All language subtitles for How.the.Nazis.Lost.the.War.S01E03

[intense music playing]

[people chanting] Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

[speaking German]

[narrator in English] What kind of leader
murders millions

and takes on the world's major powers
on multiple battlefronts?

[Taylor] Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniac.

He had a god complex.

He had all of these different issues

that have been stemming
since his childhood.

This gives Hitler a feeling
of almost messianic superiority,

that he knows things

that even his professional marshals
and generals don't know,

that he has these gut instincts
that are unerring.

[narrator] Could a disease caught
in the trenches during World War I

have accelerated
this delusional personality?

[Prof. Kaplan] It was described
by some as instant psychopath,

and these people became criminals,

particularly convincing con men.

[narrator]
Could another contributing factor

have been a raging drug addiction?

[Dr. Wawro]
Hitler is a-- is a heroin addict.

He's also getting up
with, you know, crystal meth,

you know, Pervitin,
and also taking cocaine.

He's really a wreck.

[narrator] It was a recipe for disaster,

which led to ultimate crushing defeat
for Hitler and the Nazis,

and the deaths of millions.

[explosion]

[intense music playing]

[people chanting] Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!

[narrator] In the last days
of the Reich's reign,

Adolf Hitler revealed the depth
of his capacity for self-delusion.

[speaking German]

[explosions]

[narrator in English] Germany was
under attack from both east and west.

[explosion]

[narrator] Defeat was inevitable,

but Hitler ordered his men
to fight to the death.

Hitler's war room was conducted
in a fortified underground bunker

in Berlin's Chancellery gardens.

[Dr. Wawro]
And when he's in the bunker in 1945,

awaiting the Soviet attack on Berlin,

and, you know, he's trembling

and some say this is Parkinson's disease.

Others say this is, you know,
withdrawal symptoms

from the morphine he'd been taking,

and was unable to get

because the German pharmaceutical
factories were getting bombed out

by the British and the Americans.

So, no, he's a-- he's a wreck.

[Hitler speaking German]

[narrator in English]
How did Hitler in a handful of years

go from Germany's apparent savior...

[crowd chatter]

[narrator] ...to her nemesis?

A broken and deranged dictator

hiding in an underground bunker,

ordering his troops to certain death.

In the years leading up to World War II,

Hitler achieved a string
of remarkable victories.

His apparently flawless military judgment

nurtured a messianic conviction
of his own indestructibility.

This, coupled with his carefully staged
managed public speeches and appearances,

turned Hitler into a feared military chief
at the head of an unbeatable army.

In fact, his military skills
remained largely

those of the lowly corporal
he had been in World War I.

And his blundering,

coupled with his increasingly
unstable personality,

proved ultimately
to be one of the Allies' greatest weapons.

But was there something else going on
behind the scenes

that even the Allies couldn't guess at?

[Dr. Wawro] There's no question
that Hitler's decision making

deteriorated in the course
of World War II.

People noticed it at the time.

He became more and more self-pitying,

maudlin, sleepy,

just kind of imprecise as the war went on.

And he became physically more
and more debilitated.

We can see in those weeks in the bunker
how he self-destructs

by becoming self-abusive,

picking his own skin with tweezers...

He just becomes a very unhappy, unhealthy,

horrible person.

Maybe that's the true Hitler
that he always was.

Now it really comes out.

[narrator] Hitler's spiraling decline
while he was chief decision maker

was in part due to years of drug abuse.

From 1941, on a regular basis,

Hitler was injected with methamphetamine
and morphine.

A syringe was his preferred method.

Was the man in charge
of the biggest war machine in history

little more than a junkie?

[Dr. Wawro]
Hitler is a--is a heroin addict.

I mean, this is a guy
who by the end of the war

is taking intravenous heroin every day.

Other opiates, he's also getting up
with, you know, crystal meth,

you know, Pervitin,
and he's also taking cocaine,

he's also injecting himself with vitamins,

testosterone, bull testosterone...

He's really a wreck.

[narrator] Hitler was displaying
all these appalling symptoms,

yet he was still able to cling to power.

[speaking German]

[cheers and applause]

[narrator] On the 20th of April,
inside Hitler's bunker,

the Führer's most loyal supporters
lined up to mark his 56th birthday.

Kilometers away on the edge of Berlin,

a puny number of German soldiers
were desperately defending the city.

A few thousand Germans

against the massed ranks of the Red Army.

As his delusional world
collapsed all around him,

Hitler's drug-addled mind kept alive
his fantasy Germany would prevail.

Hitler's private secretary, Traudl Junge,

observed the worst the situation
became on the front,

the happier Hitler was to discuss
his plans for the future.

Hitler imagined he would surround himself

with artists, academics, and civilians

when the war was over.

He was becoming ever more delusional.

It wasn't just drug use.

The drugs were amplifying
an already deranged character.

Adolf Hitler was a megalomaniac.

He had a god complex.

He had all of these different issues

that have been stemming
since his childhood,

and which made him a broken man.

[Dr. Wawro]
Hitler's a pathetic individual,

you know, he grows up,
he's bullied by his father,

his mother and father die
when he's a teenager.

He's sort of shiftless youth.

He ends up in art school, doesn't do well.

He ends up sort of painting postcards
on the street

and sort of drifting around
on the fringes of society.

So, you know, he endows himself
with all these powers

as a way of I go--I suppose
pumping up his fragile self-esteem.

All the leading politicians
look at him with contempt,

you know, the Bohemian Corporal.

[narrator] Hitler, the feckless youth,

living a penniless destitute life,

found a home in the German Army,

fighting against the Allies
in World War I.

[Dr. Wawro] This, you know,
German enlisted man from World War I

of absolutely no distinction,

who's trying to rise
to the top of German politics.

And they--and they see,
as his contemporaries saw,

that he's truly a pathetic figure.

But Hitler did have this kind of ability

to simplify matters for people

and narrow them down

to a couple of key grievances
that people could cling to.

And this is what brought him
fame and power.

[cheers and applause]

[narrator] So how did Hitler's experiences
during World War I

shape his capacity as a war leader?

Was he up to the task
of being a combat soldier,

let alone the military leader of Germany?

[suspenseful music playing]

[narrator] All of the soldiers
that lived through the Battle of Ebro

were promoted to Lance Corporal,
including Hitler.

His new role was to carry messages

between the frontline
and regimental headquarters,

a job fraught with danger.

Many dispatch runners were killed
in the line of duty.

But Hitler excelled.

By all accounts,
Hitler was a very good soldier.

He has a number of awards
that he receives and citations,

not least of which the Iron Cross.

We also know that he's exposed
to very real dangers.

He gets wounded twice,

once in 1916, once in 1918.

In fact, in 1918, it's a gas attack.

[explosion]

[narrator] One soldier from his regiment,

Hans Mend, described Hitler
as odd and peculiar,

who preferred to paint and read
rather than mix with the other soldiers.

Mend claimed Hitler would sit
in the corner in silence,

then all of a sudden jump up
and start ranting,

attacking Jews and Marxists,

who Hitler claimed
were subverting the war effort.

Hitler's nickname...

was Crazy Adolf.

According to Hitler's close friend,
Ernst Hanfstaengl,

fellow soldiers mocked Hitler
when they saw him in the washroom,

claiming his genitals were
almost freakishly underdeveloped.

Hanfstaengl
was one of Hitler's few friends.

And he queried
whether Hitler's genital abnormality

contributed to his terrifying
and murderous rages.

He knew from a very early stage
that he had congenital deformities,

which he was desperate to hide.

Now, Freud famously said,
"Anatomy is destiny."

And I think we have to say,
to a very large extent,

more so than most cases you look at,
this explains Hitler.

And at the same time,
this man is building gigantic,

impossible structures.

Well, you don't have to be a Freudian

to see there's a connection
between the two.

And it's a simple projection
of his inadequacy.

[intense music playing]

[narrator] Hitler's career in the infantry
wouldn't last long.

When he was wounded
in a British mustard gas attack

in 1918 at Ypres in Belgium,

he became temporarily blind...

and was evacuated
to a German military hospital.

Lying in his bed,

a local pastor would bring him
the devastating news

of Germany's surrender.

Hitler claimed
the news was so traumatizing,

it sent him
into another bout of blindness.

And in the darkness,
he claimed to have had an epiphany.

He would be the one to liberate Germany.

He said, "I would make Germany great.

I knew immediately
that it would be realized."

Hitler's messiah complex had begun.

Was this a vision, a moment of delirium,

or something else entirely?

Latest theories suggest
something else was at play.

A medical theory
that might help us understand

where Hitler's delusional mind
and psychopathic nature came from.

A disease caught in the trenches.

In late 1916, on the Western Front,

a new illness that had
never been seen before broke out.

And the people affected by it
mostly went into a deep sleep

from which they could be wakened.

They developed a range of neurological
and psychiatric symptoms.

Forty percent of them
died with the first episode.

But if they recovered, they would remain
in a deep state of sleep.

They would have Parkinson's syndrome,

not Parkinson's disease,
which you get when you're older,

or they would have
a major personality change.

It was described by some
as instant psychopath.

And these people became criminals,

particularly convincing con men.

Now, we know
that Hitler was right at the spot

in the German front lines
where the outbreak happened.

Shortly afterwards, he went to Munich,

which was a place
where there were a lot of cases.

So the theory goes

that Hitler had encephalitis lethargica,
he survived it.

And it led to two things,

his dramatic personality change,

and his well-known Parkinson's.

[narrator] Whether Hitler had
encephalitis lethargica remains a theory.

But what's not in doubt

is Hitler believed his divine destiny

was to restore Germany's standing
in the world.

As we know now,

Hitler could not deliver
on all his promises.

And his diseased, delusional mind
would eventually lead Germany

down a path of humiliation
and destruction.

But how would this so-called providence

take Hitler from his hospital bed
to a podium?

In 1918, Hitler returned to Munich.

The city was in a state of civil unrest.

His job was to help the army
infiltrate the German Workers' Party,

an anti-Marxist
and anti-capitalist political party.

Instead, he joined them.

The German Workers' Party
would later become

the National Socialist or Nazi Party.

Hitler rose through the ranks quickly,

propelled by the sheer power
of his delusional self-belief,

and his ability to sell the Nazi Party
message to the masses.

[Prof. Kaplan] I think that explains

why Hitler was the most
successful demagogue in history,

that away from the stage, the plenum,

where he was talking to a mass of people,

he was utterly insignificant.

There was just nothing there.

It was if you could take a personality
and make it into jelly,

and you just--your finger
would just keep going through it.

And this was remarked on
by everybody who knew him around him.

When Hitler got on stage
and he had to give a talk,

it was like a complete change
of personality.

[speaking German]

[cheers and applause]

But of course, you got to remember that

he was speaking words
the people wanted to hear.

As a result of that, he could capture

that desire that was certainly
within the German people

for strong leadership
and the fulfillment of a great vision.

[speaking German]

[crowd cheering]

[narrator] Hitler started to really love
the sound of his own voice.

And we start to see

all the characteristics
of a true narcissist

come to the surface.

It's reasonable enough
to take the general acceptance

that a narcissist is somebody
totally self-obsessed.

They are the center of the universe.

Everybody around them
either has to make them feel better,

or be punished for not doing that.

Another way of putting it

is simply that a narcissist

is a psychopath
who hasn't been caught yet.

Because narcissism as people
generally conceive of it

means you can rationalize
and justify any behavior.

So you could argue,
if you use that structure,

that Hitler was the greatest narcissist
in history.

[speaking German]

[narrator] By August 1933,
Hitler had become the chancellor,

head of the government.

And with the death of Head of State
Paul von Hindenburg in 1934,

Hitler then declared himself
the president.

[cheers and applause]

[narrator] He was now the Führer,

Germany's supreme leader.

Crazy Adolf, as he'd been known
in the trenches,

was now one of the most powerful leaders
in the world.

As military leader,

a vengeful Hitler instructed his generals

to prepare for a massive expansion.

He ordered his troops into the Rhineland,

an area that had been stripped
of its military power

under the Treaty of Versailles.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] Next, Hitler took control
of his homeland, Austria.

It was a bloodless invasion.

He was welcomed with open arms.

[man] Hitler rode in triumph into Vienna.

Even the very name of Austria
disappeared from the map.

[narrator] And he reclaimed
the German Sudetenland

in neighboring Czechoslovakia.

Hitler saw himself as bulletproof

and Germany as unassailable.

It was only a matter of time

before he turned his attention
to the rest of Europe.

[man] Without even bothering
to declare war,

the German Army's launched
a coordinated attack.

[Dr. Stahel] I think there's a good case
to be made for Hitler as overconfident.

In some ways, that's also the secret
to his success,

the fact that he's ready
to take so much risk,

but that feeds his narcissism,

that feeds his sense of inherent destiny

that he is the chosen one,

that he is going to lead Germany.

And in some ways,
that's part of the reason why

so many people are buying into this.

[horn wailing]

[narrator] Hitler's arrogance
led him to believe

Poland's allies wouldn't fight back.

Hitler was contemptuous
towards the Allies.

He saw them as weak and indecisive.

Hitler would later tell his generals,

"The Allies are small worms."

Referring to Britain's Prime Minister,
Neville Chamberlain,

Hitler said, "If ever that silly old man

comes interfering here again
with his umbrella,

I'll kick him downstairs
and jump on his stomach

in front of photographers."

[Prof. Kaplan] I think
this was characteristic of Hitler

from a very early age.

And it exemplified the fact

that he was totally self-centered,

totally obsessive,

incapable of having
any opinion that he did,

that disagreed with him,

and he simply reacted in kind.

[man] While the panzer divisions
rolled through the Polish countryside,

England and France presented
a cold ultimatum to withdraw...

[narrator] Hitler's generals
knew an invasion of Poland

would provoke a response from the Allies.

They asked Hitler for more time
to fortify Germany

for what they believed was certain war.

Hitler dismissed their concerns.

[man] In a matter of days,
the swastika had plunged

the world into total war.

[narrator] Could this have been the moment
when Hitler's diseased,

delusional mind tipped over
into outright psychopathy?

[Prof. Kaplan] What we see in Hitler
is the worst example,

possibly the only example,
of somebody achieving absolute power.

This is somebody who came
from being a complete nonentity in 1919

to a man in 1942
who was the greatest conqueror of Europe

since Napoleon and Caesar,

had the absolute worship
of all the Germanic peoples,

and the belief that he was going
to conquer the world.

So this just segued perfectly

into his self-image.

"I am the greatest man in the world.

I should control the world."

And it picked up from there.

[Dr. Wawro] Going forward
into World War II itself,

Hitler feels that, you know,
he's been touched by God,

that the generals
are far too conservative,

and that he has
this sort of divine ability

to find the weakness of the enemy,

pounce on it, and destroy the enemy.

[narrator] He saw himself as invincible

and his judgment impeccable.

The divine Führer was now beyond reproach.

[indistinct shouting]

[narrator] Britain and France
honored their agreement

to stand by their ally, Poland.

And on the 3rd of September, 1939,

World War II was declared.

Hitler was a great opportunist,

and somebody that would very much

want to ride the wave of success.

Hitler believed
there was an opportunity to exploit.

And therefore,
he went after his ideological aims

in terms of foreign policy
like a dog after a bone,

and he just wouldn't give up

at any point during the war,

until there was either death or victory.

[explosion]

[narrator] Germany crushed Poland
in less than five weeks.

Hitler was emboldened.

[speaking German]

[cheers and applause]

[narrator in English]
Britain and France were next.

And it took only six weeks
for France to fall.

[Dr. Wawro] He's counseled against
the invasion of Poland.

He goes in, defeats Poland.

He's counseled against
the invasion of France,

France falls.

This gives Hitler a feeling
of almost messianic superiority,

that he knows things
that even his professional marshals

and generals don't know,

that he has these gut instincts
that are unerring.

[indistinct shouting]

[narrator] He was a rock star
to the German people,

delivering on all his promises.

But wherever there's a rock star,

drugs are often not far away.

Three years earlier in 1936,

Hitler had fallen in
with Dr. Theodor Morell.

Morell was an experienced physician.

He'd amassed fortunes,

building pharmaceutical factories.

He made everything from lice powder

to chocolate vitamins.

Hitler's inner circle
regarded him as a quack.

He was known by Nazi Party insiders

as the Third Reich's Syringe Master.

Morell always gave drugs by injections.

His--he thought pills work
too slowly and he said to Hitler,

"You have to make fast decisions.

You cannot wait for a pill to dissolve.

You need the instant effect."

They had a special word for it.

They called it instant recovery.

[speaking German]

So that the injection
actually works very fast.

I mean, you feel terrible,

you get an injection intravenously,

you will feel like
in heaven five seconds later.

This is--this is what impressed Hitler.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] The irony is that when
the Nazi Party came to power,

it was puritanical.

It had adopted
a stringent antidrug stance.

Now it's supreme leader was an addict.

[speaking German]

[Ohler] They were the first
antidrug government in German history.

So all of this drug freedom

of the Weimar Republic
of the '20s was suddenly gone.

Drug users were put in concentration camps

because the Nazi movement

tried to present itself
as a clean movement,

cleansing the German population

from poisonous influences.

It was instrumental in the beginning

when they took power
to connect Jews with drugs.

So they said the Jews among--amongst us,

they take more drugs than the proper--

than the Aryan German,
the non-Jewish German.

So they tried to push all the poisons,

the so-called poisons
out of the German society.

[narrator] In 1937,

the German pharmaceutical
manufacturer Temmler

developed a new drug, Pervitin,

a methamphetamine.

And within a year,
Pervitin was on the streets.

[Ohler] So when this product
hit the market in 1938,

it was not considered to be a drug.

It was considered to be
a performance-enhancing medicine.

This spread so wildly in
the German population that, for example,

methamphetamine-laced chocolates
came onto the market.

They were advertised as being perfect
for the German housewife

because with those beautiful chocolates
laced with methamphetamine,

the housework would be done easily

and would even be fun to stay
at home and do the housework.

Uh, so in the morning, like,

we drink coffee,

the Germans in 1938, '39

used, um, a little bit of methamphetamine

to get ready for the day.

[narrator] And Pervitin sold
as a medicine, not a drug,

soon found its way into the German Army.

[Ohler] There was a professor.
He was called Ranke.

And Ranke found out
that in the attack on Poland,

already a lot of soldiers
were using Pervitin,

so he suggested
to the surgeon general of the army

that for the next phase of the war,

which was the attack against the west,

Pervitin should be
an official medication for soldiers.

It should be supplied and every soldier

should take this
on the first day of the attack.

So 35,000,000 dosages of methamphetamine

were being ordered from the German Army

from the Temmler company,

were being shipped to the front lines

and then were being taken
on May 10th, 1940

when Germany attacked
the countries in the west.

In fact, in the panzer corps,
they referred to it

as panzerschokolade, tank chocolate.

There's also other names
that people used like...

[speaking German]

And this gives you an idea
of just how powerful this stimulant was.

[Ohler] They didn't have
to sleep at night.

The Brits and the French got tired

after eight hours of fighting.

They slept at night
like every soldier on the planet

has always slept at night,
but the Germans,

they just continued fighting
all through the night.

[explosions]

[Dr. Stahel] It's particularly widely used
in the medical corps

because they are overwhelmed
by casualties.

Nurses and doctors are taking Pervitin

because they have access to it

and it gets to the point
where people are taking it,

so much so, that they stop sleeping.

They stop sleeping for up to a week on end

and seemingly can function,

conducting operations,
looking after wounded.

Then they talk
about these enormous crashes

that they--that they sleep
for a day or two on end.

But of course, it's also addictive.

So it becomes a real problem.

[eerie music playing]

[narrator] Was the entire Nazi war effort

a drug-fueled rampage across Europe

on the highly addictive
methamphetamine Pervitin?

Hitler's right-hand man,

Hermann Goering,
had been a morphine addict

since he was wounded
in the Beer Hall Putsch in 1923.

And he was in charge of the Luftwaffe.

And with Hitler now in the hands
of the Syringe Master,

Dr. Morell, drugs were now part
of Nazi Germany

from the top down.

But drugs and feelings of invincibility

don't explain all of Hitler's blunders.

In 1940,

when Germany failed
to obliterate the Allies

at the Battle of Dunkirk,

Hitler was not yet injecting hard drugs.

[Ohler] Hitler made a lot
of good decisions early in the war,

but he also made a very bad one,

uh, concerning Dunkirk
when he stopped the German tanks,

and this decision
had nothing to do with drugs

because he wasn't using heavy drugs,

uh, in the spring of 1940.

[narrator] At Dunkirk,

the Allies had been losing the battle

to keep France out of Germany's hands.

The Allies were in retreat.

And the beach of Dunkirk

was one of their only escape routes

back across the English Channel.

The Allies were sitting ducks.

Then, Hitler decided
to halt the offensive.

[Garnett] Hitler sometimes had a,

what could be termed
as schizophrenic style of leadership,

where he would sometimes
do exactly the opposite

of what would be expected of him.

Previous victories would indicate
that he would be very confident,

yet sometimes he would have
cold feet and stop short.

He also had a tendency
to listen to the general

that last spoke to him,

and then that would become policy.

[Prof. Clark] Had Hitler
not stopped the panzers

at this critical point around Dunkirk,

there is little doubt that the BEF,

the British Expeditionary Force,

the best part of the French Army,

and some Belgians
would have been destroyed.

They would have
been taken out of the game.

What that would have done

for British and French morale

can only be imagined.

[narrator] It didn't matter to Hitler

that the bedraggled BEF

was allowed to make
its way back to Britain

with its tail between its legs.

He already had his sights set
on a much greater prize.

Hitler's errors
of judgment came thick and fast.

As Hitler grew more maniacal,

his micromanaging became more intense.

After he and the morphine addict Goering

blew the Battle of Britain,

he turns his attention to the east

and planned to invade Russia.

To keep on top of things,

Hitler needed something stronger
from Dr. Morell.

[explosions]

[Ohler] So in 1941 in August

when Germany attacked the Soviet Union,

when Hitler wanted
to divide the German troops,

part of the troops
should go up to Leningrad,

part should go to Moscow and the other,

uh, heading for the oil reserves
of the Soviet Union,

um, his generals disagreed with that.

They wanted to take Moscow first.

They said, "If we take Moscow,
that's how we win the war."

Hitler, he became quite sick
for the first time.

He had what was called the Russian flu.

So he asked Morell
to give him something stronger

than just vitamins
because he wanted to get up,

and Morell then
for the first time gave him,

uh, an opioid and Hitler got out of bed,

walked into the military briefing room

and was able to command the on-goings.

So this was the first time
he tasted something stronger,

and he would not forget that.

[narrator] Was this the moment
that turned the war?

Were opiates the unknown secret ingredient

that would cloud Hitler's judgment

and fatally undermine
the German Army's efforts in the east?

Hitler was confident
the war would last two months,

three at the most.

Hitler was wrong again.

[man] Here 27,000 Nazi soldiers died.

[narrator] The war against Russia
lasted almost four years.

[Prof. Clark] The early victories

give Hitler the self-confidence

to press ahead for more military action.

Right the way through until 1941

in the invasion of the Soviet Union,

Hitler's generals were saying to Hitler,

"We shouldn't be doing this.

We don't have enough time.

We do not have the plans.

We do not have the resources

to undertake the military campaigns
that you want."

[narrator] As the war progressed,

Hitler's drug use accelerated.

By 1942, Hitler's morning ritual

was injections from his doctor,
Theodor Morell.

Hitler would become a heavy user
of cocaine and eukadol,

a morphine cousin of heroin.

Hitler's narcissism,

his belief in his divine mission,

and his drug addiction
made for a deadly cocktail.

[Ohler] Just like anyone high on drugs

is not that much in contact with reality

and if you are the leader in a war,

you have to be
very much in contact with reality.

You cannot live in a dream world.

This ultimately has
to lead to terrible decisions.

[narrator] Hitler's generals were noticing
how their Führer's behavior

was changing
in daily military conferences.

Hitler's armament minister, Albert Speer,

observed Hitler lacked the ingenuity

he possessed prior to 1942.

Hitler's mad plan to take Russia,

the Eastern Front unraveled.

Instead of admitting he was wrong,

Hitler purged the high command
of the Nazi armed forces.

He surrounded himself
with more and more yes-men.

Further feeding his narcissism

and consolidating power in his own hands.

Hitler always had a, uh, a tendency

to be incredibly self-confident

and only believing
in his own ideas and beliefs.

His behavioral tendencies

towards, um, not allowing contrary opinion

comes to the fore and he alone

takes the key decisions in Nazi Germany,

supported by his henchmen,

who are protecting
the power base that he's built.

[man] End of the path of glory
for this once proud Nazi Army.

[narrator] The German front
in Russia was collapsing.

The Soviets had gained the upper hand

and would soon advance on Germany.

By now, Hitler was also losing
against the allies on the Western Front.

And the Führer
had another problem closer to home,

multiple assassination attempts
on his life.

[Dr. Wawro] There were at least
42 assassination attempts

on Hitler between the 1930s
and the end of the war.

Um, and then certainly the most famous

is the 1944 Stauffenberg plot.

There were dozens of other plots.

Some of them near misses,

some of them Hitler never knew about.

You know, uh, he was a vegetarian.

They'd poisoned some meat
on the table and he wouldn't eat it,

so he wouldn't get sick or die.

Or they put a bomb
in a plane that he was on,

but the bomb would fail.

The fact that he survived them
reinforced his view

that he was sort of a superman

that had been, you know,

chosen to lead Germany in this, you know,

struggle for survival
and that nothing could do him in

and that--and that these merely
confirmed his greatness.

[narrator] But the famous von Stauffenberg
attempt on Hitler's life

on July the 20th, 1944

had a more profound effect.

It sent his drug use into overdrive.

Hitler's psyche also suffered tremendously

from that assassination attempt.

This is when he started
to use the cocaine.

Uh, he used cocaine over 50 times

after the assassination attempt

and on the days
when he didn't use cocaine,

he used, um, eukadol,

the strong opioid
that was injected into his veins.

So the assassination attempt
by Stauffenberg didn't kill him,

but really turned him into a drug addict

and actually turned him into a junkie

because someone who receives
an opioid intravenously

every other day for several months

can be called only a junkie.

[man] Nazi prisoners,

some of them say
that Hitler's war is lost.

But they fought to the last bullet.

[narrator] As Germany's defeats mounted,

was Hitler's conviction
that he was indestructible

influenced by his dependency
on hard drugs?

Did Hitler's drug use
affect his decision-making?

Historians and clinicians

believe methamphetamines, cocaine,

and heroin altered
the Führer's mental state

and played a role in Germany's defeat.

[Prof. Clark] There is absolutely no doubt

that the medical attention
that Hitler was getting,

the drugs that he was taking,

was in a sense driving

an exhausted man further and further.

They were perhaps addling his brain,

affecting his decision-making
in a negative way.

For example, when he's awakened
during the D-Day invasion

on June 6, 1944, he's sleeping late
as usual at Berchtesgaden.

You know, he's groggy and drowsy
and doesn't really begin functioning

until midafternoon
because he's so hung-over

from this cocktail of drugs
that he takes all day and night.

[narrator] As his judgment
became more impaired,

Hitler became ever more determined

to focus military decision-making
in his own hands.

So complete was his self-delusion,

growing paranoia, and neuroses

that he was losing touch with reality.

[explosions]

[narrator] By January 1945,

the Russians were advancing on Germany.

Hitler had retreated
to his fortified underground bunker

in the gardens
of the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

Allied plans to assassinate Hitler
had been aborted.

They believed that the deluded,
drug-addled, and unhinged Hitler

with his increasingly poor judgment

was more valuable to them alive than dead.

As news came through
that Soviet troops had entered Berlin,

Hitler feared he'd be captured

and subjected to the same
lurid public humiliation

that his onetime friend and ally,
Benito Mussolini,

and his mistress,
Clara Petacci, had suffered.

He'd heard rumors that the Red Army

planned to parade him
through the streets of Germany in a cage.

The prospect was too much for Hitler,

and he opted to take his own life.

Fittingly, his suicide

was to come from one last drug, cyanide,

plus a revolver, just in case.

Like their beloved Führer,

Germany had descended
into smoldering ruins.

Hollowed out, a shell,

decayed, and defeated.

By the end of April,

Soviet soldiers were only a few blocks
from Hitler's underground bunker.

On the first of May, 1945, at 10:20 p.m.,

Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz,

commander-in-chief
for the north of Germany,

made an announcement on Hamburg radio.

With the strains
of a violin opera playing,

he announced that the Führer was dead.

He said, "Hitler had fallen in battle,

fighting at the head of his troops."

But it was yet another fiction

to a party desperate
to keep that myth alive.

Hitler had not fallen as a hero,

but died as a coward.

[explosion]

[eerie music playing]