All language subtitles for Hitlers.Circle.of.Evil.Series.1.10of10.Meltdown.720p.WebRip.x264.AAC.MVGroup.org.eng

BERLIN STAYS GERMAN!

1945.

The Nazi regime is in its final throes.

In their heads and their hearts,
all the senior Nazis must know this,

but they cannot publicly say it.

Many of Hitler's inner circle
are falling away.

At the very last moment, here are rats

leaving the sinking ship
and he's furious about it.

Amid the lunacy of late war,

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler
is making clandestine deals.

Himmler isn't true anymore, he's planning
treachery, he's planning treason.

And silent shadow Martin Bormann
faces an impossible decision.

It's a mixture of I want to survive,
I want to get out,

and I have to be loyal.

The hidden first lady of the Third Reich,

Eva Braun,
is rewarded for her fierce loyalty.

The relationship has been secret
from the German people.

And Hitler's flamboyant deputy,
Hermann Göring, attempts to seize power.

If he gets it wrong,
he will be assassinated.

This is the inside story
of Hitler's henchmen,

the power struggles,
jealousy and fawning sycophants

that would create a monster and fuel the
most brutal horrors of the Third Reich.

April 1945.

The Red Army are closing in on Berlin.

And Allied forces have now crossed
the Rhine

and advanced
into the heart of Nazi Germany.

The final and humiliating chapter
for the Third Reich has begun.

Germany is at the point of defeat.

FOR THE GERMAN NATION

Once revered by millions,

Hitler and his ever-decreasing band
of henchmen cower

in a reeking bunker,
surrounded by enemy troops.

In the final weeks of the Third Reich, the
inner circle is rapidly disintegrating.

[Sönke] It was really game over,

it was the very last, very brutal moment
of a dying empire.

The Third Reich is the Third Reich
in all but name.

Adolf Hitler, now a drug-addled
physical wreck,

has retreated to his subterranean fortress
beneath the Reich Chancellery gardens.

[Emma] Hitler's close to despair,
but he still has moments

where his instinct for fantasy
comes up again and he says,

surely we could break through from the
southeast, break the ring around Berlin,

and he'll suddenly get excited
that there's hope, there's a plan,

and of course, he is surrounded by people
who won't confront him with reality.

Of the original circle, only Martin
Bormann, Hitler's private secretary,

and Joseph Goebbels,
propaganda minister,

are with Hitler
in this nightmarish underground world.

But today is an important date
in the Third Reich's calendar.

The Führer's 56th birthday.

And they're expecting visitors.

Hitler's birthdays have always been
a really big deal

with loads and loads of presents
sent by the German people,

and celebrations with the inner circle.

And that inner circle all make the journey
to bomb-shelled Berlin.

SS Chief Heinrich Himmler has been one
of Hitler's most loyal followers.

But for the past few months,

he's been steering clear
of the underground madness,

residing in a sanatorium
a hundred kilometres north of Berlin.

He is trying to keep away
from all the kind of disintegration

that he knows is going on in the bunker.

ROAD MAP OF GERMANY

Whilst there, Himmler has been trying
to make deals with the Allies.

He wants to be the man to take over
Germany once the inevitable happens.

Despite his treasonous acts,

Himmler still leaves the haven
of the sanatorium to visit Hitler.

Loyal Heinrich,
as Hitler always used to call him,

will remain loyal for one last time.

He's gonna go down to Berlin
to go to Hitler's birthday party.

The journey to bombed-out Berlin involves
a dangerous 100-km road trip.

You can't underestimate the dangers

of what it is to go
to Hitler's birthday party.

Hitler's birthday gift from the Soviets

is an artillery barrage
right into the heart of the city.

And it's not just the enemy
he has to watch out for,

his own organization, the SS,
are assassinating deserters.

The SS and various military police
formations are stringing up people

left, right and centre for treason.

In a sense, at the very moment
Germany has effectively lost the war,

the regime becomes most dangerous.

He obviously decides that he's safer
showing loyalty at this point.

Even for the SS boss,
in these dangerous times,

it's important to turn up
and give the illusion of allegiance.

Travelling by road is perilous,
but by air it's positively suicidal.

Nevertheless,
Minister of Armaments Albert Speer

risks the treacherous flight into Berlin.

[Guy] You have got to fly over
territory that is occupied now,

increasingly, by the Red Army, or perhaps
even by the Allies coming from the west.

And even if you managed to survive
not being shot down,

you're gonna have to land,
not in some nice airstrip,

you're gonna have to land
on a street in the middle of Berlin

where there are potholes
from artillery shells,

where there are fires
raging all around you.

Speer's motivations for taking the risky
flight into Berlin are also puzzling.

According to his memoirs, months earlier,

he had been scheming
to assassinate Hitler.

His plan, he'd later claim,
was to infuse the bunker with poison gas.

But a newly fitted chimney,
installed as an anti-gas precaution,

had thwarted the idea.

Now, I think there's no doubt
that he did think about this

and talked to some of his staff about it
and so on.

But I think it's much more likely
that he used this story

in order to persuade the Allies

that he was actually not such
a wicked Nazi as all the others.

Whatever the truth,
Speer knows defeat is close.

He knows the war is over. He knows
he's served a regime that's failed.

So why head to Berlin? Could Speer be
harbouring some secret lofty ambitions?

I think Speer hopes that perhaps
Hitler will hand on the kingdom to him.

Part of the kingdom is what was once

the most prestigious building
in the Nazi state: the Reich Chancellery.

Now it's a desolate bombed-out shell.

An apt setting for the inner circle
to gather

and pour their ritual congratulations
to the deranged dictator on his birthday.

They meet in a room in the Reich
Chancellery, which is quite extraordinary,

because there's such heavy shelling,
that nobody normally goes

into the upstairs rooms
of the Reich Chancellery any more,

and all the furniture has been removed.

Having survived their perilous journeys,
for the inner circle,

there is now an awkward wait
for their Führer to make his appearance.

Eight metres down below,
in the impregnable bunker,

Hitler is going about his daily ritual.

It's after his breakfast
and his cocaine eye drops

that Hitler feels sufficiently invigorated
to go and see his inner circle

and receive their birthday wishes.

[Michael] The birthday party is
a very good encapsulation,

in a microcosm, you could say,

of the absurdity,
the unreality, of the bunker life

that they'd lived since January.

[bombs thud]

It's a ghost world they're living in.

Another key player in the inner circle
who thinks travelling to Berlin

is worth the danger
is Head of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Göring.

Göring still perceives himself

in the position of being
the second man in the Reich.

For the last four months,
the man who joined the Nazi Party

as a poster-boy war hero has been making
plans for life after the Führer.

He's clearly now sniffing around
like a big fat shark,

looking to see whether he's got
an opportunity to finally seize power.

Hitler finally makes his entrance.

He's joined by the hidden first lady of
the Third Reich, his mistress, Eva Braun.

The relationship between Eva Braun
and Hitler was complex.

When they were together,
Hitler was really kind of a different man.

Although they'd been together
for the past 12 years...

...the Nazis maintain
the illusion of Hitler as single,

devoted only to the German nation.

She has never had
any public acknowledgement,

and the relationship has been secret
from the German people.

To the inner circle,
the sight of the Führer with his mistress

is an indication that for Hitler,
the end is near.

More alarming still is his physical state.

I think a lot of the inner circle
are completely shocked

by how completely wiped out
he is as a person.

They're used to these birthdays
being a time

when Hitler makes a great speech
and self-congratulates

and again gees them on
to achieve greater things.

But this is a very, very different affair.

It's awkward and it's depressing,
and all the time, you can hear artillery,

reminding all of them
that the end is near.

As always, Martin Bormann,

Hitler's private secretary
and permanent shadow,

is close by when the Führer makes
a momentous announcement.

Hitler will stay in Berlin
and, if necessary, die in the bunker.

Hitler's inner circle react to this
in different ways.

Everybody is very tense and awkward.

For Bormann, news that the Führer
will stay in the bunker is devastating.

He was hoping the Nazi leadership

would relocate to the Berghof,
Hitler's mountain retreat.

A decade earlier,
Bormann had overseen its construction...

...including a network of impenetrable
bunkers deep beneath the Alps...

...designed to keep the Führer,
and Bormann, out of harm's way.

But it's not to be.

It's wishful thinking, and Hitler
still has enough vestige of a brain

to realise this, that really
it's an utterly pointless exercise.

Bormann's plan is, for now, foiled.

[bombs thud]

This is written in a way by Wagner,

and this is how Wagner's operas end,
and they all know it.

[bombs thud]

But Göring watches with interest.

He interprets Hitler's statement
as a resignation and his opportunity

to take control of the leadership.

Essentially, it's very obvious
that Hitler has gone to Berlin

because he will never surrender,
and ultimately,

he would rather die in his
capital city than be seen to be fleeing.

Göring, though,
has no qualms about fleeing.

In fact, he's long been preparing for it.

His servants have already evacuated
his acquired spoils of war,

some 5,000 works of art.

[Emma]
He moves all his treasures, his paintings.

He moves all his money
out of German bank accounts.

That morning, Göring's country residence,
Carinhall,

had been rigged
with 20 tons of explosives.

If he can't enjoy the grandiose estate,
it must be destroyed.

It doesn't go unnoticed
that Göring is the first to leave.

We've got to a point
where it's every man for himself.

The once fiercely loyal SS chief,
Heinrich Himmler,

feels he's been seen
to toe the party line.

Now he can join Göring
in making a tactful departure

and get back to his own escape plan.

He's trying to manoeuvre himself
as a post-Third Reich Nazi leader.

It's fantastical,
it's deluded, it's ultimately pointless,

but it's a measure of quite how detached
from reality Himmler has become.

On leaving the party,
Göring corners Himmler.

[Richard] Himmler's not the only one
to think about

contacting the Western Allies.

Göring was also wondering,
was it possible to go to the West,

and say, we know we've messed up but
the Russians are a threat to everybody,

so why don't you join us
and we'll face the Russians?

He seemed to be again deluded

that somehow or other, they would treat
him as, you know, a major leader.

But Himmler is well ahead of the game...

Five days earlier,
he had released 1200 Jews to the Allies.

Bargaining chips in a deal
fostered at his sanatorium...

...by passing messages
to the Red Cross via his masseur.

There's an arrogance to Himmler

that overrides what must be
his natural fear of committing treason.

That's what he's doing.

Because if Hitler is to find out
that he's trying to secure peace deals

behind his back
or making deals with Jewish people...

I mean, these are highly treacherous acts
in Hitler's eyes,

and would see him, you know,
strung up with piano wire.

Himmler tells Göring
he's beaten him to it.

And that he's due to meet
Count Folke Bernadotte,

Vice-President of the Swedish Red Cross,
that night.

[Emma] He feels the end is very close,
he doesn't want other people

to kind of put themselves forward
as the chief negotiator.

Himmler says Bernadotte has been sent
to negotiate by Eisenhower.

He knows that Göring has officially got
the position of number two,

but he wants to be in pole position.

But Himmler suddenly becomes aware
they're being watched...

...and by the most dangerous of rivals.

Martin Bormann.

The sycophant Bormann had risen
to power by ruthless manipulation

and by dripping poison into Hitler's ear.

Himmler knows that if Bormann
has overheard them,

his days could be numbered.

By this very late stage,
Himmler is in a kind of

complete, intense state of anxiety,

because he knows that by making
an attempt at negotiating peace,

he is committing treason.

Himmler knows he must act fast.

He drives through the night
to the Baltic coast

for two important meetings...

...the first with a representative
of the World Jewish Congress.

Himmler cleverly established links
to the Jewish World Congress

and to the Western powers via Sweden,
and the reason for that is obvious.

He wanted to get out and he tried
to have a life after the Third Reich.

By this point, the death toll of Jews
is reaching six million,

all masterminded by Himmler,

but months earlier,
he'd been trying to cover his tracks.

From early January '45, Himmler,

with an obvious intention
of winning some favour

in the eyes of the Allies
when the war ended,

began a programme of closing
the concentration camps,

bulldozing over the worst aspects of them

and trying to present a more humane front
for the Allies when they took over.

But there's no way Himmler could distance
himself from the atrocities entirely.

His rebrand to become the person
to rule Germany post third Reich

relies on these meetings between
men of radically opposing ideologies.

For 45 minutes, Himmler gives
a long-winded justification

of Germany's actions against the Jews.

He promises that the killings would stop

and that the camps would be handed over
intact to the Allies.

By Himmler's second meeting that evening,

with the Swedish diplomat,
Count Bernadotte,

he is becoming increasingly paranoid.

[Emma] He's in a kind of hysterical state,

and he's, you know,
he's got his pistol in his pocket,

and he's worried the whole time
that, you know,

Bormann's men
are going to burst through the door.

Exhausted, Himmler leaves, believing he's
one step closer to meeting Eisenhower.

But his fear remains, could he have been
followed? Does Bormann know?

One thing is certain. Himmler is playing
a very dangerous game.

The next day in the Führerbunker,
at Hitler's daily conference,

his generals give a report
on the military situation.

The 22nd of April sees this key meeting
with Hitler

and senior members of the inner circle,
various generals,

but also Bormann and Goebbels.

And it's when he finally realises

that the military situation
is now hopeless.

They have lost the war,
there is now no doubt.

This is a huge moment,
because up till this point,

he has always said, we will win,
I will be like Frederick the Great,

I will push back my enemies
at the gates.

He looks at the military situation,

and even for one of history's
worst commander-in-chiefs,

he realises that the war is over.

Goebbels, who has been loyal
since the beginning, is devastated.

There is no future without Hitler,
for himself or his family.

Hitler has this enormous rant
that can be heard

almost throughout
the entire bunker complex,

and his generals are sort of shaking and
quaking at this absolute apoplexy of rage.

It's the end of this enormous odyssey,

that's taken him all the way
from the beer hall to the bunker

and all that it's ended in
is just doom and catastrophe.

The last escape routes are disappearing
and the Red Army is on the approach.

[Robert] To a certain extent, one could
say that the actual realists are people

who stay in the bunker because they
realise that there is no exit strategy.

Cyanide capsules are distributed
to all Hitler's staff.

Bormann has a sudden realization
that he is expected to die for the cause.

[Sönke] Although they only have
a few days to live,

Bormann was never a team player.

Bormann had never in mind,
what can we achieve together?

Unlike other people
who stayed there until the very end,

he has no interest in dying

and very much wants to live another day.

So he's in a dilemma, does he stick with
Hitler, or does he just get the hell out?

He wants to do both, but he can't.

For now, Bormann is trapped.

He can only dream of the Nazi stronghold
he'd built in the Alps years earlier.

But Göring is already
enjoying the fresh mountain air.

He's heard the news of Hitler's acceptance
of defeat and despite Himmler's plan,

Göring decides
he'll make his play for the top job.

But until Hitler is dead,
it's a very dangerous move.

It is his official duty,
if the Führer has died,

or if the Führer has been kind of rendered
incompetent by circumstances,

for him to take over
the governance of Germany.

He's carefully dictates a tactful message
to Hitler,

requesting authorisation
to take over as successor.

[Michael] "Mein Führer,
you are under such pressure,

unless I hear anything to the contrary
from you within 24 hours,

I shall assume you have lost the capacity
to govern and I will become Führer."

He immediately recognises that
this is very sensitive, very difficult.

If he gets it wrong,
he will be assassinated.

As is usual protocol,
Bormann is the first

to take receipt of the telegram
from Göring.

[Emma] Everything that comes to Hitler
is filtered through Bormann.

For Bormann, making sure that nobody
else becomes powerful is important,

and specifically, he doesn't want Göring
to be the next leader of Germany

and to take over, because if he,
Martin Bormann, survives,

he doesn't have a good relationship
with Göring.

And so, he very much puts it to Hitler
that the telegram is an act of betrayal.

Bormann steers Hitler into seeing the
telegram as an act of appalling treachery.

It shows that everything has failed.

If he can't keep Göring,
then he can't keep anybody.

So even the carefully crafted telegram
is a disaster for Göring.

And Bormann goes further.

He fires off a message to Göring saying,

"I forbid you to take any steps
in the direction you have indicated.

Signed, Adolf Hitler."

Göring sees the writing's on the wall, he
cables back and says yes, OK, I'll resign,

and the German public are told
that Göring's had a massive heart attack

and he's gonna have to resign
from all his offices.

But Göring's resignation
is not enough for Bormann.

He orders Göring's arrest and execution.

He is arrested by the SS but, luckily,
a unit of Luftwaffe soldiers comes past

and Göring says, help, I'm being held
by the SS, do something about it.

And they clear the SS off
and Göring is rescued.

Luck is on Göring's side
and he lives to fight another day.

Another target in Bormann's sights
is Heinrich Himmler.

Since his covert meetings
to try to make peace with the Allies,

Himmler has been nervously awaiting
a response.

He can only hope
that his act of treason remains secret.

Bormann has been sniffing around

but he can't find anything conclusive
to pin on Himmler.

But then the Allies
come to Bormann's aid.

News of Himmler's clandestine deals
is broadcast to the world.

Himmler's secret is out and he knows
exactly what this will mean to Hitler.

The enemy's broadcasts reveal
his loyal Heinrich, as he calls him,

has gone behind his back
and betrayed him, tried to sue for peace.

[Sönke] There is, to me, a difference
between Göring and Himmler.

The whole thing with the Göring telegram,

I think,
is just a misinterpretation from Göring.

Himmler was really dealing with the enemy.

Hitler once referred to Himmler
as the only "truer" man in Germany.

Meaning the only man
he could truly rely on.

He couldn't believe
that Himmler would betray him.

But he had.
And with encouragement from Bormann,

the Führer strips Himmler
of all his offices and orders his arrest.

To Hitler,
Himmler's is the ultimate betrayal.

Hitler is particularly devastated,
because he has always thought

that the one thing about Himmler
is he's loyal.

He really thought that this was someone
that he could trust to the death.

In a matter of days, Bormann
has struck off his two arch rivals,

Hitler's number two, Hermann Göring,
and SS Chief Heinrich Himmler.

It's a hollow victory as the whole regime
is clearly now defunct,

but in Bormann's mind,
he's finally made it.

These final days, at one level, must have
been quite satisfying for Bormann,

because all his rivals are,
one by one, being knocked out,

and in the end,
it's just him and Goebbels who are there.

Now, amid the underground lunacy,

Hitler turns his attention
to the utterly pointless task

of finding a new successor
on his rapidly sinking Nazi ship.

And these two men,

silent shadow Bormann...

...and ever-loyal Goebbels...

...are the only two candidates from
Hitler's inner circle left in the bunker.

But Hitler chooses neither.

Where's the power going? Well, it's going
to Großadmiral Karl Dönitz.

Dönitz is nowhere near the bunker.

He's in the far north of Germany
in the port of Flensburg.

This is a man who is
not part of Hitler's inner circle.

Dönitz was a man that basically
Hitler felt he could trust,

while all around him had disappeared
and had betrayed him.

Dönitz had gained Hitler's trust

partly because he'd delivered on a promise
of a revolution at sea,

achieved by new U-boats that could remain
submerged for long periods.

Since the start of 1945,
the two men had grown close.

Dönitz represented a new figure,
a break from the circle,

and a man who could probably do some
business with the new Germany.

He is not someone
who has been part of this in-fighting

and this whole soap opera
that's been running for two decades.

For what it's worth, Goebbels is given

the cursory title
of Reich Chancellor of Germany.

REICH CHANCELLOR: DR. GOEBBELS

While Bormann is made
head of what's left of the Nazi party.

To him, it's a great honour.

HEAD OF THE NAZI PARTY: BORMANN

Bormann likes to see himself,
I think, as being super-loyal.

Whatever happens, he will be there.

He knows his power has always relied
on staying close to Hitler.

For Bormann, there's no way out.

Bormann is failing to persuade Hitler
to leave,

so he knows he's facing his own death,
and he's facing it reluctantly.

Goebbels' loyalty is more fanatical.

For him,
there's no future without the Führer.

[Emma] Goebbels writes a letter
from the bunker, to his stepson,

so we know quite a lot
about his state of mind.

And he is saying, everything I have,
I have because of Hitler,

who I am, I owe completely to Hitler.

And it would be an act
of terrible disloyalty,

not to stand beside him,
right to the death.

So great is his devotion to Hitler, he
brings his wife, Magda, into the bunker.

His wife, Magda Goebbels, is similarly
obsessed with, devoted to Hitler,

and she insists
on bringing their children.

They tell the children
they're going into the bunker

so that they can be in the thick of it...

...for the victory
that is about to happen.

[Guy]
Goebbels is a very, very intelligent man,

but what would override
all this intelligence

was this utterly misplaced loyalty
towards this most evil of men.

There is one other hidden
but equally devoted member

of Hitler's inner circle
still in the bunker.

His companion for the last 12 years

and one of the most successfully guarded
secrets of Nazi Germany.

[Thomas] Eva Braun was fun-loving.
We see her on trips, we see her swimming.

We see her doing yoga. She really was
quite an outgoing person.

They had met in Munich
when Eva was just 17

and assistant
to Hitler's official photographer.

Now, after more than a decade
of clandestine courtship,

she's finally going to get her man.

Not long after midnight
on the 29th of April,

we have probably one of history's
most depressing, surreal, bizarre weddings

that, of course, takes place
between Hitler

and his long-term
mistress/girlfriend, Eva Braun.

And they are married in a conference room
in the bunker.

He told Eva to leave. She declined to,
so instead he marries her.

Which is a nice twist in the story

but she'd said she couldn't live
without him, she'd rather die with him.

She dresses in a black dress,
which actually was a traditional colour

for wedding dresses, and she chooses
her jewellery, and she does her hair.

And they get rings, they get gold rings
from the Gestapo prison in Berlin,

where they've been collected
from Jewish victims.

Immediately afterwards,
they kind of go to celebrate,

but Hitler quickly leaves the party.

And Eva Braun is left to drink champagne
with the secretaries.

Above ground and unaware
of the subterranean drama in the bunker...

...the people of Berlin are living with
the effects of the debauched regime.

Suffering is on a terrible scale.

Most are close to starving
and all are living in constant danger.

Everyone desperately wants peace.

People have started destroying evidence
of any link to the Nazis.

Photographs of loved ones
in army uniform are torn up.

[Emma] Berlin is in ruins.

The defence of Berlin is depending
mostly on Hitler Youth.

15-year-old boys trying to defend Berlin,
with barely any weapons,

and the Russians just coming closer
and closer and closer, on all sides.

The core of remaining Nazis

have now been in the bunker
for three months and discipline is waning.

The last 24 hours in the bunker are...
like a sort of vision of hell.

It's people sitting around, drunk,
half drunk,

plotting ways in which they're gonna
kill themselves,

plotting ways
in which they're gonna escape.

It's a hole in the ground and they're
living very grim, unreal lives.

The image I've always got in my mind,
I can't get out of my mind

is the noise and smell of the bunker.

Air-conditioning system running on diesel,
very noisy system and the smell,

it was said, of urine
and fetid body odour and cabbage.

The remaining SS officers
are permanently drunk,

and along with the bunker's women,

determined to make the most
of their last hours.

The bunker itself is becoming an
increasingly sordid, smelly, smoke-filled,

you know,
alcoholically charged cesspit.

[Richard] There's no doubt life in the
bunker was amazingly claustrophobic.

It was a small area,
people all bound up together.

All knowing, of course, that their fate
now hung in the balance.

The Soviets are now only a kilometre away.

For those in the bunker,
time is running out.

This is the end of the Reich.

That day, news from Milan
reaches the bunker.

Hitler's fellow fascist and one-time ally,
Benito Mussolini,

has been captured by Italian partisans.

Hitler is absolutely horrified
when he learns of Mussolini's fate,

how he's not only been executed,

but he has been strung up
with his mistress in a Milan square.

And it's a humiliation
that Hitler is determined not to have,

and he is determined that the Russians
mustn't get hold of his body.

[Guy] The final act,
Hitler would probably have liked it

to have been leading his troops
into battle and died a noble death,

but, no, it's a squalid end, actually.

Hitler and his new wife, Eva,

retreat to their sitting room
with cyanide capsules and a pistol.

[gunshot]

Hitler takes his pistol and shoots himself
in the face, and his wife poisons herself.

They, in likelihood, do it simultaneously.

Bormann nervously opened the door,

just to check that what they think's
happened has happened.

After Hitler and Eva Braun
kill themselves,

this sort of strange atmosphere
descends on the bunker.

People who've basically got
into the bunker

because they are such followers

suddenly have to make decisions
and take actions themselves.

Given the public display
of Mussolini's corpse,

the first task for Bormann
is to dispose of Hitler and Eva's bodies.

[Richard] When the bodies of Hitler
and Eva Braun are carried out

to the Reich Chancellery garden
to be burnt,

it must have been an extraordinary moment
for them.

They'd bound their lives to this man
for 20 years and now he was dead.

Now Germany was ruined.
Now they were likely to die as well.

It summed up, in a sense, the bankruptcy
of the system they'd served.

Hitler is now being burnt,
he is now finally being destroyed.

Now Hitler and Eva are mere embers,
there's an even more daunting task.

To inform the world.

[Emma] As so often, when a dictator dies,

it takes a long time
for the people around him

to actually kind of come to terms
with what's happened

and admit it publicly.

They pretend that Hitler is still alive.

Goebbels, the man tasked with party
communications for the last decade,

remains tight-lipped.

This delay will give him and Bormann
a final opportunity

for a negotiated surrender to the Red Army

without consulting the new head of state,
Dönitz.

But, for Goebbels,
the new Reich Chancellor,

his only attempt at international
negotiation ends in abject failure.

It's not until 10:53am the following day

that Bormann eventually telegrams Dönitz,
and the news soon spreads.

Hitler has killed himself
and his last testament is in force.

HITLER IS DEAD

The news quickly reaches Hitler's former
friend, Armaments Minister Albert Speer.

[Richard]
When he heard about Hitler's suicide,

he picked up the picture Hitler had given
him and wept at the sight of the picture.

But he then wrote in his memoirs

that that was when the bond finished,
the spell was broken.

For Bormann,
Hitler's death has broken no spell,

but it has loosened his grip on power.

His telegram was an attempt
to keep hold of it.

There's this pathetic telegram
that Bormann sends to Dönitz,

informing Dönitz that he's now
the Reich President

but says,
"I will bring you written authorisation."

Now, this, I suggest, is the mark of a man

who's desperate to cling on
to these levers of power,

i.e., I, Martin Bormann will bring you
the authorisation, only I can do this.

It's nonsense, the telegram is enough,

the order transmitted by Hitler
is enough.

But it does give Bormann a reason
to escape the bunker.

For the deeply fanatical Goebbels
and his wife Magda,

escape doesn't even enter their minds.

There is only one thing left to do.

They'll follow Hitler to the last.

With Hitler's death, the new Chancellor
of Germany, albeit very briefly,

Joseph Goebbels and his wife
know that they're next.

They're terrified, they're going to die
and they're going to do it to each other.

But first,
they need to deal with the children.

Magda has her children sedated
and she poisons them with cyanide.

[Michael] She couldn't live in a world
without National Socialism

and that's one of
the most powerful comments from an insider

on the whole character of the takeover

of rationality and normality
by the Nazi regime.

An hour after poisoning her children,
Magda is seen playing cards,

pale, red-eyed, stony-faced
and smoking endlessly.

She sat and played Patience.

Now, you say, how inhuman,
but what else would she do?

What else could you do
when you'd killed your own children?

Later that evening,
Magda bites into her cyanide capsule

and Goebbels delivers the coup de grâce,
shooting her in the back of the head.

[pistol shot]

Then he bites on his own capsule
and shoots himself in the temple.

[pistol shot]

It's a proof of utter loyalty
that Goebbels and Magda

will follow Hitler, the leader
of their inner circle, to death itself.

SS guards douse the bodies in petrol

but there isn't enough left
to set fire to them properly.

Even in death, Goebbels plays
second string to Hitler.

There's not enough petrol left
for Goebbels,

and so, of course,
what's left of Goebbels,

this sort of contorted, burnt,
charred corpse, hideous in itself,

but not fully consumed in the flames
like his master.

With everyone else either fled or dead,

the inner circle now consists of one man:
Martin Bormann.

For decades, he has snooped, manipulated,

and done whatever it takes
to increase his power.

[Michael]
Bormann is a man with self-interest

uppermost in his mind at this point.

One can't see him staying and dying.

[Thomas] Bormann's triumph at the end
of the war is really bittersweet.

Finally, in the dying days
of the Third Reich,

he has become the number two
but he knows the party is over.

The reality is Bormann is head of a party
that no longer exists.

Any power he had went up in smoke
along with Hitler's corpse.

The only way to regain it is to make the
400-kilometre trip to Dönitz in Flensburg.

[dogs bark]

I mean,
it's an incredibly ambitious journey.

Specifically, to get to the north.

And he could definitely hope
to become indispensible to Dönitz,

as he has been to Hitler, and this is
a man he could hope to control.

And I imagine that's a sort of fantasy

that keeps him going,
as he makes his escape.

Bormann is desperate to get out,
he's desperate to get up to the north,

he's desperate to join the new government.

Bormann packs Hitler's last will
and testament in his briefcase.

He still wants to feel
like he's almost literally carrying

the Führer's authority with him,
even though the actual person is dead.

There is no Adolf Hitler anymore.

If he's going to make it to Flensburg,

first he'll need to get through
the Russian lines.

I think we see that actually faced
with the Führer's death,

he still has an urge to survive.

He wants to protect his own skin.
He makes an attempt to get away.

Five days later, there is total
and unconditional surrender.

[Richard] Though Hitler wouldn't
surrender, didn't want to surrender,

there really was no choice
and Dönitz, who'd now been made

the president of the new Germany,

sent an emissary to Eisenhower's
headquarters and, on May 7th,

signed the paper saying
we surrender unconditionally.

As for Martin Bormann, he didn't make it
anywhere near Dönitz's headquarters.

After stumbling out of the bunker
in the early hours,

eyewitnesses claim Bormann
was terrified, silent and disorientated.

The Russians are right there,

and he knows if he's captured
by the Russians, he'll be tortured,

and he'll never see the light of day.

It's thought that at the sight
of approaching Soviet troops,

he had taken his own life.

[gunshot]

Three weeks later, as the Allies occupy
Germany, Heinrich Himmler is on the run.

Himmler, interestingly,
as the leader of SS,

you would expect he would fight
in the ruins of the Chancellery in Berlin.

But this was not the case.

In May 1945, Himmler is finally captured
by the British in Northern Germany.

But during a medical examination,
he bites down on a cyanide capsule.

The cowardly murderer of millions
takes the easy way out.

[soundtrack only]

Hermann Göring,
the flamboyant former fighter ace,

has also been captured by the Allies.

[Michael] And he is offended when
they ask him to allow him to be searched

and he finds that very distressing

because he's a soldier, he says,
as well as an air-force leader,

and that he claimed
that he should be treated with honour.

Göring is imprisoned
at a converted luxury hotel.

With characteristic arrogance,

he still believes he can talk his way
out of trouble.

Göring then thinks because
he'd been so high in the Nazi hierarchy,

he can do a deal with the Allies
and treats the Allies

as if they were simply diplomats
and he's one of them.

But Göring is mistaken.

Six months later,
the Nuremberg trials begin.

...here the respective age groups...

They will last almost a year.

Sat beside Göring is
his one-time inner-circle colleague,

former deputy Führer and Hitler disciple
Rudolf Hess.

Hess had been jailed in Britain ever since
he'd flown to Scotland four years earlier,

on a crazed solo mission
to try to make peace with Britain.

Now, reunited with Göring,
their day of reckoning has arrived.

Ever the showman, Hermann Göring
confidently denies any knowledge

of what went on
in Nazi concentration camps.

I plead not guilty.

He paints himself
as a peaceful diplomat...

...and insists everything they'd done
was the result of their patriotism.

Göring's defence was,
I'm here because we lost the war.

If we'd won the war,
you would be here in the dock.

Despite his spirited performance,

Göring is sentenced to death
for war crimes.

But just two hours before his sentence
is carried out, a phial of cyanide,

thought to be smuggled in by a guard,
allows him to escape the hangman's noose.

Albert Speer denies knowledge
of the Holocaust

and denounces the crimes of Hitler
and the Nazi regime.

He's jailed for 20 years...

...and when released,
paints himself as the Good Nazi.

Only after his death at the age of 76
does the truth come out.

The last man alive is Rudolf Hess.

Serving a life sentence in Spandau,
Berlin,

in 1987, at the age of 93,

he hangs himself
in the prison-garden summer house.

Hitler's inner circle had been forged
in the ashes of the First World War.

Misfits and war heroes
united by a sense of betrayal...

...a twisted ideology
and a thirst for revenge.

Only circumstance could've created the
conditions for them to do what they did.

Determined and cunning,
they had capitalised

on their nation's discontent
and deceived their countrymen

to rise to positions of ultimate power.

But personal ambition and jealousy

had seen them turn on each other
in bloody betrayal.

There's a bitterness underlying it,
and if one adds personal rivalry to that,

you have a very powerful,
explosive quality to it.

It was a regime in which all power
derived from one man.

It's all about Hitler.
He is the heart of the inner circle,

and without that heart,
the whole thing falls apart.

In the end, the only legacy
of Adolf Hitler's inner circle

is the terrible knowledge
of how a few twisted individuals

could plunge the world into conflict...

[gunfire]

...and of the horror that human beings
can inflict on their fellow man.