Original subtitles

I think the first thing we need to say about Hitler's roots is,

there's relatively little we know about them.

He has Austrian roots, he doesn't deny them but

he doesn't celebrate them.

There had always been an aura of doubt about

Hitler's ancestry, just who was the father of Hitler's father

and whether there was a Jew somewhere in the background.

We know that he was the fourth child to be born to

his father and mother, but the first to survive infancy.

We know that his mother was his father's third wife,

and she was actually also his niece.

His family had come from very poor, rural Austria,

so it is astounding, the rise that he made.

Here is the Austrian who then goes to Germany,

starts off as a low infantry man,

gets involved in politics has trouble breaking in but

then ultimately is appointed Chancellor.

Sieg! Hail!

Hitler is such an oddity, such an outsider.

I think to his detractors, to his opponents,

he appeared not only ultimately very dangerous but

certainly kind of ridiculous.

Not just German media,

but world media treated Hitler as a clown.

Historians have called it, "The underestimation syndrome."

Hitler had always intended to destroy the democratic system

once he came to power, and he put this desire very much in

the context of returning Germany to greatness.

The story of the Hitler is still important today because

it shows what's possible.

What makes it urgent is that the rise of Hitler,

the Third Reich and the Holocaust,

these things happen much more quickly than

we would think they do.

.

In 1933, when Hitler becomes Chancellor,

he is governing with a minority government.

For people who are not familiar with a multi-party system,

that means that there is a coalition between parties that

often have more dramatic differences than

the Republicans and the Democrats do right now.

Never did the majority of Germans in any free elections

vote for the Nazi party, and Hitler himself was quite aware

that his support was not anything that

he could take for granted.

In 1933, the mystery Reichstag fire

offered an excuse for a ruthless purge of

the opponents of Adolf Hitler.

And, in the aftermath,

Hitler mobilized against the opposition,

claiming that the Republic was under attack and

Hitler is the only person who could possibly protect democracy

from these Communist agitators.

Germany was at the verge of civil war.

The streets of Berlin were riddled with violence.

So, Hitler presents the Reichstag,

the German parliament, with this proposition to basically

outfit him with dictatorial powers indefinitely to oversee

the recovery of the German economy,

the return of stability, the return of law and order.

He basically asks the parliament to vote itself out of existence.

The Enabling Act would allow Hitler to pass legislation

without the parliament.

However, for an Enabling Act to come into effect, it required

two/thirds of a vote in parliament.

And how are you going to do that?

Well, you ban the Communists from

participating in the vote, right.

They were being arrested or they were fleeing the country,

and Hitler made sure that there were Storm Troopers and

other right wing paramilitaries in the chamber in case anybody

had second thoughts about which way they were gonna vote.

The Reichstag votes to give all of its lawmaking powers

to Hitler's administration.

At that point, the Reichstag is no longer

any kind of power factor in German politics.

When the Enabling Act is passed, Hitler has

really unquestionably become a dictator.

Very quickly, Hitler begins setting up what

will become a very, very extensive system of concentration camps.

Initially, you would find mainly political enemies there,

so members of the Communist Party,

Social Democrats.

Contrary to what we might imagine,

the concentration camp system is not kept secret.

Indeed, they are in newspapers reported as opening.

Jews were incarcerated in those early camps only if

they were also Socialists or Communists.

There was no move yet to systematically target Jews and

place them into concentration camps.

Once Hitler consolidates his power,

he still has to get everything within his own party in align,

and one of the notable elements of potential resistance

the he sees is that coming from the SA and Ernst Röhm.

.

The SA, the Stormtroopers,

are this four million strong paramilitary army,

headed by a particular nasty figure named Ernst Röhm,

who was a World War I veteran,

one of Hitler's oldest, most loyal associates and

supporters and, increasingly they are uncontrollable.

Ernst Röhm has this ambition to make of this rough

and crude but large band of SA fighters the core of

the new real people's army.

For the army and the high command of the army,

that's a mortal threat.

And the conflict steadily escalates and, by early 1934,

Hitler's feeling the pressure from both sides.

His priority was to end the economic crisis,

rearm Germany, destroy the Versailles Treaty,

prepare Germany for war, and the existence of Röhm and

this gigantic paramilitary army,

essential as it was in the early years,

had become an outright threat to his position.

So, Hitler's looking at this tension between the army

and the SA, and he knows he's going to have to take action.

And then there's this weird lull.

It's a typical Hitler pattern to wait and wait and wait,

and delay and delay and delay until the last possible moment

and then, when he strikes,

to strike really ruthlessly and brutally.

It's known as the Night of the Long Knives.

And somewhere in the area of 80 to 100 of the leaders

of the SA are arrested and shot.

Röhm was one of the very few people Hitler was actually

really close to, but when it came to it,

ultimately Hitler is about power and he was certainly ruthless,

and so he, he did what power demanded.

Hitler afterwards emerges,

taking full responsibility, saying,

"Yes, I did this.

I did this for the German nation."

The word "Führer," the German word for, "Leader,"

goes from a matter of fact description of Hitler's position

in the party to mean something much grander that reflects this

self-belief of Hitler as the man chosen by destiny to lead Germany.

In the 1920s and in the early '30s,

there's a sort of technological revolution on a bunch of fronts,

really very much like we feel today with the internet

and social media.

Hitler was really interested in film,

and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels,

was really interested in film,

and so it was a kind of natural thing for them

to explore how they could use film to

effectively put out Nazi propaganda.

And so it seemed, I think, to them fairly intuitive that

filming a Nazi party rally would be an effective statement.

Sieg! Heil!

The Nuremberg rallies take on a bit of the feeling of

an American political party's convention,

serving roughly the same purpose,

a kind of choreographed political commercial,

designed to ramp up the base,

create a falling of mass involvement,

create mass enthusiasm.

And Hitler had film director Leni Riefenstahl

film the party rally at Nuremberg in 1934,

the famous Triumph of the Will.

The movie is about Hitler's deep relationship with

the masses of the German people.

It served a really clear point to emphasize

Hitler's elevated, heroic, almost divine role in

the movement, to really celebrate Hitler as the leader.

Riefenstahl was given unlimited resources.

Nobody had ever made a documentary like this.

Triumph of the Will starts with shots of Hitler's plane

landing in Nuremberg.

It's conveying this sense of Hitler as almost a kind of God,

descending to Earth to speak to his people.

In scene after scene after scene in Triumph of the Will,

you see Hitler really as the sole focal point.

It's Hitler and the masses.

.

It is the ultimate statement of the Great Man Theory,

just a sort of document that enshrines our understanding

of what a leader is better than any other document that

I have seen.

Hitler is presented as a leader that can and

should bend the world into shape.

Riefenstahl said, "Basically all I did was

film the event.

It's nothing more than that."

But particularly in the way that the footage

was edited, Riefenstahl presented a completely

inaccurate picture of Nazism.

There was none of this undertone of expressionism,

none of this harsh racial ideology that would become deadly.

That was edited out.

Leni Riefenstahl made Hitler a movie star.

Hitler and Goebbels were absolutely delighted.

Triumph of the Will won awards

at International Film Festivals.

It became a huge success.

Millions of Germans went to go see it voluntarily.

Hitler never had another film made like it,

and I think that says something about

Hitler's perception of himself and his regard for this film.

This was how he wanted the German people to see him,

then and in the future.

The school in which I was involved at the age of six

was one of Hitler's special schools which he had set up for

the training of his future leadership elite.

In this school, Jews were depicted

as fat, rapacious, ugly,

with large hooked noses,

and those pictures I think stayed with me longer than

any verbal impression that could have been given to me.

The culture of the Third Reich in the 1930s was

very much one in which the group, the race, the nation,

took precedence over any individual.

So, any individual who stuck out in some way, not conforming

to the Aryan ideal, they could be targeted.

Nazism advanced an understanding of race that was

grounded in biology, very much in line with

19th century scientific racism.

It was an understanding of race that was grounded in differences

that could be coded visually.

There was quite a strong influence from American Jim Crow laws.

Hitler very openly admired the Americans

and he wrote, actually,

that they had figured out how to have a real, as he called it...

.

Meaning, it's hard to translate,

but racialist, nationalist, uh, political entity through their

citizenship and immigration laws.

The basic consensus, which was accepted in

the United States after the 1870s, was that we were

going to allow African Americans to be second class citizens

in order to keep southern politicians happy inside the larger union.

And it's not so uncommon when listening to

Holocaust testimonies to hear a Jewish survivor who

emigrated to the United States say,

"My experience was rather similar to the experience of

African Americans under Jim Crow laws."

And that connection they're making is not only intuitive,

it's also historically accurate.

So, the Nuremberg Laws make German Jews

second class citizens.

When it comes to

Nazi antisemitism,

there's nothing remotely

scientific about any of it.

And the regime even had to print out these flow charts

that it provided to the public to explain all of this;

who is Jewish, who is not Jewish, who's partly Jewish.

At that time, I was going with a nice young lady,

and we were out camping.

I remember very well, I had a kayak, and there

was a fellow near us.

He wanted to make a date with this young lady that

I was going with, and she didn't want any part of it.

He reported me to the Gestapo, and I was arrested for going

with a Gentile girl.

After the Nuremberg Laws,

anti-Jewish legislation sort of ebbs off.

There is kind of like a pause.

Now, let's focus on the economy, let's focus on foreign policy,

let's focus on projecting Germany's image

to the rest of the world.

When Hitler comes to power,

he is coming in at a good time in terms of the conditions of

the Great Depression generally improving.

However, we can see certain things that Hitler did

very specifically linked to what, by 1936,

was virtually zero unemployment,

things like the autobahn,

public works projects, the National Labor Service.

And we have to pause there for a moment and imagine

what this meant to a country which just four years before

that had suffered one in three unemployed to have

virtually zero unemployment.

Hitler also slowly but surely dismantles

one of the most hated documents, uh,

among all Germans,

the Treaty of Versailles.

He pulls out from the World Disarmament Conference.

He takes Germany out of the League of Nations.

He declares openly his plans for rearmament.

And then in 1936, he remilitarizes the Rhineland,

something that was supposed to be a buffer for

the safety of France.

In the shadow of the great

Cologne Cathedral marched the German troops as

the invasion of the demilitarized zone begins.

Men and guns pour in.

For the first time in 17 years,

the city's streets resound to the goose step.

Berlin goes into a delirium of

frenzied nationalism as the city gets the news that,

once again, German troops have taken up the watch on the Rhine

The western powers would have been justified in

taking some kind of action, but they chose not to.

Nobody wants to have another war.

Germans at the time experienced

the Treaty of Versailles as a massive insult.

So, for Germans to see Hitler make good on

his promise of making Germany great again,

that appealed to people across the political spectrum,

and that accounts for the sense of invincibility

that the thereafter displays.

In August, the Olympic Games

are held in Berlin, which Hitler has transformed

into the show place of the Third Reich.

On this occasion, he intends that foreign visitors

be impressed by Nazi efficiency and

the material achievement of his New Order.

Adolf Hitler had no interest in sports,

but he was finely attuned to political and diplomatic and

propaganda opportunities, and the Olympic Games presented one.

There had been a number of significant

diplomatic developments that were making more and more people

outside of Germany nervous about Hitler's intentions;

Rearmament, trashing of the Versailles Treaty,

remilitarization of the Rhineland.

Here was an opportunity, then, to demonstrate to the world that

Germany was a proud nation, but Germany was also a stable

and peace-seeking nation.

The signs on parks and swimming pools and so on

that said, "No Jews allowed,"

were taken out.

Germany was really kind of putting on a happy face for

its international visitors.

Hitler was extremely nervous when German athletes ran.

He'd sit in his seat and rub his thighs and move back and forth.

He was thrilled, overjoyed, smiled when German athletes went

to the winning podium.

When other athletes competed,

he just sat there quietly and observed.

It's Ohio's Jesse Owens who leads

the way and, like a streamlined express,

he sets the pace for America's sweep to victory.

When the Black athletes went to

the winning podium, Hitler was gone.

I'm very glad to have won my three event

in the games here at Berlin, a wonderful competition here,

a wonderful stadium and a wonderful crowd.

The 1936 Olympics were a tremendous success for

Hitler and Germany.

Much of that was based on a very false sense that Jews were not

persecuted nearly as harshly as we know them to have been.

Some people interpret this as,

"Finally he's come to his senses."

That, of course, was completely false.

They would target people who were

considered asocials, inconsistent with the idea

that Hitler has of a racially pure society.

Obviously the most persecuted are the Jews.

But you also find the Roma and the Sinti,

also known as the gypsies.

You also find gay men, you find the Jehovah's Witnesses,

various political groups.

All could end up in these concentration camps as well.

Hitler was ultimately very much removed from

the nitty gritty of day to day politics,

because he wasn't a politician at heart.

He was a visionary, that's how he would describe himself.

Heinrich Himmler, on the other hand,

was someone who had a very clear understanding of

how to implement a racial state.

Himmler was constantly improving the operations of

the camps with Hitler in mind.

Hitler the Austrian was much more comfortable in Bavaria

or near Austria than he was in Berlin.

He would retreat to Berchtesgaden with

his entourage, his inner circle.

GÖRTEMAKER: And he distanced himself from the Nazi elite to

his inner circle now belonged his girlfriend,

Eva Braun, who constantly shot films,

so we have a notion of how they acted there.

Eva Braun tended to stay at Berchtesgaden,

where she was sort of the first lady there,

and insiders knew that, but Hitler never made

their relationship public.

GÖRTEMAKER: For Hitler, often perceived as a loner,

this relationship with Eva Braun shows that he wasn't.

Hitler needed a circle of friends.

He needed emotional support.

Now, Hitler was surrounded by men and women who didn't

criticize him and who constantly told him that he is the Führer,

that he is a genius, that he can change and conquer the world.

Germany declares a Roman holida

for Mussolini.

The destiny of Europe rides with the dictator of Italy,

nearing Munich in triumph on his momentous conference

with fellow dictator, Hitler.

Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy,

and Adolf Hitler had a interesting,

evolving relationship.

Hitler, at an early stage, very much admired Mussolini.

There were multiple ways Hitler and the early party emulated

the look, the organization and the actions

of Mussolini's fascist Blackshirts.

Mussolini liked to see himself as kind of the senior dictator but,

as Hitler's rule in Germany was consolidated,

Germany was just by natural weight likely to be

a stronger power than Italy because of its population and

its industrial clout, and so Hitler starts to become

the dominant partner in that relationship.

Hitler needed to impress Mussolini with German power and

eventually secure an assurance of Italian participation on

Germany's side in the event of war.

Hitler had always wanted to bring German Austria

into what he called the Great German Reich.

There was a coup attempt by Austrian Nazis in 1934,

but Mussolini saw Austria, oddly,

as kind of his protectorate, and so Mussolini actually

started threatening Hitler with war if Hitler were to

take any active steps to annex Austria,

and Hitler backed away from that.

He was a little bit afraid of Mussolini at that point.

By 1938, things had changed.

As German troops swarm across

frontiers in their first offensive since 1914,

Italy has apparently given Germany an okay,

and Hitler has almost fervently thanked Mussolini.

Hitler and the Nazis go in without firing a shot,

and they're met by cheering crowds.

And we see sometimes in the pictures people crying;

those are not tears of sadness,

those are tears of joy.

Hitler, protected by a bodyguard of

nearly 4,000 troops and police,

is preparing tonight to go from Linz to Salzburg,

and from there to Vienna,

on a roundabout triumphal tour of the land of his birth.

We have to keep in mind that Austria,

like Germany in the interwar period,

had gone through a time of, uh, economic chaos,

conditions approaching civil war.

Now, here comes this native son,

who has proven himself so successful in Germany,

bringing the German Austrians,

as they called themselves, into this Greater Reich and this,

I think, for many non-Jewish Austrians seems to

be a moment of national vindication and national success.

Hitler goes to Vienna, and he kind of surprises everybody

and surprises himself by spontaneously reacting to

the enthusiasm that he sees and

declaring Austria's going to be annexed.

It's not even just that there will be some sort of dual state relationship,

but Austria will be straight up politically part of Germany.

Seeing those crowds, that obviously had been whipped up by

the very large and domineering Nazi party,

was something that made Hitler feel as though providence had

been fulfilled, as though his dream or fantasy, um,

was validated in this particular moment.

In a copyright dispatch, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency

says tonight that at least 150 prominent Jews,

bankers and businessmen have been arrested

by Nazi Brownshirts acting as auxiliary police.

The cry of antisemitism is being taken up in

the Austrian streets.

In many ways, Austria's Jewish population has

to suffer this shock of Nazi control even worse than

Germany's Jewish population, because it doesn't come slowly,

it comes all at once.

We had no possibility to go out,

to run away.

And then one day they knocked on the door,

loud and ugly.

It was two Nazi.

They had a black uniform, they had these black shoes,

and asking for my grandfather.

I could cry as long as I should but it just doesn't help.

The Nazis had taken him to Buchenwald.

In October of 1938, one day the teacher came into

our classroom and said, "Would all those children whose parents

had immigrated from Eastern Europe and Poland

in particular, please leave the room.

Your parents would like you to come home,"

or whatever she said,

she certainly didn't say that they were going

to be deported that very same day.

In the fall of 1938, Heinrich Himmler orders

the collective deportation of thousands of Polish Jews back

to Poland, and among them are Herschel Grynszpan's parents.

Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew who was living in Paris,

was incredibly distraught by this turn of events,

and he makes a decision that he's going to take a pistol to

the German embassy in Paris and shoot the first embassy official

that he can.

Ernst von Rath does not die immediately.

He dies of his wounds a few days later,

and this happens when Hitler is in Munich at this

very meaningful celebration of those who lost their lives in

the Beer Hall Putsch.

Hitler is looking for an excuse to take an action,

and it is propaganda gold for them that it is a young Jew

who shoots this embassy official in Paris.

On Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass,

we see the burning of synagogues,

the destruction of Jewish shops,

the raiding of Jewish houses,

as well as the physical beatings and murder of Jews themselves.

What I saw was hoards of people standing in front of

our beautiful synagogue and throwing stones through these

magnificent colored windows.

We ran past the place itself, the noise,

the shouting, the screaming.

People were burning books and dancing around it.

I turned up my collar and put my head down and said,

"God, somebody should recognize me,

I'd be torn to pieces."

It was an absolutely shocking event.

It gets its name, the Reich's Kristallnacht,

the Night of the Broken Glass, because of all of the glass that

had been shattered in these attacks on Jewish-owned businesses.

The Stormtroopers were involved, German police were involved.

We know that there was also civilian participation.

Over 100 Jews are killed,

and ultimately about 30,000 Jewish men are

rounded up and sent to concentration camps.

I was arrested on the 10th of November,

like all Jewish men in Germany under 50 years old.

I had not committed any crime.

The only crime was that I was born Jewish.

We were told that we were going to be interned

in the concentration camp of Dachau.

Kristallnacht really does mark a kind of turning point.

Hitler has moved away from being too concerned with presenting

his country as peaceful and stable and non-threatening.

In his speech to the Reichstag on the 30th of January 1939,

Hitler issued what he later always referred to as his prophecy.

This is a clearly voiced genocidal intention

towards European Jews, coming still a few months

before the start of the Second World War.

And what's really important here is he's linking the idea of

world war and annihilation of the Jews.

In April 1939, he's in a desperate hurry to start a war.

.

He's making alliance with the Soviet Union in order

to start a war which ultimately is about

destroying the Soviet Union.

But then planning morphs into something much more,

in a sense, evil.

We couldn't believe that the whole world

was running away before Hitler.

.

Captioned by Cotter Media Group.