All language subtitles for Lost Home Movies of Nazi Germany BBC 720p 2of2 EN SUB

This programme contains
some violent scenes

and scenes which
some viewers may find disturbing.

During the 1930s, the ownership of
cine cameras became widespread
across Germany.

This was welcomed by the Nazis
because it allowed ordinary people

to record their Thousand-Year Reich.

With history being made all around
them, many Germans couldn't wait

to load their cine cameras and begin
filming.

Others preferred to record their
thoughts in the time-honoured form

of the personal diary.

After many decades of these diaries
and films being hidden away,

they are starting to find the light
of day as new generations come

to terms with Germany's Nazi past.

What emerges is a unique insight
into life under the swastika.

A record that starts with optimism
bordering on hubris.

Few know it yet, but by the end of
1941, Nazi Germany is teetering

on the brink of catastrophe.

Christmas traditions are precious
for Germans,

who gave the world the
Christmas tree

and some of its favourite carols.

A time for family, frivolity,
and fun.

These are glimpses of small human
moments in between the grand sweep
of war.

This is the Bersche family
from Berlin.

Putting on a Christmas display
lovingly captured by husband Hans.

The traditions of the Christmas
tree,

that is a tradition you share as a
German.

And that's something very
problematic, too.

When you see it used in the same
context that you're familiar with,

it feels almost like everything was
misappropriated by the Nazis

and it's your own culture
that you share with them.

Because that's the most important
family gathering of the year.

I don't know, they look very pleased
with themselves and in a staged way
to me.

It looks like there was a certain
purpose somehow to this film.

I think when you look at photographs
of films from that period,

you get these in-between moments
that make you realise

seemingly banal scenes of
celebrating Christmas,

you understand that not everything
about that time was about Nazi
ideology or the war.

That, of course, people
lived their lives.

And because of that, it was probably
not always apparent to them

that many decisions they made on an
everyday basis were political
decisions.

And the gender roles.

Woman is knitting something,
man is reading.

And the train set.

Everything's under control.

It's meant to signify that there
was money there to be able

to give something like that as a
Christmas gift.

Here, the gingerbread house
that's...

I think every German has fond
feelings for in some way.

And it's uncomfortable to see
that reflected on the children's
face that lived at that time.

So, I think the intimacy of these
private moments really make you...

..connect to these people, but in an
uncomfortable way.

People chose to live in a certain
way that rings true today as well.

So, the gifts are a little bit
questionable here, too.

A helmet and the soldier's swastika
flag...

You know, a movie that's staged like
a home movie,

but it's propaganda.
It's pure propaganda in a way.

Ah, clearing the snow.

Pushing a handcart.

Of course, the weather is a huge
factor in the whole war.

Particularly when the Germans go
eastward

because it's wonderful in the
summer.

But once you start getting these
terribly cold winters,

it's so difficult for people to
survive without coal, without food.

And as the war starts to bite,
not only are the peoples

of Eastern Central Europe affected,
but the Germans themselves come
to be affected.

It's not the case here -
people are still well-fed.

Energetic little kids are helping,
clearing up the snow.

Although many of the people look
healthy, the population's view

of the war is changing.

50-year-old Hans Eggers lives in
Hamburg, and by February 1942,

his diary is preoccupied with food
and the weather
rather than military successes.

VOICEOVER: It is -40 degrees
today and we have restrictions

on the supply of electricity
and gas.

Our nutrition has become worse.

Hard, frozen cabbages and turnips
are all we have for lunch.

Most of the grain is wintered out.

Many potatoes are frozen
in the rents.

Some are not harvested
even in autumn

because there was a lack of
manpower.

We've all become skinny as dogs.

This looks like the Winterhilfswerk
collection for fur coats

because the troops on the
Eastern Front,

Hitler thought it was going to be
such a quick victory.

He didn't provision the troops for
winter weather.

And so they had a call for pelts,
fur coats, and winter equipment.

So, there's skis and sleds going,

those will be going off to the front
for the soldiers.

Wehrmacht soldiers freezing
outside of Moscow.

A lot of the soldiers commented on
getting these fur coats

and finding things like lipsticks
inside the pockets.

Clothes being loaded onto the back
of lorries to be sent off

for the troops outside Moscow
because they had gotten to almost

within the tram lines in Moscow.

But they couldn't get any further,
and then the weather intervened,

and they were absolutely in dire
straits.

Frozen in the snow, their supply
lines vastly overextended.

But the number of soldiers out
in the Eastern Front who were dying

or being terribly affected by
frostbite, for example,

toes and fingers and ears being
frozen off.

This was a terrible, terrible
winter.

There's still time to...

..play in the snow, have some fun.

And somebody's going to go skiing
down the sidewalk of their town.

Southern Germany, somewhere.

For Victor Klemperer,
a Jew living in Dresden,

the cold and lack of food, are part
of the daily horror of life

under the Nazis.

Klemperer has avoided deportation
so far thanks to his marriage to
Aryan wife Eva.

But many of his friends are not so
lucky.

Before a deportee goes,
the Gestapo seals up everything

he leaves behind.

It is all forfeit.

Yesterday evening, before he was
evacuated, Paul Kreidl brought me

a pair of shoes that fit me
perfectly and are most welcome given

the dreadful condition of my own.

The latest transport includes
many of the elderly, weak, and sick.

It is unlikely that many
will still be alive on arrival.

Across the Reich, thousands of Jews
await their fate.

But one German married
to a half-Jewish woman hatches

an astonishing plan to persuade
Nazi officials

to change the racial status of his
wife.

This is Helmut Machemer, who is also
a prolific film-maker.

To do this, he must win
an Iron Cross first class.

A medal that, according
to an obscure bit of Nazi law,

might entitle his family
to be recertified as German.

I think the story of Machemer is
essentially one

of, in a sense, a bewildered human
being who is married to the daughter

of a Jew and can't find a way out
other than

to go to the front and try to become
a highly-decorated soldier

in the belief that this will protect
his family at home

even though by implication
he would be up to his neck

in the slaughter of innocent people.

His division is sent to Ukraine.

The fighting here is not only
savage, it soon includes the murder

of tens of thousands of
non-combatants - many of them Jews.

So, one of the interesting things
about this footage

is its provenance, and in particular
the fact that the doctor who made it

didn't have to serve.

He was already old enough not to
have to volunteer, but chose to

partly to protect his Jewish wife.

He couldn't know whether the
marriage would be dissolved.

In fact, the Nazis never got
around to dissolving marriages.

They put a lot of pressure on Aryan
partners to divorce their Jewish
partners,

but they didn't actually dissolve
marriages.

And yet there was a constant fear
that they would do so.

He essentially sees himself as a
patriotic German who is...

..shadowed by the fear of
being classified as being Jewish

or as being somehow connected to
being Jewish?

Dr Machemer throws himself into his
dual mission,

saving the wounded and rescuing his
family.

This is my father now who is just...

..giving the narcosis to a wounded
man, you know, he is moving in pain.

This must be a scene within the
truck for wounded people

where a young man with a bloody arm

is being treated.

Just imagine, my father was a
trained eye doctor but, of course,

he had also basic training in work
of general physicians.

And you see so many helping
soldiers.

And that is the wounded man who is
now happy.

Well done.

So, he gets out of the truck,
the next is coming.

If he would be a very brave
and successful medic and soldier,

he might have a chance to get
a so-called...

SPEAKS GERMAN

..by the Fuhrer.

That would mean that his wife and
his children

would not be treated as Jews.

A chance to save his wife,
who was half-Jewish,

and his children.

For instance, myself.

So, everything looks very peaceful.

The feelings of the people looks
quite relaxed.

HE LAUGHS

So, this is near the end of the
story

because after he had received

in early May 1942, this...

..Eisernes Kreuz Erste Klasse,

and was extremely happy.

A few days later, he was killed...

..in his car while he was driving
across the battlefield

in order to collect wounded
soldiers.

And the enemy, that is the other
Soviet side,

was lucky just to set a grenade near
to his car.

And he was...

He was dead instantly.

That was on the birthday,

the fifth birthday of my youngest
brother Peter
on the 18th, May of 1942.

Wooden crosses of those
German soldiers who had "fallen",

as we say,

who had died in combat.

In the middle, there is the captain
of the company

who is talking to the soldiers.

Oh, and now is he...

What is it about?

They are just saying goodbye to some
dead comrades.

It happens that I saw my mother
sitting at the desk of my father.

In front of her, a white piece of
paper, and she was crying.

I never had...

Excuse me.

I never had seen my mother crying.

So, I was shocked, and she was
hitting her fists in desperation...

..on the table.

And this was the moment
I'll never forget.

That I knew my father is dead.

In due course, his bravery earns
a posthumous declaration

from Hitler's office
declaring that his wife, Erna,

has been reclassified as an
Aryan German.

It is the only known instance of
this ever happening.

Yeah.

I have...

..a high appreciation of his
decision...

..to risk his life to protect his
wife and his children.

It would have been very easy for him
just to get divorced

from his family, from his wife.

And in fact, many Germans did this.

And, so, I think he was a very...

..brave and loving father, that he
was willing to risk his life for us.

Machemer saves his family but seems
unquestioning about the racial
hatred that underliesit.

He is also part of an
invading army

which brought
untold misery and death.

Just...

..dead corpse.

Horrible.

Dead, frozen corpse.

Yeah, I think that's enough.

Back in Germany, the cruelty of Nazi
racial hatred is affecting Klemperer
in shocking new ways.

Jews with the star are forbidden
to keep pets.

This is the death sentence
for Muschel

whom we have had for over 11 years.

He is to be taken to the vet
tomorrow so that he is spared

the ordeal of being fetched and put
down with the others.

The little creature plays happily
and does not know

it will die tomorrow.

Is there someone out there who knows
tomorrow you will die?

In November 1942, a major
deportation of Dresden Jews begins.

Klemperer is not on the lists,
but these Jews being moved

into a transit camp
include many of his friends.

They can communicate while they
await trains to the East.

They are taking people to the Jews
camp at Hellerberg.

Eva said this kind of evacuation is
so shameless

because everything happens
so openly.

Eisenmann called it catastrophic,
unimaginably crowded,

and barbarically primitive,
especially the latrines,

but also the narrow beds.

The carpenters who build barracks
for Polish prisoners of war stated

they were luxury hotels compared
to this Jews camp of sand and mud.

Although we don't know who shot this
footage,

it has to have been filmed
by a German in authority.

The camera angles from above.

He obviously had some privileged
vantage point.

We get to see their luggage labelled
as Jews were forced

to give themselves either "Sara"
or "Israel" as a given name.

Jew with his star on.

Suitcases.

You know, we always think of Dresden
as being that innocent place

that was bombed needlessly in
February 1945.

It's often forgotten that it
was an absolute hotbed of Nazism.

Over 130 factories producing war
material as well, a major rail hub.

And also the way they dealt with
their Jewish population

was as brutal as anywhere, really.

Yes, it's just so wrong, isn't it?

You know, you look at these families
with their kids.

I mean, Jesus.

Looking quite clearly distressed.

Oh, dear.

You wonder how many of these living
people in this footage,

you wonder how much longer they
were.

Their shoes have been stolen
from them,

and they're been replaced with
wooden clogs.

So, "Get rid of your shoes.

"We'll have those,
thank you very much.

"Put on these cheap wooden shoes,
instead."

You know, you are lesser citizens
that you have...

You're not even citizens at all.
You're outcasts.

It's really grotesque.

Checking for lice.

In Bielefeld and Minden
in November 1941,

within ten days of the first Jews
being deported,

rumours came back as to what had
happened to them.

Those who had been able to work had
been put to work

in former Soviet factories,
and that those who couldn't work,

the elderly, women,
and small children, and the ill,

had all been summarily executed.

God, it's just so undignified,
isn't it?

Germans watching on and laughing.

Jewish men just being made to stand
naked together.

Boys and adults together.

This is deeply humiliating for
them because, of course, you know,

you live in a society
where it's not OK to be naked.

You know, for these older gentleman
to be there like that,

that would have been deeply
humiliating.

All wearing their wooden clogs
struggling to walk in them,

cos they don't fit properly.

They're too big.

You know, it's muddy, it's wet,
it's cold...

You know, it's little details like
that that often get forgotten

when you're thinking about the
Holocaust.

It's really disturbing.

You know, you just think about the
death camps.

You forget about the processes of
deep humiliation, degradation

that is going on in the process up
to them arriving

in concentration camps and
death camps.

Horrible.

Across Europe, millions of Jews now
live under Nazi occupation

and dread the day their names appear
on the deportation lists.

Some have gone into hiding, notably
Anne Frank in Amsterdam,

the most famous diarist of the war.

But less than a mile away
from where she writes, another group

of Dutch Jews are also in hiding
from the Germans.

Cooped up for months on end,
they turned to the cine camera

to stave off despair and boredom.

The film-maker is called
Harry Swaab.

Notice, obviously...

..Jews wearing the star of David.

Beautifully dressed, doing acting.

Acting - play acting.

This is a Jewish group in hiding in
Amsterdam,

living above a cafe of the man who's
hiding them.

And they're putting on a play
recreating life

as if it was normal life.

Welcoming guests into their supposed
cafe or house,

cutting up ration coupons. So, this
is normal life for those who are not

in hiding in Amsterdam. And it
actually is very, very comfortable.

I'm struck at the beautiful clothes,
hairstyles.

The humour, playing cards, the food,
the sorts of things

that would simply be unthinkable in
Eastern Europe at this point.

There's a certain amount of normalcy
even to it.

The idea is to alleviate boredom to
have some fun,

despite all the horrible things that
are going on.

Now, you have to hide because the
time has come to wake up and...

..and go into your hiding place.

So, here's an amazing piece of
footage of a hidden door

behind a closet, and you roll it
back in front of the hiding place.

And there's another hiding place in
the cupboard or oven

in the kitchen.

It's all fake so that people can
hide.

And avoid being discovered by the
SS.

Which, of course, despite the humour
in this,

and despite the sort of jolly nature
of it all,

you know that death hangs over each
and every one

of these people if
they're discovered.

So, although they can make light of
it, they can amuse themselves,

try to make it look as if things
were OK,

they all know - you can tell in
their faces.

Here's a hat with 1942, 1943.

How many more years do they have to
live like this till the war ends?

But despite the jolliness of it, you
can see...

There's the sort of mimicking the
"Heil Hitler" sign, mimicking...

..the crazy idiots who are following
Hitler like dolls.

Picture of Hitler.

Incredible footage.

Four months into 1943, the Jews
hiding above Cafe Alcazar

are betrayed by pro-fascist Dutch
collaborators who scour Amsterdam

for hidden Jews on behalf of the
Gestapo.

All but two of the people in
Harry Swaab's film are captured in
this way.

The Nazis pay the Dutch
collaborators a bounty worth £47.50

for each countryman they betray.

Meanwhile, in Russia, the war has
taken a catastrophic turn

for the Germans.

In Stalingrad, they are surrounded
and starved of supplies
by Soviet forces.

After a three-month siege, 91,000
men of the Sixth Army surrender

and begin a descent into Hell.

Fewer than 6,000 of these men will
ever return to Germany,

and the last of them not until 1956.

The surrender at Stalingrad is the
first major defeat
on the Eastern Front.

And it sends shock waves throughout
the Reich

as Hans Eggers notes in his diary.

Stalingrad has fallen and the
Sixth Army has been destroyed.

The whole Eastern Front
is apparently in strong retreat.

This year will be a very difficult
one for us.

The total mobilisation of all
workers in the homeland is ordered.

Men up to the age of 65 and women up
to the age of 45 are called upon

to do war-related work.

From that moment on and following
the fall of Stalingrad,

Joseph Goebbels does his very
infamous speech in the Sportpalast
where he goes,

"What is it you want?
What we need is total war."

SPEAKING GERMAN

Suddenly, everything that the
Germans are doing

has to be in this war of survival.

And it is painted in those sort of
cataclysmic terms.

It is the Thousand-Year Reich, can
you survive and you can somehow,

SOMEHOW, find the will, the triumph
of the will, Nazi slogan,

to kind of somehow fight back or
it's Armageddon.

And instead of going into the
Soviet Union to be victorious,

this is now even more a battle of
survival for the very nature

of the Teutonic, Aryan,
German peoples.

And that is how it's depicted.

So, there is this huge psychological
blow where suddenly those in Germany
are thinking,

"Yikes, we are really up the creek
without a paddle."

For Nazi leadership,
it is a turning point.

It is time the German people
share the truth about their plight.

ALL: Sieg Heil!

It's an important moment in March
1943 where Goebbels writes down

in his diary that he's talked
to Goering and they've agreed

together that it's not a bad thing
for the German people to know

what has happened to the Jews
because they will realise

that they've burned their bridges.
And as he reflects,

"A society which has nowhere to
retreat to

"will resist and fight all the more
fanatically."

And that idea of holding out and
fighting fanatically

is the touchstone for Goebbels of
what a successful war effort amounts
to and he continues

with this right to the very end,
until 1945.

The total war speech comes at a time
when ordinary German civilians

need few reminders of how dire
things have become.

In the early years of the war,
the British bombing
inflicted little damage.

But as it intensifies during 1943,
the authorities call up those born

in 1926 and '27 to man the guns.

Young boys of just
15 and 16 years old.

These child soldiers come from near
Leipzig.

It is May 1943.

The Wehrmacht assumes boys will be
less effective than adults,

so initially allocate 100 boys to
replace 70 men.

The boys turn out to be far
more energetic than their elders,

and before long are in sole charge
of Flak batteries.

Children like these are about to
face Armageddon.

Well, Hamburg was quite simply the
worst ever series of raids on a
single city ever

in the Western world.

Colour footage of buildings
burning...

I mean, 42,600 people killed in
Hamburg

over a number of raids at the very
end of July - 3,500 heavy bombers.

80% of the second city in Germany
completely destroyed.

Just horrendous.

Wow! Look at that...

Firemen trying to subdue the fires,
but...

You know, we're...

In Britain, it's all about the Blitz
and the bombing of the East End.

But it's just absolutely nothing
compared to this.

Wow.

This is unique film footage that
Hans Brunswick shot

of the Hamburg firestorm.

And these images became famous as a
set of atrocities

that had been inflicted on the
German population by...

..not just the RAF, but by...

..the Jewish lobby operating in
Washington and London.

In the words of Goebbels,
the "Jewish terror attacks".

And this idea that this is terror
bombing, that these are terror
raids...

..finds its ultimate confirmation in
Hamburg as these dazed evacuees

from the city spread their stories
as they were evacuated

in open trains in the summer heat.

The city of 1.2 million -
Germany's second largest city.

800,000 of its inhabitants flee.

Oh, it's just a shell.

Absolutely ruined.

Look at that.

I mean, you know, that's like
Manchester being 80% destroyed or
something.

It's just totally unimaginable.

Lots of refugees.

Standing around bewildered.

Sitting on boxes.

Just nothing left.

Wounded man,
bandages around his head.

Trucks going out with...

Wow. It's amazing, really, it's...

..sort of exodus of people.

I mean, how do you cope with that?

You have dead lying where they are.

Oh, dear.

Wow.

Yeah, it's pretty gruesome.

I mean, lots and lots of
dead bodies.

It becomes extremely political
because people quite quickly ask

themselves the question,
"Why is this happening to us?"

And they don't just talk about the
British air raids.

They also talk...

..about this as retaliation for what
they have done to the Jews.

And this picks up a crucial element
of official propaganda,

which has been peddled since the
spring of 1943,

that the Jews abroad who have
somehow captured the governments

of Churchill and Roosevelt are
pushing for a war of annihilation
against Germany.

This is repeated by Goebbels,
it's repeated by Goering.

Goering makes a famous speech a
few months after the Hamburg raids
in which he says,

"Do not imagine if we are defeated
that they will make any distinction

"between Nazis and non-Nazis,
between people who supported these
things and people who didn't."

And he says,
"This is not the Second World War.

"This is the Great Race War."

Hamburg is destroyed as if an
earthquake had passed over it.

The violence and heat of the
conflagration was so great

that many people left the cellars
and were killed by the rain

of the phosphorous bombs.

The streets are full of buried and
burned people.

Thousands more are still lying in
the cellars, burnt,

suffocated, or crushed.

Hamburg is finished for many years.

The fire chief who organised the
filming wasn't just recording

the enormity of the firestorm.

He was telling Germans they are now
victims, too.

What Germans have done to the Jews
is clearly on the moral deficit.

It's not something to be proud of
and yet people talk about it

because they do think that it is
linked to the Allied bombing

of German cities, which they also
think is a moral aberration.

It's something which just goes
beyond the pale.

And so the bit of the rhetoric
that works is the idea

that these are
Jewish terror attacks.

And that ONLY Jewish terror
could explain why German civilians

are exposed to what they have to
endure in Hamburg.

It's only in the spring and summer
of '43 as the war comes home to
German cities

in this most extraordinary and
destructive form of aerial bombing

that they start to see themselves as
caught up in an impossible cycle of
destruction.

For millions of Germans, a sense of
their own suffering deflects

questions of guilt for what had been
done to the Jews.

By the middle of the war, for the
average German worker, say,

the hardships that they were
experiencing and the danger,
if they were living in a city

like Hamburg or Berlin,
was very significant.

They were probably more caught up in
the day-to-day struggle to survive.

They were probably largely
indifferent to what was happening to
Jews.

I think to a significant degree,
if they reflected on it,

many of them would still be buying
into the anti-Semitic tropes

that they had probably grown up
with and thought, "But the Jews
probably have this coming,"

or, "This is good because then we
can get their stuff."

And of course, one of the big issues
around deporting the Jews

was the economic value of what they
left behind.

And that ordinary German citizens
could benefit from that

by taking the furniture or taking
over the flat or the house or
whatever.

So, in my imagination, the
dominant attitude would be,

"I don't really care. I've got
enough problems of my own here."

And, "Jews were never very good and
we're glad to see the back of them."

By 1944, making home movies is no
longer possible or even desired.

But even this late on, the borders
of the Reich stretch across Europe.

And, for some, life under occupation
is just about tolerable.

Fernand Bignon filmed this near
the town of Thierville in Normandy.

Bignon was a member of the
pictorialism photographic movement

whose members regarded photography
as an art form.

Well, large parts of the Atlantic
coast are... You know, it's a pretty
comfortable place to be.

I mean, if you're German,
it's pretty cushy. I mean...

These are rich agricultural areas
and because the transport systems
are so impaired by 1944,

completely dependent on trains,
there's not much petrol.

So, there's not much trucks
going around.

A lot of the food that's being
developed has to be eaten there.

I mean, it's nowhere else for it to
go. It's not being shuffled off to
Paris or to, you know,

the main cities or anything like
that.

So, being on the coast is cushy.

You're going to get much better fed
than you would if you were back home
in Germany.

And there's not an awful lot going
on.

And unless you're unfortunate enough
to be in Normandy itself,

you're sort of OK.

I mean, nearly 90% of the Atlantic
Wall was never involved in combat.

And if you're French there, again,
you're not going that hungry

for the same reasons.
The food is staying there,

you're a secondary citizen compared
to German troops

and occupation troops but it's
perfectly possible

to sort of keep your head down and,

you know, survive and battle it out,
frankly.

Normandy, up until the beginning
of June 1944, is not a bad place

to be - cut off
from the rest of France.

Yes, you're occupied but again,

if you keep your head down,
it's sort of OK.

There's rising civil war, of course,
because the French forces

of the interior, the resistance
movement is growing

because they know there's a light
at the end of the tunnel.

And because of the obligatory work
orders which means young men have

to go and do labour service in
Germany and lots of
people don't want to do that.

So, the alternative is to run
to the hills and join the Maquis,
join the resistance.

So, if you're a young man at this
time, you know, the choices are few
and far between.

And it's getting tougher
and tougher but if you are a sort
of ordinary person,

you can mind your P's and Q's and
you can sort of keep your head down

and you're sort of going to be OK.

It is absolutely the case that while
the Germans are hogging

all the food because of this lack
of transport,

a lot of food has to stay in
Normandy.

And, actually, it's as good a place
as any.

In April 1944, another group
of young men arrived in the area.

Jo Dahms is a member of an elite
German paratroop regiment.

Here to strengthen the defences
along the Atlantic Wall.

The positions were built in such a
way that you could stand up

in the pit and be well camouflaged,
protected from shrapnel

and covered with wood and earth to
hide our position.

One day in May, we were told
Field Marshal Rommel

would be inspecting the position.

A moment of excitement will break
up the monotony of the daily
routine.

We were all excited at the thought
of meeting a greatness like Rommel,

and to answer his questions in the
right way.

But he stormed through the positions
like a driven man,

and we only caught a brief glimpse.

He still had a huge amount to deal
with that day.

We were only the first stop.

Little did Jo Dahms or
the Bignon family know,

they are on the front line of one of
the most monumental moments
of the war.

Despite all our efforts at
camouflage today, we got a visit

from a very threatening combat
aircraft of the Royal Air Force.

It was a three-fuselage aircraft of
the newest type,

with the characteristics of a
fighter plane

and the firepower of a bomber.

It flew over the positions at low
altitude.

We could see the guns in the nose
and rockets

on the wings simultaneously opening
fire.

Only a timely jump into the cover of
a sunken path saved us.

I learned later the plane was the
terror of all infantrymen,

a Lightning of the aircraft
builder Lockheed.

The Bignon family filmed these same
fighter planes, P-38 Lightnings.

On the 6th of June 1944,

Jo Dahms is dug in just five miles
from the D-Day beaches.

He is soon in action.

Suddenly, there was enough fire from
an unknown donor

who had us covered from behind with
strong rifle fire forcing us

into full cover.

The projectiles flew in close just
above our heads.

Peter couldn't stop himself from
hissing into my ear.

"Those aren't German carbines."

After overcoming a second of shock,
I had to act decisively.

Without waiting for any
instructions,

I told my MG 42 from the ground and
simply shot from my hip

with several bursts of fire into the
undergrowth

from which the shots came.

From the other side came
icy silence,

which we used to find better cover.

It was impossible to make out who we
were facing.

They have no time to film themselves
but this official footage

shows his unit in bleak and
desperate combat with Allied forces.

By the time Dahms' regiment leaves
Normandy, they are reduced

from 4,600 men to just 500.

Back in Thierville, Fernand Bignon
has his camera out again,

filming secretly as the Germans
finally start to retreat.

After four years of occupation,
liberation is finally upon them.

Fernand Bignon no longer has to film
in secret.

He and his family are at the
roadside exchanging kisses

and flowers with their
British liberators.

Back in Germany, the news of the
invasion brings

a new round of propaganda.

But Hans Eggers' diary shows he is
no longer convinced.

The long awaited invasion of the
West began.

According to an official statement
of the Army leadership,

it will end with a complete
destruction of the enemy.

The battle in Normandy is raging.

In the night from the
15th to the 16th,

we have begun as retaliation to
shower southern England and London

with new high-explosive devices.

Both events, which we've been told
are coming many times

and whose occurrence has often been
doubted, have now become fact.

How will both have an effect?

In Dresden, Victor Klemperer hangs
on,

one of just a handful of Jews left
in the city.

He, too, watches the invasion but
longs for a very different outcome.

The English have held on for three
days and are near Caen and Bayeux.

The landing itself, therefore, is
successful.

But how will it go now?

And at what pace?

I can no longer hope for anything.

I can hardly imagine living to see
the end of this torture

of these years of slavery.

With the Allies closing in,
some in Germany were working

to topple the regime.

In July 1944, an attempt is made on
Hitler's life

at his Wolf's Lair headquarters.

The bomb plot fails.

Worse, it hardens many Germans'
support for the Nazi regime.

Fanaticism like this means Klemperer
is in mortal danger

and can see that time is running
out.

Worn out and depressed because I had
been running around

as the bearer of deportation
notices, Waltman told me

that those being deported on
Thursday were being sent

to their deaths and the rest of us
will be disposed of in the same way

in a week's time.

Then, a major air raid warning
sounded.

"If only they could destroy
everything,"

said Frau Stuhler bitterly.

This raid on Dresden is a rerun of
the horrors of Hamburg.

25,000 dead are left dead.

But for Klemperer, the chaos of the
raid offers salvation.

At first, I covered the Jewish star
with a blanket.

Then, I removed it from my coat.
I had no choice.

Wearing the star, I would be
immediately spotted and killed.

After that, I sat in restaurants,

I used both train and tram.

As a Jew in the Third Reich, all of
it punishable by death.

I constantly told myself,
"Surely nobody could recognise me."

Especially as we were going further
and further away from Dresden.

Klemperer and wife Eva lose
themselves amid the refugee columns

fleeing Dresden and start to
head west.

During the spring of 1945,
the regime enlists all ages

to join the fighting.

Hans Eggers, now age 54, is one of
those called up.

Although I'm rejected by the
Wehrmacht as completely unfit

because of my war injury,
I'm called up to the Volkssturm.

The situation is now such that we
must expect English troops hourly.

This footage, shot northeast of
Berlin, is amongst the last taken

from the German side in the war.

It is filmed by a newsreel cameraman
called Gerhard Gahms.

He knows none of what he films will
make it onto the newsreels.

Instead, he records the last-ditch
stand as an epitaph

to a regime in its death throes.

These last battles on the Oder front
were really the last Soviet attacks

into Germany before the final
assault on Berlin.

It's really, really interesting why
it is that German people keep
fighting as long as they do.

There's a number of reasons.
First of all, there is the iron will
of the Fuhrer

who has this unbelievable hold over
people.

And this is really the last stand of
the Germans,

the sort of desperate attempt to try
and keep the Soviets from breaking
through in toward Berlin.

This very young boy must be...

..14 if he's even that.

This tragedy of this very old men
and very young boys

by now were being called out because
Himmler had created the so-called
Volkssturm,

which was made up of young kids and
men who were in their 50s and 60s.

The second thing is,
what choices?

There's kind of a fight on and
somehow come to some settlement.

But the alternative is Armageddon.

It is the end of everything you know
- destruction, defeat, marauding...

"Ivan's coming across from the
east."

These very young kids.

It's tragic...

..that the Germans just didn't stop.

They just kept on calling up anybody
they can find by this point.

A lot of them didn't even have
uniforms - they just had arm bands.

And old guys who really
couldn't fight.

And this is just the very end of the
war.

The Germans were so short of fuel
and ammunition that everything

they fired and everywhere they went
had to be so carefully planned out

because they simply couldn't spare
any men or material at this point.

And the third reason is sort of
fanaticism.

It's this fanaticism of a certain
proportion of the population

who will just keep fighting to the
end and ensure that everyone else
does as well.

So, you have ludicrous situations of
Nazis in towns about to be overrun

executing people who they consider
to be traitors,

even though they're about to be
overrun

by the Allies half an hour later.

I mean, it just makes no sense at
all.

So, I think it's a combination of
factors that keeps them fighting.

I think the biggest factor of all is
fear.

It is fear of the alternative
and that's what keeps them going.

Hans Eggers is under no illusions
about what this means.

Berlin seems to be on the verge
of collapse.

About 85% of the Reich is in enemy
hands.

Every resistance is meaningless and
useless.

By the 28th of April 1945, Victor
and Eva Klemperer are taken in

by a family in a village outside
Munich.

Suddenly, the familiar sound of
artillery fire

became explosions very close by.

Eva even heard the whistle of
bullets.

We sat cowering in the corner of the
kitchen which seemed the safest.

A last small group of soldiers put
up resistance for a few minutes

before even they fled.

The American attack had rolled over
our village.

The war was behind us.

Klemperer died peacefully in 1960,
aged 78.

His diaries were published in 1995.

They became a literary sensation.

Hitler dreamed of building an
empire.

He encouraged his people to film
every step along the way.

What they filmed was only ever
intended to be viewed

by victorious Germans.

Instead, what they chronicled was
their country's descent into the
abyss.

The Allies take Germans
from the towns near the camps

to see what has been done in
their name.

Fittingly, there is a cine camera
on hand to record the moment.

It is not enough these German
civilians confront Nazi crimes.

Posterity must see them doing it.

When the camps were uncovered and
these terrible scenes were revealed

of mass death and people starving
and so on,

I think the effect on the Allies
was very profound.

And they wanted to confront the
local population

with these realities.

But, also, this has to be recorded.

And one thing if you're a German
citizen watching a column

of people going off to a railway
station and you know

that they're never coming back.

But it's a very different thing to
confront the immediate physical
evidence

of what was done to these people
after they got on that train
and were taken away.

The Germans knew a lot,
but they didn't know that last bit

of what went on in these camps.

And they needed to know that.