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Hidden in a forest, in what is now the eastern part of Poland, near the border with Russia,
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lie the remains of a concrete town.
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For three crucial years during WWII
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this was home to one of the most infamous figures in world history.
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A man who said he and the nation he led would create an empire which would outlast any other.
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RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING
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Here at the Wolf's Lair,
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his headquarters in the forest of Rastenburg, in what was then German East Prussia,
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Adolf Hitler took decisions which shaped the course of WWII.
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The result was a level of destruction and suffering unprecedented in the history of war.
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55 million people died in WWII.
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The Germans took five million Russian prisoners of war alone.
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Only two million survived.
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During the war, Hitler authorised a policy unique in all history,
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the mechanised extermination of an entire people.
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All this was possible because the Nazis ruled Germany.
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How could it be that a cultured nation at the heart of Europe
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ever allowed such a man, and the Nazi party he led, to come to power?
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Leading Nazis explained their success easily.
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It was inevitable given what they called the superhuman qualities of their leader.
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But the true reasons for the Nazis' rise to power are not that simple and are much more alarming.
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Nazism, which was to create the Second World War,
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was born out of the first.
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On November 11th 1918, to the surprise of German troops, the war stopped.
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IN GERMAN:
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The myth grew among many of the surrendered German soldiers that they had been stabbed in the back,
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that the front-line troops and the two million German war dead
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were betrayed by Marxists and Jews who had fermented dissent at home.
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As the surviving troops returned to the newly democratic Germany, they took their bitterness with them.
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It would grow into Nazism in the south of Germany, in Bavaria.
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Bavaria is a picture-book land, famous for its lederhosen and its beer halls,
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but at the end of WWI, conditions existed here which would create a revolution.
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After the war, the Allies continued to blockade Germany
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and the returning troops were shocked to discover how much their families were still suffering.
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Millions of Germans were hungry
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and thousands more were dying of tuberculosis and influenza.
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Politics were polarised.
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Conservatives and Socialists became radical in the face of crisis.
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With the whole of Germany in turmoil in the spring of 1919,
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the unrest in Munich resulted in a left-wing takeover of the city, the Raterepublik.
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This culminated, in April 1919, in the Munich Soviet Republic,
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an attempt to create a soviet-style government of the city,
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only 18 months after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.
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Government troops were sent to quash the rebellion and there was fighting on the streets of Munich.
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GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
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More than 500 people were killed.
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The soldiers were supported by the Freikorps,
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right-wing mercenaries paid for by the government.
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In Munich, there were cases where the Freikorps simply shot members of the Raterepublik out of hand.
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Other Freikorps members heartily approved of the brutal measures
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used to suppress Communist revolutionaries throughout Germany.
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Eugene Levine's father was the leader of the Raterepublik.
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He was executed in June 1919.
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I understand, from my mother,
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that he had been very brave, the way he met his death.
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And in fact, he called out, er,
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"Long live the world revolution."
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And I realised that an honourable person would die sooner or later,
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either on the barricades or put up against a wall and shot.
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Eugene Levine's father was Jewish,
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and the anti-Semitic prejudice of those on the right
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was further fuelled by the fact that of the leadership of the Raterepublik, most were Jewish.
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To the Freikorps, who celebrated in Munich after the suppression of the Raterepublik,
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the Jews were convenient scapegoats,
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held to blame for all the country's ills.
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And the Freikorps had the support of right-wing officers in the army,
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like Captain Ernst Rohm, a man with a simple philosophy.
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"Since I am an immature and wicked man,
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"war and unrest appeal to me more than order."
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Rohm was involved in the violent politics of the extreme right,
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and in 1919, he joined the small German Workers' Party.
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Here he met a 30-year-old veteran of WWI, Corporal Adolf Hitler,
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a man who shared with Rohm a deep hatred of Communists and Jews.
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Hitler had also joined the German Workers' Party in 1919.
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His membership card said he was member 555,
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but in reality, he was member 55.
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They numbered from 500 to make it look as if they had more members.
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Hitler was like thousands of other ex-soldiers, drifting without a job.
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He discovered a natural talent.
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He could channel his anger at the way the war ended into powerful speeches.
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Hitler spoke about what he called the iniquity of the Versailles Treaty, signed at the end of WWI.
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Under the treaty, Germany lost large amounts of her own territory
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and was forced to pay reparations to the victors.
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In the early 1920s, inflation spiralled out of control.
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In Bavaria, by 1921, Hitler had become leader of the small German Workers' Party,
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renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party,
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or the Nazis for short.
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It was still one of many different right-wing parties in Munich,
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and they still all said the same -
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Versailles was a crime and the Jews were behind it.
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But Hitler's dynamism, together with his uncompromising tone,
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began to attract other prominent Bavarians to the Nazi party.
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In 1922, a WWI flying ace joined the Nazis.
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Holder of awards for gallantry and Richthofen squadron commander during WWI, Hermann Goering.
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"I joined the party because it was revolutionary, not because of any ideological nonsense."
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The Nazi party spread its appeal into the Bavarian countryside.
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One agricultural student, who was to become a chicken farmer, found in the Nazis
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an expression of his obsession with the relationship between German blood and German soil.
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"The yeoman of his own acre is the backbone of the German people's character.
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"Cowards are born in towns, heroes in the country."
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The words of another Bavarian, Heinrich Himmler,
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chicken farmer and, later, commander of the SS.
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In January 1923, the Nazis exploited the discontent caused by the French occupation of the Ruhr.
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French troops came to enforce reparation payments.
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They succeeded in alienating the Germans.
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In Munich, in 1923, in the atmosphere of crisis caused by the occupation of the Ruhr,
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Hitler and the Nazis acted.
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Hitler stood on the stage of the Burgerbraukeller on November 8th, interrupting a right-wing meeting.
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He called for a revolution to overthrow the left-wing government in Berlin.
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The next day, the Nazis and other right-wing parties marched through Munich to gain support.
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They were stopped by the police at the war memorial.
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The Nazis hoped the army and police, many of whom were right-wingers,
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would join them in a march on Berlin.
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GUNFIRE
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The police didn't support them.
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Shots were fired and the marchers were routed. Hitler fled the scene.
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Four policemen and 16 Nazis lost their lives.
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Hitler was tried with other leaders of the putsch in early 1924.
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The trial was a media sensation with entrance by ticket only.
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The Nazis hadn't just killed four policemen,
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they had also organised a bank robbery.
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A defiant Hitler told the court,
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"You may pronounce us guilty,
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"but the goddess who presides over the eternal court of history
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"will, with a smile, tear in pieces the charge of the public prosecutor
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"for she acquits us."
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Hitler gained fame for his apparently brave stand.
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But it was a con trick,
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for he knew as he spoke that the judge would be lenient.
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Hidden from the public was the truth about a previous appearance Hitler had made in a Bavarian court.
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More than two years before,
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Nazi thugs, egged on by Hitler, had disrupted a left-wing meeting,
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dragged the speaker off the stage and beaten him up.
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Almost all the documents relating to the trial were seized by the Nazis when they came to power.
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But one or two from this trial survived, hidden in the archive,
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and they tell truths the Nazis wanted to hide.
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Hitler got the minimum sentence possible - three months in prison.
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The sympathy of the judge didn't stop there.
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He wrote to the appeal court and asked them to reduce his sentence.
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As a result, Hitler served only one month in prison
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and a period on probation.
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The judge in Hitler's first trial was called Georg Neithardt,
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the same judge whom the authorities let preside over the putsch trial.
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It must have been obvious to Hitler that the court would be lenient.
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Hitler had attempted revolution, incited murder and his followers had robbed a bank.
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He served nine months in Landsberg prison.
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But even so, by 1924, it seemed that Hitler and the Nazis had become an irrelevance.
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In the mid-1920s, the German economy recovered, as inflation was reduced to single figures.
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The Weimar government had solved the reparations problem by borrowing money from the Americans
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which it used to pay the French and British their own reparations.
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The good times were financed by short-term credit.
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There were Germans who disapproved of the "Weimar decadence".
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They joined non-political groups like the Wandervogel,
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who called for a return to an older, simpler way of life.
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One small political party sought to capitalize on this longing for old-fashioned values.
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In the mid-1920s, the Nazi party was small but radical.
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Their party programme promised that if the Nazi party came into power
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German Jews would be stripped of citizenship and could be expelled from the country.
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INTERVIEWER ASKS IN GERMAN:
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The fantasy of a world Jewish conspiracy was openly preached by the Nazis...and believed.
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Along with their anti-Semitism went a belief that violence was a part of the political process.
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The party had a paramilitary wing, the brown-shirted storm troopers,
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who protected Nazi meetings, intimidated the followers of other parties and drummed up support.
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Towering over the small party
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was the personality of the man now called the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
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The way the party was evolving was essentially the way it would be structured when they ruled Europe,
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and the structure was a strange one.
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Though these images of Nazi offices in the 1920s seem ordered enough,
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the administration of the party was chaotic.
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Hitler hated committee meetings and disliked arbitrating between rivals.
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The Fuhrer was often late.
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One prominent Nazi, Gottfried Feder, complained to Hitler,
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"I regard your time management as very damaging for the entire movement."
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Yet the party still functioned.
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Hitler was a passionate believer in the law of natural selection.
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"Men dispossess one another
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"and one perceives that, at the end of it all,
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"it is always the stronger who triumphs.
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"The stronger asserts his will.
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"It's the law of nature."
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Hitler's obsession with this idea of the survival of the fittest
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meant that when a party member wrote to him and asked to be made leader of his local branch,
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he was answered thus by Max Amann, one of Hitler's confidants -
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"Herr Hitler takes the view that it is not the job of the leadership to appoint party leaders.
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"You state that almost all the local members have confidence in you,
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"so why don't you take over leadership of the branch?"
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But now, seven years after Hitler had become leader,
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the Nazi party was failing dismally in the great struggle.
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Despite the enthusiasm of the party faithful,
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the Nazis could not get themselves elected to power.
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In the 1928 election, the Nazis got just 2.6% of the vote.
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The vast majority of the German electorate, over 97%,
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rejected them and their leader.
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This secret government report, compiled before the 1928 election,
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says that the Nazi party has "no noticeable influence" on the great masses of the population.
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The Nazis were a tiny fringe party, almost a joke.
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Yet, just four years and eight months later,
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Hitler was chancellor of Germany,
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for the Nazis were helped by circumstance.
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Germany suffered.
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A drop in world agricultural prices brought poverty to the countryside
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and then the Wall Street Crash heralded a world economic slump.
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The Americans called in their loans.
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German unemployment rose to five and a half million in 1931.
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Unemployed lived rough in the cities
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as Germany became economically the worst-hit nation in the world.
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Then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse...
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Then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse...they did.
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The five major banks crashed in 1931.
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More than 20,000 German businesses folded.
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Now the middle class was suffering.
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In the economic crisis, the Nazis' vote increased.
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They still said the same -
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Versailles was a crime, Jews should lose citizenship, Marxism must be destroyed, Germany must be reborn.
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The message hadn't changed but more Germans were ready to hear it,
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and in this economic crisis, people who had never seen or heard Hitler still voted Nazi.
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RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING
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In a remote town in German East Prussia, like Neidenburg,
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in 1928, the Nazis got 2.3% of the vote.
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In 1930, their vote leapt up to 25.8%,
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yet Hitler didn't visit here and there was no Nazi party in the town.
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But the Communists started to pick up votes too.
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Something sinister was happening to this new democracy.
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It seemed to be splitting apart as voters rushed to the extremes.
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Alois Pfaller had joined the Communist party in the late 1920s
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and now took on the Nazis in the streets.
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SONG TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN:
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NEW SONG:
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FIRST SONG AGAIN:
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Hitler said that he was the man who could solve the economic crisis,
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at the head of a dynamic party that promised to destroy Germany's internal enemies.
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And Hitler campaigned in a fresh and original way.
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In his 1932 election campaign,
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he travelled by aeroplane to 20 cities in seven days.
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Though he was to lose the election to President Hindenburg,
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Hitler had established himself as a credible alternative leader.
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The Nazi party proposed little in the way of detailed policies,
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but it offered order, discipline and the personality of Adolf Hitler.
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Fridolin von Spaun met him in the early 1930s.
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By 1932, the majority of Germans, in voting for Communists and Nazis,
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were voting for parties openly committed to overthrowing democracy.
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Democracy had arrived in Germany at the end of WWI.
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Now the majority of Germans wanted rid of it.
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Hitler made it quite clear that a vote for the Nazis was a vote for dictatorship.
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As a result of the elections of July 1932,
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the Nazis became the biggest party in Germany, with 37% of the vote.
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One man stood between Hitler and the chancellorship,
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the man Hitler had challenged for the presidency.
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Hindenburg met Hitler on August 13th 1932.
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Hitler demanded to be chancellor.
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Hindenburg refused, and his state secretary recorded the reasons why.
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"He could not bring himself to give government power to a single party
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"which did not represent the majority of the electorate
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"and which was intolerant, lacking in discipline and frequently appeared violent."
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But then, different pressure groups began to lobby President Hindenburg.
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A group of businessmen, including the former president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht,
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wrote to Hindenburg, arguing that Hitler must get the chancellorship for the good of Germany.
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New pressures came as the results of an army war game arrived.
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It said that in the event of civil unrest, the army couldn't control both the Nazis and the Communists.
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"It's been shown that the forces of law and order of the Reich and of the German states
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"could not protect the country against National Socialists and Communists and protect the borders."
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But if there were pressures on Hindenburg as 1932 came to a close,
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there were also pressures on the Nazis.
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The crowds outside Nazi headquarters in Munich
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weren't aware of the nature of the problem.
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They were going bankrupt due to the cost of fighting so many elections.
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A key figure in the party, Gregor Strasser, had just resigned
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and the Nazi vote had dropped to 33% in the November 1932 election.
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It looked like their support had peaked.
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But the traditional right felt they had to negotiate with Hitler.
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They too wanted to eliminate democracy
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and without the Nazis they had no access to mass support.
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A former chancellor, the aristocratic von Papen, came up with a deal.
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Hitler could be chancellor if von Papen was vice chancellor
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and there were only two other Nazis in the cabinet.
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The theory was Hitler would be tamed.
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As a result, Hindenburg offered Adolf Hitler the chancellorship on January 30th 1933.
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Von Papen crowed, "We've hired him,"
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and the new cabinet posed for the cameras.
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The Nazis would later try and rewrite history
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to say that he became chancellor simply because it was his destiny,
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but, in reality, he had been helped into power by economic circumstance
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and the support and miscalculation of others.
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It all happened so fast in those days,
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after one had seen it come gradually.
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The Communist party line, to which I still belonged,
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was that it doesn't matter if Hitler gets to power.
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He'll soon prove himself incompetent and then it's our turn.
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For some extraordinary reason,
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they didn't realise that he was going to change the law once he came to power,
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which he did very smartly.
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On January 30th 1933, the same day Hitler was appointed chancellor,
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the Nazis held a torchlight celebration parade in Berlin.
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The revolution had begun.
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There were a few storm troopers who had Jewish girlfriends
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and therefore, a lot of German Jews thought, "Oh, well, it's not going to be so bad.
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"They have Jewish girlfriends, they can't hate us all."
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Oh, it's heartbreaking.
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