All language subtitles for Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany BBC 720p 1of2 EN SUB

This programme contains violent
scenes and scenes which some viewers
may find upsetting

Germany, 1937.

A young woman with a passion
for home movies is filming

herself doing gymnastics.

She is full of hope for the future,

convinced her beloved Germany
is on the rise again.

The country has a leader
who promises to build an empire

that will last a thousand years.

But this film-maker has good reason
to be proud.

This is Eva Braun,
companion of the German Fuhrer.

A viewfinder is trained on her
idol - Adolf Hitler -

captured as the public never saw
him relaxed, informal...

..and playing uncle.

But Braun and Hitler were not alone
in their love of home movies.

Across Germany, thousands record
every aspect of their lives,

convinced they are filming
the dawn of a new age.

Others record their thoughts
in diaries.

Taken together, ink and 8mm film
provide an unprecedented insight

into life in the Third Reich.

The footage and diary extracts
come from civilians,

but also from Nazi groups,
firemen and soldiers.

They all play a role capturing
the New Reich.

We know how this story ends,
with Hitler and Eva Braun dead

and Europe in flames.

As Germany lay vanquished, much
of this footage was hidden away,

a reminder of a time most
want to forget.

But over the years,
as the war generation has died,

their descendants are finding
the footage, revealing a candid

insight into life under
the Swastika.

This footage has the power
to surprise and shock,

while also showing how ordinary
Germans experienced Hitler's war.

But it also poses a question...

..what did the ordinary Germans know

about the things being done
in their name?

This is more than just an archive
of domestic amateur film.

It depicts life around the edges
of the darkest moral catastrophe

the world has ever known.

This is Klaus Hopper
from Perleberg,

100 miles north-east of Berlin,

play-fighting with his father
Albert.

Like thousands of others, Albert
Hopper loves to make home movies,

meticulously documenting
Klaus' childhood.

After four years of Nazi rule,
the regime has spread its tentacles

into every aspect of people's lives.

For Klaus and his friends,
the pathway into national socialism

is no longer left to chance.

As he reaches his tenth birthday,
it's time for him to join

the children's section
of the Hitler Youth.

Amazing how much they look like
Boy Scouts, which, of course,

is really what the Hitler Youth
was, in many ways,

sort of adopted,
put under the Nazi banner.

Of course, what you're getting
with the Hitler Youth is massive

indoctrination as well.

But you can see why a lot of these
young lads found camps

and Hitler Youth and everything
really good fun.

I mean, what's not to like when
you're a young kid,

going on hikes, camping,
cooking outdoors?

I mean, it looks quite fun to me.

Well, Hitler Youth is really
important because, of course,

you're getting children
at a young, impressionable age

and you're starting to kind
of indoctrinate them,

sort of brainwash them, effectively.

That is what Hitler Youth is doing,
you're giving them enough fun,

enough entertainment, camping,
cooking, hiking,

all that kind of, sort of, sports
and so on, which is very attractive.

But, at the same time, you're also
hammering home the Nazi message,

you know, racial supremacy,
anti-Semitism, militarism and so on.

And so, by the time that they get
to a later age, they're already

primed and ready and plump
for the cooking, effectively.

The Hitler Youth has been around
since 1926,

but, in 1936, membership for boys
like Klaus became mandatory.

I think, if I had a son,
I would be even more struck

emotionally by this.

But, yeah, it's deeply,
deeply disturbing

when you start a family and then
a political system

is in place that, you know,
was wanted by the majority

of the Germans, but that really
takes your child away from you.

Ideologically, it must be very, must
have been very disturbing

to some parents, if they had a more
critical mind-set,

to see their child come home,
say things that, you know,

were completely different from your
own ideology.

Over the next five years, Albert's
films document Klaus becoming

a teenager and a national socialist,

as laid out in chilling detail
by Hitler himself.

"Our youth shall learn nothing
but to think and act German.

"A boy or girl enters into our
organisations at age ten,

"then moves on from the junior
Hitler Youth to the Hitler Youth

"four years later.

"We will keep them for another four
years and then put them

"into the party or the labour
front,

"the assault division or the SS.

"They shall never be free again
for the rest of their lives."

In 1943, Klaus, just 15 years old,
will be sent to man an anti-aircraft

battery 100 miles from home.

The Nazis came to power
promising national rebirth

and many Germans are thrilled.

New autobahns snaked their way
across the country, a potent symbol

of a modern nation.

Hitler yearns for a fairy tale world
of healthy Aryans,

bound together by blood and soil.

But there is an unrelenting hatred
directed at one particular group...

..Germany's Jews.

The process of demonising the Jews
started immediately after

the party came to power in 1933.

ANNOUNCEMENT IN GERMAN

The Nazis have one brutal idea that
they repeat again,

and again and again,
a hypnotic repatition...

..the Jews are Germany's misfortune.

Germans grow accustomed to the sight
of paramilitary brown shirt thugs

harassing Jews and vandalising
their businesses.

Again and again, we see how few
aspects of German life survive

untainted by an incessant drumbeat
of hatred for the Jews.

The Nazis have taken control
of the carnival associations.

This is 1938.

As the camera pans past the floats,
one image leaps out -

grotesque caricatures
of the Jewish population,

followed by someone literally
sweeping them from the streets.

Well, anti-Semitism is quite deeply
entrenched throughout Europe

at this time, it's not something
that's peculiar to the Nazis,

but it is a very strong
part of their ideology.

But how that anti-Semitism manifests
itself isn't immediately apparent.

And it's not until the Nazis
actually start to get power

that they start to implement
anti-Semitic laws.

The Nazis proceeded by passing
just hundreds and hundreds

and hundreds of laws and edicts
and regulations.

And a book was published
that compiles them all,

just the anti-Jewish laws,

and it comes to five or 600 pages,

there were just hundreds
and hundreds of them.

And very many of them were
incredibly mean spirited,

to attack the dignity of people
by not letting them own cats,

or taking the radio away or making
them give up fur coats or whatever.

These very, very petty,
horrible, spiteful attacks.

For individual Jews living
in Germany,

it is a bewildering experience
to be on the receiving end

of such state-sponsored malice.

One such victim is Jewish
Professor Victor Klemperer.

Victor Klemperer was an
amazing figure.

He was born in Germany, Jewish.

Very, very well travelled, well
read, tremendously sophisticated.

He married a non-Jewish
woman and he had a job

at the university in Dresden, and he
was he was injured in World War I.

In some cases, very specific cases,
if you were a World War I veteran,

particularly if you'd received
a decoration,

you were sometimes treated a little
bit better

than other Jews who hadn't
fought in World War I.

He becomes one of the most prolific
but also amazing diarists

of the rise of Hitler, of the rise
of fascism and of the Third Reich,

and how it was to experience
and witness the increasing

persecution of the Jews
in Germany, for example,

but many, many other things besides.

Klemperer's diaries reveal
what it is to be an outcast

in your own society,

life ruined by endless petty rules.

He writes with a finely-tuned ear
for the language of Nazi cant.

"The healthy sense of justice
of every German was on display

"yesterday in a decree from Himmler
with immediate effect.

"The confiscation of driving
licences from all Jews.

"Justification? Jews are unreliable
and therefore

"should not be permitted to sit
behind the wheel.

"Also, allowing them to drive
offends the German community

"of road users, especially as Jews,
presumptuously, make use

"of the Reich highways built
by German workers' hands."

While life for Klemperer grows
unbearable, for the Nazi faithful,

things could not be better.

After annexing Austria in spring
1938, Hitler turns his sights

on the Sudetenland, a strip of land
along the Czechoslovakian border.

The map of Europe and central
Europe, particularly,

is completely redrawn in 1919, with
a Treaty of Versailles,

following the end of the
First World War.

One of their creations
is Czechoslovakia

and, within Czechoslovakia,
particularly along the German
border,

is an area which had previously
been part of Germany

and where there are predominately
German-speaking people.

And you, actually, frankly,
you can understand why Germany

would want, in the late 1930s,
to take that bit back

and have that incorporated
back into Germany's borders.

And so what the Germans do,
they go in the autumn of 1938

and go, "Right, we're having it
back, thank you very much."

And, unfortunately
for Czechoslovakia,

that is where most of their defences
are and they are just surrendered

to Germany in
the Munich Agreement.

The British and French allow
the invasion to proceed.

For those now under Nazi control,
the future is uncertain.

For two Jewish families
in Czechoslovakia,

1939 will be one last summer
of normality

before the world turns upside down.

This is the Lederer family
from Prague.

They're on holiday with their
friends, the Brooks.

The father's name is Robert,
his wife is Rose.

Their two children are Nina
and Peter.

The children can have no idea
of the potential danger

their family now faces.

They're enjoying the sunshine.

The adults seem relaxed.

But perhaps they're simply
unable to fathom the magnitude

of the horrors that lie
over the horizon.

As the summer fades, Hitler invades
Poland and British and French

patience comes to an end.

We are used to hearing Chamberlain
announce that Britain is now

in a state of war with Germany.

The Germans learn about
it very differently.

ANNOUNCEMENT IN GERMAN

This footage was taken on
1st September, 1939.

Hitler can be heard to say
"Since 5:45am,

"we have been shooting back."

In Britain, it is widely understood
that the Germans started the war.

But this is far from how
it is seen in Germany.

German propaganda was to try
and stitch up the Poles and say,

"You know, they've been provoking
us," and all the rest of it,

and there was the kind of fake
attack on the radio station

by German SS troops, who are dressed
up as Polish troops,

to kind of make people think,
you know, "Look at this outrage,

"they started it first,"
all the rest of it.

But there is this other
point that western Poland

was largely dominated by
German-speaking people

that had been within, you know, East
Prussia back up until 1919.

The Danzig corridor had been part
of Germany up until 1919.

And a lot of Germans think,
you know, "Hang on a minute,

"that was stolen from us, it's
German-speaking peoples,

"they should be part of Germany,
it's only right that

"we should have this back."

Most Germans felt that
the invasion of Poland

was entirely justified.

Even on 1st September, 1939,
when the Germans do invade Poland,

in Germany, that's not treated
as the outbreak of war proper.

It's treated as a police action, as
retaliation for Polish incursions

on the border, for Polish treatment
of ethnic Germans

in the western borderlands, and not
as an outright invasion,

let alone a planned
imperial expansion.

The vast majority of German people
in 1939, when Germany invades
Poland,

are really dismayed about it.
I mean, no-one wants war.

The whole point, they've lived
through the First World War.

Most adults can remember
the First World War

and they don't want to have it
again, they don't want their

children growing up and having to
fight in another war.

The fear of war in September 1939 is
that Britain and France

will declare war and that,
once they do,

as they do on the 3rd of September,
that they will immediately attack

and we'll have a repeat
of the First World War.

But that doesn't seem to happen
initially because, of course,

the phoney war and, although
Britain and France

have declared war on land, at any
rate, there isn't much activity

until the following spring.

So a lot of Germans are kind
of thinking, "OK, phew, you know,

"we've got past that one OK."

In Dresden, Victor Klemperer
is blunt about what this means

for Jews like him.

"On Friday morning,
the butcher's boy came

"and told us the war is upon us.

"I said to Eva, 'A morphine
injection is the best thing for us.'

" 'Our life is finished.' "

The invasion of Poland is over
in a month

and, for many in Germany, the war
starts to feel all rather unreal.

Walter Lunger, a keen film-maker,
has been conscripted as part

of the general mobilisation.

His posting is to a prison camp
just outside Leipzig,

better known to us
as Colditz Castle.

Colditz is home to Polish prisoners
of war and the furtive shooting

angle suggests he isn't really
supposed to be filming this.

For Lunger, the war is a good excuse

to mess around while playing
soldiers.

Another film-maker now back
in uniform is Adolf Dussel.

Dussel fought in the
First World War.

Now 41, he is back in uniform
as an infantry medic.

His camera captures a vivid sense
of life during the winter of 1939.

For men of Dussel's generation,

the return to the Army brings back
many ghosts from 20 years earlier.

The Germans make their move
on May 10th, 1940.

This is the second time he has made
the invader's journey,

but now he has a camera to
capture it forever.

What he sees is a far cry
from the picture we usually have

of the fabled German blitzkrieg.

Germans on horses - you see, you can
tell this is a private video

because, if it was a public video,
Germans wouldn't allow you to see.

On Die Wochenschau, on newsreels
sent out around the world,

you wouldn't be seeing German
troops on horses,

you'd see them on machinery.

Look at the bicycles! Germans had
lots of bicycles in France

and lots of horses,
lots of surrendered troops.

So, there's a series of home movie
footage from the campaign in France

in the summer of 1940.

What's interesting about it
is the sense of orderliness

as the Germans march in and also
orderliness as the French surrender.

French prisoners of war here.

Their ridiculous long wool coats,

which are just so ill-suited
for the job,

left over from the First World War.

They've hardly even got
their uniforms dusty

and it conjures up a sense
of how easy the victory was in 1940.

For somebody like Adolf Dussel,
that really mattered

because they'd gone through
the static trench warfare

of the Western Front, through the
First World War, where they'd got

nowhere and they'd gradually
been worn down.

That's a French stolen vehicle.

That's interesting cos, again,
Germans don't have anything

like as much vehicles
as we think they do.

They always talk about the Nazi
war machine,

but, actually, that's kind of...

..that's not really being very
accurate.

Lots of abandoned French vehicles.

Then we get into the trophy footage
of the wrecked bridges, the wrecked

cities and towns and villages, some
of which are already being repaired.

There's a moment where you see
somebody starting to mend a window

frame while the young Germans
in uniform are inspecting or trying

out what it would be like to be
the French artillery gunner.

And part of what they're admiring
is military hardware,

which they didn't themselves
possess.

The French in 1939 not only
had a bigger army, but they had far,

far, far bigger and more
sophisticated armaments

than Germany had, and so part of the
miracle of the summer of 1940,

from a German point of view, is
this idea that something impossible

has been achieved. In 1939,

even the commanding generals
on the Western Front, on the German

side, did not see that they have
a war plan that could possibly work.

All they have until February 1940
is more or less the same plan

as they had in August 1914.

And it's not until the spring that
they come up with a feint attack

through the north and then a real
attack through the southern sector

of the Ardennes Forest, and...

..this works simply because the
Allies rush in to the trap.

It's amazing to see immediately
the 14th General Hospital

because obviously there's a British
hospital, there's shrapnel marks

on it, and actually my
best mate's father was a doctor

who managed to get away

and I kind of wonder whether this
is the sort of place he was working.

You can see British trucks in the
background ruined. More prisoners -

those are French prisoners again.

Abandoned guns.

German troops fiddling.
Another tank that's just been left.

Lots and lots of abandoned vehicles.

That's a British vehicle.

The sense that you get as you see

these kids on...all cramming
onto their tiny tracked vehicle,

with their trophy dog, brings out
the absolute euphoria and the sense

of elation that they've achieved
something miraculous.

The damage - the damage is
just amazing.

I mean, you know,
Dunkirk was ruined.

You know, when you look at the
movie, they're going down a street

and it all looks in perfect nick.

It wasn't - it was
absolutely trashed

and this, this footage you can see
here... God! Look at all the debris

all over the place. I mean,
it is really properly trashed.

If you look at memoirs,
you look at diaries of people,

they talk about the rubbish
on the roads.

You see the destruction
and devastation

of the Dunkirk aftermath.

It's a very different vantage point
from that of the British evacuation

and it's a sense
that the war is over.

And the images of Germans rescuing
these abandoned horses, presumably

from baggage trains, gives
you a sense that this is now

no longer a destroyed landscape.

It's going to be one
which is made good again,

and it's this sense of restitution

and of people coming back together
and remembering their roles

in civilian life,
as well as in military life.

And here we are,
back on the seafront.

Yeah. Look at all those ships -
abandoned, again, abandoned boats.

That's a very famous image,
that broken vessel.

You can see it's just been
completely destroyed.

Just left there. Look at that.

The ship Dussel is filming
is a French destroyer called

Le Droit, hit by a German
bomber during the evacuation.

After beaching, the ship's magazine
blew up, tearing the hull apart.

Amazingly, none of her crew
was killed.

And, again, when you see footage
like this...dunno, it just sort

of it strikes home a little bit
more than just a black and white

photograph still picture.

Really properly wrecked. Blimey.

I think what matters
psychologically and emotionally

for Germans as a population,
both civilian and military,

is this sense that the war
is actually won now.

The war is over
and they cannot believe

that the British don't give up.

So one of the other interesting
things about Dussel

is that he's a
First World War veteran

and the legacy of 1914 to '18

is a dire one, because
German defeat in 1918

both fuelled national
resentment at the sense

that they'd been unfairly treated
with the War Guilt Clause,

the Reparations Bill, and that the
peace treaty itself

had been wrung out of Germany
through the continuation

of the British blockade.

And so part of the euphoria
and relief in this footage

of having driven the British
off the continent, having conquered

France, Dunkirk, in a sense,

is the final victory of this war
as it should be.

That is really palpable.

It confirms a sense
of intergenerational responsibility

that Dussel belongs to the
generation which lost

and now he belongs to the
generation which has won.

On July 6th, 1940, France
capitulates.

The Fuhrer parades himself
on the streets of Berlin,

lovingly captured by Eva Braun.

Her relationship with Hitler
is a secret

closely guarded from the
German people.

She has to make do with filming
from the window

of the Reich Chancellery.

It's a far cry from the intimate
private portrait

of a few years earlier.

Keen diarist Julius Putfarken,
born in 1877,

applauds the news
of victory in France.

He spent the First World War
in a British prison camp.

For him, German national pride has
been restored and he is thrilled.

"Today, the Fuhrer has returned
in triumph to Berlin.

"No man has ever been cheered
like this before.

"It is unbelievable, all that the
Fuhrer has achieved for our

"fatherland without a single
false step.

"Two months ago, the dreaded
France wanted to smash

"Germany into smithereens

"and now France lies powerless
on the ground,

"betrayed and abandoned by England,
its boastful ally."

Across Germany, there are similar
scenes. In Dresden,

a shopkeeper called Kurt Ehler

films a returning infantry division.

For Jewish diarist Victor Klemperer,
the news brings only despair.

"It's all turned much gloomier.

"France, the boundless German
triumph.

"It's been reported that synagogues
have been set on fire in Toulouse

"and several other places.

"On language, I note the ruthless,
lightning fast changes of tone.

"In autumn, France was a chivalrous
nation led astray by England

"and it was courted. Then, during
the offensive, in ever-increasing

"measure, Jew-ridden,
decadent, sadistic.

"Their language is intensified

"by the frenzied arrogance
of the victor."

The conquering Germans have the
playground of Paris at their mercy.

So now they're having Paris-style
breakfast.

Great! We've established ourselves
now in this beautiful country.

Yeah. The fashion, horse racing...

Everybody's having a great time.

What fun we're having in Paris.

Why not? The city of the city
of gaiety and jollity,

arts and music.

And these French people seem OK
about it, don't they?

You know, there's this sort of
impression that just life goes on.

You know, Paris has fallen, France
has fallen, but there's still time

for sports and athletic tracks
and so on.

So, Luftwaffe officers here.

It seems like they're trying
to adopt that culture

that they secretly admired.

I mean, this is pure propaganda,
obviously.

Excursions on boats.

And, again, always this
facial expression

of being really pleased
with yourself.

Wow.

And a guy going on a little
mini bicycle, advertising

the cabaret, and here is
the cabaret.

Again, it's this this sort
of suggestion

that nothing's really changed,

you know, it's just gone from
French control to German control,

but Paris is still
unmistakably Paris.

German officers having a lovely
time - lots of drinks,

cigarettes, dancing, music...

Reality very different for
French people, though.

The Germans were absolutely
appalling occupiers,

stole everything, nicked all the
cars, nicked all the wine,

nicked all the Champagne,

made sure that they came
first in absolutely everything.

It makes me feel really angry.

I've got to say, if I was a
Frenchman and I was watching this,

this would just be making
my blood absolutely boil.

And you can also understand,
when you see footage

like this of Germans kissing French
girls and so on, and everyone

having a lark and raising bottles
of Champagne, you can see why,

at the end of it all, those
who suffered were not massively

impressed by those who collaborated.

Yeah, I don't know.
I mean, it's just disturbing.

Throughout 1940, there was a feeling
that Hitler can do no wrong.

But for diarist Julius Putfarken,

Britain's refusal to negotiate
is beyond the pale.

"We Germans love the Fuhrer
ever more deeply and thank him

"for what he has done for our
people.

"To us, he is a gift from God.

"Even though we thought the end
was close, after the Armistice

"with France, it will not come
to an end with England.

"Churchill is a ruthless snake,
propped up by Jews around the world,

"especially in the USA, who long
for financial dominion."

Yet while Putfarken fixates on war
with Britain, Hitler's gaze turns

to the nation that has obsessed him
his entire political life -

the Soviet Union.

Not only a source of coveted
natural resources, but home to tens

of millions of people the Nazis
view as racially worthless.

This is Helmut Machemer,
a medic in a Panzer unit.

He took extensive footage
during the invasion of Russia.

It's really interesting how
the Germans

perceive the invasion of
the Soviet Union.

But the truth is the Germans
don't have any choice, or Hitler

doesn't have any choice
in the matter.

You know, they've had their
victories.

They've rampaged these occupied
territories like kids in
a sweet shop

and, by the end of 1940, you know,
the cupboard is pretty much bare.

So what are you going to do?

You know, if you can't actually
manufacture

because you're manufacturing
for your own war effort,

you can't sell it and you
can't get anything in, where

are you going to get the stuff?
Well, you have to go and get it.

And there's only one place
where this can be got from,

and that is the Soviet Union.

Look at that.
Wow, that's amazing, isn't it?

I mean, you know, iron metal rows,

just vast open spaces of
nothingness.

And this is a problem
because literally the wheels start

to come off because the distances
are just so great.

Machemer's footage is fascinating
in a number of ways.

One of them is simply that he

wants to show that he's a good
film-maker and so he tends to copy

things which he will have seen
in the Wochenschau, the newsreels,

which are shot by splicing
together the film

recorded by thousands
of cameramen and photojournalists,

who are embedded in the Wehrmacht.

But in most cases, even serving
soldiers

go and see film footage
of where they've been

when they're on leave. They find
confirmation of themselves

and confirmation of what
they've done by looking

at footage like this.

I mean, that is...for me,
that's in my mind's eye,

that's what I'm thinking
about when I'm thinking

about the absolutely insane decision
to go into the Soviet Union.

I mean, that vast open space.
You know, problems...

I mean, this is not an easy thing to
get across. It's a dried riverbed.

You can see it,
there's lots of dust.

There's a Panzer III. The problem is

you've got to keep these vehicles
going in the field and over vast

distances, where there's no
infrastructure,

there's no workshops and stuff.

You know, how do you repair them?

Lone cow standing pathetically
by a burning village.

It's just so counterproductive
and it's a reminder

that this is an ideological war,
suddenly.

And we're into the morass
and we're into the torching

of village houses. And even
this is sort of posed

for the cameras, as the man
with the flame looks back

over his left-hand shoulder
at the camera, which is lingering

on him and he's lingering on it.

And so there's a sense...not
that this is a covert activity,

but that it's part
of what you would do.

And this is what they do do
all the way through.

And, of course, it means that the
liberating Red Army troops,

as they come back westwards,

find destroyed village
after destroyed village.

All they see is the brick chimneys
of houses which had stood there

because the wood and the thatch
and everything

that was flammable has gone.

Again, no asphalt on the roads.

Lots of Soviet prisoners.

Massive problem because what do
you do with them all?

You know, there's almost half
again what they're expecting.

The clusters of Red Army prisoners
in the snow,

sitting outside with no cover,
no accommodation,

insufficient food,

and they gradually collapse

and this is filmed as dead
prisoners.

There's no sense that the Germans
should have provided better.

Although the victories are enormous
to start off with, nothing

less than total annihilation
of the Red Army will do.

There is no alternative.

This is an ideological war, not
just a war of military conquest.

And the violence which is
unleashed right from the outset,

that the moment they go
in - the burning of villages

in Ukraine and so on, and
Byelorussia and all the rest of it,

and in the Baltic states -
that just sets the bar.

And it means that nothing
less than complete conquest will do.

This is, of course, the story of the
first six months of the Soviet

campaign, where over three million
Red Army prisoners are taken

by the Germans with no provision
for how they'll be treated.

And, by the end of 1941, nearly
three million of them have starved

to death. And terrible acts
of cannibalism, but also acts

of starvation, acts of disease

and of random executions
by the Germans

have gone hand-in-hand
with that horror.

The fate of Russian POWs is bleak.

Race and race hatred are at the
core of Nazi ideology, and now

they have millions of their Slavic,
Bolshevik

and Jewish enemies at their mercy.

This amateur footage was filmed
by a member of the Luftwaffe's

51st fighter group.

His camera captures what
the relationship between conquerors

and conquered really entails.

Leaning on the...

..window sill.

Ultimate imperial gaze

of power,

of condescending to have his palm
read by the local gypsies.

Encouraging, possibly even forcing
one of them to dance semi-naked.

They give a palpable sense of what
it meant to conquer the East.

And journalists had been told
for generations

that Russia was barbaric,
and the Nazis added layers to this.

They added layers of anti-Semitism.

They added the layers of
anti-Bolshevism.

But underneath it, there's
still a fundamental sense

that this is an alien and
inferior culture.

And in that few frames of sitting
on the veranda, condescending,

looking down at the people you've
just conquered, but knowing

that they are both exotic
and inferior to you,

you see all of those thwarted
ambitions

of Germans to be colonists.

Of people who'd lost their own
colonies in 1918, and yet see

the possibility of living this out
in some vicarious way in the east.

It's like they're suddenly
in their own museum of ethnography.

And that tipping of condescension
into atrocity is very easy,

as we see, and partly it comes
with the idea that these are not

people who are individuals. They do
not have individual conscience.

They don't have individual soul.
They don't have artistic depth.

They've been hammered into
a collective

under the blows of Soviet rule,

and so the only way to treat them
is also as a simple collective.

Following behind the front line
troops

are SS units on a mission to kill

all the Jews and communists
they can find.

This footage was shot by a soldier
called Reinhard Wiener in Latvia

at the far north of the invasion.

The phrase "the Holocaust by
bullets"

is actually extremely important

if you want to understand what took
place once the war started,

and it refers to the fact
that, for quite a long time

after the invasion of Poland
and even the invasion

of the Soviet Union,

most of the killing was done
face-to-face.

So they would round up groups
of Jews, march them

out of their village into a forest,
and then shoot them.

So at least half the people
who were murdered in the Holocaust

were murdered in that
face-to-face way.

So the idea that the Holocaust is
entirely a sort of industrialised

process is very misleading,

but at least half the victims
were kind of walked into muddy

fields and just...saw their killers
down the barrel of a gun.

This was a terrible, brutal,
despicable phase of Barbarossa

of World War II
that's not so well-known.

And, in fact, it's so brutalises,
even the SS and the Einsatzgruppen

and the special battalions
that Himmler goes to a special

programme in Minsk to show him the
brutality of this kind of murder.

And Himmler watches the execution
of 100 Jewish people, and he sees

for himself how difficult it is
for his "poor SS guys" -

how psychologically they're
being traumatised.

Moving toward the creation
of the extermination camps is not

because it's going to be more humane
to the victims, it's because it's

seen to be more humane to those who
were being asked to do the killing.

But in 1941 and the invasion
of Soviet Union,

it is pistols out, it's machine
guns, it's gallows up.

I mean, you know, what's
so amazing about that footage

is just how medieval
and barbaric it is.

And yet it becomes normal.

And yet, you know, it's this sort
of casual footage of people
being strung up,

casual footage of people being
burnt and chucked in pits

and being shot in the
back of the head.

I mean, it is absolutely horrible.

We had a school teacher
from Eichstatt who writes home

to his wife about the terrible
images that he's seen.

He doesn't describe them to her in
the letters - he does in his diary.

He promises to tell her everything
when he's at home with her.

And, at the same time, he talks
about

the photos of the small child -
Reiner - that she sent him.

He was born at the outbreak of war.

And he says, "It's terrible where
I am, but it's better that I am

"here and that I go through this
hell, even if I have to die here,

"rather than that Reiner
should be the third generation

"who has to come and fight
a war like this."

These so-called special operations
are repeated across the whole

front line and are a common
spectacle for German soldiers.

This conversation was recounted

by a Wehrmacht officer
called Von Rothkirch.

I knew an SS leader pretty well
and we talked about this and that,

and one day he said, "Listen,
if you ever want to film one

"of these shootings, I mean,
it doesn't really matter.

"These people are always
shot in the morning.

"If you're interested,
we still have a few left over.

"We could shoot them
in the afternoon, if you like."

In time, even the population
back home begin to learn

what is being done in their name.

So much of the knowledge which we
have was also knowledge

that the German population
had at the time.

Soldiers' letters, the stories that
people tell each other on trains,

often talking in the darkness of
night journeys

to comparative strangers, trusting

people whom you only know
as a bird of passage. But also

the photography, the photos
that soldiers take of atrocity

sites, of the mass hangings, mass
shootings, the open graves,

the ditches being covered in lime

and then shovelled in by local
Soviet civilians afterwards.

These are images which were not
kept just at the front

because the films themselves,

the photographic 35-millimetre film
taken on the first SLR cameras,

were Leicas. They were sent back
in little aluminium film canisters,

with letters and parcels
from the front, to be developed

in the local town,

in the photo studio, sometimes
in the pharmacy. And the prints

of the photographs were seen
on the home front

before they were sent back
to the men who'd taken them.

And yet what we have to think of
is their provenance at the time.

They were known and they were part
of a spreading knowledge,

a web of knowledge of mass
eye-witnessing of mass executions

in which between one and two million

of the Jews who fell victim
to the Holocaust

were killed in this way on the
eastern front.

And there was no secret about this.

These were not secret death camps

to which no unauthorised
eyewitnesses could visit.

They were endlessly visited

and, by early 1942, Germany is
awash with stories and rumours

about what is happening to the Jews.

Hitler loyalist Julius Putfarken
has no difficulty justifying

these reports of atrocities.

"The Jews are particularly hated.
In Litzmannstadt, this hatred

"was expressed as retaliation
after the Russians had pulled out,

"when a large number of Jewish
men, women and children

"were beaten to death.
That brings order.

"One human life is currently worth
very little on the eastern front."

Hitler's invasion of Russia
needs to be over quickly.

The Germans cannot sustain
a war of attrition.

This desire to get it over with
leads Hitler to one of his greatest

moments of hubris.
As his forces approach Moscow,

he gives voice to his most
heartfelt wish.

I declare today, and I declare
it without any reservation,

that the enemy in the east
has been struck down

and will never rise again.

But it was not to be.

This footage is by an amateur
film-maker in a Panzer unit

70km from Moscow.

The lead German units come within
just 15km of Moscow.

But on December 5th, 1941, Soviet
forces and the Russian winter

stem the tide and force them back.

Two days later, the Japanese
launched

their attack on Pearl Harbor.

Hitler is thrilled, saying, "We now
have an ally which has never

"been conquered in 3,000 years."

Four days later, Hitler declares
war on the United States.

It will prove as catastrophic
a miscalculation as his invasion

of the Soviet Union and all hope
of a swift end to the war is gone.

"This afternoon, Germany declared
war on the United States,

"which the Fuhrer justified
in one of his great speeches.

"This gives us clarity, and the
mood is calm and confident.

"But there will be heavy fighting
before we win peace and victory.

"Hitler also announced the Russian
winter

"would interrupt the fighting
in the east.

"How much noble German blood
has flowed there

"against these Soviet beasts?"

On December 19th, 1941, Julius
Putfarken

makes one brief final diary entry.

"It's an unfriendly, hard week
for me."

He dies after a short illness
just three weeks later.

The Hitler loyalist will be
spared the sight

of his leader's slow downfall.

For Victor Klemperer,
the future is uncertain.

His veteran status and Aryan
wife have saved him

from deportation thus far.

But for how long?

He is under virtual house arrest,
as Jews are forbidden

to leave their homes between
Christmas and New Year.

He is scathing about Hitler's
latest proclamation.

"A few weeks ago, the Russians
were officially annihilated.

"Now they are to be annihilated
in spring.

"We just need to hold on
fanatically.

"Certainly Hitler will fall,
but before we do?"

For the Lederer family
from Czechoslovakia, the descent

into the night and fog
has already begun.

Robert Lederer, who took his
footage in the summer of 1939,

is in the Sachsenhausen
concentration camp.

He will never return.

His wife, Rose, and their children,
Nina and Peter, are headed

into the Theresienstadt Ghetto.

From there, they will be deported
to Auschwitz in 1944.

On arrival, Rose and Nina
were eligible for work.

But Rose refused to leave Peter
to face his fate alone.

They died together in the
gas chambers.

In the next episode of
Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany,

cracks are starting to appear.

The allied bombing threatens
the very future of the Reich...

..and life for internal enemies
of the Nazis becomes unbearable.

One soldier hatches an audacious
plan to save his Jewish wife.

This is my father now,

who is just giving narcosis to a
wounded man, you know?

Yeah.

While from Holland to Stalingrad,

Normandy to the final
desperate stand...

..home movies chart Germany's
slide towards ruin.