," "Italy was the birthplace of fascism." "So an alliance between the fascist government in Rome and the Nazis in Berlin had seemed natural." "But on 19th July, 1943, the unthinkable happened" " Rome was bombed." "By 1943, nearly 200,000 Italian soldiers were dead or missing." "The Italian alliance with Nazi Germany had resulted in nothing but disaster." "During the four years of war, more or less," "Italy was practically half-destroyed." "And everybody understood that the war was lost." "And, of course, everybody was thinking that Italy had to get out and not to stay with Mussolini." "On the night of 24th July, 1943, the Fascist Grand Council met and expressed its lack of confidence in Mussolini." "They voted for the King to regain control of the armed forces." "Benito Mussolini had been the first fascist dictator, his success an inspiration to Hitler, but now the Italians had had enough of him." "The King summoned Mussolini here to the Villa Savoya on 25th July, 1943." "Mussolini was told he was dismissed as Prime Minister of Italy." "He walked down the hall out of the King's villa at 5.20 in the afternoon." "As soon as he set foot outside," "Mussolini was arrested by the Italian police and taken to prison." "The Italians were jubilant." "Now they were free of Mussolini and could change to the winning side." "The new Italian government first surrendered and then, in October, 1943, declared war on its former ally, Nazi Germany." "Not very honourable, certainly." "Whenever you...you... betray a friend, an ally, it's not very noble, but it happens, it happens." "We are more realistic sometimes than the Germans are, no?" "Of course, being more realistic, we are not faithful to the present chief, no?" "I don't say it is a noble thing, but it is...it is our character." "(NARRATOR) If the Italians were capable of removing Mussolini in 1943, when they saw how the war was going, why couldn't the Germans remove Hitler?" "Why were they fighting to the end?" "The first task facing anyone in removing Hitler was gaining access to him, and that was not easy." "For most of the war, Hitler hid himself here at the Wolf's Lair in what was then German East Prussia, protected by minefields, barbed wire and his loyal SS bodyguard." "Discussions with his generals dominated his time, and deep into the war the Führer had still not lost his ability to dominate those around him by the force of his personality." "At that time, I... ..respected him." "I mean, I..." "He impressed me and made me tense." "Whenever I was near him," "I was prepared, in every respect, to watch out." "But the flair Hitler had was... ..unusual." "He could, he could..." "Somebody who was almost ready for suicide, he could revive him and make him feel that he should carry the flag and die in battle." "Very strange." "But by the end of 1943, it was clear that Germany was losing the war." "In November, 1942, the area of territory controlled by the Nazis and their allies had reached its peak." "Just over a year later, as 1943 ended," "Soviet forces were making huge advances in the East." "The British and Americans were fighting their way up through Italy, and Allied forces were gathering for D-Day, the invasion of France, but it was in the war in the East that the Germans suffered their greatest losses." "4 million German troops and their allies faced a Soviet force of more than 6 million." "Hitler had said this would be a different war, a war of annihilation, and this was a crucial reason why the Germans fought to the end, for in the East the Nazis believed they were fighting sub-humans." "Behind German lines, partisans resisted the Nazi occupation and were summarily executed wherever they were found." "This partisan war gave the Nazis an easy excuse to hang and shoot anyone they didn't like the look of." "German forces, unlike their Italian allies, committed countless atrocities in the East." "This massacre of Polish prisoners in Lublin was carried out by the SS in July 1944." "But not only the SS and security police killing squads committed atrocities." "Many Wehrmacht units, too, were deeply implicated in the barbarism." "This war of annihilation made it harder for some to remove Hitler - the man ultimately responsible for this." "Almost all the Nazi Party hierarchy, like these Gauleiter, knew and approved of the criminal killings." "And there was another reason why the Nazi leadership found it hard to conspire against their Führer." "From the very beginning," "Hitler had encouraged personal enmity among his favourites, often by appointing two people to the same job and then watching them fight." "It was a leadership where almost everybody hated and distrusted everybody else." "Göring disliked Speer, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Bormann." "Goebbels had little time for either Göring, Ribbentrop or Bormann." "Ribbentrop couldn't stand any of them and none of them could stand him." "The entire Nazi leadership was riven by dislike and suspicion as they fought each other for Hitler's praise and favour." "That left the military leadership, but they too had agreed to the killing of Communist commissars in the East and felt bound by their oath of loyalty, so any strike against Hitler was certain to alienate some of them." "A conspiracy was only possible under conditions of great secrecy." "Finally, a year after Mussolini's overthrow, one senior officer did come forward." "On 20th July, 1944, in the most famous attempt on the Führer's life," "Klaus von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler." "Stauffenberg was the only one who said, "I am prepared to do it."" "But my opinion was always that it could only succeed if the man who tried to kill him killed himself at the same moment." "The way the Palestinians do it now in Israel, do you see?" "Self-sacrifice, or kamikaze." "Stauffenberg left a bomb in his briefcase in the conference room on this spot at the Wolf's Lair, then hurried to Berlin." "At 12.42 p.m. on 20th July, 1944, the bomb exploded as Hitler was being briefed by his military commanders." "Karl Boehm-Tettelbach was in his own office nearby." "When I stepped into the office, my colleague said," ""Did you hear that?" Suddenly, there was a big boom." ""Did you hear that?"" "Four or five minutes later on, we saw out of the window the SS in battle uniform surrounding our barracks." "I said, "Isn't that funny?"" "The bomb destroyed the conference room, but the blast was dispersed by the wooden walls and Hitler escaped with only minor injuries." "Now the search was on for all those who had conspired in this attempt." "But by no means every German officer had supported the plot." "Nobody approached me because they knew that I wouldn't break my oath." "They knew from the very beginning that I would stick." "Luckily, nobody would approach me because I was Air Force and the Air Force was not involved." "If you had been approached, what would you have said to Stauffenberg?" "To Stauffenberg?" "I would have said," ""I'm going to report to Hitler that you want to kill him."" "Ja." "I had no other choice." "If I would have stayed...stayed quiet, they would put me down in a little notebook and I would be shot." "All my comrades who were all shot, they didn't speak." "Stauffenberg couldn't speak, Mertz, and Haeften, the ADC, they were shot immediately." "The other ones whom I worked with, they were later on condemned to death, but they didn't give away my name." "I owe my life to them." "Even under torture, they didn't give away the names." "In the early hours of 21st July, Hitler spoke on radio to the German people." "Hitler visited the officers who had been injured in the blast." "The propaganda newsreel expressed official joy at the Führer's survival and hatred for those who had tried to kill him - feelings shared by many." "The roots of Hitler's popularity, carefully nurtured by Goebbels over the previous 11 years, went deep." "These letters home from the front line reveal what many soldiers felt." "Though letters like this were censored, there was no need for them to refer to Stauffenberg and the plot unless they wanted to." ""There's a deep disgust about this crime... "" ""The honour of the Officer Corps is under attack through Stauffenberg... "" ""The attempt on the Führer's life marks a sad chapter in German history. "" "Hitler ordered that the armed forces be drawn deeper into the Nazi fold." "Propaganda images of this perfect Nazi world, showing the young members of the Master Race, hid another truth." "Unlike Italy, Germany had become a racist state." "Almost all Germans profited from racism for, as the war progressed, the German economy relied not so much on the work of the Hitler Youth as on the sweat and toil of forced labour from the so-called inferior races" "of the conquered territories." "It was horrible to take a young boy, a child, from the family, escort him and put into forced labours and being... ..beaten." "He awoke me at 5 o'clock." "I had to go to the work in a barn, in a stable, polish the horses." "They had two horses and, I believe, six cows, pigs..." "And then, after I had done all this, to go to the fields, to work in the fields - it was spring - to prepare everything." "Well, I never cried as much as at that time." "The last..." "I would say the last months of my childhood passed this way." "By August, 1944, there were more than 7,500,000 forced labourers working in the new Germany." "1,700,000 of them were Poles." "The half million slave workers from the concentration camps, mostly Jews, suffered even more than the Poles." "At least 35,000 of them worked at the chemical plant of IG Farben in Silesia." "The name of the camp these workers lived in has become infamous " "Auschwitz." "But there were two types of camp here:" "concentration camps for slave workers and the extermination camp with its gas chambers." "All new arrivals were selected to go to one or the other." "Arriving at Auschwitz, we were separated." "I remember the selection." "I came. "What are you?" "What's your profession?"" ""I am a mechanic." "To the right."" ""What are you?"" ""I am a doctor."" ""You must learn to work!"" "He hit him." "And so on." "Women with children and men with children to the left and the others to the right." "And I was thinking, the fool that I was, they were going into a family camp." "In the gas chambers." "And...we were taken by a truck, it was 2 o'clock in the morning, and... we came into the...camp." "This is..." "This was the camp of the IG Farben." "And the people there said, "You are now in a concentration camp." ""To go out from here..." ""..through the chimney."" "(NARRATOR) Selection for the work camp meant only a temporary postponement of death." "One Nazi doctor later estimated that life expectancy for slave labourers of Auschwitz was three months." "We went to work in lines of five men and groups." "I always tried to be in the middle, not to be hit from the SS, and that helped." "I am not a man who says," ""I must do some things, some sabotage, or something." No." "I wanted to stay alive." "I wanted to live and to see Germany destroyed," "the Nazism destroyed." "The majority of Germans may not have known of the true realities of Auschwitz, but all knew their country had become a racist state." "The Nazis consistently said that every true German was a superior being, something this propaganda film, made in 1944, was designed to illustrate." "But this belief that they were superior made it harder to accept losing the war." "Perhaps, the Nazis thought, they simply didn't have enough superior beings in their army." "So they tried to recruit racially acceptable foreigners into the Waffen SS." "400,000 foreigners joined the Waffen SS and fought alongside the Germans." "Many were motivated by one reason." "Jacques Leroy was badly injured in battle and lost an eye and an arm." "A few weeks later, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his regiment." "The SS agreed." "He carried on fighting." "It wasn't just on the front line that the Germans were losing the war." "As the war entered its last phase, Allied bombing of Germany intensified." "In the last 15 months of the war, 350,000 Germans died as a result of the bombing raids - three times more than in the previous three years of the war put together." "The British bombers were called by the Germans at that time, under the influence of Goebbels..." "And they hated them and... it was no fun to become..." "If you bailed out of the bomber and came down on the ground, never you know what will happen." "Germans may have hated the bombing, but it did not break their will to fight on." "Men like Wolf Falck believed the Allies would not stop the bombing until Germany was destroyed as an industrial power." "It was decided to destroy Germany, so we have nothing to lose." "We have nothing to lose." "And so we fought for our people, for our country, to protect them." "There was an even more powerful reason to keep fighting - a dread of the advancing Soviet forces." "Both sides had committed atrocities against each other." "But now the supposed sub-humans were forcing the German Army to retreat." "Not only propaganda newsreels tried to put the retreat in the best light." "So did Nazi guidance officers attached to each unit - men like Walter Fernau." "As Walter Fernau was exhorting fellow Germans to continue fighting, so was the Nazi Propaganda Minister and Berlin Gauleiter, Joseph Goebbels." "In November, 1944, he addressed the Volkssturm, the German Home Guard." "Six million men were in the Volkssturm, mostly those who were thought too old or too young for military service." "All were told that they were the last bastion against the Bolshevik horde." "The majority of the Italians had only fought the British and the Americans." "Nazi propaganda said the Russians were an entirely different sort of enemy, sentiments echoed by Hitler the last time he ever broadcast to the German people, on 30th January, 1945." "But it wasn't just fear of the Russians that kept the Germans fighting - it was fear of other Germans." "In the last months of the war, Nazi terror against German civilians increased dramatically." "In the town of Zellingen, alongside the River Main, a local farmer discovered what happened if you criticised the local Nazis." "On March 25th, 1945, the Volkssturm paraded in front of the parish church." "They were exalted to continue the struggle, to fight on to the end." "One man who sniggered lived on the edge of the parade ground." "His name was Karl Weiglein, a local farmer with a reputation as something of a hothead." "Zellingen was separated from its sister town of Retzbach by the River Main, so Weiglein was less than pleased when, two days later, local Nazis blew up the connecting bridge to prevent its use by the approaching Allies." "Weiglein said they ought to be hanged." "Unfortunately, one of them overheard the remark and Weiglein was arrested." "A court-martial was called and Walter Fernau was told to act as prosecutor." "The court-martial was held in a house around the corner from the parade ground." "A trumped-up charge of sabotage was quickly added against Weiglein, and after a brief hearing, while they prepared the hangman's noose outside," "Walter Fernau made a final submission to the court." "Karl Weiglein was taken round the corner to a nearby tree." "There his head was put into a noose as his wife watched from their house a few feet away." "A neighbour heard what happened next." "Karl Weiglein was just one of thousands of victims of these flying court-martials." "For his part in Weiglein's death, Walter Fernau later served six years in prison." "The ruins of Berlin now became Hitler's final bolt hole as the Soviet Army advanced further west." "Even Goebbels' propaganda could not now conceal the reality - the Führer was a physical wreck." "Yet even in these last desperate months, Hitler remained the undisputed leader." "The Italians had turned to their king when they had grown sick of Mussolini, but in Germany Hitler held all the levers of power." "He was Germany's head of state as well as her chancellor." "The price the Germans paid because Hitler remained their leader became heavier each day the war continued." "Hitler had told his generals to close their hearts to pity and act brutally." "The advancing Soviet troops showed they too had learned this Nazi lesson." "On the very last day of Hitler's life, April 30th, 1945," "Soviet troops moved into the East German town of Demmin and destroyed it." "The Germans were reaping the consequences of the suffering their army had sown in the East." "Waltraud Reski was 11 when the Soviet soldiers came." "She saw what the Russians did to the women, including her own mother." "Sooner than endure the Soviet occupation, more than 900 people in Demmin committed suicide." "Hundreds drowned themselves here in the rivers which surround the town." "It was Hitler and the Nazis who had brought this suffering on Germany." "Now the Führer, too, was to take his own life, but only when Soviet troops were yards away from him." "He shot himself shortly before 3.30 on the afternoon of 30th April, 1945." "Nazism had been destroyed, but at a terrible cost." "There were many reasons the Germans, unlike the Italians, fought to the end - an inability to rid themselves of Hitler and a fear of the approaching Soviet forces, people they had been taught to believe were scarcely human." "Hitler had said that when he died he would leave a great and strong Germany behind him." "Instead, he left a very different legacy - new knowledge of what human beings are capable of." "The German-born philosopher Karl Jaspers, himself persecuted by the Nazis, wrote after the war," ""That which has happened is a warning." ""To forget it is guilt." ""It was possible for this to happen"