All language subtitles for Hitler_ From Homeless to Monster

Vienna, 1910.

Adolf Hitler has no fixed abode.

He's 21 years old and manages to secure
a place in this men's hostel.

To earn some money, he sells paintings
of postcards to tourists.

Adolf Hitler is of no importance a
nobody.

And yet, 30 years later, he'd be the
most powerful man in Germany.

A man prepared to go to any lengths to
achieve his goals.

who would plunge the German people and
the entire world into the 20th century's

most murderous conflict, the Second
World War.

Six years of war and 65 million dead,
including 6 million Jews exterminated in

death camps, a wound seared forever into
the collective consciousness.

Adolf Hitler is the most bloodstained
figure in human history.

The extermination of the Jews went on
hour after hour, without a pause, day

night, sometimes as many as 10 ,000
people a day.

Hitler is conscious of what he's doing,
and he's conscious of the potential

consequences of his actions.

How, after living that early bohemian
life, did Adolf Hitler become the

architect of the final solution?

What path did this son of a customs
officer take to become the head of

One man, a passionate historian, has
traveled the world to establish the most

exhaustive chronology yet of this
journey.

Harold Sandner has spent over 20 years
picking apart Adolf Hitler's life hour

hour.

Where was he during these early years
and as he waged war?

Where did he make his most momentous
decisions?

Wherever Hitler was, that's where the
power was. He was the very embodiment of

an absolute dictator.

More than 70 years after Hitler's death,
Harold Santner has even uncovered

numerous inaccuracies in the most
serious biographies.

There are something like 80 biographies
of Hitler, but there are always mistakes

in some of the information.

We went to some of these places where
Hitler once lived.

Their present owners exceptionally
allowing us access.

Some even agreed to speak for the first
time.

From France to Austria, via Germany and
Belgium, we went searching for the final

traces left by the dictator to
understand the ascent of a monster.

This is the itinerary of Adolf Hitler.

October 1918.

The First World War is coming to an end.

Adolf Hitler has been in the German army
for the last four years, but the young

soldier has to leave the front line,
having been partially blinded by a gas

attack.

He learns of Germany's defeat from his
hospital bed.

Adolf Hitler is devastated.

The defeat of 1918 was an absolute
tragedy for him, particularly

because he hadn't expected it.

Nobody in the government or the army had
said there was going to be a defeat.

Everyone thought they would win.

Hitler, like many Germans, believed that
the defeat has been caused by enemies

on the inside.

Politicians, but not only them.

The Jews were a perfect scapegoat for
the loss of World War I.

He perceives the Jews as the secret
guiding hand behind all of

the other political movements pushed for
the signing of the punitive peace at

Versailles.

The year 1919 marked the beginning of
his anti -Semitic tirade. But why did

Adolf Hitler bear such hatred for the
Jews?

And how did he go from hatred to mass
murder?

A look back at the life of the man
behind the world's worst ever crime

humanity.

Adolf Hitler was born in Brunau am Inn,
a small town in Upper Austria near the

Bavarian border.

It was on the second floor of this
former inn that his mother, Clara

gave birth to him on the 20th of April
1889 at 6 .30 in the evening.

His father, a civil servant in customs
and excise, was named Alois Hitler.

We accompanied Harold Sadner to Hitler's
place of birth, where it all began,

where the monster was born.

It's hard to imagine how this little
baby grew up to be a mass murderer.

The baby is by nature innocent.

No one could have imagined how Adolf
Hitler would turn out.

This will quite probably be the last
ever film of Hitler's birthplace.

The Austrian government plans to
demolish the building to obliterate all

of the dictator.

Shortly after his birth, the Hitler
family moved into this building just a

distance up the road.

Hitler was only a few weeks old.

On the 2nd of May, 1895, his father was
promoted to the post of Inspector of

Customs in Linz.

So at the age of six, Adolf Hitler
started going to this small school in

Fischlheim, to the southwest of Linz.

The dictator would return here and
triumph on the 12th of June, 1939.

This color film was shot by Eva Braun,
later to become his wife.

Back in his old school, he was quite
moved.

He let these feelings from his childhood
well up because his primary schooling

had been rather good, unlike his later
schooling, which was somewhat less

satisfactory.

Through these images, Adolf Hitler
presented himself to the Germans as a

pupil destined to have a brilliant
political career.

Pure propaganda, because the reality had
been very different.

On the whole, Hitler had been a poor
student, only doing well in certain

subjects that he liked.

In the end, he left school without any
qualifications.

He hated school, he hated his teachers,
and his teachers described him as lazy.

While Adolf Hitler showed little
interest in school, he enjoyed playing

fields, especially at war, in which he
took the lead role.

He was a born leader who liked to be in
charge and boss his little friends

around.

But what he liked most of all was
drawing.

He loved drawing, and his family was
very admiring of his efforts.

So at the age of 13 or 14, he decided
that he was going to be an artist, a

painter.

But his chosen vocation as an artist was
not at all to his father's liking.

Alois Hitler wanted his son to follow in
his footsteps and become a civil

servant like him.

When his father Alois found out that his
son preferred drawing, he became

aggressive and violent, regularly
beating his son.

The clearest testimony is that of his
sister, Paola, who said he often got a

beating, but forced himself to remain
stoic as he took the blows, neither

nor begging.

In 1903, a tragic event gave him the
chance to try to realize his dream.

His father died.

Hitler was 13 years old.

Henceforth, nothing and no one could
stand in his way.

In September 1907, just after turning
18, Hitler decided to leave the province

of Linz to go to the capital, Vienna.

Once there, Hitler presented himself for
the entrance exam for the Vienna

Academy of Fine Arts. The selection was
very strict.

The selection at the Academy has always
been strict and remains strict to this

day. Of the 113 applicants, only 28 were
accepted.

Adolf Hitler had no qualifications, but
this did not put him off.

Hitler entered the exam fully expecting
to be selected.

If there's one thing that characterized
him throughout his life, it's that he

never doubted his own talent. He was
always sure that his talent would be

recognized.

Here are some of his drawings from that
time.

But Hitler was rejected.

His lack of originality was held against
him.

But not only that.

Hitler didn't do any preparation work,
thinking that his inspiration alone

be enough to win over the examiners. We
now know that he failed the entrance for

the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts twice.

Adolf Hitler found this rejection hard
to stomach.

In his book Mein Kampf, written years
later, he described this day as the

moment of his life.

It was a trauma he spoke about to no
one.

He was ashamed and humiliated at his
failure and simply did not want to have

to talk about it.

From November 1907, Hitler went back
regularly to Linz.

Only two months after his rejection by
the Academy of Fine Arts, the young man

found out that his mother was dying.

Clara Hitler had breast cancer.

She was being treated by a Dr. Bloch,
who was Jewish.

He was distraught.

For as much as he'd hated his father, he
absolutely adored his mother.

His mother succumbing to this disease
marked him for life.

It was in this building in the center of
Linz that Hitler spent days on end at

his mother's bedside.

Harold Santner only managed to locate it
after years of research.

This is the first time its owner has
allowed members of the foreign media

inside.

Here we are in Clara Hitler's bedroom.

Her bed was somewhere around here.

What we now know is that once his mother
was bedridden, Hitler placed his own

bed next to hers so he could be there
all night to tend to her in case she

needed anything.

Clara Hitler passed away in this room on
the 21st of December 1907 at 2 o 'clock

in the morning.

Adolf Hitler drew her one last time on
her deathbed.

His mother was all the world to him.

You could say that his mother was the
only woman he ever loved with a deep,

genuine love.

Right up to his death, he carried a
photo of her in his wallet.

On the day of the funeral, the young
Hitler warmly thanked Dr. Bloch for his

care and promised him his eternal
gratitude.

And even though his anti -Semitic
policies caused the death of millions of

years later he kept his word.

As Fuhrer, Hitler spared the doctor's
life, letting him escape to the United

States.

He used an expression for block that he
never used for anyone else, Edeljude, or

noble Jew.

excluding him from the category in which
he placed all other Jews.

Adolf Hitler was crushed by the loss of
his mother.

Back in Vienna, he lived in this
building at Strumpelgasse 31, a

location rediscovered by Harold Sandner.

Many documentaries erroneously claim
that he lived in the yellow building

door.

False information persistently peddled
by the Third Reich and taken, unchecked,

at face value by the media ever since.

I suppose that at the time they wanted
to show a more attractive building, the

one next door, because they didn't want
people to know that, in fact, Hitler had

lived in a bit of a dump.

The young Hitler was living off the
money left him by his mother.

and was sinking gradually into
depression.

He was living a bohemian life.

He wasn't working, wasn't training for
anything, wasn't studying.

He was a young man who rarely got up
before noon.

And he was still like that even after he
became Chancellor.

Hitler lived off this money until the
summer of 1909, when he could no longer

pay his rent, and found himself out on
the street.

Some nights he slept on public benches,
until the winter came, when he took

refuge in homeless shelters.

By day, he'd queue up at this convent,
where the nuns ran a soup kitchen.

At the age of 20, Adolf Hitler was
homeless.

He had nothing. He was a nobody.

He had no future.

In 1910 he moved into this men's hostel,
which is now a very modern retirement

home.

He scraped a living by selling paintings
he did of postcards to tourists.

This marginal life went on for several
years.

But in Hitler's mind, none of this was
his fault.

He simmered with rage against the elite.
They alone were responsible for the

situation he found himself in.

And the elite were short -sighted, of
course, because they couldn't see the

genius of the young Adolf. This is
something we notice here, and it's a

character trait.

He never questioned himself.

And his enemies among the Austrian elite
were clearly identified by Hitler.

The Jews.

At the time, they held important
positions in the economic and cultural

Vienna.

In 1913, Vienna was one of the most
virulently anti -Semitic cities in

Hitler has good reason to place the
development of his anti -Semitism in

Vienna had a large Jewish population.
Nearly 10 % of the city's population was

Jewish.

Hitler claimed in Mein Kampf that it was
at this time that his anti -Semitism

developed.

But historians today are doubtful about
some of his autobiographical claims.

He lied, of course, about his life up to
that point.

He lied about having no qualifications.

He lied about having never really had a
job. And no one knew.

Mein Kampf is a piece of propaganda.

It's a fictional autobiography, the
purpose of which was to create the Adolf

Hitler myth.

On August 1st, 1914, Germany declared
war on Russia.

This was the beginning of the First
World War.

Hitler was an Austrian national, but he
volunteered to enlist in the German

army.

Hitler considered himself an Austrian
and a German.

He thought they should form one nation
and that all the Germanic people should

live under the same roof.

He saw this conflict as an opportunity
to change his miserable fate.

At a large patriotic gathering at
Odeonsplatz, an historic square in

Hitler was bursting with enthusiasm, as
this photograph shows.

On this photo, he's brimming over with
enthusiasm, almost in a trance.

This war was his chance to forge an
identity for himself.

From the 17th of March, 1915, his
regiment fought in the trenches near

small village in northern France.

For a year now, Adolf Hitler had been a
courier in the 16th Regiment of the

Bavarian Infantry.

This is the very bunker from which he'd
ensure communications between the

battalions on the front and the staff
headquarters, delivering messages.

This is an unprecedented find, revealed
by our research.

Adolf Hitler's role was not particularly
glorious, but was all the same

essential and decidedly dangerous.

Objectively speaking, Hitler was a very
good soldier. He conscientiously obeyed

orders. His superiors knew they could
always count on him.

The rest of the time, Hitler would
sometimes stay in this house in Furn -on

-Wepp, a village a few kilometers from
the front.

In all, he would remain on French soil
for about a year and a half.

All of a sudden, Hitler was enlisted,
institutionalized and taken care of.

He had no worries about money or getting
enough to eat.

He found a place for himself in the
army, and he was happy there.

There was meaning to his life.

Here he is with his comrades.

His face is thinner, with a long
mustache.

He's unrecognizable as the Hitler we
know.

His army companions were his new family.

There was no longer anyone close to him,
and he got on well enough with his new

comrades.

They described him as a solitary and not
very sociable young man, but they all

acknowledged his courage and
determination.

In December 1914, he was made a corporal
and was decorated with an Iron Cross

Class II.

his first ever accolade, and something
he'd wear for the rest of his life.

His Iron Cross in 1914 was quite simply
the first social distinction he'd ever

had. It was very important to a young
man of 25 who'd hitherto never achieved

anything.

Hitler was incredibly proud of it.

When Germany lost the First World War,
the young soldier's life fell apart.

He did all he could to stay in the army,
having no wish to leave it.

He decided to stay on in the army
because he had no home to go to and he

an income.

In February 1919, Munich was in the
hands of the revolutionary far left.

The army top brass was afraid that
Bolshevik movements like this would end

contaminating the troops.

It was in this context that Karl Mayer,
the head of the intelligence service,

urgently recruited propaganda agents
whose job it was to spread the right

ideology among the troops.

Hitler was a perfect candidate.

Hitler had been known during the war for
holding forth at great length to his

comrades. He was incapable of engaging
in a two -way discussion, but he could

talk and talk and talk.

It was this thought that he could uphold
the political morale of the troops and

lead them along the right path of
nationalism.

Adolf Hitler was sent on the first
series of training courses for anti

-Bolshevik instructors held at the
University of Munich.

The lectures in economy, delivered by a
certain Gottfried Feder, particularly

held his interest.

They were based on virulent anti
-Semitism and had a powerful influence

Hitler.

All of this helped Hitler piece together
his own doctrine, which was a lot more

radical and unequivocal than Feder's.

By August 1919, his hatred of the Jews
had become an obsession.

and he expressed it in a letter of four
typed pages sent to a soldier.

This is the very letter which we were
able to track down in the United States.

It's the first anti -Semitic text by
Hitler containing almost the entire

Nazi doctrine, expressing as it does his
opinion on the Jewish question.

They're parasites, sucking the lifeblood
of all the peoples on earth, being

incapable of founding their own state or
living off their own work and labor

like everyone else.

They're a parasite with a capital P.

At the end of the letter, he couldn't be
any more explicit.

The final objective, the goal to aim
for, must be the removal of the Jews.

This was the first time Hitler revealed
what would later be the driving force of

his anti -Semitic actions, the idea that
the state must organize the anti

-Semitism and rid the German territory,
the German society, once and for all, of

all citizens of Jewish ancestry.

His anti -Semitism had become the
central pillar of his thinking.

Adolf Hitler was at the time just a
lowly army NCO, but the year 1919 would

turning point in his ascent.

In September 1919, in a Munich beer
hall, Adolf Hitler met Anton Drexler,

of the DAP, the German Workers' Party, a
small Bavarian far -right group, both

ultra -nationalist and... The program

called for the unification of all
Germans in a single state. It called for

denaturalization of Jewish citizens of
Germany.

It was a decisive encounter.

A few days later, Hitler decided to join
the party.

Karl Mayer is benefactor in the army.

encouraged him to become a card
-carrying member.

To this end, he allocated Hitler secret
funds, making him henceforth a full

-time propagandist.

Adolf Hitler's political career was
launched.

On October 16, 1919, he gave his first
speech to the members of the German

Workers' Party in this beer hall in the
center of Munich.

the half -brow killer.

That evening, he spoke in front of a
hundred or so people, fascinating them

his powers of oratory.

His performance was cheered.

And saying they were fascinated isn't
just a figure of speech, it really was a

sort of enchantment.

He was getting some recognition.

That was a very positive thing for him,
and it increased his confidence.

This speech marked the beginning of a
long successful period, the beginning of

his political ascent.

Very soon, Adolf Hitler became the star
speaker of the DAP, which was later

renamed the NSDAP, the Nationalist
Socialist German Workers' Party.

Faced with such popularity, Hitler
started working on his speeches like a

professional actor, preparing them down
to the smallest detail.

His strength is above all as a speaker,
as a powerful speaker, very energetic.

Unlike modern politicians, he writes all
his own speeches.

He worked on the intonations of his
voice, on his gestures, on the rhythm of

speeches.

Two years later, one evening in February
1921, the Circus Corona, one of the

biggest venues in Munich, was full to
bursting.

Almost 6 ,000 people had come to listen
to Adolf Hitler and cheer.

His speeches were certainly radical, but
the militants relating to his words

were all won over.

He was expressing what many didn't dare
say, that they had to tear up

the Treaty of Versailles, that democracy
was not a political regime suited to

Germany, and that the Jews were
responsible for all that.

People liked hearing this at the time,
because economically, Germany was in a

really bad place. These speeches helped
the party to constantly attract

new members.

From 200 at the end of 1919 to 3 ,300 in
August 1921, finally reaching 55

,000 people by the end of 1923.

This popularity was a consecration for
Hitler.

In 1921, the former homeless layabout
became the leader of the Nazi party.

His ambition was now huge.

He wanted to become the leader of an
entire nation.

In the 1920s, Adolf Hitler lived in this
apartment on the Tiersklasse in Munich.

A harmless -looking location, but in
reality a place symbolic of his

rise to power.

We tracked down this apartment in the
center of Munich.

Its present -day owner agreed to let us
in and, for the first time, she agreed

to speak.

I heard that the neighbors were
frightened every time they opened the

door. They didn't want to go past his
apartment because they thought they

be there when there was an attempt on
his life.

By some tragic or ironic coincidence,
the owner of the building was Jewish.

His name was Hugo Erlanger.

He owned a men's clothing shop on the
ground floor.

He said that when he passed Hitler on
the stairs, he was perfectly pleasant to

him.

The two men would cross paths regularly.

Erlanger would have no inkling that he
would be one of the numerous victims of

Hitler's anti -Semitic policy 13 years
later.

One month after Hitler became
Chancellor, Erlanger's building was

In 1938, Hugo Erlanger was sent to
Dachau concentration camp.

But an exception to the general rule, he
left safe and sound only after a

month's detention.

He survived World War II and had some
difficulty getting back

his apartment house. He finally did in
1949.

In 1922, Hitler enjoyed a meteoric
political rise.

He increased the meetings in beer halls,
gatherings which were not without risk.

The party decided to recruit 300
musclemen to secure its protection

attack.

One of the leaders was Ernst Röhm.

This paramilitary organization was named
the SA, for Sturmabteilung, or Assault

Division, and mainly consisted of former
soldiers.

Later on, the SA would take on political
opponents, fighting them in the street.

They were basically just a bunch of
thugs.

These were the men who would help him
grab power several years later.

Not a week went by without the press
printing something about the Nazi party.

The newspapers were full of their
excesses. So Hitler decided to haul

the top through violence.

He would carry out a putsch.

He was very inspired by Mussolini's
march on Rome.

And with the prevailing widespread
poverty and hyperinflation, he judged

moment right to seize power in Munich.

On November 8, 1923, the Nazi leader
took hostage certain members of the

Bavarian government who were having a
meeting in a beer hall in Munich.

He was confident that, with the support
of his 2 ,000 SA men, he could seize

power.

Hitler strode inside, and after firing
his pistol at the ceiling to silence the

crowd, said, the German revolution has
begun.

There then ensued negotiations between
Hitler and the triumvirate governing

Bavaria, and an agreement was reached
that they should march on Berlin.

The putsch had apparently got off to a
good start.

But during the night, the Bavarian
authorities dropped their support for

initiators. Hitler and General
Ludendorff.

So the next morning, the two men
organized a protest march on the

Defense Ministry.

But popular support failed to
materialize, and Hitler had

forces of law and order.

They clashed with the police, and there
was gunfire.

In the end, the police sprayed the
leaders of the demonstration with

killing many.

Hitler's bodyguard jumped in front of
him and was hit by 11 bullets.

Hitler would certainly have been killed
if not for his intervention.

He escaped with a minor wound to his
left shoulder.

Adolf Hitler was miraculously lucky.

Throughout his life, the dictator
escaped nearly 11 attempts on his life.

The last of these took place during the
war on the 20th of July 1944 in his

headquarters in Poland.

But once again, Hitler emerged
unscathed.

And he was sure he knew why.

He was convinced that he was protected
by God.

And each attempt he survived merely
reinforced this conviction.

After the failed putsch attempt, Hitler
fled.

He was taken by car to the town of
Uffing am Staffelssee, an hour's drive

Munich.

Once there, they hid the car in the
forest and continued on foot.

He arrived about seven in the evening,
taking refuge in a house owned by the

Hanschstangl couple.

This was one of Harold Sandler's most
important discoveries.

Hitler believed he was safe here because
the Austrian border was not far away.

But he was wrong.

He was found two days later by the
police.

The police showed up in front of the
building on November 11, 1923.

Hitler knew it was all over. He said,
this is it.

I'd rather die than get arrested by
those pigs.

He picked up his revolver and held it to
his head. But Helen Hanfstengel took it

out of his hand, thereby saving his
life.

Wearing pajamas and a blue dressing
gown, he was arrested on the 11th of

November, 1923.

Hitler believed this was the end of the
Nazi party and his leadership.

In 1924 he, Ernest Röhm, and General
Ludendorff went on trial in Munich for

treason.

The head of the Nazi party used the
trial as a platform for presenting his

defeat as a victory and himself as the
savior of the fatherland.

Hitler always rose to the occasion
before an audience, and he realized that

some of the judges were sympathetic to
his cause, and all of them were serving

the Republic reluctantly.

With the press reporting his speeches
during the trial, Hitler used it as a

medium of propaganda.

It was a plan that worked to perfection.

Very soon, he became the star of the
trial.

In the end, Hitler was sentenced to five
years in Landsberg prison.

But his performances had made him famous
throughout the whole of Germany.

This was where Hitler began his period
of incarceration, in altogether quite

pleasant conditions.

Landsberg was a five -star prison.

The leader of the Nazi party received
gift packages from all over Germany.

He was known as the prisoner of honor,
was shown respect, and could have

visitors whenever he wished.

At the time, Bavaria was very right
-wing.

The government was very indulgent with
its prisoner.

A communist prisoner wouldn't have
enjoyed the same conditions.

things would have been a lot tougher.

Once in prison, Hitler had time on his
hands.

He decided to put this to good use,
synthesizing his ideas into a political

program.

With the help of fellow prisoner Rudolf
Hess, the future deputy Fuhrer, he wrote

Mein Kampf, My Struggle, a mostly
romanticized autobiography in which he

presented as a hero.

It was his only way of continuing to
express himself freely from his cell.

In his book, Hitler developed his ultra
-nationalistic arguments, insisting on

the superiority of the Germanic race.

In his opinion, Jews were subhumans who
had to be eliminated.

In Mein Kampf, the Jews are parasites,

germs, vermin.

They're totally useless on this earth
and are in fact positively harmful.

There was nothing new about anti
-Semitism in Germany and Austria, but it

reached its peak with Hitler.

In Mein Kampf, Hitler uses the word
eradicate to evoke the sort of fate he

envisages for the Jews.

This is quite clearly expressed in
German. It's a synonym for destroy and

His theory of the primacy of the Aryan
race would determine his foreign policy.

Germany would first have to reunite all
those countries with a Germanic

population.

Then it would expand into Russia after
having destroyed the French army.

In just those few lines, he seemed to
have predicted the Second World War.

The book is a warning that if Germans
don't take these steps, the German

nation will become extinct.

Henceforth, Hitler was a changed man
with a new attitude.

Once out of prison, he was convinced
that he was the savior of the nation.

On December 20, 1924, Adolf Hitler was
released from prison after completing

only 13 months of his sentence.

Fired up anew, he decided to set about
conquering Germany again, but this time

he was going to do so using the
democratic process.

It appeared obvious to him that he could
use democracy as a means to achieve his

ends and then get rid of it.

On October 5, 1929, Hitler left his
lodgings on Tierschstrasse and moved

into this luxurious apartment on
Munich's Prinzregentsplatz.

Having lived in a flat measuring 12
square meters and then one of 50 square

meters, He was now living in a 400
-square -meter, nine -room apartment.

Today it's a police station.

He'd never have come up so far in the
world without the support of some major

German fortunes.

Hitler was able to afford the apartment
thanks to increasingly large donations

from his partisans and certain well -off
figures.

He was also, of course, receiving
royalties from his book, Mein Kampf.

Thanks to his financial backers, he now
had at his disposal considerable funds

with which to organize a massive
electoral campaign.

This was a first in Germany.

The leader of the Nazi party traveled
only by plane, enabling him to hold up

four rallies per day.

Hitler became a major political player,
followed everywhere by the German media.

Hitler was the first politician, really,
to use the media in a deliberate way.

He recorded his speeches on records and
sold them.

He was also the first politician to
charge an entrance fee for coming and

listening to him speak.

And he used the proceeds to finance his
party.

In his speeches, Adolf Hitler heaped
promise after promise on his potential

electors with grand eloquent slogans.

We're going to make Germany great again.
We're going to get Germany back to work

when there's 37 % unemployed.

We're going to revise the Treaty of
Versailles.

He made it quite clear that they would
ban the other 32 political parties in

Germany, but even this didn't seem to
shock the German public much.

While the Nazi Party was only pulling 3
% of the vote in the late 1920s, this

rose to 20 % in 1930, and then on the
31st of July 1932, the Nazis became the

largest party in Parliament.

But none of this would have happened if
not for the Great Depression of 1929.

Nearly 7 million Germans were
unemployed, while the country was

struggling to pay its reparation for the
First World War.

It was all too easy to stir up the
German people's bitterness about that

My father told me that he voted for
Hitler because the poverty was too much

bear.

Along came this party, which promised
bread and work.

So he joined them.

On January 30, 1933, Adolf Hitler
achieved his goal.

He was made chancellor.

The little troublemaker from Bavaria had
become the most powerful man in

Germany. His one remaining obstacle was
the president of the Reich, Paul von

Hindenburg.

Once in power, Hitler lost no time
establishing a dictatorship.

It all began on February 28, 1933, with
an arson attack on the Reichstag, the

German parliament.

Exactly how it started is still a matter
of conjecture.

What we do know for sure is that Hitler
and the Nazis immediately used it to

their ends.

Claiming that it was a communist plot,
they used it as a pretext for

communists.

Not only did they start arresting
communists after the Reichstag fire, but

forced Hindenburg to sign a decree
suspending key civil liberties, saying

it was only temporary.

In fact, the decree remained in force in
one form or another until May 8, 1945.

And Hitler didn't stop there.

He dismantled the institutions of the
republic.

The press was censored, and on the 24th
of March 1933, he had the Enabling Act

passed, whereby the cabinet, in effect
Hitler, could enact laws for four years

without involving parliament.

From that point on, it was a
totalitarian regime.

In the following months, all other
parties were either dissolved or forced

commit harakiri.

except for the Nazi party.

At the same time, the first
concentration camp opened its gates at

taking in political opponents of the
regime.

Once securely in power, Hitler had just
one idea in mind, making Germany the

greatest nation of all time.

He turned the country into one huge
worksite, building railways and

The initial need was to get the economy
back on its feet, providing the

unemployed with jobs, and then showing
that Nazism wasn't some medieval regime,

but that it was the very embodiment of
modernity and German technological

genius.

The public works were basically being
carried out for military ends.

The highways would make it easier for
the army and its tanks to move swiftly

around the country, because the
dictator's ultimate goal was none other

wage war.

When Hitler comes to power, he
immediately plans for a war. He tells

the army generals to get their support,
that he's going to have a new European

war.

But first he had to get rid of the SA.

the assault divisions which formed a
sort of state within the state,

permanent revolution.

The SA's ambition was ultimately to form
the top brass of the new German army.

They wanted to infiltrate the military,
but obviously the traditional officers

were not well disposed to making room
for these lower class upstarts.

The Fuhrer decided, therefore, to
sacrifice the SA because without the

support he could see his project for war
coming to nothing.

This is the town of Bad Wiese.

On the 30th of June, 1934, Hitler
summoned a hundred or so SA leaders to

hotel.

They all thought they were coming to
attend a conference and have a few days'

holiday. Far from it.

Hitler had hatched a Machiavellian plan.

Hitler had set up a trap for the SA
chiefs, and they were all caught in it.

Hitler wanted to get rid of all of them
over the coming days.

In place, he decided to deal personally
with Ernst Röhm.

the head of the SA, one of very few
people on close personal terms with him.

It was 6 .45 in the morning when Hitler
came up the steps, pistol in hand, and

went toward Ernst Prohm's room.

He opened the door, pointed his gun at
him and said, Prohm, you're under

Rome was hauled away there and then by
Hitler's personal bodyguard along with

all the other SA leaders on the same
floor of the hotel.

The arrests were heavy -handed and
Hitler had taken every precaution in

things got violent.

I remember my father telling me that the
village carpenter was brought in to

screw all the tables and benches to the
floor so they couldn't be thrown around.

They really thought there'd be a big
fight.

In the following days, all the SA chiefs
were murdered in cold blood in Munich

and Berlin.

Ernst Röhm himself was executed in his
cell on the 2nd of July, 1934.

This will quite probably be the last
ever film of Hotel Hanselbauer.

It's due to be demolished in the next
few months, taking with it the bloody

history of the Night of the Long Knives.

The dictator had a completely free hand
to rule the country when, just a month

later, Paul von Hindenburg died.

The president of the Reich alone had had
the power to dismiss him.

Hitler took on all the functions of the
president, meaning that he now possessed

ultimate power and was head of the armed
forces.

Henceforth, his main goal was to rearm
Germany in preparation for a new war.

The dictator had been dreaming of
revenge since the defeat of 1918.

Hitler was obsessed with war.

It was the basis of his political
program.

But it was also a value all by itself.

As far as he was concerned, Germany
could only know happiness through

success.

But he hid his warmongering intentions
from the whole world.

The German Navy Museum claimed that the
dictator was visiting a U -boat there on

the 28th of September 1935.

We now know, however, that the photo had
been taken a month earlier.

In fact, on the 28th of September, he
was at the Krupp AG in the Ruhr region.

The industrial group was a producer of
steel, but above all, of weapons.

Hitler visited several times in total
secrecy because the Treaty of Versailles

specifically banned any rearming of the
country.

Just one example among many of the
Fuhrer's intentions to keep what he was

planning hidden.

A year later he decided it was time to
begin hostilities.

The first decisive step was on the 7th
of March 1936.

when he sent military forces into the
Rhineland, a demilitarized German region

since the defeat of 1918.

In doing so, he was taking a
considerable risk.

By doing this, he was violating the
Treaty of Versailles, thereby putting

himself in danger of a military
intervention by the treaty's

But neither France nor Great Britain
reacted.

A first victory for the Fuhrer.

whom nothing appeared to divert from his
goals.

That is greeted with absolute hysteria
by Hitler's supporters.

He's got back control of the country.
He's got control of its borders again in

military sense.

The consecration came for Hitler on the
12th of March 1938 with the Anschluss,

Germany's annexation of Austria.

His dream of uniting the German
-speaking nations had become a reality.

In 1938, in his Eagle's Nest hideaway in
Bavaria, the dictator was already

drawing up plans for future conquests.

After Austria, his heart was set next on
Czechoslovakia.

Hitler dreamt of war because it echoed
the battle raging inside him.

The title of his book, Mein Kampf, My
Struggle or My Fight, shows how combat

something inherent in his personality.

It was always in Hitler's plan to kill
hundreds of thousands, even millions of

people.

Even the deaths of Germans don't really
touch Hitler. They are a part of

his view of the history of human
struggle.

On September 1st, 1939, he invaded
Poland, thereby plunging the world into

greatest armed conflict of history,
humanity's darkest period.

Previously on Hitler, the itinerary.

It's hard to imagine how this little
baby grew up to be a mass murderer.

Objectively speaking, Hitler was a very
good soldier.

His superiors knew they could always
count on him.

Hitler's strength is above all as a
speaker, as a powerful speaker, very

energetic, unlike modern politicians who
write all their speeches.

Berlin,

January 30th, 1933.

Adolf Hitler has become the most
powerful man in Germany, a dictator who

plunge the German people and the entire
world into the 20th century's most

murderous conflict, the Second World
War.

Hitler piled on victory after victory
after seizing power, which in itself was

victory over the German people and the
planet.

It was only Hitler, really, who wanted
war. Neither Goering nor Goebbels nor

generals wanted war.

Adolf Hitler was convinced that he was a
military genius.

But how did this man with no military
training manage to conquer the whole of

Europe?

Why was he considered the greatest war
leader of all time?

How did this former homeless layabout
become the architect of the final

solution?

One man, a passionate historian, has
traveled the world to establish the most

exhaustive chronology yet of this
journey.

Harold Sandner has spent over 20 years
picking apart Adolf Hitler's life hour

hour.

Where was he during these early years?
And has he waged war?

Where did he make his most momentous
decisions?

Wherever Hitler was, that's where the
power was. He was the very embodiment of

an absolute dictator.

More than 70 years after Hitler's death,
Harold Sandler has uncovered numerous

inaccuracies, even in the most serious
published works.

There are something like 80 biographies
of Hitler, but there are always mistakes

in some of the information.

From France to Austria, via Germany and
Belgium, we went searching for the final

traces left by the dictator to
understand the journey of a war leader.

This is the itinerary of Adolf Hitler.

Berlin, April 30th, 1945.

Adolf Hitler decides to commit suicide.

He has just learned that the Russians
are fast approaching the Reich

Chancellery. His troops can only hold
them off for another 24 hours.

Hitler knows that he's lost the war.

Life had no meaning for him once he lost
the war.

He did not want to stand trial.

He didn't want to be humiliated.

At about midday, the dictator bade
farewell to his closest collaborators

retired to this room, his office in the
Fuhrer bunker, with his wife Eva Hitler.

The couple committed suicide at 3 .30 p
.m.

Eva took poison while Hitler made doubly
sure by biting into a capsule of poison

as well as shooting himself.

His doctor had advised him to do this to
be sure of killing himself.

The dictator's death almost immediately
brought an end to the hostilities.

Germany surrendered on May 8, 1945, a
week after the suicide of the man who

dragged Europe and the world into an
unprecedented cataclysm.

It was a great relief.

Nazism died with him, just as it had
been born with him.

Hitler's suicide meant for Jews who were
still in German captivity an

end to their persecution and suffering.

But how could such atrocities have been
allowed to go on for so many years?

Could the Second World War have been
avoided?

To understand its origins, we must go
back to a time when Hitler still

he wanted peace.

On September 29, 1938, it was in this
building in the center of Munich that

German dictator Adolf Hitler received
several heads of state.

The Italian leader Benito Mussolini,
French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier

British Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain.

It was a decisive encounter for
international relations.

After annexing Austria to the German
Reich in 1938, Hitler now wanted

Sudetenland, the northwestern part of
Czechoslovakia.

And he was determined to get it,
whatever the opposition.

Hitler wanted to take back all
territories with German -speaking

He thought that wherever German was
spoken was German territory.

It was on the first floor of this
building that negotiations took place

the night of the 29th to the 30th of
September 1938.

We return to this historical setting
with the historian Harold Sandner.

It was 1 .50 in the morning when the
dictator got what he wanted.

Here we are in Hitler's personal office
of the Führerbau in Munich.

This is the exact spot where the table
stood on which the so -called Munich

Agreement was signed.

The treaty in effect sacrificed part of
Czechoslovakia.

In exchange, the dictator committed
himself to not invading the rest of that

country.

In the days that followed, around three
and a half million Czechs found

themselves subject of the German state.

Czechoslovakia wasn't consulted and
didn't have any representatives.

By abandoning Sudetenland, France and
Great Britain thought they'd avoided the

worst. Both were firmly opposed to the
prospect of another war.

Chamberlain went back to London, waving
his slip of paper at the airport.

He reported that he'd negotiated with
Hitler and that now there would be

He genuinely believed he'd secured peace
for the coming years.

Little did he suspect the Fuhrer's true
intentions.

For while his generals thought that
pulling off such a victory without

was a stroke of genius, Hitler had far
greater ambitions.

Hitler himself would have said that the
British and French had deprived him of

the war he wanted to start in September
1938.

He was determined to have this war.

Two days later, German troops marched
into Sudetenland without encountering

resistance, the annexation becoming
known as the Flower War.

Another success for the Fuhrer, whose
popularity was at its peak.

So far, he'd not put a foot wrong and
was doing exactly what he wanted, ruling

foreign rulers.

While he waited to conquer France and
the rest of Eastern Europe, Hitler sowed

terror in his own country.

This was a different kind of war.

The Progressive Exclusion of German Jews
During Kristallnacht, the

Night of Broken Glass, the 9th to 10th
November 1938, thousands of synagogues

and Jewish shops were sacked and
destroyed.

Hitler wanted to force the Jews to
emigrate.

Many were rounded up and murdered.

30 ,000 Jewish men are arrested and put
in concentration camps and only released

when they promised to emigrate.

Hitler thought of the Jews as the birth
of elements.

That night, Nazi Germany crossed a line
in its implementation of anti -Semitic

policies.

In a speech given before the Reichstag
on the 30th of January 1939, Adolf

predicted the extermination of the Jews
of Europe in the event of a new world

war.

A sort of morbid prophecy which provoked
no reaction from the German people.

Even if, with indulgence, one could
interpret it as merely an expulsion

it's clear he was talking about a
planned genocide.

With this speech, the foundations of the
Holocaust had been laid.

The face of Germany changed.

Hitler made his most important decisions
at Obersalzburg, the retreat in the

Bavarian Alps.

The Berghof became the dictator's
secondary residence.

It was up here, in the mountains, that
Hitler prepared his war.

Hitler spent about a quarter of his
reign in Obersalzburg.

Hitler claimed to have been renting this
house from 1928.

In fact, it was a year earlier.

The reasons for the lie were purely
fiscal.

Even much later, he supplied false
information.

He said he'd spent very little time in
Obersalzburg, but that was not the case.

The Berghof was his favorite residence.

Once in power, he made it a second
chancellery after Berlin.

He chose Obersalzberg as a seat of
government because it had a strategic

significance in establishing his power.

He could retire there to be alone, yes,
but he could also receive whomever he

wanted there, including important
visitors, using the setting to stage

his foreign policy.

The Nazi party were masters of spin.

Every day thousands of visitors gathered
to get a glimpse of the dictator.

And he would devote hours of his time to
this, always appearing relaxed and

smiling.

It was a major propaganda operation.

The message put across by these images
in Obersalzburg is that of Hitler's

closeness to the people. He was the
chancellor of the people, that's what

called him. And who could be a
chancellor of the people without the

And yet for six years, Hitler had been
keeping a secret from the German people.

His 25 -year -old mistress.

Her name was Eva Braun.

And only those closest to Hitler knew of
her existence.

He had this idea that his political
mission wouldn't allow him to be

He presented himself as a sort of
soldier monk, a prophet committed to his

mission. That wouldn't fit with being
married.

With a camera given to her by the
dictator, she shot color film of their

life.

On film, Eva Brown appears happy and
fulfilled.

But in reality, the young woman was
suffering.

She twice tried to take her own life.

These suicide attempts have to be seen
as cries for help.

They would also explain her frequent
absences, although it's hard to tell at

this distance.

And even when Hitler was with her, there
was a relatively big distance between

them.

In the mountains of Obersalzburg, Hitler
was distant because he had other things

on his mind, such as getting ready for
war.

After breaking the Munich Agreement by
invading the rest of Czechoslovakia, he

signed a non -aggression pact with
Stalin in case he were to invade Poland.

It was now August 1939.

This was the last peaceful summer that
Europe and the world would know for many

years.

On September 1, 1939, Hitler launched
the invasion of Poland.

2 ,500 tanks and 1 ,300 planes provided
support for a million and a half ground

troops. The dictator was determined,
even though many of his entourage

this move.

In fact, it was only Hitler, really, who
wanted war.

Neither Goering nor Goebbels nor the
generals wanted war.

Hitler's mistake here was in thinking
that even if he invaded Poland, the

British and French still would not
react.

But on September 3, 1939, Paris and
London declared war on Germany.

It was now a world war.

Immediately after this, the dictator
took his personal train to the front

He followed the operations from the
training camp at Grossborn in Poland.

He was fascinated by the armed combat
going on right before his eyes.

Hitler felt a need to be right where the
action was.

Hitler never stayed in the same place.
He liked to get out and meet people.

He didn't like to sleep in the same
place two nights in a row.

He was always going to the front line
and putting his life in danger.

He didn't care.

He was sure that God would protect him,
that nothing could happen to him.

Only six weeks after hostilities began,
Warsaw was surrounded.

Poland had been crushed in Hitler's
Blitzkrieg, or lightning war.

The day of the capitulation, Hitler
divided up the territory between himself

Stalin, his ideological enemy.

To celebrate its victory, the German
army paraded through the streets of

Hitler was convinced, after the swift
and easy victory in Poland, that he was

military genius, gifted with intuition.

He was always right, so if anyone
disagreed, they were necessarily wrong.

This time, Hitler had let his generals
run the campaign.

But from now on, he'd take charge of
operations himself.

Around three million Jews were now in
Nazi hands.

In defeated Poland, they were rounded up
and crammed into enormous ghettos.

The more territory the Nazis took in
Eastern Europe, the more they were

confronted with Jewish populations.

This only confirmed their conviction
that a systematic deportation and then

extermination of these Jews was
necessary.

The everyday living conditions were
inhuman.

They're controlled, brutalized, starved
and killed. So the way in which

Hitler treats...

the Jewish population of Poland.

Hunger and epidemics killed off
thousands of them.

By 1940, 1941, in the big ghettos, as
many as a thousand people were dying

each month.

At the same time, Hitler was extending
his rule westward.

In April 1940, he invaded Norway and
then Denmark.

He also set out the attack strategy for
France, even though he had no military

experience.

Things didn't go as planned, however.

He postponed the invasion of France 29
times.

The reason France wasn't invaded earlier
is very simple, the weather.

The weather was an important factor for
Hitler because air support was used in a

massive way for the first time in this
new lightning war.

But tanks would also play an important
role.

Building them and training their crews
held up the beginning of the offensive.

In the end, Hitler decided to launch the
attack on France on May 10, 1940.

As with Poland, this offensive began
with a massive air engagement.

Then the Wehrmacht crushed the French
troops in just a few days.

The German army was like an unstoppable
steamroller, with modern weapons,

with bold tactics, and with extremely
willing troops.

But the Fuhrer wanted to be once more on
the front line, to witness France being

brought to its knees.

So on May 19, 1940, Hitler's security
detail was tasked with quickly finding

a location for his headquarters.

Time was of the essence. France might
counterattack at any moment.

On May 22, 1940, they decided on the
isolated village of Brouilly -de -Peche

Belgium.

Here is the headquarters today.

It has hardly changed.

At the time, it was a highly strategic
site.

It was very well located in the forest,
easy to camouflage.

It was at the French -Belgian border and
just a few kilometers from the airport.

Hitler's entourage quickly had three
chalets built as lodgings and canteen

the dictator's men.

As surprising as it may seem, they even
dug a small pool in case of a heatwave.

But for those in charge of Hitler's
security, the most urgent consideration

a bomb shelter.

Very close to Hitler's own ballet, there
was a bunker.

It was a reinforced concrete cube,
measuring 7 meters by 7 meters, where

he could take refuge if he came under
air attack.

And to guarantee maximum security, all
28 neighboring villages were evacuated

the end of May.

Mary Mittens was 10 years old at the
time.

She still remembers that very unusual
day.

About four o 'clock in the afternoon,
two men came.

They weren't very nice at all, I
remember that very well.

And they told us we had to leave in two
hours.

We were evacuated without knowing where
we were going, and we were told not to

come back.

But we weren't told why.

They took a few of the local people
hostage, about 80 or so, and said that

would pay with their lives if any of the
evacuees tried to return.

It was a threat, an extra bit of
pressure put on the local people.

On June 6, 1940, the dictator finally
arrived in Brûlis -du -Pêche, the site

being completely secure.

It was in this school that Hitler
directed military operations.

Long tables were covered with maps.

This is where the fate of France was
decided.

After only two weeks of fighting, the
dictator's efforts were rewarded.

On June 17, 1940, Marshal Pitta
requested a cessation of hostilities.

France was beaten.

The Fuhrer was jubilant.

Hitler was completely euphoric. In six
weeks, he'd achieved what Germany had

failed to do in four years during the
First World War, defeat France.

The Nazi leader ordered his services to
drop the conditions for the armistice

immediately.

It was done during the night of the 20th
to the 21st of June 1940 in this

church.

Historian Axel Tickson is an expert on
brûlée de pêche.

The atmosphere was a bit odd because
they were riding it by candlelight.

They had to be wary of possible air
raids.

This became the text that Hitler would
impose on the French in Compiègne.

Hitler summoned the representatives of
France to Compiègne, to the same railway

wagon in which the Germans had had to
acknowledge their defeat in 1918.

This victory was the dictator's revenge
for the First World War.

A dream come true.

Right after this, Hitler visited Paris.

It was another dream of his to enter the
French capital.

He went there on the 23rd of June, 1940.

The history books, however, give us two
different dates for Hitler's visit to

Paris, making some writers conclude that
he may have made two visits.

That isn't true. Hitler only visited
Paris once, on the 23rd of June, from 4

to 9 in the morning.

The dictator hurried to the Opera
Garnier before stopping off for a photo

opposite the Eiffel Tower.

A very symbolic image which was seen
around the world.

From that moment on, the media started
talking of Hitler as the greatest war

leader of all time.

But during the Battle of Britain, the
German Navy and Air Force were held in

check.

Hitler would have much preferred a
treaty with Great Britain, rather than

crushing it in a military victory, as he
had done to France.

But the British were not about to
cooperate.

They responded to Germany's attacks with
fierce resistance.

This was his first setback of the Second
World War.

Right up until the beginning of July,
Hitler was hoping that the UK would fall

like a ripe piece of fruit.

And as the first British bomb started
falling on German soil, Hitler was

to make sure his most precious
possession was made safe.

This, as unlikely as it might seem, was
his art collection.

For several years, the dictator had been
having a gigantic art museum built in

Linz, the town in which he'd spent most
of his youth.

He planned to exhibit the most famous
works of Europe there.

And it was here, in the bowels of the
Führerbau, that he stored his treasure

while he waited for his museum to be
built.

We went back to visit this rather
unusual depot with Harold Santner.

The works of art were stored here.

For Hitler, works of art were always
more important than people's lives.

During the war, he always regretted the
destruction of museums and theaters, but

he couldn't care less about people's
lives.

Around 700 works of art were stocked in
these corridors and permanently guarded

by SS men throughout the war.

Most were paintings that had been
confiscated or sold by force.

Many had been pillaged by the German
army in the occupied countries.

Hitler was the world's greatest artist.

The dictator's purloined works of art
would stay hidden here until 1945.

Back in 1941, Hitler was busy waging his
war.

The time had finally come for him to
realize another dream, that of

Bolshevism. the mortal enemy of National
Socialism.

On June 22, 1941, Hitler launched his
offensive against the URSS, one of the

greatest invasions in military history.

Four million soldiers, 600 ,000
vehicles, and as many horses.

Hitler was wary of fighting on two
fronts, but he ended up giving the

You have to realize that he was
convinced of his own strategic genius

sure he could defeat the Soviet Union
with the same ease which with he had

overrun France, meaning in just a few
weeks.

At this point, Hitler's idea was to
deport the Jews into the conquered

Union.

This was the original plan of the final
solution.

But for three years now, the dictator
had also been using the Einsatzgruppen.

These were special units which followed
the army, eliminating Jews and political

opponents like Soviet apparatchiks.

The death squads now started carrying
out mass executions.

At first, it was just the men who were
systematically killed. But then the

and children were increasingly included
in these atrocities.

About 40 % of the Jews who would die in
the Holocaust were killed in shooting

operations.

At the front, the dictator was winning
victory after victory.

He conquered Minsk and then Leningrad.

In August 1941, he visited soldiers on
the Eastern Front in Ukraine.

Entire swaths of territory were coming
under Nazi control.

Hitler was sure that Russia would fall
before the winter.

There was real enthusiasm during the
summer and early autumn of 1941 as the

German troops advanced at incredible
speed through Russia.

But now the dictator made a strategic
decision which would cost him dearly.

He decided to seize the agricultural,
industrial and oil resources of southern

Russia.

What's more, he had a furious showdown
with some of his generals, who wanted to

head straight on and attack Moscow.

These discussions seriously slowed down
the Blitzkrieg, the lightning war,

launched against the Soviet Union in
July 1941.

And by the time the attack on Moscow
began in October 1941, it was too late.

The Wehrmacht was overtaken by the
winter.

Temperatures dropped as low as minus 30
degrees.

The German soldiers were exhausted, and
a Soviet counter -offensive drove them

back hundreds of kilometers.

Hitler held his generals responsible for
this debacle.

Since the beginning of the war, he'd
been highly suspicious of his military

brass.

The battle for Moscow marked a turning
point in his relations with them.

Hitler had never really trusted his
generals.

He despised them because they had
advised against the French campaign.

And now he blamed them for the failure
of the great offensive of the summer of

1941.

Hitler always had this tendency to blame
others for his own failures.

To cover up for his own mistakes, the
dictator dismissed 30 of his generals,

including Walter von Brauchitz, the
commander -in -chief of the German Land

Army.

Hitler now assumed this function along
with that of supreme commander of all

armed forces.

From June 1941, the dictator was
hunkered down in his Polish

located six kilometers from Rastenburg.

It was from this vast complex of bunkers
and tunnels that he directed the war in

Russia.

The place had the code name Wolfschanze,
or Wolf's Lair.

The Führer would remain based at this
headquarters for over two years.

This was the opposite of what Hitler had
done up until this point.

He'd never stayed in the same place, but
this became his second World War

trench. This hunkering down showed that
he was losing control, no longer able to

wage his mobile war.

Being so close to the fighting meant
that more elaborate surveillance was

necessary.

Located deep in the forest, the site's
security was extreme.

It was very well protected.

All around there was a minefield with 50
,000 mines.

There were the natural obstacles of lake
and swamp, and the entire site was

fenced in.

Watch towers were set up and trenches
were dug to dissuade approaching

The 50 or so buildings and bunkers were
protected by machine gun posts and

searchlights camouflaged by the
surrounding vegetation.

Everything was thought out to the last
detail.

Hitler was always wary of a threat from
the inside.

It was easy to imagine a commando
operation against this lair, so there

succession of security checkpoints to
get past.

It was extremely difficult to reach
Hitler.

Around 6 ,000 lived at this site on a
permanent basis.

While thousands of soldiers were dying
on the front line, Hitler's entourage

here enjoyed various facilities for
their relaxation.

A cinema, for example.

But that wasn't all. It had a sauna
because some of the troops and so on

sauna. Hitler would never go into a
sauna, of course.

As a general rule, the dictator rarely
got up before noon.

He would then get to work, making his
military decisions.

Finally, at about two in the morning, he
would indulge in the ritual of taking

tea with his favorite secretaries while
talking about himself.

Hitler's monologues became increasingly
unbearable for his entourage.

It was always the same thing.

The secretaries took turns listening to
him.

They had no choice, of course.

It was Hitler's way of switching off
from the war for a while.

By this stage, Hitler had understood
that the invasion of the USSR would be

harder than he had first thought.

He gave up on his plan of deporting the
Jews to the occupied Soviet Union.

And it was in Poland, in the autumn of
1941, that he hatched his definitive

for the final solution.

The fate of millions of Jews was sealed
once and for all on January 20, 1942, at

Wannsee Conference.

At the end of this meeting, organized by
Reinhard Heydrich, Himmler's right

-hand man and boss of the
Einsatzgruppen, a report was drawn up of

Jews to be exterminated, 11 million.

Following the Wannsee conference,

the Jews in Europe were methodically
rounded up and

then channeled towards murder factories.

These were extermination centers
designed to eliminate Jews within hours

their arrival.

Hitler believed in the virtues of a
Jewish genocide.

He was sure that if he carried out a
mass extermination of the Jews, he could

regain the geopolitical advantage, since
the Jews were helping all of Germany's

enemies.

In the spring of 1942, the selection for
Auschwitz began, with the streamlining

of the extermination process.

The weakest were sent directly on
arrival to the gas chamber.

Hitler himself never set foot in a
concentration camp.

Hitler never directly witnessed the
consequences of what he said in motion.

He never once visited a concentration
camp, unlike Himmler.

In the summer of 1942, Hitler moved his
headquarters to Vinnytsia in Ukraine.

It was from this camp of log cabins that
he gave the order to his troops to take

Stalingrad.

The fighting was intense, and from
November onwards, the situation rapidly

deteriorated.

Within a few months, the German 6th Army
was surrounded by 90 Soviet divisions.

They were hemmed in right to the end.

They were starving, they had no food, no
ammunition, nothing.

From this point on, the great weaknesses
in Hitler's strategic planning became

apparent.

The failure of the invasion of the
Soviet Union revealed his flaws, showing

he was just a mediocre war leader, not
the military genius he thought he was.

What we have here is an individual
hunkering down in the bunker of his HQ,

increasingly cut off from the realities
of the war on the ground, but who's

nevertheless delegating less and less.

On February 2nd, 1943, the 330 ,000
German soldiers finally surrendered.

It was the first capitulation by the
German army.

The defeat at Stalingrad was the turning
point and the beginning of the end for

the great war leader.

Not long after the defeat, Hitler left
his headquarters and went to St. Florian

Abbey in Austria.

Here he took part in a religious
ceremony with his closest collaborators.

Harold Sadler has discovered this
previously unseen photograph taken of

dictator during this event.

He wanted to show us the exact spot now
loaded with symbolism.

Adolf Hitler sat right here on the 4th
of April 1943.

They had set out two rows of chairs for
him and his entourage.

The body language of the Fuhrer speaks
volumes about his state of mind.

The battle for Stalingrad seems to have
affected him deeply.

In this photo he is letting his inner
feelings show, something he never did as

Fuhrer. He is pensive and withdrawn.

I am sure that at this point he knew the
war was lost.

Once the ceremony was over, Hitler went
to Linz.

the town where he had spent most of his
youth.

He didn't know it, but this was the last
time he would ever go there.

Germany was now under heavy attack by
the Allies.

Hitler was back in his Polish
headquarters, and the bad news poured in

everywhere.

Germany was being bombed.

Entire cities were being destroyed, and
the civilian casualties were

considerable.

That didn't bother him. They were only
buildings and people. They were of no

importance.

What did bother him, however, was the
Allied landings in Normandy on June 6,

1944.

130 ,000 men came across the channel
from England.

Within 24 hours, they'd broken through
the German lines and outflanked the

defending forces.

Hitler, again, is always furious about
his generals. They're not strong enough,

they're not tough enough. He continues,
however, to believe in a fantasy world

in which things will turn around.

At the time, Hitler was developing
technologically advanced weapons.

For years, German scientists had been
working on long -range missiles, which

would be a booster for German morale and
maybe even break the enemy's

resistance.

The first such rocket was fired at
London on September 8th, and the

every intention of going even further.

They were working on the atom bomb. So
there's a huge number of very advanced

military technologies. People believed
in these wunderwaffen, these miracle

weapons.

The German Reich was gradually being
surrounded by the Soviet and Allied

So Hitler launched one last offensive in
the West.

The Battle of the Bulge.

This was a counterattack on the French
-Belgian border, aimed at showing that

Germany was still standing and still
determined.

It was a totally desperate move and had
no support from the German generals

because the army had no resources left,
either human or logistical, with which

to fight the Allies, especially in the
sky, which was totally controlled by the

Allies.

The chances were slim or nonexistent of
their turning the tide in the West.

As the dictator went from setback to
setback, his health was in serious

He suffered from cardiac problems and
was showing the first symptoms of

Parkinson's.

Theodore Morel, who had been his
personal physician since 1935, was never

away.

He was taking up to 28 medicines a day,
or the equivalent in injection.

He'd have shots to pick him up and
others to calm him down.

He was afraid of dying before he
achieved his goal.

At the beginning of 1945, he left his
headquarters in Poland to return to the

capital, Berlin.

He still thought he could win the war.

He was hoping that the coalition between
the Allies and the Russians would break

down.

It was now March 1945.

The bombing of the German capital
intensified.

The dictator buried himself eight meters
underground in his Führerbunker, a

complex of 20 underground rooms built to
withstand air raids.

The outer walls were nearly four meters
thick, and the ceiling was concrete

reinforced with metal beams.

It was all but indestructible.

This is a model of the Fuhrer's bunker
in the garden of the Berlin Reich

Chancellery. Hitler and Eva Braun lived
in six rooms, each with their own

bedroom, one for Eva and one for Hitler.

An important room was the command
center, where a daily briefing was held.

Hitler directed the end of the war from
here.

Across from the rooms reserved for the
dictator, the six other rooms were taken

up by his closest collaborators, his
personal physician, Theodor Morell, and

Goebbels, his minister of propaganda,
but also the maintenance staff.

Ten or so other people lived with him.

Legend has it that there were many
tunnels leading out of the bunker.

None of this was true, according to the
historians.

All the rumors about secret tunnels
linking it to the metro or Tempelhof

are just that, rumors.

The bunker had no other exits than the
main one and the emergency exit into the

garden.

But the dictator rarely left the bunker.

The Red Army was carving a path straight
to Berlin.

Nowhere was safe.

On April 11, 1945, the Americans
liberated Buchenwald concentration camp,

discovering its unspeakable horror.

They decided to march the local
villagers through the camp.

to see what atrocities the Nazi regime
had been committing right next door.

They were deeply shocked and, of course,
distressed by this, but in fact they

knew, of course, that there was a camp.
They knew about the extermination

because by the spring of 1942, if you
wanted to find out about the

of the Jews, you could do it.

Almost 56 ,000 died in the camp.

The Russians were pushing into Berlin in
their thousands.

Hitler raged when he heard the news.

At a briefing on the afternoon of April
22, Hitler learned that no troops would

be coming to his rescue.

For the first time, he had to
acknowledge that the war was over.

He announced that if such were the case,
he would shoot himself.

Even today, many documentaries claim
that this is the last photograph ever

of Adolf Hitler.

This is not so.

That's not true, of course.

The actual last photo of Hitler was
taken on April 20th, his birthday, in

ruins of the Reich Chancellery.

The historians are unanimous.

This is definitely the last photograph
of the dictator.

He is seen in the company of his chief
aide and adjutant, Julius Schaub, who is

ordered the following day to go to
Berghof to destroy all of Hitler's

papers.

April 1945.

Berlin was completely surrounded.

Hitler heard that his most loyal
collaborator, Heinrich Himmler, was

with the enemy.

This provoked a fit of rage and made up
his mind for him.

In the gloom of the bunker, he married
his long -standing companion, Eva Braun,

in the strictest privacy.

The ceremony took place during the night
of April 28th to 29th

in the bunker.

You have to imagine the scene.

It was dark.

The lights were flickering and often
going out because of the air raids.

Everyone was tense.

It was damp and moldy. It stank.

It wasn't glamorous at all.

Shortly after the ceremony, Hitler drew
up his political will and testament.

This is a copy.

Hitler's political will and testament of
April 29th is one of the most

terrifying documents in the history of
humanity.

Those few pages sum up the entire Nazi
ideology and madness which brought about

the deaths of 50 to 60 million people.

But there was no mention of the number
of victims.

Once again, the dictator lambasted the
officers of the German army for letting

him down.

but also the German people who, in his
eyes, hadn't shown enough fight.

They were all responsible for the
defeat, the Jews most of all.

He explains that it was one of his
greatest achievements to have

such a large number of Jews, and he asks
his successors to continue this policy

of mass murder.

It's impossible to claim that Hitler
didn't want the Holocaust and knew

about it.

He knew everything and openly admitted
it.

In all, six million Jews were
exterminated in the Nazi concentration

camps.

On April 30, 1945, Hitler killed himself
in his office in the Führerbunker.

Eva Hitler died at his side.

But the dictator's itinerary doesn't end
there.

Only 30 minutes after he died, his body
was taken outside and burnt in the

garden of the Reich Chancellery by his
valet Heinz Linge, as per his master's

last request.

Hitler didn't want his body to suffer
the same fate as that of Mussolini.

which was mutilated and hung upside down
at a gas station in Milan.

His body was doused in gasoline and
ignited.

But since all of those involved got out
of there in a hurry, they didn't make

sure that he was reduced to ashes, and
his remains were found by Soviet

soldiers.

But no one was able to identify the
burnt corpse as being that of the

To be quite sure, Stalin ordered a
thorough analysis of the remains here in

northern quarter of Berlin.

After the autopsy, they were able to
identify the body as being Hitler's

to a close examination of his teeth.

It was vital information which Stalin
and his secret services hid from the

for years.

Historians have several hypotheses as to
why.

He wanted to throw doubt and confusion
among the Western allies, and he wanted

justification for a tough policy towards
post -war Germany, built on the fear

that Hitler would come back like
Napoleon had done and start it all over

Stalin said nothing about it at the
Potsdam Conference, which took place

July 31st to August 2nd, 1945.

In fact, he blatantly lied.

You have to remember that the Cold War
had already begun at this point.

And his successors, Khrushchev and
Brezhnev, remained trapped in the lie

1968, when Brezhnev finally released the
autopsy report.

While the Allies searched all over
Europe for Hitler, his remains were

a veritable odyssey, being buried and
dug up again nine times before ending up

here at a Russian barracks in northern
Germany.

His remains were incinerated and then
thrown off

this bridge.

Harold Sandner took these photos of this
little -known spot.

All that remains of Hitler today are his
teeth in Moscow.

25 years after the end of the Second
World War, this is where the itinerary

Adolf Hitler finally ended.

Hitler's 12 years in power is one of the
most destructive and negative periods

in the whole of history, if not the most
destructive.

Tens of millions dead, and the whole of
humanity shaken by what it was capable

of, the extermination of an entire part
of itself.

Hitler was the personification of evil.

No one has been responsible for more
death than him.

Adolf Hitler, one of the greatest
criminals of human history.