MEGA EPISODE: Third Reich: Inside 12 Years of Terror I SLICE HISTORY DD

In the spring of 1933, the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda stages a march by members of the Stormtroopers at the Brandenburg Gate with a film camera. The resulting motion picture reenacts the night in which Hitler assumed power in Germany. The Third Reich is only a few months old and already the Nazi leaders are beginning to glorify their own history.

[Music] On the morning of the 30th of January 1933, Adolf Hitler leaves Hudel Kaiserhof in Berlin among a cheering crowd of supporters. At 11:00 he is to be appointed Chancellor of Germany by right President Fon Hintenborg. This day will become a turning point in the history of the 20th century.

France von Papan is at Hitler’s side during the presentation of the new cabinet. The national conservative vice chancellor believes he can keep Hitler in check and maintains we’ve hired him. Hitler didn’t have any blueprint in mind at that time. His main ideas were to get new elections. Following the elections to have an enabling act and to acquire power in the various lender in the various states like Bavarian, Saxony and finally of course obviously to destroy his internal enemies.

I think those were the main points that Hitler had in mind in when he took power in 1933. Beyond that, no clear idea of how things would develop. To celebrate Hitler’s appointment, gangs of the stormtroopers marched through the Brandenburg gate and into Berlin’s government district in the evening.

Wright President von Hintenborg can be seen as a faint silhouette at the [Music] window. A journalist of the time prophetically comments that Hitler’s appointment as Reich Chancellor equals a leap into darkness. [Music] Having been appointed the new interior minister of Prussia, Herman Guring is in control of the police. Hitler’s unscrupulous advocate is determined to exploit his power without mercy.

A reelection is scheduled for the 5th of March. On the 10th of February, the Nazis organize a political rally where they declare war on the communists. Hitler’s appearance is filmed and screened in cinemas all over Germany. He had this great love for the German people and he managed to convey this skillfully in his speeches.

People saw in him their redeemer with virtually religious overtones. He was someone who was saying to them, I know things are really bad for you. Unemployment is very high, but you still have something special. You are members of the German people. And all the other peoples who are not German are not as worthy as you are.

[Music] [Applause] The harness up here. The Democratic parties don’t stand a chance against the Nazi rhetoric. The destruction of the rice dog on the 27th of February 1933 signals the demise of the Vhimmer Republic. Hitler had been in power no more than 4 weeks when Dutch communist Marinos

Fandela sets the building on fire. The rice tug is gutted by the flames. Hitler uses the opportunity to settle the score with his political opponents. An emergency decree suspends most civil liberties in Germany. The newspapers of the communist and social democratic parties are banned and many functionaries arrested.

The police are encouraged to use their weapons without hesitation against so-called subversive organizations and demonstrators. Nazi combat groups are given police powers. Workingass leaders who have just finished their speeches in front of huge audiences are driven out of the Union buildings by gangs of thugs.

Hitler is hoping to win by a comfortable margin in the election and gain the majority in order to push through a dictatorial rule. Yet the Nazis only reach 44% of the votes and form a coalition with the National Conservative Party that gives them a narrow majority. The Nazi party was the first people’s party in Germany.

It was not a party that represented a section of the population as the political landscape was structured during the VHimar Republic with parties representing the Catholics, the working class or the industrialists. The center party voters were Catholic and the SPD voters were laborers. The dedicated Nazis were few and far between. Nazis.

On the 21st of March 1933, Hitler’s head of propaganda, Joseph Gobbers, stages the opening ceremony for the new Ristan Potam to demonstrate reconciliation between the Nazi movement and the old Prussia. Hitler shuns the party uniform for a tail coat and acts as a humble servant of the state. An observer comments, “He has undeniably grown.

” Sam on 21st of March 1933 was symbolically very important day was chosen as the first day originally it was going to be uh the opening of the new riceag was going to be in April they moved it to the 21st of March being the symbolic day the first day of spring also the day on which Bismar held the first rristag after the German unification of 1871 more importantly still though this was the moment at which old Prussia say came together with the new Germany.

Everything was done there for to represent the coming together of the old and the new. And this was the symbolic moment at which the old elites met up with the representatives of the new Germany, the Nazi leadership. An amateur filmmaker from Marborg documents the day of Potam with his camera.

On his way to the garrison church, Rich President from Hintenborg inspects the guards of honor from the army and the stormtroopers. At the tomb of Friedick the Great, Fun Hintenborg as the representative of the old era and Hitler as the herald of the new age demonstrate unonymity. The old man willingly lets himself be used by the propaganda.

The Social Democrats do not attend the staged event. Two days later, they are the only party in the rice dog to vote against Hitler’s enabling act, which will systematically strip Germany of the last remnants of democracy. Stormtroopers and police hunt down social democrat and communist functionaries. Thousands are murdered or interned in so-called protective custody camps.

This film from a camp in Halle is shown in local cinemas as a deterrent. Berlin, the 1st of April, 1933. The day on which the brutality of the new era manifests itself openly. For the first time, Hitler’s cabinet has called for a countrywide boycott of Jewish shops. [Music] The actual boycott was a shock for Germans.

It all happened out of the blue. One day, people in uniform were standing outside the shops and wouldn’t let anybody in. It was an overt message to the Jewish citizens all over Germany, that they couldn’t be part of the national community because they belong to another race or don’t have the right ancestry. Contrary to the claims of the propaganda machinery, the boycott is not particularly successful.

Many customers simply ignore the posters and signs of the stormtroopers for German Jews. However, the day will become a traumatic memory. Berlin’s plat stands as a symbol for Germany’s Christian and humanistic traditions. Now it becomes the venue of the burning of 20,000 books. The new minister for propaganda, Joseph Gubbers, addresses the youth.

Henry Shina had written wherever they burn books in the end they will also burn human beings. They stigmatized those who were a threat to the nation, including authors who had written immoral things and so on. We are healthy and we want to be a healthy society, they said. So, we don’t need these subversive elements.

The massive enlistments into the Nazi party are no propaganda fabrication. A cameraman in Hala documents how popular it has meanwhile become to apply for membership to the NSDAP. Even a significant number of communists are happy to convert. By the 1st of May 1933, 1.6 million Germans would have joined the Nazi party.

Hitler proclaims the 1st of May a national holiday, thus satisfying an old demand with the labor unions. Gobles stages the appearance of the furer on Berlin’s Templehof airfield designed to have an all-encompassing effect. The GL is gave me. For the first time, Adolf Hitler is visually presented as the shining light of the new folk community.

On the following day, the last remaining democratic labor organizations in Germany are done away with. Vimar, a laborer during the VHimar Republic didn’t know what holiday was. By the end of the Third Reich, every worker had a legal right to 14 days vacation a year. It was something that was introduced then along with other elements contributing to leisure time and enjoyment of life in general.

Things that didn’t exist before. In the eyes of the Germans, the credit for all this was due to their furer. In the face of six million jobless Germans, Hitler leads the population to believe that mass unemployment can be combated through the construction of autobonds and other costly economy stimulating measures. Those who appear unimpressed by the spirit of optimism or offer resistance to the dictatorship are mercilessly persecuted by Hitler’s henchmen.

Hamand Guring has one of the first so-called re-education centers built in Oranianborg near Berlin. Unlike the Nazi propaganda suggests, people there are tortured and murdered with his consent. In Prussia alone, over 25,000 people are interned in camps. As of the 26th of April, 1933, Guring augments the coercive apparatus of the Nazis with the establishment of the Gestapo, Secret State Police.

Despite the fact that all opposition parties have been banned, spontaneous labor strikes do take place occasionally, but are quickly suppressed. On the 11th of November 1933, Ysef Gerbers organizes Hitler’s appearance in Zeanstat in the north of Berlin as a demonstration for the labor force.

Rapturous cheering, he writes in his diary. All of Germany is standing still. A year ago, they would have beaten us to death. Hitler knows his speech is transmitted on the radio and in public places. The news reel is there too. Seamanut becomes one of the highlights in the Nazis process of enforced [Applause] conformity. for the under. [Applause] In less than one year, Adolf Hitler has consolidated his power in Germany using the dictatorial powers he was granted and terrorizing measures, but also with the active help of the majority of the Germans. Hitler had to persuade the

labor force that national socialism would secure their future. Many farmers, on the other hand, had counted among the Nazis most fervent supporters even before 1933. The vast majority of farmers in Germany were heavily indebted at that time. But by early 1945, not one of them was in debt any longer.

A new system of social security and income guarantee for farmers was introduced in Germany in 1933 with crop prices being subsidized by the state. However, in my view, this relationship, this association between the people and the leadership was effectively a speculation bubble. A lot of money was pumped into agriculture, which was supposed to come back into the coffers in the future, but this wasn’t possible because it was too much.

[Music] The Nazi regime tries to captivate the people through a series of job creation schemes. Approximately 1 billion rich marks are appropriated for the promotion of national labor. Over 80,000 men are soon given jobs in autobond construction alone. Tax relief in favor of the common people is an additional burden to the treasury.

[Music] Strong shoulders should carry a heavy load. Weak shoulders should be spared. National debt was not an issue at the time. One of Hitler’s first measures was to put a stop to the publishing of the Reich budget for 1934 and subsequently which means that the budget became a secret internal matter.

No one spoke to the public about debt and there was no mention of it in newspapers either. The public was unaware. The economic recovery is very slow to materialize. The number of unemployed only drops to about 4 million. But the propaganda succeeds in presenting the government’s measures as a successful emergence into a new era in which the country self-confident and modern will be able to stand on its own feet.

So on the 1st of May 1934, crowds of people flood open air areas all over Germany to listen to the broadcast of Hitler’s speech on the day of national labor. The footage here is from the Tingeta Thingstead near Hale, an outdoor amphitheater designed on the format of ancient Germanic models. In Berlin’s Lust Garden, the Reich Chancellor proclaims his vision for the future of the nation before an audience of over 2 million people.

During the first year of his rule, Hitler has paid little attention to foreign politics. But now the revision of the conditions of the Treaty of Versailles, which was imposed upon the Germans after the end of the First World War becomes one of his priorities. For 15 years, the Zarland had been under the administration of the League of Nations.

Now its status is to be determined by means of a plebvisit. Pro-unification demonstrations are organized all over Germany such as here at the monument to the battle of nations in Leipzig. For the city’s conservative mayor, K girdler, the matter is a national duty. The SA issue presents the Nazis with a welcome opportunity to demonstrate the unity and the strength of the German people.

[Music] Another key objective of the Nazi regime is the glyital or forced coordination of youth through a combination of campsite romanticism, marching exercises and cowboy and Indian games. Boys and girls become acquainted with national socialism in summer camps. For the Hitler boys, the military drill starts at a very early age.

The party youth must be tough as leather, swift as the greyhound, and hard as crook steel. Their trademarks are brown shirts and neck ties. By 1934, the Hitler Youth already counts 1.2 million members. Uniform. Essentially, uniforms serve a social purpose. Everyone looks the same. So, one can’t tell if a child comes from a rich or a poor family, whether one can or can’t afford expensive clothes and shoes.

This principle of egalitarianism, both in terms of appearance, but also with respect to equal opportunities, was also propagated by Hitler himself and he saw himself as a role model in that sense. He believed that the factors that determined the development of a person were not the social background one came from but one’s capability and competence.

In other words, that whether a child is born with a silver spoon in his mouth or not does not matter as regards his later development. [Music] The Stormtroopers are a state within the state in Nazi Germany. The ambitious plans of an Storm, commander of the Stormtroopers, have started to become a threat for Hitler’s powers. The Conservatives are warning of a perpetual rebellion from below.

And the military leaders are afraid of the growing power of their direct rivals. Hitler decides to eliminate the risk by force. In late June 1934, he has R and other leaders of the stormtroopers arrested and executed. Hitler for months and months to the irritation of Gobles and many other many others did little to challenge this.

And um it seems as though Hitler was very hesitant, wouldn’t act at all until it came to the end of June 1934. And after months of hesitancy, Hitler did act. And when he did act then with utter brutality in destroying the leadership of the uh SR the stormtroopers and um thereby in putting himself on the side of the army.

He had to destroy his own u paramilitary unit in order to uh side with the force that was really crucial to him which was that of the army. Shortly afterwards, Hitler travels to Brot to visit Vinifred Vagna, who had been Rome’s friend since the early days of the movement. Remaining cool and self assured during their private talk, he justifies the purge to her, arguing that in the end only 77 people had been executed.

Charlemagne, too, had had to slay the rebellious Saxons before he set the foundations for his empire, but as everyone knows, was later canonized. His own acts were all based on the principle that everything that was of service to the German people was good, Hitler tells her. By the end of their relaxed conversation, Rishad Vagnner’s daughter-in-law was persuaded of R’s disloyalty.

Fred Vagnner Winn Vagnner was the ideal person for the redeemer image they wanted to project, being the successor of composer Rishad Vagnner, of whom Hitler was a great fan. The two of them appearing together at the bro by festival before the performers and the other vagarians was a demonstration of Hitler’s elevation to a different social class.

Each summer becomes the cultural center of the third reich. Everybody who considers themselves important in Nazi Germany journeys to the Rishiad Vagna Festpiler whether they are Vagna fans or not. Vfkang Vagna the composer’s grandson captures the arrival of the guests with his private camera.

Before the performance, Hitler is seen by the window with another grandson Vant. After Anstroom’s execution, the role of his stormtroopers in Byroit, as in the entire Third Reich, is more or less decorative. Here, Vand and Vulfkangvagna are marching at the front of a parade of the stormtroopers before the festival theater on the 2nd of August 1934.

Reich President Fon Hintenborg dies at the age of 86. The coffin is transported to the East Prussian town of Tunnenburg where it is interred in a pompous funeral ceremony. Without delay, Hitler does away with the official position. This was a critical period for Hitler naturally and um it was important therefore to build up the image of Hitler as the symbol of national unity in particular after just what had happened.

So one Hindenborg’s death then he takes over becomes then the head of state. um an oath of allegiance is sworn to him which is then the oath of allegiance interestingly enough is uh suggested not by Hitler himself but by the rice fair minister von Blombberg. From now on, Hitler is the furer and chancellor of all Germans. a plevisit on the 19th of August approves Hitler’s merger of presidency and chancellorship.

[Applause] Ysef Gerber’s propaganda campaign had attuned the German people to the plevisit. In spite of the massive manipulation and the unconcealed pressure, 10% of the electorate withhold their approval. The other 90% consent to the furas holding unrestricted powers. It is only now that Hitler has attained his goal.

No one can stop him and most Germans hail him wholeheartedly. Hitler’s megalomania is also evident in his plans for the reshaping of Germany’s cities. Construction work for the monumental expansion of the Nazi party rallying grounds in Nuremberg has been expedited since the Nazi ceased power. Hitler frequently shows up to inspect the progress himself.

Accompanied by Franconia’s Gowiter Ulio, Germany’s most fanatic anti-semitist. Hitler, a wouldbe architect, has specific ideas for the vast grounds. Nerburg, a symbol of the first German Reich with its half-timbered houses and Gothic churches, is the perfect location to celebrate Hitler’s self-acrisement to an absolute ruler.

[Music] The cult around the fur will find its cinematic overglorification some weeks later in a film that characterizes the image of the Third Reich to this day. Actress and director Lini Reefenstein had been personally commissioned by Hitler to document the Nerburgg party rally in 1934.

In the film Triumph of the Will, the talented filmmaker monumentalizes Hitler in a way that transfigures the Nazi propaganda. The film triumph for the will then at the party rally of since September 1934 is um a cell depiction of the fur cult. So it represents Hitler towering above the party, towering above the state and representing Germany.

And to this extent this film unlike the predecessor of the year before which has been much more a film about the party this film is about Hitler and everybody else there is reduced more as to super numerous on the stage as Hitler uh represents the symbol of the new Germany. [Music] Triumph of the Will becomes a box office hit all across Germany cinemas and contributes significantly to the idolization of the dictator.

[Music] It was something like a religious delusion but after all he was successful and having this film made proved his good instincts. He really felt he was special. He was after all the furer and truly believed that it was his mission to redeem the nation and to save the Germans. [Music] On the morning of New Year’s Day, Adolf Hitler greets army and units of the stormtroopers in the court of the chancellory.

Germany’s resurgence, he proclaims, will continue inexraably in the new year. The first step towards the end is the SAR plevisit on the 13th of January. During the period preceding the referendum, Joseph Gubbers pulls out all the stops of national socialist propaganda. The opponents of Sland’s unification with Germany are also very active.

In the end, an overwhelming majority of the population votes in favor of returning home to the rich. For mainly economic reasons, over 90% choose the Nazi regime. The Sar plebbeet was just a lucky break for Hitler. The Sarland was an area which was heavily Catholic and had a big workingclass component. So the two groups that had been mostly resistant towards the allures of national socialism in the run-up to power in Germany dominated the area which is now the subject of the plebbeet.

When the results of the pleviset came out uh the vote to return to Germany was just under 91%. Which was a phenomenal result for the Nazi leadership. A brilliant uh achievement of propaganda there as well. But it meant now that this was uh a legitimation for Hitler both internally but also more importantly externally in the eyes of the world outside.

Hitler had now achieved this great result. He was popular even in an area which had the alternative choices in front of it. The official ceremony of the reunion of the Zar territory with Nazi Germany takes place on the 1st of March 1935. And Hitler knows how to stage his first major foreign policy success for maximum propaganda effect.

He proclaims in Zarbrooken that he is overjoyed and hopes that relations to the French neighbor will improve from now on. The Nazi regime cunningly manages to conceal its true intentions from the international community, oppressing its demands at the same time. This is also the case during the visit of a British delegation to Berlin that fruitlessly negotiates disarmament issues with the Nazis.

Britain and France have been unyielding to Hitler’s demands to rearm the country and Germany’s withdrawal from the League of Nations has aggravated the situation. Ever since they seized power, the Nazis have been secretly rearming Germany, ignoring the terms of the Treaty of Versailles. Pocket battleship Deutseland has no reason to hide.

With her 10,000 tons displacement, she is just within the allowed weight limit for a German naval vessel, according to the treaty stipulations. With their presence during a fleet maneuver, Hitler and Gurring demonstrate the claim to power of a militarily restrengthened Germany. Soon afterwards, the Nazis publicly declare Germany’s rearmament.

Rearmaments had been continuing in uh secret and under the Versailles stipulations, Germany was only allowed an army of 100,000. Now the the new confidence enabled Hitler to take the steps which would have been taken eventually anyway to rush forward the uh announcement of that a German Luftvafa existed and also to introduce in March 1935 the general conscription which was a complete breach of the Versailles treaty.

Hitler used a British white paper which had announced alterations in British rearmament because of the recognition of German secret German rearmament. Then Hitler used that as an affront that this was uh an excuse to bring this forward and also the fact that the French had extended um conscription in their own country from one year to two years.

So these were plainly excuses from Hitler’s point of from Hitler’s side, but nonetheless they served then to bring for the the announcement of the of a German air force and then the announcement of general conscription to the great um applause of the population within Germany who were very proud of the fact that this had been done.

But yet again another nail in the coffin of Versailles. For the last 15 years, the rice sphere had been an army of volunteers limited to a number of 100,000 men. Now, many German cities get to have their own garrison again. In the town of Vismar, the event is celebrated with a parade. In a news reel appearance, Luftwaffer commander Arman Guring summons Germany’s newfound self-confidence.

Fore to start. Herman Guring had become the embodiment of the unity between party, state, and army leadership in the Third Reich. Guring was Hitler’s opposite physically and all the more so when he became bigger and flabier. Not to mention his wearing makeup and all his regalia. Whenever they stood next to each other, Hitler would always look much better.

And this was especially noticeable at Guring’s wedding in Berlin. The pomp of the ceremony was unbelievable. Hitler was best man. And on the film of the wedding, he can be seen standing next to the couple looking rather plain and unpretentious. But he didn’t need the glamour. He was Hitler the redeemer. Hitler. In April 1935, Guring leads actress Emmy Zonaman to the altar.

All that remains for him now is either the throne or the gallows. The British ambassador mocks. [Music] Rare amateur footage shows Hitler on his birthday on the 20th of April 1935. Hansba, Hitler’s personal pilot, is one of few people who were allowed to film the dictator on private [Music] occasions.

After his arrival in Vbardan, Hitler inspects a parade of stormtroopers as well as of army, navy, and air force units. Hansba is there with his camera, too. Herman Guring is undisputably the second in command in Nazi Germany. A fact that only few people know is that at the end of 1934, Hitler had appointed him his successor in a secret decree.

For the cheering national community, the furer is [Music] irreplaceable. Even a dictator can allow himself some leisure time. At least this is what the film days of recreation for the furer suggests. The national comrades can buy it in shops, a clever way for pilot bar to supplement his wage. A beaming child’s face and all troubles are forgotten reads the intertitle to the scene.

Then the small party makes its way to Vbardan’s thermal springs. Hitler has every reason to be cheerful as furer and chancellor of the Third Reich. He can make all the important decisions. It is not clear how absolute his power really is at that time and to what extents his paladins can influence it. [Music] On the 20th of July 1935, Hitler pays another visit to the construction site of the party rallying grounds in Nuremberg.

He is accompanied by architect Albert Shper, whom the dictator has chosen to be the executive of his megalomaniac plans. He is to erect buildings such as have not been seen for thousands of years. Hitler explains to his architect that he wants his buildings to transmit his time and its spirit to posterity. Ultimately, all that remains to remind men of the great epochs of history is their monumental architecture, he remarks.

Shpier lets his fa have his way and promises to build structures which even in a state of decay would resemble ancient models. The unemployment figures continue to decline thanks to state subsidized construction projects which cause expenditure for unemployment benefits to be cut down. Yet all showcase projects in the Third Reich such as the construction of autobonds are financed by the fast growing national debt.

The first completed autoban section near Frankfurt is open to traffic by the fearer himself. In the following years too, Hitler does not miss the opportunity to attend such ceremonies in [Music] person. District appeal of national socialist organizations in Mazerborg on the 25th of August 1935. In the presence of Gowitera Udov Yordan, the brownshirted German population proudly appears in public.

The Third Reich has removed most social barriers. The snobbery of the old elites is now a thing of the past. Amidst the festivities, the anti-semitantic attitude of the new era is openly displayed as a matter of course. A Jew and a louse are like the plague in the house reads one of the banners.

People read Julio’s hate paper and support the slogan, anyone who buys from a Jew is a traitor to the people. Part of the theory of the master race and racism in general is obviously the contempt for the others, the so-called subhumans. For the members of the master race themselves, however, this means something entirely different.

It means social equality within the race. So for people with German blood, because they belong to the master race, the social differences are much less pronounced. The isolation of Jews from all aspects of society has been systematically pushed through with Hitler’s consent since 1935.

The so-called Aryan laws affect civil servants, scholars, journalists as well as soldiers. On the 10th of September 1935, Hitler travels to Nerburgg for the annual party congress. The party elite has been urging him to enact racial laws. ostracizing Jews once and for all from the national community. Head of SS Henrik Himla is fanatically anti-semitic and he is the one who will set the annihilation of European Jews in motion for his [Music] furer in deep fire.

Hitler leaves it to Herman Guring to promulgate the new laws during an extraordinary session of [Applause] the hunt for [Applause] The Nurburgg laws can now be instrumentalized by Hitler and his henchmen, providing legal grounds for the public discrimination of Jews. Week after week, the propaganda newspaper Dashurma prints lists of names of people who have been arrested.

The Germans become a nation of informers. So-called race defilers are reported to the authorities. What was being prepared gradually before became very definite after the enactment of the Nuremberg laws in 1935. The Germans were citizens of the Reich and all others, especially the Jews, but also Poles and so on, were not Germans and consequently not Reich citizens.

This division between Germans and non-Germans was methodically carried through from the very beginning to the end. [Music] For Nazi Germany, 1936 is the year of Olympic games. The regime wants to present Germany to the international community as a peaceloving nation. Amateur filmmaker Ludvishim documents the opening of the fourth winter Olympics by Hitler on the 6th of February in Gush [Music] Pardon.

Athletes from 28 nations are present in the stadium. Wilhogna takes the Olympic oath. More than 600 athletes compete in 17 events for Olympic medals over 10 days. Eric Lasson from Sweden wins the 18 km crosscountry race. The ice hockey teams from Canada and Hungary face each other in the second round of the tournament. Figure skaters Maxi Hara and Anst Bayer are the favorites of both the audience and the dictator.

They win the gold medal for Germany in pair [Music] skating. The glitter of international sports makes the Nazi dictatorship acceptable to the world. A staff trip of a Berlin-based company to Eisenarch. The first item on the agenda is culture, a visit to the Vartborg, where Martin Luther once translated the Bible into German.

Then a cozy get together organized by the German labor front. These scenes are typical of the feel-good dictatorship during the mid 1930s. In the Third Reich, the individual must subordinate himself to the community unconditionally. By now, people need the permission of the authorities before they choose a profession or change jobs.

And their loyalty is rewarded with tax relief and social warmth. Under the terms of the Treaty of Versailles, the Rhineland is a demilitarized zone. For some time, Hitler has been considering dispatching troops so as to create a fat plea. Finally, on the 7th of March 1936, he orders the Vermacht to cross into the Rhyland.

Cooblence and Cologne are occupied for the propaganda cameras roll. Hitler always later referred to this as as an enormous risk that he took then when the German troops entered the demilitarized zone on the 7th of March 1936. In reality, the risk was less great than that because uh German intelligence in Paris had already reported back that the French would not move unless the British moved.

And it was certain that the British would not uh do anything other than uh enter verbal protests of what had gone on. and it was certainly would not move militarily. So Hitler knew that the French were extremely unlikely to move. He sent, I think, only 3,000 troops into the Rhineland. If the French had have moved against this, of course, the result would probably been that the German troops have been forced to retreat pretty rapidly.

It would have been a big loss of face for Hitler. And who knows what the consequences of that might have been. France’s lack of reaction boosts Hitler’s self asssurance. From now on, he believes himself to be infallible. Other restrictions of the Versailles Treaty hindering Germany’s rearmament have long been disregarded.

The national armament industry has had adequate capacities at its disposal. This rare footage shows Joseph Gerbos visiting the corp plant in [Applause] Essen. The speech by corp manager Gustaf Buon Harbach demonstrates how unconditionally Germany’s industrialists blend into the system of the fur state. to handle the lobby.

Adolf Hitler. [Music] [Applause] Take the so-called fur election is to demonstrate how compliantly the Germans have come to support Hitler’s regime. The propaganda machinery pulls out all the stops. A campaign film suggests that Hitler is above all party interests and that all recent great successes are due to him.

According to the official election results, 99.8% vote for the Fura. The dictator is committed by the people to follow the policy he himself had wanted. An informer reports to the outside world. Meanwhile, the top Nazi rebel rouser, Julio Striha, travels tirelessly across the land, delivering his anti-Semitic rantings with the aim to incite the German people against the [Music] Jews.

Fore! Foreign! Foreign! Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Many Jewish families leave Germany and move to neighboring countries such as France or Holland, hoping to return home one day when Hitler’s dictatorship is a thing of the past and Jewish civil servants, businessmen, doctors, and workers are no longer the victims of racial laws.

The German fiscal authorities pitilously exploit the refugees predicament in an attempt to save the state from bankruptcy. Once again, the shortage of hard currency and the resultant shortage in supplies expedited the expropriation of Jews decisively. The Nazis main concern was to take possession of their assets.

So the Jews were coerced into selling or placing all their valuables, gold, the family silver, foreign shares and so on at the Reich’s disposal in the jargon of the time. Those who left the country were not allowed to take valuables with them. And all these things that were impounded or left behind were used to buy commodities.

Footage from the spring 1936. The first in Berlin is the Third Reich’s shop window. Here, Nazi Germany presents to the world its cosmopolitan and modern side. All Jewishowned shops were forcibly closed down during the previous year. Jewish businesses were vandalized by gangs of thugs and Jewish citizens beaten up in broad daylight.

Now the rice capital is being decked out for the approaching summer Olympics. American movies are still shown in German cinemas and Hollywood happily collects up the proceeds from the Third Reich. At the same time in a studio in Berlin Templehof, the shooting commences for a comedy titled Venvia Alviran, If We All Were Angels, amateur footage shows the leading actor Hins Wuan at work.

Being the perfect embodiment of the common man and a symbol for the social achievements of the Third Reich, Ruman is one of Germany’s most successful film stars with a fee of 80,000 rice marks per movie. The beginning of August marks the opening of the Summer Olympic Games. The eyes of the world are on Berlin and the hundreds of thousands of visitors from all around the globe who have come to the city will experience the peaceloving nature of the Nazi regime.

Propaganda Minister Joseph Gubbers instructs that all anti-Semitic rabble rousing slogans be removed from the city. During the coverage of the games, the race aspect is to be ignored. Prior to the games, the USA had threatened not to send their team to Berlin if Jewish athletes were to be discriminated against.

A boycott should certainly have taken place on moral grounds, but um it was politically decided not to go ahead with the boycott. uh a boycott in political terms would probably have not made much difference because it would have consolidated the notion in Germany that the world was against this regime and probably even in a sense of strengthened Hitler as it was the fact that the world came to Berlin and took part in these Olympic games was a an immense propaganda triumph for Hitler and of course the best face was put upon this. Therefore the persecution of the

Jews was held back in these months. Germany looked at its best during the Olympics. They were a magnificent success also in sporting terms too. It was a big spectacle and so Hitler was able to uh achieve uh a remarkable propaganda triumph through the Berlin Olympics. Yet some people astutely recognize the real intentions of the Nazis.

Jewish philologist Victor Kremper notes in his diary on the 13th of August 1936. It is constantly drumed into the German people as well as the visitors that what one sees here is the upturn, the blossoming, the new spirit, the unity, festiveness and splendor and of course the peaceful lovingly embracing the whole world spirit of the Third Reich.

Using the example of the Olympic Games, it’s easy to recognize Hitler’s tactics of tightening the reigns and then loosening them again, then tightening again to pursue his extreme policies. The Olympic Games were an opportunity to demonstrate to the world, look at us, we are a liberal country.

The things that people say about us are simply not true. The Jews outside of Germany may be telling horrible stories about us, but here everything is fine. He saw the games as a great chance to get this message across, and many people fell for it. Hitler attends the competitions nearly every day. Newspapers and radio offer extensive coverage of the games.

In 1936, sports are exploited for the purposes of politics and propaganda. Like never before, the Berlin Summer Olympics are the first sporting event at which the latest technological achievement is brought into service. Fore. In 1935, Germany was the first country in the world to introduce a regular television program.

In September 1936, the few viewers can see a reporter of the Nazic controlled broadcaster giving an account of the party congress in Nburg. of them platforms. [Applause] Fore Propaganda Minister Ysef Gilles does not believe television to be suitable as a mass medium.

Hitler’s accomplishments are noticed beyond Germany’s borders, managing to deceive even critical minds like the leader of Britain’s Liberal Party, David Lloyd George, who had been the country’s prime minister when the Versail treaty was signed. After a visit at the Bagghra Hitler and his politics, declaring the furer of the Germans a really great man.

[Music] in a clue were the fun kingdom. Through the propaganda machinery, Nazi leaders like Hamuring do their utmost to convince the national community that Hitler now enjoys unanimous acceptance. Yet even after almost four years of Nazi rule, skeptics exist among the Germans. Many people had a wait and see attitude were also skeptical.

The majority of Germans were not shouting hyitar excitedly. One aim of a totalitarian regime is that the population adopts a passive attitude. People should concern themselves with themselves, feel more or less good, and hope that better conditions will come and all the sooner if they make some [Music] effort.

Give me four years, Hitler had demanded after he seized power. And by now his domination seems to have become unassailable. On the anniversary of the foundation of the Nazi party, he gives a speech in the ballroom of Munich’s Hof House about the early days of the movement. I think even now Hitler uses the charged

atmosphere of Bavarian beer halls as a stage for his grotesque and rampid tirades. And once again, the old comrades back him up in his delusional fanaticism. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Herman Guring is undisputably second in command on the Nazi regime. He presents himself to the public as a modern statesman and crisis manager.

Bad crops and the inefficient administration of agricultural produce have led to food shortages and discontent among the population. To improve the situation, Nazi leaders decide to rely on self-sufficiency. A 4-year plan shall help to come to grips with the problems. Germany was unable to feed its population at that time.

German housewives started to notice it during 1936 3738 because of the so-called fat gap among other goods cooking oil was in short supply so it had to be imported meat was also in short supply so one had to import cattle feed and so on but to do all this they needed foreign currency US dollars Swiss franks or sterling as no one was willing to accept payment in German reichkes marks there was no interest for this on the International stock market in London.

Zeppelins had been one of the symbols of Germany’s international standing until the Hintenborg disaster. On the 6th of May 1937, airship LZ129 Hintenborg catches fire and is destroyed in minutes while trying to moore at an airfield near the US town of Lakeurst. [Music] While Hitler still professes to fervently advocate the causes of peace in Europe, German soldiers are already fighting a war in Spain.

In the civil war between the nationalist rebel forces and the Republican government troops, German aircraft fly combat missions for the first time after the First World War and bomb bases and support points of the Red Republicans. The German Condor Legion unit carries out the bombing of Gerka, at which some 2,500 civilians are killed and 80% of the city are laid to waste.

Both sides involved in the civil war receive material aid from the totalitarian powers in Europe. Though officially proclaiming neutrality, both Germany and Italy assist the nationalists under General Franco. Not least, thanks to Germany’s help, the fascists quickly managed to gain control of more than half of Spain’s territory.

The attempt to capture Madrid in 1937 is met with fierce resistance from the government troops and fails. But in 1939, the Caldo has Spain under his control. The main motivation for Hitler was to fend off communism in uh Western Europe. On top of that, however, this gave him the opportunity to test out uh German the German air force in action with the Condor Legion.

Um and beyond that even and prompted by Guring there were advantages to be had from uh raw materials that Spain could provide and therefore there were a number of incentives to get engaged in the Spanish Civil War. Although it has to be said Hitler initially thought it would be a very quick and easy affair. It dragged out of course for 3 years in the event.

On the 29th of May 1937, the battleship Deutseland, which is part of the non-intervention committee patrol, is bombed by Republican planes. The Nazi propaganda promotes the fallen soldiers to [Music] heroes. The fearer travels to Keel to attend the funeral ceremony. The dictator uses the incident as a welcome excuse to officially pull out of the international non-intervention agreement for [Music] Spain.

On the first of May, the Nazi youth organizations bring together tens of thousands of boys and girls into Berlin’s Olympic stadium for a rally in the presence of the Fura. Hitler speaks to them about the beautiful new world of national socialism. [Music] [Music] The state and its ideology gradually permeate all social classes and reach even the remotest villages.

An amateur film shot in the Tangian village of Badra demonstrates how absolute the Nazi sway is. The basic ideas of national socialism are even drumed into young children. During this festival, in honor of the fur, the children walk down the streets carrying swastikas entwined with flowers. [Laughter] [Music] The Germans have come to terms with life under the swastika.

The vast majority are now loyal to their fura. The regime rewards the population with more and more [Music] bonuses. They then introduce new tax brackets which are actually still used to this day. Essentially, the idea was to offer tax privileges to families with children and not to unmarried workers.

A family with the father as sole earner, the wife at home, or maybe earning a little on the side and three or four children was a common setup at that time, and the government rewarded them with 10 to 20% less taxation at the expense of those who weren’t married. And with this move, they had the majority of the population on their side.

Nazi Germany demonstrates its new strength in September 1937 when Italy’s dictator Benito Mussolini comes to Berlin for a state visit. Hitler’s pilot, Hans Ba, films this footage. The keen hobby filmmaker uses a new 16 mm color film for the first time. [Music] Iduchi is Hitler’s closest ally, so the Fura honors him with a 3-hour military parade in front of Berlin’s technical university.

The Reich capital hadn’t seen such concentrated military presence since the preirst world war days. The purpose of it really was to demonstrate to Mussolini how strong Germany had become. Until then, Hitler had been in a sense the junior partner in the what had come to be known as the axis between Germany and Italy. Hitler’s position had of course got stronger and stronger in particular um in 1936 following the takeover of the Rhineland.

But now the the invitation of Mussolini to to Germany was to demonstrate to him at firsthand the strength of the of the Vermacht and the power of Nazi Germany. So Mussolini went away from this visit well and truly impressed from then on recognized his own position that he now had become quite distinctly the junior partner in this relationship.

Herman Guring receives Mussolini and Karen Hal his country residents financed from taxpayers money. A television camera is there to report. [Music] over the [Music] ice. Thanksgiving festival in the small village of Iditz in Anert. The unusual footage from everyday life in Nazi Germany is filmed on behalf of the Institute for Folk Studies.

The race research scientists have come here from nearby Halle to document the festival. These images are characteristic of Germany in 1937. The subdivisions of the Nazi party control all public events, even in provincial backwaters. Every citizen contributes to the reconstruction of the country. Everyone is doing their bit for the furer.

The propaganda increasingly turns Hitler into the shining light of German history as becomes evident during the inauguration of the House of German art in Munich. Kitschi realism is the favored style and painting. Modern paintings and sculptures are condemned as degenerate, banished from museums and often sold abroad for much needed foreign currency.

Propaganda minister Gables acclaims the achievements of national socialist art. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Foreign speech. Due to its importance in the early days of national socialism, Munich has been declared the capital of the movement. Every year on the 9th of November, Hitler and the Nazi leadership commemorate the dead of the failed push of 1923 with a meticulously staged march.

A propaganda film titled Fior for us renders the eerie scenes as the veneration of the fallen heroes to the population. Once again, the fur occupies center stage as a redeemer lost in revery. Yet only a few days before he had very pragmatically revealed his plans for the future to a small circle. Airman Guring fronts an assembly of the highest ranking commanders in the Third Reich at the air ministry in Berlin.

On the 5th of November 1937 during a secret conference, Hitler reveals to the military leaders that the use of force would soon become imperative. [Music] Hitler proceeded to give a lengthy discussion not about steel allocation but about his far-reaching plans for war and he expounded to the military leaders present his plans for moving against Austria and Czechoslovakia in the near future and put forward a number of scenarios about the extension of this to war in the period 1943 3 to 1945. Those present were quite um

shocked at what they heard uh because not because this meant uh uh extension of German dominance to central Europe. They were very happy to consider that. But the worry was in particular with an attack on Czechoslovakia that this would bring in the western powers into a war and those present thought that Germany could not win this war and therefore the real danger of a war in the near future against the western democracies was something which uh then uh frightened those present.

[Music] Carnival 1938 in Nureburg. The amateur footage documents the Shrove Tide revalry in the Third Reich. One of the floats is decorated with the anti-semantic caricature of a Jew hanging from the gallows as if it were the most natural thing in the world. On the 12th of March 1938, Vermach units crossed the border to Austria in a friendly visit.

Hitler remains on the sidelines at first, entrusting the operation to the unscrupulous and power-hungry Hermaning, who in view of the shortage of raw materials in Germany has been openly threatening the neighboring country with an annexation to the Reich for some time. A Nazi friendly government has already been installed in Vienna and the pro-German section of the population dominates the [Applause] streets.

When crossing the border into Austria, the soldiers had expected to meet with resistance. They never thought they would receive such a warm welcome. They were totally baffled to see the border practically open to let them in and people cheering them. At 4:00 in the afternoon, the Fura as well crosses the border into his native country.

Tens of thousands of elated supporters have lined the streets, so the convoys advances slow. In lint, his bodyguards must clear a path through the crowd for him. The deeply moved Hitler shows himself to the masses. Standing on the balcony of the town hall in Lintz before 60,000 people, he declared the union of his homeland Austria with a German Reich.

That is what he had always wanted and had taken as a matter of course. He wanted all Germans to belong together. And since Austria was a purely German country at the time, the unification gave him the greatest personal satisfaction of his life. The dictator comes to Vienna as the new head of state. The scenes of rapture as Hitler entered the city defy description.

A Swiss observer writes before a crowd of 250,000 ecstatic Austrians on the Henlats. Hitler once again announces the unification with the Third Reich. in the SP. The population is cautiously being prepared for another war. Here the staff of the Zean’s Shukatut plant in Nurember is practicing air raid protection measures in the factory yard.

Red Cross nurses and members of the fire brigade simulate typical air raid injuries in view of the impending reality of the massive bombing campaigns on Germany. These images seem absurd. [Music] Julio provides the ideological toughening up. The Gowiter Franconia demands the introduction of the death sentence for race defilers.

Reading between the lines, one can recognize that does not shy away from murder in his rabbel rousing rhetoric. After relaxing the reigns a bit, they started preparing for the next coup. Germans had to get used to the idea that they needed to assert themselves in order to protect their German identity against the other subhumans or whatever they were called.

And this was consistently required. But the people who were subjected to it didn’t realize it was all part of a scheme. After the annexation to the Reich, the hate of Jews is openly propagated in Austria and no one seems to mind. From day one, the henchmen of the country’s new ruler are behind the scenes of this grand plan.

Over 10,000 of Hitler’s opponents are arrested, beaten up, and humiliated. and Jews are declared outlaws. What’s remarkable is that all these race and isolation laws that Hitler cautiously introduced in small steps over a period of 5 years in Germany from 33 to 38 were all introduced in a day in Austria. It also has to be said, although it’s shameful for Austria, that it all transpired with the enthusiastic support of the population.

It was common citizens who started ransacking Jewish houses on the first night the laws were enacted. During this period, Hitler likes to demonstrate his closeness to the people. Large delegations such as the Austrian women and girls on this footage frequently visit Uba and get to see Hitler who for the cameras of the propaganda happens to step out of his refuge to gallantly greet his subjects.

The Bhov was supposed to be a sanctuary for his private life. secluded in this beautiful landscape. A man who finds escape in nature enjoys the clean mountain air and goes for walks. But in actual fact, the reason for his walks was so that he could pat the children who happened to be around.

The Bhov had become like a pilgrimage site. It was teeming with people who wanted to see the furer and he would pat the children and have nice photographs taken and so on. But he also had another place where he would meet the official visitors like heads of governments in more relaxed surroundings. [Applause] In July 1938, tens of thousands of women congregate in Brelau’s Hermaning Stadium to pay homage to Hitler.

The majority of Germans attribute the prosperity and peace they feel they live in to the genius of the furer. The hysterical outbursts of his supporters have not been staged for the propaganda. To see the furer eye to eye once is the wish of many devoted national socialists. The leisure organization craft deoida strength through joy has been set up to fulfill the small wishes of the population.

The organization’s pride and joy is Vilhim Gustlaf, a cruise ship that has been in service since April 1938 so that also the common man can have a taste of luxury. It is the way the Nazis choose to improve the productivity of the workforce. cuffed deoid proves a great success and it further strengthens the people’s ties to the [Music] regime.

Only a few suspect the dreadful state of the national socialist economy at the [Music] time. People in the stock exchange refused to buy German government stocks. They said this country is so heavily in debt that things are bound to go wrong. The only way for this to be adjusted is by inflation, a depreciation of these bonds.

So they stopped buying now to hide from the outside world the fact that the state needed money desperately. They had to reby their own bonds on the stock exchange in order to support the going rate so that it doesn’t drop. Resourceful businessmen actually offer this amateur film from July 1938 for sale in Germany at the time.

The Fura on a special train on his way to Broit for the Vagna Festival. As usual, the group of Nazi bigwigs proceeds to the festival theater accompanied by rapturous cheering. Hitler is nervous for a crisis fueled by Germany over the German minority in Czechoslovakia has been smoldering for weeks. He feels exposed here so physically close to the Czech border.

All side roads are closed to traffic and windows and doors of houses along the route have to remain closed. As the opera lovers step out of the festival theater for some fresh air during the intermission, Zudet and German demonstrators are patiently waiting for Hitler to appear on the balcony and courteously greet the euphoric crowd before they chant their home to the rice slogans for the newsre cameras.

For months now, the propaganda apparatus of the Third Reich has been exploiting the grievances of the ethnic German minority in Zudetinland. A top secret plan under the code name Casease Green proposes the taking of Czechoslovakia by force. On the 29th of September, Britain’s Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain arrives in Munich. Hitler has reluctantly agreed to a peace effort.

A meeting is held in the Fuhaba, Hitler’s office building in Munich. France’s Prime Minister Edoir Daladier and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini join them as seconds. The European major powers accept the incorporation of the Zudetan land into the Third Reich. For one last time, Hitler refrains from using military force.

Hitler went away from this conference fairly dissatisfied. Of course, he got the Sudin, but he had wanted actually to attack Czechoslovakia. And so at the last minute he’d had to defer the attack on Czechoslovakia as gobble said you can’t fight a war on account of modalities and the German the British and the French have been prepared to give Hitler everything that he wanted in the Sedant land regarding him as a nationalist leader still so he had to defer the attack on the rest of Czechoslovak until later it wasn’t too much later that it

actually occurred on the 1st of October 1938 8. These Sudatan Germans give the Vermachts an enthusiastic welcome. In the eyes of many Germans, peace now seems secured for the time being. 3 million people return home to the [Applause] [Music] Reich. Hitler visits the Zudetan land on the 6th of October.

He declares that Germany has no further territorial claims in Europe. An army officer films the march from a window. Propaganda celebrates the assimilation as another great success for Hitler and his regime. 400,000 checks must leave the territory. The new border makes the Third Reich larger by 22,000 km. The outward expansion goes hand inhand with the radicalization within the Reich.

So far, Jews in Germany have been isolated and humiliated primarily by means of discriminating laws. On the night of the 9th of November, the night of broken glass, so-called castin, Nazi Germany, flings open the last remaining moral floodgates. The anti-semitic pagome instigated by propaganda minister Ysef Gibbers culminates in the destruction of hundreds of synagogues and over 8,000 Jewish businesses and the killing of some 100 Jews by the angry mobs.

What is more, the victims themselves must pay for the damage. It was decided that the Jews had to pay a fine of 1 billion Reichs marks, an amount that constituted 6.5% of the state’s annual income at the time. The Reich needed the money because they didn’t know how to pay their civil servants otherwise. The regime was continuously hovering on the brink of insolvency and the only way out was to occupy more territories, oppress more minorities and try and take away more and more from them.

[Music] Hitler plans to manifest the greatness of the Fura state in the architecture of the rice capital. To realize his vision of the world capital Gmania, large sections of Berlin’s inner city must be demolished. A main resettlement department, which was specially established for this purpose, seized to the vacating of whole streets and apartment buildings.

First on the agenda is a new chancellory. On the 7th of February 1939, architect Albatia leads his employer through the not quite completed rooms. The chancellory of the Reich is predominantly a representative building. According to the Fura’s wish, the distance between the entrance and the reception hall along the seemingly endless corridors was to convey an impression of the Third Reich’s grandeur to the guests.

During the New Year reception, Hitler reasserts his peaceful intentions. Only a few weeks later on the 30th of January 1939, exactly six years after seizing power in Berlin, the Fura during a speech in the Raag sheds the mask of peacefulness for good. those who have a chance to leave Germany take advantage of it now, even if it means leaving behind their homes and fortunes.

Many people’s plans fail due to restrictive immigration laws in France, Britain, Switzerland, and the United States. This American footage suggests that the refugees can expect generous assistance. Reality is very different. The refugees are faced with bureaucratic obstacles and anti-German resentment. Most countries have imposed entry restrictions.

Still, some 150,000 Jews succeed in leaving the Third Reich. Transports with children are treated preferentially. Only distant countries such as China or Mexico are willing to take in refugees without visas. Czechoslovakian President Emil Haka cannot stop the systematic pillaging of his country. The occupation of the Sudatan land had been the first step in this direction.

[Music] The property of the checks who left Sudan land after the occupation became state property. The property of the Jews from Kbad who fled from the Germans became state property. Later that year, Prague was occupied too. The same thing also happened with the annexation of Austria.

Among the first to go in was always a special commander of the Reichkes Bank that seized the occupied country’s central bank and the bank vaults. And this practice continued all through the Second World War. In every new country they occupied, they immediately took possession of its reserves, which were used to stabilize Germany’s economy for a short period of time because it was thrown completely out of kilter.

On the 15th of March, the Vermacht marches into Prague. 6 years of brutal subjugation begin for the Czech population. I succeeded in what had been feudally aspired to for centuries, Hitler in a victorious mood is purported to have said, adding, I will go down in history as the greatest German. Until then, the Western powers had regarded Hitler as a very radical nationalist and he himself of course had always said he wanted to bring parts of Europe back into Germany where there was an ethnic German population.

He’d stipulated with regard to the Sudan line, this was his last territorial claim. So the western powers had seen him as an arch nationalist, a very radical nationalist. But of course the entry into Prague now for the first time into a a country where the population was not German opened everybody’s eyes and the pressure in Britain now on Chamberlain to upturn his policy of appeasement now became unstoppable.

Chamberlain reversed this policy and now accepted the fact that Hitler wanted world dominion and he would not stop at [Music] nothing. The 20th of April 1939 marks Hitler’s 50th birthday. To celebrate the occasion, Yosef Gerber stages a grandiose spectacle in Berlin, demonstrating the Third Reich’s military power.

It sends a clear message to the Western powers not to mess with Germany. The march on the newly completed east west axis lasts nearly 5 hours. The commander inspects his troops. Ysef Gaboo’s notes in his diary, “The Furer is fated like no other mortal has ever [Music] been.” In the summer months of 1939, Hitler spends very little time in Berlin.

He chooses to organize the war of Edans and against Poland away from the rice capital. The majority of the German population is aware that peace in Europe is hanging by a thread. People hope that Hitler will once again achieve his goals without bloodshed. One journalist writes, “One can’t help observing that people are enjoying themselves with reckless abandon.

On the 31st of July 1939, the Fura attends the day of German art in Munich. A group of hobby filmmakers have prepared for this major event. and they document the proceedings using several cameras and expensive color films. Everybody who is anybody in the Third Reich is seated on the VIP rostm that afternoon, eagerly awaiting the festive procession themed living pictures of 2,000 years of Germanic history.

The pretentious parade carries the implication that not only the future, but also the past is national socialist. The Nazi procession, writes an American observer, is the admission of Hitler’s tireless plans of conquest. Hitler spends most of August on the Obazak. The dictator receives only few guests on the Bearov. One of them, the Italian foreign minister, Countiano hit the reveals to his ally that he has decided to attack Poland before the end of the month.

SS Chief Himla and Chief of Security Hydri are to orchestrate incidents on the Polish border. Rice for Foreign Minister Yorim Fonimrop is the man who most influences Hitler’s policy in August 1939. For weeks, he had been negotiating with the Soviets over reproachment of the two countries to ensure that the Soviet Union does not interfere if Germany goes to war with Poland.

Finally, on the 23rd of August, Ribbentrop flies to Moscow to conclude the treaty with the major ideological enemy of the Nazis. From Germany’s viewpoint, the signing of the German Soviet non-aggression pact means that the way for the attack on Poland is now clear. It was a devil’s pact, but a devil’s pact that served both countries brilliantly well at the time.

Uh for Germany, it meant that the eastern flank was now um was was now secured. They could attack Poland with complete impunity from the point of view of the Soviet Union. And as regards the Soviet Union, the pack served to buy them time. uh Stalin knew that knew that uh Hitler would at some point invade.

He thought this would be in 1942-43 and if they could hold on till then the Red Army would be ready and therefore from Stalin’s point of view the pact was very um useful because it allowed them the Soviet Union to have this time to build up the army. So this uh pact served its purposes for a while on both sides.

What it meant for the west was that the war was not only certain, but it was certain in the near future. Dansancy becomes a play thing in Hitler’s diplomacy of intimidation. The majority of the population is German, but the city is surrounded by Polish territory. According to the treaty of Versailles, the Baltic Seaport is under the oposes of the League of Nations.

National socialist propaganda demands that Dansi return home to the Reich. And few people believe that Poland’s allies, France and Great Britain, will have their soldiers die for the sake of Dan. Dans was simply the occasion. But Hitler had said quite specifically to his the leaders of the armed forces, this is not about Dansik, it’s about Limbs, about living space for Germany, about expansion.

Therefore uh from the point of view of the uh his relations with the western powers Hitler’s view was well they didn’t fight for the Sedan land uh why would they then fight for Dansancy? So his hope was that by focusing upon Dansancy he’d be able to um break the link between the western powers and Poland. Mobilization in Germany begins on the 23rd of August.

Hundreds of thousands of men fit for military service flock to the barracks across the Reich. The newsre film suggests that just as in 1914, the soldiers are keen to go to war. Neutral observers, however, see things differently. Everyone is against the war, writes a US reporter at the time. How can a country enter such a decisive war when its population is so warweary? The second world war begins on the 1st of September 1939.

Already an hour before that, at a/4 to 5 in the morning, German troops invade Polish territory. In the early morning hours, they take Dansik by surprise and seize all official buildings. The last remaining defenders of the city have no choice but to surrender. 2 days later, Great Britain and France declare war on Germany.

Even at this last minute, Hitler thought that some deal could be done that would keep the Western powers out of the conflict and prevent it being a general European war and just allow Germany to attack and destroy Poland. But the Western powers remained adamant throughout that this that they would uh they would insist upon uh German Germany um holding back from any attack on Poland.

And when it came to it in on the between the German attack on the 1st and the uh declaration of war by Britain and France on the 3rd uh of September, there were still diplomatic maneuvers going on, but now without very much hope because the British insisted that they would do nothing now unless the Germans pulled back from Poland. From the 4th of September onwards, the Fua is always close to the front.

A rare amateur film has captured him during a visit to German troops in Poland. It’s plain to see that Hitler is in his element. The war stimulates him so much that he insists on driving through the combat zones in an open car. Even before the commencement of the campaign, Hitler had declared that his target was the obliteration of Poland.

As early as the 5th of September, the chief of general staff notes, the enemy is practically defeated. In view of the superiority of the Vermacht with its 1.5 million soldiers, Poland’s last defenders surrender. On the 6th of October, the armed forces paid tribute to the Fura with a victory parade on the streets of Warsaw.

Now only a coup or an assassination can stop Germany from descending irrevocably into barbarity. Army officers critical of the regime cannot bring themselves to act. Yet on the evening of the 8th of November, there is an explosion in a Munich beer hall. The explosive device goes off after Hitler has left the hall. He had to leave earlier than planned.

The Nazis accuse Great Britain of being behind the attempt. However, the person responsible has already been apprehended by the border police when he tried to flee the country. Geog, a carpenter, had constructed the bomb himself. His goal was to liberate Germany from its tyrant. Hitler proclaimed on several occasions destiny had ordained him to take on this responsibility.

Now this pathetic cliche phrase has become an iron law. An opponent of the regime writes in her diary, “It now appears that a terrible end would be more tolerable than terror without end. The killing has long begun. Compulsory sterilizations have been permitted by law since 1933 to prevent offspring with hereditary diseases to justify the elimination of the mentally handicapped.

Nazi propaganda presents their murder as a release from suffering or a disposal of life unworthy of life. In October 1939, Hitler decrees the so-called Action T4, a program under which some 90,000 patients are murdered. It is a lot easier to enforce radical measures in wartime. The first of these atrocious laws was action T4 and its purpose was the obliteration of people with mental or physical disabilities.

Actually, they had figured out a way to keep it anonymous for the sake of the relatives of the victims. The next of kin would receive a note saying that their child had died from pneumonia and that the ashes would be sent to them or something like that. [Music] At the beginning of 1940, Adolf Hitler receives workers and farmers delegations in the Raich Chancellory in Berlin.

Hundreds of thousands of men were conscripted when the war started and they are now lacking in industry and agriculture. It becomes vital to motivate the people on the home [Music] front. [Music] form. When the Germans took control of a country in World War II, the benchmark for its contributions to the Reich was twice the amount of the country’s last budget.

This is how the Nazi regime became fiscally stable. That’s not to say that this was the only reason for the war, but it was a decisive motive nevertheless. Bearing this in mind, it becomes clear that this regime would never have been able to reach a compromise. It was unwilling to compromise from the start. [Music] Excerpt from a Nazi television report on the strains on the population.

Yet, not even the metal donations for Hitler’s birthday on the 20th of April can solve the short supply of raw materials. People are happy to put up with such burdens as in other respects the government leaves them more or less in peace. The soldiers provide for the urgently needed supplies. [Music] These images are shot by Edgar Forb, an army lieutenant stationed in occupied Poland.

As of November 1939, all Jews have to wear a white armband with a blue star of David. In mid 1940, the Nerburgg race laws take effect here, too. Jewish citizens are systematically deprived of their rights and plundered. On request of any German authority in need of laborers, Jews are picked up on the street and taken away in convoys.

Soon, so-called Jewish councils are set up, and one of their tasks is to provide workers whenever the Germans demand it. Hitler spends the spring of 1940 on the Baggh near Bahas garden from where this private footage originates. His entourage consisting of agitants, secretaries, and old companions is assembled on the terrace.

The dictator is planning the war against France. He believes that if he manages to win it before Great Britain can gain a foothold on the continent, the British will be begging for peace. Since France declared war on Germany, the border separating the two countries has been fortified. All traffic connections have been severed.

Edgar Forsber’s Bayer Division or Bear Division has meanwhile been transferred to the Zarand demonstrating its readiness for action in maneuvers with gas masks and smoke grenades. It has been quiet for months now on the Western Front. The French gave this phase the name Doy de Gare, the phony war. The blitzkrieg against France begins on the 10th of May 1940 with the operation fal gelb case yellow.

118 Vermouth divisions push through neutral Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg and move in on France. Within days, the French lose tens of thousands of soldiers. Over a million are taken prisoner. How the Germans managed to overrun the British and French forces so easily is a matter of debate to this day. For the Allied armies have more soldiers in the Vermach and twice as many artillery pieces.

Hundreds of thousands become refugees. Charles de Gaul later writes in his memoirs, “France’s fate was sealed in just one week. The advance of the Vermacht happened so quickly that the propaganda machinery can hardly keep up with capturing the victorious campaign on film. [Music] In the summer of 1940, the Battle of France is reenacted and a color film titled Artillery Grain, Artillery Intervenes, is made [Music] In actual fact, the resistance of the

French and British forces is broken after just a few weeks. Hundreds of thousands of Allied soldiers are cut off and trapped near Dunkirk. Then Hitler orders his pancer divisions to halt, wanting to conserve them for the advance southwards. Luftwafer commander Gering has promised to finish off the enemy forces with his aircraft.

But despite heavy bombardment, nearly 340,000 British and French soldiers can be evacuated on ships here. Hitler arrives at the airfield in the town of Compre in northern France on the 2nd of June 1940. Wounded German soldiers were hastily flown in to serve as accessories in the Fura’s propagandist appearance.

Hitler’s pilot Hansba documents the scene with his camera. The victorious Vermachar leaders at lunch. On the 13th of June, the French government declares Paris an open city. On the following day, the Vermacht marches into France’s capital. 4 days later, the French government under Marshall Patan appeals for an armistice.

A triumphant Hitler takes a tour around occupied Paris at dawn. This film was taken on the front terrace of the palace on the Trokater. Ibatpier later reports that it was at this moment that Hitler decided to refrain from his plans to destroy Paris. When we are finished in Berlin, he apparently told his architect, Paris will only be a shadow.

On the afternoon of the 21st of June 1940, Hitler arrives at Compa, a city northeast of Paris. The dictator wants to be present at the signing of France’s submission. For the occasion, he had the same railway carriage in which the Germans had to sign the surrender armistice that marked the end of World War I taken out of the museum. The dictator once moderate armistice terms.

All his words reflect his wish to come to a conclusion swiftly, comments the Italian foreign minister. Hitler is like a player who has broken the bank. He just wants to leave the gambling table without risking anything anymore. his reaction towards the French was a relatively lenient peace because he was already thinking of the next step and the next step was the Soviet Union.

So within a matter only of a few weeks after this stupendous victory over the French and forced the British back across the channel, Hitler was now telling his generals to prepare for the war against the Soviet Union which he was envisaging as taking place in the spring of the following year, spring of 1941. The way he put this to his generals, the strategic motive for the attack on the Soviet Union was now that he couldn’t get the British out of the war um the British were adamant they were now not moving to uh to come to any terms with Germany even after the defeat

of France. So what Hitler said to his generals was that we have to destroy Britain’s last hope on the continent which is the Soviet Union. If we destroy the Soviet Union, Britain will be forced to come to terms. America standing in the shadows behind uh Great Britain would then keep to its own hemisphere. Uh Germany will effectively then have won the war.

So the notion was defeat London via Moscow. On the 6th of July 1940, Hitler returns to Berlin as a victorious commanderin-chief. Nazi Germany is in a state of triumphant euphoria. The rice capital in the summer of 1940. Peace has temporarily returned after the successful campaigns against Poland and France.

The war seems a long way away and Germans enjoy the summer. Just like every other summer, Bellinas bask in the sun around the Van Lake. Absolute calm in politics and warfare, notes propaganda minister Gibbos in his diary. [Music] Hitler’s lover, Eva Brown, is on holiday in Italy here on the beach of Parici near Portofino.

Brown is allowed to travel only in the company of her sister and her mother. Only Hitler’s inner circle knows of Ava’s existence. She is kept away from the public eye. [Music] Following the resignation of Neville Chamberlain on the 10th of May 1940, Winston Churchill is installed as Great Britain’s prime minister.

Within a few weeks, he becomes Hitler’s worst enemy. Churchill rapidly developed into the complete antithesis of Hitler, this symbol of British defiance and resistance. And in late May, Churchill succeeded in persuading the British war cabinet uh not to come to terms with Hitler via Mussolini, but to stay in the war, although at that time he had no uh hopes, no immediate hopes certainly of any help from America.

Uh Britain stayed in the war. Uh managed to get the troops back from Dunkirk. Churchill turned um uh a major defeat into a great triumph and spoke about the miracle of Dunkirk. And from then on his speeches from uh late May 1940 onwards, the speeches that he gave became themselves a rhetorical weapon of British resistance to Germany and a very important element in shoring up British morale at that time.

The Battle of Britain begins in July 1940. The objective of the campaign being to prepare an invasion of the island. The Germans can now use airfields in Belgium, Holland, and Northern France, enabling them to fly with less fuel and thus carry larger payloads. Despite the disaster in France, morale in Britain is high, not least thanks to Winston Churchill, whose fervent speeches inspire the population.

In the air battles over England, Royal Air Force pilots inflict heavy losses on the German Luftwuffer. Hitler promotes a dozen generals to the rank of field marshal and appoints himuring rice marsh. The dictator appeals to the British to yield to reason. But the government in London categorically rejects negotiations with the Nazis, thus risking an invasion of Britain by the Vermacht, which is already in preparation under the code name Operation Sea Lion.

The Fura promises his allies that he will soon break the kingdom’s resistance. Hitler himself had cold feet about this from the very beginning. It was a risky venture from the German point of view because in the short time available they couldn’t get together sufficient ships to bring about a speedy landing of German troops and the fear was that the British Navy or the part of the navy that was uh kept in Scalpa flow in in uh off Scotland would come down there and destroy the landing.

Once the Lufafa did not succeed in destroying the British Royal Air Force, but in on the contrast suffered very severe losses, Operation Sea Lion was then postponed until the spring of 1941, but in reality postponed indefinitely. In spite of everything, London becomes the main target of German bombing raids that go on for months.

The Fur’s declared intention is to wipe the capital of the empire from the face of the earth. Hitler’s bombers also fly raids over British industrial cities such as Coventry, hoping to weaken the morale of the population. By the end of 1940, some 23,000 people will have died from the air strikes in Britain. Berlin’s citizens, on the other hand, stare in astonishment when a bomb hits their city.

The first RAF air raids on German cities occur in the summer of 1940. A few times the bombers even reach the rice capital. Churchill wants to show the Nazis that their center of power is within reach and vulnerable. Though Hitler is outraged, Gbles is happy about this new development. Now Berlin is also right in the middle of the war, he writes, and this is a good thing.

Soviet foreign minister Vakus Molotov witnesses an air raid when he visits Berlin in November. After the signing of the non-aggression pact, Stalin led a campaign against Finland that involved heavy losses. and thanks to the pact’s secret protocol annexed eastern Poland and the Baltic states. The alliance still holds yet before the year is out hit the decrees that the planning for the war against the Soviet Union be concluded by May 1941.

One part of occupied Poland has meanwhile been incorporated into the Reich. The remainder is named general government and placed under German administration. These territories are home to some 1.4 million Jews. To this day, no one knows exactly what happened to them. After the victory over France, one option that is debated for some time is to banish all Jews from the German sphere of control to the island of Madagascar.

At the same time, however, the plans for mass deportations to the furthest east of the general government, where concentration camps are to be built are already available. For now, many Jews are recruited as slave laborers. After the recent victories, many Germans naively believe that peace will now return. The few remaining regime critics know better.

Carried writes, “The debt of the German Reich is so high that it cannot be paid back even if subjugated Poland and France have pillaged completely. Should the war end now with a compromised peace, the German people will have to face a budget consolidation with unavoidable necessity, he assumes that the Nazi regime will follow the easy path, continue the war, and attack more and more countries.

[Music] Hobby filmmaker Guts Hriga is trained as a radio operator in the Schlieffen barracks near Berlin. It is the winter of 1940 1941 and more and more young men are drilled for Hitler’s new war [Music] plans. German soldiers march on the Shanizi in Paris. The military presence can be felt in the French capital.

Over 20,000 Vermar troops are stationed in the city and the victors are eager to show to the defeated who’s the boss. The orders of the German subjugators are enforced relentlessly. The occupation regime subjects the country’s entire economy to the German budgetary planning. Jewish businesses are methodically arranized.

Those who possess the money and contacts flee the country. They introduced a system according to which German soldiers could take money with them or have money sent to them when they were stationed in the occupied countries which they could then exchange to the respective local currency. So the soldiers took their money to the staff paym’s office in say France and this money went into the coffers of the Reich as tax revenue and what they got in exchange was French Franks Norwegian croner or Polish slotty that came out of

the occupation costs of the respective country which of course was at the expense of the country’s economy. The sweet life of the occupying forces is organized and overseen by vermach doctors. They commandeer brothel all around France where prostitutes entertain the German troops. Commissioned officers favor more sophisticated sexual services.

This rare footage originates from one such upmarket establishment and is probably shot in occupied Paris. On the 1st of May 1941, Adolf Hitler visits Vienna. Just as during his 1938 visit, Austrians line the streets to celebrate their fura. His charisma is still unbroken. [Applause] The dictator believes he is ready for the campaign against the Soviet Union.

But his plans change in April 1941. He must first send his troops to a different front. The military intervention of his Italian allies in Greece is about to turn into a disaster. So the Vermacht invades Yugoslavia first and then marches into Greece. Gotfrieded Kessle, an officer with the infantry regiment Gor De Stoland, is a keen hobby filmmaker.

His unit assigns him the task of keeping a war diary on film. After 11 days of fighting, the Yuguslav army surrenders unconditionally. Some 350,000 soldiers become prisoners of war. This footage is filmed by Kessle in occupied Belgrade shortly after the capitulation. Serbian soldiers are imprisoned in the citadel of the Yuguslav capital.

On the 22nd of April, Kessle records a brutal retaliatory action of the Veyart. As a reprisal for the killing of two SS officers and nine civilians by partisans, 12 former Serbian soldiers are executed by the cemetery wall in [Music] [Applause] Panchivo. The influence of Hitler’s deputy Wood Hess has been dwindling since the start of the war.

Aware of the imminent campaign against Stalin, he entertains hopes of a peace agreement with Great Britain. On the 10th of May, Hess flies to Scotland alone in an aircraft manufactured by Mesashesmidt, believing he can instigate peace talks with the British government. When Hes flew to Scotland in May 1941, it was in a vain attempt to persuade the British now to enter into the um alliance with Germany which Hitler had always wanted but which had then of course been long uh hopes of which had long been destroyed.

And at the last minute, Hess, worried about the prospect of a two-front war, now thought that he personally could intervene, use his contacts within the British establishment, maybe even to reach the king himself to persuade the British to see sense and at least not stand in Germany’s way in this. Of course, all that happened was that Hess was arrested, imprisoned, and the British, surprisingly to some extent, did not make as much of a propaganda coup out of this as might have been thought. Hess’s attempt is presented to

the German public as an act of treason. Hess was delusional, proclaims Hitler, and strips him of all his party offices. The fur is devastated, Gabul writes in his diary. What an image for the world to see. A mentally disturbed man was second in command behind the fua. Appalling and unthinkable.

During the course of 1941, the British intensify their air raids on cities in the Third Reich. Time after time, the Royal Air Force bombers managed to break through the German anti-aircraft positions. This footage is filmed clandestinely after a British bombing raid on Berlin. In order to preserve the population’s resolution, such films are [Music] forbidden.

The early hours of the 22nd of June 1941 marked the launch of Operation Babarasa. From East Prussia, the 20th Panser Group of the Army Group Center Hiros marches into Bellarus. Girtzrega, the radio operator on duty, films the first days of the conflict. The Red Army is taken by surprise and within four weeks, Hitler’s soldiers advance deep into Ukraine.

The Nazi leaders think they will be able to crush the giant with feet of clay in one [Music] blow. The war against the USSR was quite clearly a war with primarily economic and political objectives. From the start, the entire planning was based on the one hand on the assessment of the Reich Ministry of Nutrition that tens of millions of people in the Soviet Union would have to die in order that the Germans could avail themselves of the agricultural produce, especially in Ukraine.

The corresponding directive was drawn up several weeks before the war began. The other main objective was raw materials to take possession of the oil fields in Baku, but also of the coal and iron ore deposits and utilize them for the Nazi war machinery. Hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops are captured. The Fura orders that all political commissioners be executed at once.

The rest are cooped up in provisional camps. The survivors are taken to Germany and become slave laborers. When the invasion took place then this immense invasion on the 22nd of June the Soviet troops were very handedly placed for rapid German takeover. Massive numbers of Soviet troops taken prisoner in the first stage.

Very swift progress made and it looked as if the war would be over very rapidly which is what uh the German leadership expected. Hitler himself said four or five months. Some of the military thought even less than that, but they weren’t on their own because British intelligence and American intelligence reckoned that the Germans would win this victory within weeks, not within months.

So, it was an extraordinary period where the chief of the general staff, Hala, thought after a couple of weeks that the war was basically already won. He had rapidly to change his mind on that one. In late August, the dictator arrives in Ukraine to visit the troops. The vast territories of Russia, Hitler declares, will soon become Libans for German settlers.

The soldiers greet their Supreme Commander with frenetic cheering. Most of them are unaware that a genocide is already underway behind the front. Almost certainly there was no written order ever given. We have to see a a number of authorizations from Hitler coming from the summer or even the spring of 1941 before the launch of Barbarasa for the uh destruction of the Jews in the Soviet Union and then in the autumn of 1941 uh orders for Hitler for the um for the uh deportation of German Jews into an area where um already genocide partial

genocides are taking place and further authorizations until we come to the stage after a period of about 6 months of these partial genocides getting larger and larger and extending more and more until by the spring of 1942. We’re in the position where outright genocide involving the whole of the Jews in German occupied Europe is now envisaged.

Accompanied by a camera crew, Chief of SS Henri Himla visits a camp with Soviet prisoners of war near Minsk. As of the 2nd of July, so-called SS task forces are deployed behind the front lines with orders to liquidate Soviet party functionaries and Jews. The murders are referred to as retaliatory measures. In late July 1941, on the outskirts of the city of Libo, modern Lepaya in Latvia, Marine Reinhardina filmed the execution of Jews by one such task force.

More than half a million Jews in total fall victim to German hit squads during the first 5 months of Babarasa. Ghettos for the Jewish population are established all over occupied Poland. In the city of Krakco too, the remaining Jews are segregated into the ghetto, taking only a few of their belongings with them. Like a huge drag net, the Nazis herd together their victims from all around Europe.

Before long, conditions for the deported will deteriorate rapidly. During the first two war years, the German Reich supplied occupied Poland with food. Then at the end of 1941, the Minister for Nutrition says they must send food to us now. And travels to Krakow to bring the news home to the German occupation administration.

And they say we can’t do that. We will have hunger revolts and we don’t have enough police forces. How can we enforce that? Do you know what he told them? Soon, he said, this land will be cleansed of Jews. Obviously meaning that they would all be exterminated. So there will be two million fewer mouths to feed in this country. Hans Frank, an old companion of Hitler, is the governor general of Poland from October 1939.

The eloquent lawyer is one of the architects of the genocide from the very start. The 2 million Jews living in his sphere of influence are ruthlessly and brutally oppressed. Rain and mud slow down the advance of the German troops deeper into the USSR. According to the original plan, Moscow should have already been taken. Also, their supplies are running low and the equipment is deficient.

It’s a known fact that the German army marched into the Soviet Union without winter equipment. The reason was that their advance would have been a lot slower if they’d had to drag the equipment along. So they set off with lightweight tackle. Here too, one can recognize the three-month calculation in Hitler’s political thinking.

We either make it or we don’t. And if we don’t, then we will go down. But in order to make it, we must put all our eggs in one basket. Ultimately, this is what brought about the disaster outside Moscow and Leningrad in the winter of 1941 to42. Hitler orders an attack on Moscow, but the emaciated troops on the front have to halt their advance in the snow drifts.

Of course, the German propaganda presents a different picture. [Music] Puerto Rican. [Music] These images are from early November 1941 in the special shop for Jews in Stuttgart’s Zestrasa. At this time, 163,000 Jews still live in the Third Reich. They required to wear the Star of David on their clothing. This propaganda film titled The Jewish Store is supposed to demonstrate that Jews in Germany have access to food just like the Aryan population.

On December the 7th, the coordinates of the Second World War change abruptly when Japanese bombers and fighters attacked the US naval base at Pearl Harbor on Hawaii. For US President Roosevelt, the attack comes at the right time. Pearl Harbor plunges the country into a patriotic frenzy. America declares war on Japan and Hitler reacts promptly.

I’m in December. [Music] From Hitler’s own perspective, this attack by Japan gave him now a chance, he thought, to win the war. And the chance was that the Japanese would now tie down the Americans in the Pacific. This would then free up the Ubot to attack in the Atlantic. And the Atlantic war, he thought, would be decisive.

Uh the battle of the Atlantic will be decisive because if the German hubot could prevent American shipping getting to Britain, Britain would be once more forced to come to the conference table and Germany would effectively on have won the war in in Europe. Uh so the attack on Pearl Harbor momentarily seemed to give Hitler the chance that he had been [Music] wanting.

In a show of self-confidence, Nazi Germany sends its Ubot to the US coast in order to disrupt the supply lines between America and Britain. The propaganda proudly shows images of New York filmed by a newsreel cameraman. To begin with, Operation Drum Beat is successful. [Music] [Music] The yubot captains willingly supply the propaganda machinery with a distorted picture of a chivalous war.

Propaganda Minister Ysef Gubbers sees to it that such reports are eagerly absorbed by the Germans. As Hitler now appears very rarely in public, Gubbers takes on the role of the dictator on the home front. This footage is filmed during a speech in Munich, but was never shown in German cinemas.

The time is not yet ripe for Gibbble’s total [Music] war. Over 3 million Soviet soldiers have been captured during Operation Barbarasa. The propaganda portrays them as inferior people unmentioned who deserve no pity or help from the German population. The prisoners are severely neglected. Hundreds of thousands of them die in the camps in 1942.

[Music] In late April 1942, Benito Mussolini visits Hitler on the Ubal. The two dictators demonstrate unity and strength. However, the situation is precarious. The joint campaign against the USSR is deadlocked. While in North Africa, their troops have come under pressure. The Africa Corps can hold its ground for a while and even manages to weaken the British expeditionary forces.

These images are filmed during that time by an unknown amateur filmmaker. A private is awarded the Knight’s Cross. This distinction for bravery is one of the highest military decorations, but is awarded more frequently as the war progresses. The soldiers are still ble and confident of their victory.

Jews from Stuttgart are congregated in an assembly camp, ready to start their journey to the east as requested by the German authorities. Most of them believe they will be interned in labor camps. Ministry and Security Forces officials, however, are long privy to the fact that the final solution is already underway. 11 million European Jews are to be deported to extermination camps by the spring of 1942.

Then the process of um partial genocides had now congealed into one allout attempt to destroy the Jews physically throughout Europe. And this process was now unstoppable. The machinery had been set up. The bureaucratic apparatus was in place and the the Jews were being caught and deported in whichever country uh they were to be found.

So the process was now unstoppable. there was a a a momentum, a dynamic that had been set into place which was now uh really independent of any particular individual. It would continue until the Jews were destroyed. The Warsaw Ghetto houses some 400,000 people. They live like tinned sardines in appalling conditions. Classified report issued by the German propaganda department on the 21st of March 1942 reads, “The number of deaths in the ghetto still fluctuates around 5,000 per month.

” A doctor in the ghetto reports people fall asleep in a bed or on the street and are dead by the following morning. And the German governor of Warsaw predicts all that will remain of the Jewish question will be a cemetery. [Music] the German population on the home front have begun to notice the full impact of the war by now.

In order to break their resolve, the British use a strategy they call moral bombing, attacking residential areas and city centers. The ensuing chaos, however, facilitates the Nazi authorities deportation plans for Jews. The area bombings are of course not the only reason for the persecution of Jews or for the establishment of extermination camps.

But with the bombings, the notion of the deportation of Jews gained popularity among the local authorities. So, the pressure from below grew. Get them off our backs and make sure they never return. When you look at the bulk of those transports, they came from Hamburg, from the Ryan Rur area as well as from Braymond, Brema, Emden and so forth.

The Jews were taken away from the bombed areas and that meant more housing became available and also more importantly household equipment and clothing to the effect that German families that had suffered from the bombings received a kind of unbureaucratic emergency relief. The person responsible for organizing the genocide is the head of the Rik main security office and deputy rice protector or governor in Prague, Reinhard Hydri.

On the 27th of May 1942, Czech soldiers returning from exile make an attempt on Hydri’s life, who dies in hospital a few days later. The retaliation of the SS is horrific. On the 10th of June, Leit, a village near Prague, is burned and leveled on suspicion that the assassins have been hiding here. All 172 men from the village are executed.

Women and children deported to concentration camps. The propaganda plays down the negative aspects of the war. Here, wounded soldiers are entertained in Munich. [Music] Only the Supreme Commanders know the extent of decimation the German war machinery has suffered. Over 1 million soldiers from the Russian campaign are dead, missing or captured.

Most people were extremely realistic. 1942 saw a rapid decrease in the numbers of life insuranceances and mortgages taken out. The regime promoted the so-called iron savings plan which gave savers exemption from both taxation and social security contributions as well as a yield of between 15 and 20%.

The catch however was that the maturity was linked to the day of the final victory in the war. So no one was prepared to do it. The only people who took out this savings plan were those working in the public sector or in national socialist organizations. and only because there was collective pressure on them to do so.

Oil rather than the conquest of Limbs realm in the east is now the most important war objective professes Hitler after the launch of the 1942 summer offensive against the Red Army. If I don’t secure the oil from the fields of my cop and Grozny, I will have to liquidate this war. He sweeps aside any criticism from his generals, claiming that only his steadfastness had prevented a Napoleonic disaster.

This war was not simply about victory or defeat, but over triumph or downfall. The Vermacht amasses all its forces for an offensive in southern Russia. The German troops break the Soviet front at some places and smaller units even managed to take the oil fields of MOP. But it is not enough for the desperately needed supplies.

The Germans no longer show any kind of respect for the civilian population. If they encounter any resistance, they burn down entire villages and execute civilians under the pretense that they are partisans. The occupied areas are ruthlessly pillaged. Despite the fact that seized produce and food stuffs are being sent back to Germany by the wagon load, the supply on the home front is on the verge of collapse.

Hitler was consistently opposed to any burdens being imposed on Germans. During a famous meeting with Herman Guring in August 1942, he said that the exploitation of the occupied territories for the benefit of the German people had to be doubled. Meaning that both the food quotas and the amount of commodities taken from there had to be increased drastically in order to maintain stability at home and not lead to another 1918 in Germany.

An unknown military physician documents the gruesome reality of the war in an army hospital near Beedford. Even ampute soldiers are to be made fit for action here either in the war or on the home front. [Music] [Music] With supplies and reinforcements being stalled, the war in North Africa too turns into a disaster for the Germans. The British forces which now outnumber the Germans defeat Field Marshal Raml in Elamine.

[Music] Roma’s orders to his army to retreat infuriate Hitler. “You can show your troops no other way than that which leads to victory or death,” reads the dictator’s radio message. Hitler issues an arrest warrant for RML, which is never carried out. Despite his defeat, the propaganda celebrates the field marshal as a hero.

Yet, RML distances himself more and more from the Fura. On several occasions, he voices his opinion that final victory is unattainable. On the 23rd of November 1942, the German sixth army under General Pus becomes encircled in Stalingrad. Thanks to armaments supplied by the Western Allies, the Red Army can keep the Germans in check.

Hitler decrees to hold the positions in Stalingrad under all circumstances which results in a bitter battle over the city on the vulgar river. The supply of the troops from the air is totally insufficient. In Stalinrad, the Vermart finally loses the aura of invincibility that had surrounded it. By the autumn of 1942, German troops were embroiled in Stalingrad.

And of course over the next months this became huge, enormous and um uh decisive defeat for Germany. The crucial point perhaps to add to this with regard to the German offensive is that the Vermacht was actually substantially weaker in 1942 than it had been in 1941. Germans had lost almost a million men in the meanwhile. Realistically uh the victory the final victory as envisaged um in 1944 was no longer possible but from Hitler’s perspective it still looked as if victory could be attained at that [Music] point in the Welsh lair fur’s military

headquarters in East Prussia Hitler receives the Romanian dictator Antonu on the 10th of January February 1943, the Fuhar holds his Romanian and Italian allies jointly responsible for the situation in Russia. His generals are ordered to hold Stalingrad to the last man. The fact that the troops in Stalingrad has been surrounded for weeks is kept secret from the German public on Hitler’s orders.

[Music] A reception on Hammonduring’s 50th birthday on the 19th of January. The rice marshal has promised against his better judgment to supply the enclosed troops in Stalingrad from the air. And although Guring is no longer taken particularly seriously after the failure of his air force, he still manages to impress Hitler with empty promises time and again.

The Sixth Army surrenders on the 31st of January. Shaken and broken, our people behold the loss of the men of Stalingrad. Reads, “A leaflet distributed in February by the resistance group White Rose. Do we want to sacrifice the rest of German youth to the base ambitions of a party clique?” No, never.

The courageous students around Sophie and Hans Shaw are arrested and executed before the month is over. Palos the commander of the sixth army during an interrogation by the Russians. One day before the capitulation, Hitler had promoted Paulos to field marshal, an invitation to commit suicide in the face of defeat. Stalinra was an immense defeat and the entire sixth army was lost.

Hitler himself, it could not be concealed, had actually stood behind this German defeat in Stalingrad. And so for the first time now, the German population blamed Hitler personally. They were very careful how they express it, but it was clear the blame was being attached to Hitler personally now for the defeat in Stalinrad.

And so the Hitler myth was now punctured decisively. It was a key moment in the uh in the decline of uh the myth that had surrounded Hitler. This myth of infallibility that he had been when everybody else was making mistakes, the military or the rest of Legion, Hitler was still untouchable. No longer after Sarn was that the case.

Even though Bash Garden is not yet within the operating range of Allied bombers, air raid precautions are taken at Zaltzburg. Hitler personally watches an exercise in the spring of 1943. He now spends more and more time in his mountainside retreat. He was used to winning all the battles he fought because until then everything had gone so well for him.

He was sure that he was the savior of the German nation and believed that the German people would attain victory with him as their leader. And because of all the successful campaigns he had led, he felt vindicated in his role as a savior. The great shock came when the victories on the battlefield ended and it was then that he started to fall apart.

Hitler confides in Ysef Gubers that the fall of the Third Reich could be brought about only through the weakness of the populace. If the German people was to be obliterated by a stronger nation, then one could feel no pity for it. On the 8th of February at Berlin’s Palpalast, the propaganda minister delivers his famous total war speech.

[Music] [Applause] England [Music] [Applause] [Music] Greek total. I will certainly see to it that this is a total war. Not only on paper, Gable’s rights in his diary. In the style of Europe’s economic dictator, the new Raich armament’s minister, Ibatar, tries to secure supplies for both the front and the home territories.

In an attempt to compensate for the shortage in labor force, Shere decrees the compulsory recruitment of workers in occupied areas, including concentration camp inmates to work as slave laborers in the arms industry. Here for the news reel, the minister presents the latest developments in German weapons technology.

Despite the short supply of raw materials, Shere intermittently manages to raise the production numbers in all sectors. During this stage of the war, there is an increased demand for anti-aircraft guns as the flying fortresses of the US Air Force have now started to engage in air raids over Germany. German arament plants are the number one targets of the American bombers while the British concentrate on the destruction of entire cities in Nazi Germany.

[Music] For some time, German anti-aircraft artillery and night fighters succeed in shooting down many bombers. Hundreds of Allied pilots and crew members are lynched by enraged crowds with the consent of the Nazi leadership. Yet more and more bombers reach their targets and drop their deadly load unhindered.

The scenes are always the same. Whether in Berlin, Cologne or Leipzig, firemen try to put out the fires. Helpers recover the dead. People try to save what can be saved. The helpless reaction of the authorities raises more and more voices of criticism, but no opposition makes itself felt. It’s important to understand that every totalitarian rule, but especially this national socialist regime, aims to destroy the settings where public opinion can be formed.

There was no press. There were no organizations and all associations and societies were transferred into the hands of the party and organized accordingly. There were no places in which the opposition, which undoubtedly existed, public discontent, or people with a conviction that it would all end horribly could become organized and gain a voice.

For a long time now, Hitler’s opponents in the Vermach have had no doubts that the Fura must die for the war and the killing to end. Young officers plan to assassinate the dictator during a visit to the troops in Smolinsk, but their general stops them because chief of SS Himmla is not present. Instead, Hitler is cheered by his troops and the propaganda machine records the event.

[Applause] The dictator’s visits to the Raich capital are sporadic, so his public appearance at the Memorial Day celebrations is a rare opportunity for the opposition in the army to undertake another assassination attempt. The plan fails because Hitler leaves the Toy House, the armory too early and the determined officers miss their chance.

Tag Granita Abroad is the title of a German propaganda film shown in Poland with the aim to draw labor forces to Germany. The footage is filmed in the production halls of the car plant in the city of KDF Wagon where the first Volkswagen Beatles were manufactured before the war. The workers are led to believe that the conditions will be blissful with excellent boarding, first rate medical care, good pay, and frequent holidays at home.

In the small village of Steinoff in Pomerania, an amateur filmmaker documents the brutal reality. When German girls become involved with foreign workers, the populace shows no pity and pillaries the guilty parties publicly. [Music] During the last week of July 1943, hundreds of RAF bombers fly several night raids over Hamburg.

The bombs create a horrific firestorm. Entire city districts are consumed within hours. People are engulfed in the huge inferno. The tornadic fire incinerates everything in its way. Fireman Hansborn shoots this footage with the consent of the authorities for documentation purposes. Over 35,000 people are killed during the so-called Operation Gamora, but the Allied attacks cannot break the spirit of the survivors.

People in Hamburg had hardly slept through a single night since 1940. They were totally shattered, even more so after those huge raids in the summer of 1943. So, resistance to the regime is not a top priority here. In a situation as bad as this, the people’s interests are reduced to an individual level. A kind of loyal apathy develops which arises from the lack of alternatives.

One either doesn’t recognize the paths that lead to a change or perceives them as being blocked. Also, with the war against the Soviet Union, the regime had already defined its own path. There’s no turning back. There is only victory or defeat. And if we are defeated, we will all die. and withers a large section of the Germans.

In the summer of 1943, Henry Himla visits the top secret army research center in Pinamundu. The Rice Fura SS has professed his interest in the A4 rocket for some time and wants to see the developments for himself. The trial results still leave much to be desired, but the Nazi leadership has high hopes that the Vundav will soon be operational and promises the population devastating retaliation strikes against British cities.

The Fura wants to halt the Soviet advances on the Eastern Front with a colossal demonstration of power near Kusk. According to his calculations, Operation Citadel is to be a formidable offensive and the comeback of his army in the east, which would also serve to unnerve the western allies. But these plans prove to be totally unrealistic.

700,000 Viamat forces storm in vain against the layered Red Army defenses for the German offensive lacks any strategic planning. Hitler finally calls off the pointless operation. From this point on, the Red Army takes the initiative and the Vermacht finds itself in retreat. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Fore speech.

[Applause] [Music] for the worst of all is that he never came face to face with the hardship of the German people. He traveled across Germany in his special trains and when he passed through cities he would draw the curtains. He didn’t want to see Germany’s cities in ruins. It was like a self-p protection mechanism which sometimes must have helped him to make himself believe that the final victory was near.

But these promises and speeches were more for the benefit of his audiences. He couldn’t really have believed it himself. [Music] At Stalin’s command, the Red Army launches a large-scale offensive against the Army Group North on the 14th of January. Within a few weeks, the Soviet troops managed to liberate Lennengrad after 900 days under German siege.

Despite the increasingly hopeless situation, Hitler rejects a strategic retreat of the Vermacht, sticking to his hold or die maxim. The result is that both sides suffer severe losses and large numbers of German soldiers are captured by the Soviets. The dictator knows that the troops of the Western Allies in Britain will eventually try to land in northern France and orders all available units to deploy for the defense of the so-called Atlantic Wall.

This footage is filmed by a cameraman of the Gushuts Uptail Assault Gun Battalion 200 in January 1944. Field marshal vinmer during an inspection of the troops. Although his campaign in North Africa did not furnish the expected success, the desert fox is regarded as a gifted commander and has given the mission of coordinating forces in Normandy.

The furer expects an invasion at the narrowest point of the channel near Cala. So the Germans have stationed over 100,000 men in Normandy. [Music] The recent defeats don’t fail to make an impression on the allies of the Nazis. On the 18th of March, 1944, Hitler accuses Hungary’s regent, Admiral Horty, of conducting secret negotiations with the Allies, as well as of allowing nearly 1 million Jews to live in freedom in his country.

Horty is asked to immediately invite the Vermachar into unoccupied Hungary. The regent acceds to the pressure and returns to Budapest accompanied by highranking SS officials. The Vermacht occupies Budapest. German propaganda proclaims the occupation to serve only the security of the country. One month later, the deportations of Hungarian Jews to the extermination camps begin.

In a period of just 2 months, 400,000 people are murdered in [Music] Ashvitz. Adolf Aishman, the man responsible for the logistics in the Aish’s main security office, organizes the transportation of Jews all across Europe. The relevant ministries in Berlin are happy to offer administrative assistance. The only known film footage of one such transport is filmed in the Vestborg concentration camp in Holland in 1944.

The film was commissioned by the commanding officer himself. On arrival in Awitz, approximately 2/3s of the prisoners are murdered immediately and the rest are sent to work as slave laborers in Poland or in the Third Reich. the selection of people fit to work was intensified again. It goes without saying that those fit to work were also to die after they had done their work.

But due to the fact that they were selected to become laborers, they were at least given a chance to survive for some time. [Music] [Music] For the first time, the celebrations for the Fur’s birthday, his 55th, take place without him. [Music] [Music]

Fore. On the occasion of the celebrations, Gibbos has Berlin decorated with flags and slogans brimming with paos. Our walls are broken, but not our hearts. The party newspaper focus writes, “Never before has the German people looked up to its leader as trustingly as in these hours, as he has become aware of the whole extent of this struggle for our lives.

” On the 3rd of June 1944, Ava Brown’s sister Greater marries SS Copenfura Herman Figelerine in Zborg. Figerline was the commander of a SS cavalry division in the east and has the lives of tens of thousands of civilians on his conscience. The celebration is held on the Bearov. It is the last party that Hitler’s lover will organize in the mountain residence.

The group portrait shows the bride and groom with Hitler. The 6th of June 1944 is to become the longest day of World War II. The landings in Normandy commence at dawn. Suffering heavy casualties, the Allied forces storm the French coast along an 80 km stretch. At the Omaha Beach section, the Americans encounter fierce resistance.

Machine guns mow down the charging soldiers in their hundreds. An invasion was expected and expected imminently, but the German high command of the Vermacht was unsure precisely where this invasion would take place. Hitler himself had actually thought that it would take place in Normandy or so he later said. But the only in one of the four beaches on which the allies landed in Normandy were German troops at the ready and that was Omaha Beach where there was a very tough fighting by the Americans with huge numbers of casualties on the first day

of the fighting. But even there at the end of this longest day of the second world war the landing had been secured and uh Hitler himself even after the landing had been secured thought that was still optimistic that the invasion could be repulsed. Until then he’d been absolutely adamant that the invasion he was waiting for the invasion because when the invasion took place it would be repelled.

10,000 Allied soldiers are killed or wounded on D-Day. Now we finally have them where we can beat them, comments Hitler when he hears the news of the landing. By the evening of the first day, the Allied forces have managed to establish several bridge heads in France. From this point on, the assault on Fortress Europe will be unstoppable.

At the Vermacht High Command in Maav, East Prussia, officers while away their time by making a film that documents the daily routine of the general staff. Meanwhile, the FAR’s military headquarters in the nearby Wolf’s Lair is moved into a bomb-proof fortification during Hitler’s absence. The dictator and his entourage do not return to East Prussia until mid July.

On the afternoon of the 20th of July, Hitler welcomes Benito Mussolini at the railway station of the Wolf Slayer complex. Just a few hours earlier, the Furer had survived an assassination attempt by means of a briefcase bomb during the daily strategy meeting. The propaganda minister describes the scenery in the demolished barracks on the radio. Fore message.

what he never envvisaged was a strike from within his own armed forces leadership. So for Hitler this was something which was just an extraordinary blow and he responded as he only would with um uh enormous uh ruthlessness and brutality. uh this was a stab in the back from within the armed forces leadership.

It left within him now uh a very pronounced sense of um betrayal of treason from within an obsession with this treason from within. It provided him with the alibi of course for why everything had gone wrong. So now he was able to blame everything, the collapse of the eastern front, the success of the invasion of the west, whatever, on the people around him who’ been perpetrating treason.

And this sense of intense distrust and obsession with uh with treason from within remained with him to the very end. After the failure of the coupetar, the plot leaders around Graalenburg are court marshaled and executed by firing squad on the same night. Hitler has the surviving conspirators relentlessly rounded up and sentenced to death in show trials before his blood judge Roland Fry.

One of them is Uri Grain Fuan. And you feel my nightcl. The heroes of the 20th of July, as we call them today, were the traitors in those trials, which were all filmed for the news reel. But Fryler’s behavior was so out of line during the trial, the Gerbles realized it wouldn’t be good for the propaganda. In order for the trials to be effective for propaganda purposes, he would have preferred a different, fairer atmosphere during the proceedings.

The people’s court condemns over 100 defendants to death by hanging and another 30 to prison sentences. Along with many political prisoners, the Brandenborg Girden Penitentiary also houses normal citizens who have publicly raised doubts on the final victory. The Nazi judicial system proceeds mercilessly against any form of opposition.

Of all the death sentences imposed on Germans by the people’s court, 95% were handed out in the years 1943 to 44. As a result, political debate in public was practically silenced. In this respect, the Nazi propaganda was successful in as much as it managed to restrain people from speaking out. Propaganda is a mass funeral for the dead after a bombing raid in northern Ham, a town at the mouth of the Visa River.

The phrase died for the furer, the people, and the fatherland appears less and less often in obituaries. If one receives such blows, only an idiot can believe that the war will be won, reasons a citizen in Berlin, according to a confidential report. Despite the fact that the bomb damage in plants contributing to the war effort is often patched up within hours and the factories can manufacture again soon, armaments minister Albatia has long lost the race against the Allies.

In 1944 alone, the Americans build as many aircraft as Germany had produced over the course of the entire war. The wonder weapons promised by the propaganda such as the Methosmmit Me262 jet fighter here may be deployed in operational service in isolated cases but cannot win back the air supremacy from the allied air forces and also Hitler’s rockets from Pinamunda failed to halt the advance of the allies.

The Reich Penipentiary for Total War, Ysef Gubbers, must now mobilize the last reserves on the home front. Anyone who is capable of carrying a gun is conscripted for the Fuktorm. I’ve read many diaries from that time, 43, 44, 45. And what stands out is that people didn’t actually criticize Hitler himself, but the people in his environment, Guring in particular, was very unpopular.

But many people couldn’t stand gerbles either. They don’t let our furer get back on his feet, people wrote. And because by then Hitler had practically withdrawn from public life, people were more prepared to forgive him. Then at some point around the end of 1944, a rumor started going around that Hitler was no longer alive.

Armament’s Minister Albert visits the deployment zone of the Aden offensive. In mid December 1944, the Vermacht had mobilized all remaining reserves and launched Operation Autumn Mist. The low point had been overcome, declared the dictator at the turn of the year from his headquarters in Batnauheim. Ultimately, the Reich would be victorious.

An unknown filmmaker captures these seemingly carefree scenes at an anti-aircraft artillery position somewhere in the south of Germany. Women, adolescents, and men unfit for the front are the last contingent the Nazi leaders can muster. They are to halt the waves of Allied bombers which by now enter the German airspace almost unhindered.

British and US forces intensify the air raids over Germany once again. The list of targets grow longer and even smaller towns with no apparent strategic significance are leveled. Within the space of a few weeks, massive destruction is rire on German cities. On the 3rd of February 1945, 1,000 American bombers fly a large raid on Berlin.

Some 3,000 people are killed during Operation Thunderclap and over 120,000 become homeless. And although cities like Dresdon, Potam, Bzborg or Fatzim are almost completely destroyed, the people continue to stick it out. For many cannot imagine a future without Hitler. On the one hand, we have the fear of defeat, especially after everything people had learned about the crimes committed by Germans and about how the conquered and the discriminated peoples have been treated, in particular the Jews.

They were effectively frightened. Then we have the propaganda saying that subhumans are invading the German Reich, meaning the Russians from the east, combined with some real reports about the conduct of Red Army units in the cities they had taken. The 13th of January marks the beginning of the major Red Army offensive in East Prussia.

The depleted Vermachar divisions cannot halt the superior Soviet forces. Many refugee treks out of East Prussia are wiped out by the Red Army. The amount of guilt Hitler has incurred is enormous, a soldier writes and continues, “If I can’t see my family again, then I don’t want to live anymore. Red Army units liberate Alvitz, Hitler’s death factory in Poland on the 27th of January, 1945.

Only about 7,000 inmates remain alive in the camp. Sick people and children who have been subjugated to medical experiments. Nearly 6 million Jews were methodically murdered in the extermination camps. men, women, and over 1.5 million children shot by death squads, gassed, poisoned, or beaten to death. They are the victims of the most heinous crime against humanity, organized and carried out in the name of the German [Music] people.

On the Western front, too, the war comes into Germany. On the 6th of March, American troops advanced into the center of Cologne. The Nazi functionaries want to defend the city to the last man alive. US Army camera crews capture the dramatic scene showing house-to-house fighting at first hand. At 5:00 p.m. local time, the battle for Cologne is over.

American forces reach the bank of the Ryan River. On the 20th of March, Hitler appears for the last time before the news real cameras in the garden of the Chancellory of the Reich. He wants Germany to go down with him. Hitler had said on a number of occasions, if this war is lost, it will be because the German people is not strong enough.

And the if that is the case, it deserves to go under. It deserves to suffer defeat. Hitler has said if we go down we’ll take a world with us. So this was Hitler’s mentality there that um that uh he would that if if there were to be um uh no successful outcome to this war for Germany then it would be with total destruction destruction within Germany as well as without.

He would take he would take his enemies down with him into the abyss and the German people would have no need for any provisions and therefore everything within Germany could be destroyed. Having crossed the Rine, British and US troops continue to advance eastward. Hitler’s surprised that the Western Front has collapsed so soon.

He senses treason. Many Vermachar units surrender much too quickly. The spell that had held the soldiers bound to him for years is now completely broken, especially here, far away from his remaining sphere of power. The atrocities can no longer be concealed. In early April 1945, US soldiers liberate the Ordorf concentration camp in Tingia.

Some 10,000 slave laborers had been locked up here. Only a few survive the Nazi barbarity. The Americans are shocked. Odruff is one of the first camps they have set eyes on. On orders from the victors, the reluctant residents of the nearby village are confronted with a gruesome [Music] truth.

The advancing Red Army has concentrated half a million soldiers along the Oda River. On the 16th of April, the Soviets launch the offensive on Berlin. House-to-house fighting rages in the streets of the capital. Despite fierce resistance, the Soviets take one district after another and advance toward the city center. Hitler has withdrawn to his underground bunker below the Reich Chancellory.

He orders troop units that no longer exist or are too far away to intervene to push forward. Even in this desperate situation, capitulation is out of the question for the FA and thus tens of thousands of soldiers from both sides as well as countless civilians must die in the streets of Berlin. [Music] At the very end, we only know effectively that he was now resigned to his fate.

That he had in a sense prepared this ending which was almost a theatrical end to the Third Reich with his own um his own suicide now with the Russians almost literally at the very doors. And uh again with the notion that uh which was put out by uh propaganda then that the furer had uh fallen um with his troops which is of course a last lie uh fallen with his troops uh at the at the very end.

Again a portrayal of this image of heroic leadership to the very end. The image that he wanted to be that which would outlast him and go into posterity as the image of heroism surviving to the very end. Unlike 1918, not following the coward way out of capitulation, but fighting heroically on to the bitter end.

The dictator marries Ava Brown in the Fura Bunker. On the 30th of April 1945, at 3:30 in the afternoon, the newlyweds retreat to Hitler’s private chambers and commit suicide. Ysef Gabuz assumes the task of organizing the end of the Nazi [Music] rule. 2 days later, the forces defending Berlin surrender. The victors seize the center of power of the Third [Music] Reich.

On the 3rd of May, the corpses of Yosef Gabbuzz and his family are lined up in the garden of Blitzen prison while Soviet cameras roll. The Gibbles family that would not even spare their own children are made a symbol of a deadly fanaticism which in the end claimed the lives of 60 million people. On the 30th of January 1933, a cheering crowd of Hitler’s followers marched through Brandenburgg Gate holding torches after his appointment as Reich Chancellor.

12 years, 3 months, and 9 days later, everything is over. Germany lies in ruins, occupied, and soon to be divided. Highranking Nazis commit suicide or surrender to the victors. Receal Hamanguring believes he may have a political future, but is arrested and put on trial. Just like many other Nazis, he is unaware of any wrongdoing.

The final act takes place on the 8th of May in the Berlin bureau of Khost. It is incumbent upon the military leaders to formally end the Nazi rule over Germany and half of Europe. In the presence of army commanders of the victorious Allied powers, Field Marshal Wilham Kiter signs the capitulation of the German armed forces on land, at sea, and in the air shortly after mi

dnight. At exactly 11:01 p.m., the guns had fallen silent on all fronts. The Second World War is over. The Third Reich has ceased to exist. [Music]