Original subtitles

Adolf Hitler caused the death of 50 million people.

An entire nation followed him to ruin.

He was hated by those he persecuted

and even by some of his own commanders,

yet, in 25 years, no one managed to kill him.

Winston Churchill had very few bodyguards,

whilst Hitler had thousands.

He needed them.

During his travels across Europe,

there were over 40 attempts on his life.

Now, with access to captured original SS records,

the producers of "Churchill's Bodyguard"

can reveal for the first time, in this new series,

how fate and a small number of hand-picked bodyguards

helped this evil genius to cheat death

on so many occasions.

[Crowd cheering ]

Why did no one manage to kill Adolf Hitler?

Enough people wanted to, but as this series shows,

it was not as simple as it sounds.

Nevertheless, protecting him was one of

the world's toughest jobs.

As Hitler moved from rabble-rousing politician

to supreme ruler of Nazi Germany,

he collected a legion of enemies.

More than 40 serious plots and assassination attempts

are known during his political career.

Hundreds more threats were recorded by the German police.

In contrast to Britain's Winston Churchill,

who relied on one main bodyguard,

Hitler's bodyguard grew to thousands.

[Crowd cheering ]

But more did not always mean better.

Hitler knew this, and always relied on

a ruthless and fiercely loyal inner core.

Hitler himself was no coward,

especially in his early years.

He served four years

on the Western Front in World War I and won

the Iron Cross First Class.

In the first years

of his political struggle, he often waded into

bloody fist fights with political opponents.

The men who fought alongside him

in these early conflicts would remain

at the very heart of his security --

a personal bodyguard that stayed with Hitler

for the rest of his life.

Men like Bruno Gesche, a tough street-fighter,

never afraid to get his hands dirty.

As Hitler fought his way to become Chancellor of Germany,

unsophisticated old-timers like Gesche seemed out of place among

the thousands of professional police and paramilitary troops

who now ringed Hitler in layers of security.

Hitler repaid Gesche's loyalty by never abandoning him.

He rose to be Hitler's closest bodyguard.

With a handful of the Fuhrer's other oldest comrades,

he was an ever-present reminder

of those early, risky days of struggle.

When Corporal Adolf Hitler returned to Munich

in Bavaria from front-line service

following Germany's humiliating defeat in 1918,

he was 29 years old.

Like hundreds of thousands of other veterans,

he was frustrated and angry, convinced that they had been

stabbed in the back by communists

and Jews at home.

[Man speaking German]

Translator: We were amazed.

The front-line troops had not been beaten.

And we wondered why the cease-fire

came so quickly.

And why we had to vacate all our positions in such a hurry.

Because everywhere, we stood on enemy territory.

Powell: These men were a ready recruiting ground

for the extremist political gangs

that seemed to offer some hope

and a solution to their troubles.

Communists,

socialists, and nationalists

fought pitched battles on the streets.

At times,

Germany's new 'Weimar Republic' seemed on the edge of civil war.

In these dangerous days, Adolf Hitler quickly

seized the moment and established himself

as a rabble-rousing leader in Munich.

For protection, he did what any other mobster would do --

he surrounded himself with muscle.

Hard men who could battle rival thugs and look out for Hitler

as he provoked crowds with racist speeches.

They became known as the Sturmabteilung, or SA --

brown-shirted bullyboys who intimidated opponents

with fists, clubs, and sometimes guns,

policing Nazi meetings

and breaking up those of their rivals.

Arid within this paramilitary gang was an inner core,

the first of Hitler's personal bodyguards,

initially called the Ordnertruppe,

or Stewards Troop, and then Stosstrupp Hitler,

or Hitler Shock Troop.

The Shock Troops included men like Rudolf Hess,

who was to become Hitler's deputy,

Julius Schreck, who later became Hitler's personal chauffeur,

Emil Maurice, who was to be imprisoned with Hitler

and get to know some of his leader's darkest secrets,

and Ulrich Graf, a butcher by trade,

who soon came close to being killed for his leader.

Among the hardest SA men was Bruno Gesche.

Just 17 years old when he joined in 1922

and too young to have served in the war,

Gesche longed for a life of action.

He was a natural brawler, and his political activity

cost him a series of jobs.

He didn't care.

Just so long as he was marching to the beat of Hitler's drum.

After attempting a coup in 1923,

Hitler was imprisoned and his party banned.

But Gesche kept the faith

and re-joined a revived Nazi party in June 1925.

He was now ambitious to rise up

the party ranks, and after a rally in 1927,

he moved across to join a new elite section

of the SA.

This was the Schutzstaffel, or SS,

Hitler's personal protection squad,

which had been set up in 1925 when the Nazis were re-formed.

Whereas SA brownshirt membership was numbered in its thousands,

the SS started with less than 100 men,

and by the time Gesche joined, it still had only 280.

Initially, SS men distinguished themselves from the SA

by wearing black caps with a skull-and-crossbones insignia

and a field-grey uniform.

But soon they were dressed all in black,

with peaked caps and polished boots --

the uniform which would strike fear all across Europe.

The SS had stricter entry requirements

than the general SA and maintained

tighter discipline.

Although subordinate to the SA,

its members acted like the Nazi Party elite.

Released from prison, Hitler realized

that armed revolution was not the way to power.

He must become a legitimate politician

and use democracy to seize control.

This meant years of political campaigning

as he chased the votes he needed.

At first it was slow work,

for the Weimar Republic stabilized

during the mid-1920s

and support for extremist parties declined rapidly.

But the situation was transformed

as unemployment and despair

overwhelmed Germany in the aftermath

of the Wall Street Crash of October 1929.

By 1932, the Nazis were

the largest party in the Reichstag,

with more than 37% of the vote.

Membership of the SA exploded from 200,000

to 2,500,000.

And as it did so, so the SS also expanded,

for it had acquired a leader

who had great plans for it.

In 1929, Hitler appointed Heinrich Himmler

as Reichsfuhrer-SS.

This bespectacled 29-year-old,

a former clerk and chicken farmer,

would bring a ruthless ambition to his job

and make the SS the most feared organization in Germany.

Gesche rose within the blackshirt ranks

to become SS Sturmfuhrer.

Soon, this tough street fighter would be one of

Hitler's most trusted protectors.

But this would expose him to the jealousy

and suspicion of Himmler, his nominal boss,

a man who would tolerate no rivals,

and in his efforts to destroy any competition

would search out their weaknesses.

As Gesche became one of Hitler's most trusted protectors

and reveled in the status this brought,

he became a victim to his own inner demons --

among these, a weakness for alcohol.

Himmler kept files on the behavior

of the men closest to Hitler.

He watched and took notes.

And then, when those men got out of control,

he would pounce and eliminate them.

The story of this bitter struggle

between Gesche and Himmler

lies at the very heart of the chaos

that formed the substance of Hitler's bodyguard.

And yet the Fuhrer himself seemed unperturbed

by these rivalries fought out all around him.

In fact, he relished it, knowing that in this chaos

lay the key to his peculiar kind of protection.

Berlin, February 1932 --

Bruno Gesche is one of eight

chosen from a group of outstanding young SS men

to form the SS-Begleitkommando --

Hitler's close escort squad which would work round the clock

protecting the Fuhrer in three eight-hour shifts.

The appointment was a tremendous honor for the 27-year-old,

but it did not take long for Gesche

to fall foul of his nominal boss.

Just eight months later,

when Hitler was speaking at a Nazi Party rally,

Gesche was openly critical

about poor security.

This was the responsibility of the SS,

and by implication, any criticism was a public

criticism of Himmler.

The head of the SS was furious

and had one of his minions demand that Gesche be demoted

and removed from the SS-Begleitkommando.

It was claimed that Gesche's outspoken comments had brought

shame on the SS and demeaned its professional image.

But Himmler did not have his way.

Gesche was merely reprimanded.

It was a warning shot to Himmler

not to mess with Hitler's valued companions.

Shortly afterwards,

salt was rubbed in the Reichsfuhrer-SS's wounds

when he was obliged to sign the contract

confirming Gesche's employment.

But, as far as he was concerned,

this was just his first round with Gesche.

In January 1933, as leader of

what was still the largest party

in the Reichstag,

Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany.

As head of government,

Hitler could now call on all the security apparatus

and police forces of the Weimar Republic,

but as leader of the ruling Nazi Party,

he continued to rely mainly on his own security force,

and this bodyguard expanded enormously.

At its core remained the SS-Begleitkommando,

the eight-man escort squad

that protected Hitler day and night.

Beyond that was Himmler's SS.

Only 280 men strong in 1929,

it had grown to 10,000 by the end of 1931.

And from these black-clad ranks

the new Chancellor ordered the recruitment

on March 17, 1933 of a palace guard

which swiftly became known as the Leibstandarte-SS.

Initially just 120 men under the command of

a tough former army sergeant and police officer,

Sepp Dietrich, the Leibstandarte's role

was to guard Hitler's residences

and offices, form a human wall

around the Fuhrer during public appearances,

and to provide muscle for special security tasks.

Within a year,

the unit had grown to almost 1,000 men

and was based at the Lichterfelde Barracks.

Although nominally under the control of Himmler,

Dietrich always took his instructions

directly from Hitler.

To confuse matters, just two days before

Hitler ordered the formation of the Leibstandarte,

Himmler had authorized the establishment

of a Fuhrer Protection Group, the Fuhrerschutzkommando,

staffed by detectives of the Bavarian State Police,

which Himmler had taken over when the Nazis seized power.

In command was another tough ex-soldier,

Bavarian police captain Johann Rattenhuber.

That the existence

of two rival new Fuhrer-protection units

could be confusing was shown by an incident

in the spring of 1933.

Driving through Munich, Hitler became aware

of a car following his own.

He told his driver to increase the speed

of his supercharged Mercedes

so that the other car could not keep up.

It turned out that the strange car pursuing Hitler

was full of Fuhrerschutzkommando bodyguards

who had not thought of informing

the Fuhrer's immediate entourage.

Hitler was furious.

He had always been suspicious

of the civilian police, particularly

the Bavarian force which had come so close to killing him

during the Beer Hall Putsch attempt.

Nevertheless, Himmler overcame Hitler's prejudice.

The Fuhrerschutzkommando became a separate agency,

the Reichssicherheitsdienst -- the Reich Security Service,

or RSD.

Himmler remained in nominal control,

but, like Dietrich, Rattenhuber usually

took his instructions directly from Hitler.

Responsible for Hitler's overall security,

the RSD followed up reports of assassination plots,

kept key places

such as his favorite restaurants,

under surveillance, secured travel routes,

and checked personnel and locations

before important public appearances.

Staffed by trained police detectives,

the RSD tended to look down on the likes of Bruno Gesche

and his comrades in Hitler's escort group.

They viewed them, not unfairly,

as rather brutish thugs, untrained in police techniques.

But Hitler was no intellectual snob

and preferred the company of his old companions.

Despite the new layers of security

with which he was now surrounded,

Hitler was cynical about their effectiveness.

While talking to old colleagues during the war,

he revealed his true feelings about his own safety.

Man: "In the two really dangerous attempts

made to assassinate me,

"I owed my life not to the police,

but to pure chance."

Powell: The two occasions

he was thinking of were a bomb

at the commemoration of the Munich Putsch attempt,

which only missed killing him because he had left

12 minutes earlier than usual, and the Swiss student

who stalked him across Germany and was only stopped

by chance by a suspicious railway official.

As Hitler went on to say --

Man: "The confessions of the Swiss man interested me.

"They confirmed my conviction that no one can avoid

"an assassin who is determined to risk his own life

"in the execution of his mission.

"I can see why 90% of the past assassinations

"have been successful.

"The only preventative measure one can take

"is to live irregularly --

"to walk, to drive, and to travel

at irregular times and unexpectedly."

Powell: Hitler took this to heart,

much to the annoyance of his personal security officers,

and constantly changed his mind

at the last moment about routes

and methods of travel.

Man: "Whenever I go anywhere by car, I go off

"unexpectedly and without warning the police.

"As soon as the police get to hear that

"I am going somewhere, they adopt emergency measures

"which attract too much attention.

"One time,

"when I was driving from Vienna to Pressburg,

"the police raised the alarm along the entire route --

"an action which was all the more dangerous

"because they did not have the forces

"to guard the roads.

"On top of that, the Gestapo plainclothes men

"dressed themselves in such

"an astonishing collection of clothes --

"like hostler's capes --

that any moron could have recognized them."

Powell: Hitler only valued organized police protection

for public events, but even then, he was fatalistic.

Man: "As there can be no absolute security

"against fanatics, I always make a point

"of standing upright in my car.

"The world belongs to the brave.

"If some assassin wishes to shoot me

"or blow me up with a bomb,

I am no safer sitting down than standing up."

Powell: It was probably because Hitler was

so cynical about the efforts of his regiments

of security officers and policemen

that he liked to keep familiar faces close to him --

old bodyguards such as Bruno Gesche.

But SS commander Himmler wasn't happy with this

and never abandoned his feud with Gesche.

As Himmler gained almost unlimited power

within Nazi Germany, he would come back to haunt him.

Soon Hitler's number-one bodyguard

would need his own protection,

and it would come from his Führer.

In May 1934, Bruno Gesche

became commander of Hitler's escort squad,

the SS-Begleitkommando.

Almost immediately, Himmler attempted to seize control

of Hitler's closest bodyguards.

They were incorporated into the new Reich Security Service

for administrative purposes.

And then he suspended their salaries

to show who was in charge.

But Gesche did not take the bait

and avoided a direct confrontation with Himmler

by going to Sepp Dietrich,

the no-nonsense commander of the Leibstandarte.

Dietrich had a deep dislike of Himmler

and later described his greed.

Man: "His appetite for power

"just could not be satisfied.

"On top of this, he was a great hand

"at hoarding and scrounging.

"He received money from everywhere

"and everybody.

Every SS leader had to pay him a monthly donation."

Powell: Dietrich was close to the Fuhrer

and insisted the money tap for his bodyguard be turned back on.

Himmler could do little but give in.

It was another humiliation for which Gesche was responsible

and which would not be forgotten or forgiven.

However, for the next four years,

relations between the two men simmered but did not

burst out again into open confrontation.

Himmler concentrated on establishing the SS

as the dominant power within the Nazi state.

During 1936, Himmler's control of

all German civilian police was formalized

and the Gestapo spread its secret surveillance web

over every aspect of German life.

And as Hitler focused on rebuilding Germany's strength

through a massive program of public works,

such as the Autobahn network

and a massive rearmament program,

his bodyguard established a routine.

Everywhere he went, he was accompanied

by men of the Begleitkommando.

[Crowd cheering ]

And before a trip or formal occasion,

the RSD would check the route, the buildings along it,

and the place which Hitler was to visit.

Local Gestapo and police

would be called in as necessary.

As far as possible,

the streets or approaches to a building

would be lined with uniformed SS men,

every third man facing the crowd.

There would be marksmen on the roofs,

while plainclothes RSD men or criminal police

mingled with the crowds.

The Fuhrer's motorcade was preceded by a single pilot car

to warn the guards to stand-to.

Then, 50 meters behind, came Hitler's car --

usually a gleaming open six-seater Grosser Mercedes

or the massive six-wheel Mercedes G-4.

Hitler always stood

or sat in the front beside the driver

with a member of the Begleitkommando

and an adjutant right behind him.

Immediately following were three cars

with the rest of the Begleitkommando

and a detachment of RSD men.

Then, after a 100-meter gap,

came the cars of other Nazi Chieftains

or foreign guests.

By the beginning of 1938, as Hitler started to put

his aggressive expansion plans into action,

the responsibilities of his bodyguard grew rapidly.

Hitler's first target

was his homeland, Austria.

After its government had refused to buckle in

to Hitler's demands and announced a referendum

on unification with Germany,

Hitler ordered an invasion

on March 12th.

Complete surprise and the noisy welcome given by local Nazis

made the assault bloodless

and apparently popular.

Hitler was eager to visit his new conquest

and set off immediately by air to Munich.

From there, he was driven across the border to his birthplace

at Braunau in a convoy of twelve cars,

all of them massive six-wheel Mercedes-Benz.

Five of them were filled with Begleitkommando and RSD men

commanded by Bruno Gesche.

[Crowd cheering ]

Cheering crowds greeted him whenever he stopped,

but Gesche's bodyguards were taking no chances.

They carried two pistols each

and had 14 submachine guns between them,

with over 2,500 rounds of ammunition.

They were right to be concerned.

Hitler's aggressive foreign policy

was increasing the number of enemies

lined up against him

happy to see him dead.

It was just as the pressures on Hitler's bodyguard were growing

that Himmler tried again to rein in the activities

of Hitler's SS escort.

At the end of 1937,

he had imposed a strict new rule

on SS members.

If they were found guilty of abusing alcohol,

they had to promise to abstain from drink for 12 years

or resign.

Having obtained evidence that Gesche's alcohol intake

was uncontrolled and dangerous for the maintenance of his job,

Himmler felt convinced he could nail the lanky bodyguard

once and for all.

On September 26, 1938,

Gesche was told to sign a written statement

swearing not to touch spirits for three years

or face expulsion from the SS.

Gesche had no choice but to agree.

It seemed a victory to Himmler, but it was short-lived.

After just a few months,

such was the affection for Gesche among his SS colleagues

and the influence of the Fuhrer

that Himmler had to lift the drinking ban.

It appeared that Hitler did not mind

that the head of his personal bodyguard

was drinking too much while on duty.

In fact, this was not the only weakness

of his number-one protector that Hitler chose to ignore.

Gesche was slightly cross-eyed,

and Hitler would joke it was a good thing

he did not sit directly behind him in his car.

Otherwise, he might shoot Hitler in the back by mistake.

But he was prepared to take the risk.

With the countdown to war in Europe accelerating

and with his own generals showing considerable concern

about the path down which he was leading Germany,

Hitler liked to be surrounded by the company of trusted men.

World War II started well for Adolf Hitler.

On September 1, 1939,

German armies crossed the border into Poland

and rapidly overran

the western part of the country.

Hitler was impatient to visit his new conquests,

and just two days into the campaign,

set off from Berlin by rail

to visit the battle front in Poland.

The Begleitkommando and RSD

were now given field-grey SS uniforms

with the insignia appropriate to their military-police rank.

They would continue to be responsible

for Hitler's close protection,

but wider security now involved another

potentially competing group.

This was the army's Fuhrer escort battalion,

or Fuhrer Begleit Battalion,

commanded by Colonel Erwin Rommel.

Set up just before war began,

this new unit took responsibility

for guarding Hitler's military headquarters

and accompanying him

when he visited front-line command posts.

When the train reached Bad Polzin,

Hitler and his staff transferred to a convoy

of grey-painted Mercedes.

All were open-topped,

with machine guns mounted on the SS escort cars.

Escort battalion troops with motorcycles and armored cars

preceded and backed up the column.

The mood was very relaxed.

Hitler feared little, thinking no one

would dare to attack him with his troops

all round him.

His bodyguard chatted and took photographs of each other.

But while out in the countryside,

a shot rang out.

A Polish sniper killed a German truck driver

as he was passing close to Hitler's convoy.

The truck went out of control

and crashed into one of Hitler's escort vehicles.

It was a close shave, but nothing could deter

Hitler and his bodyguard.

Hours later, he watched his troops

crossing the river Vistula

while Polish bombers dropped their bombs just a mile away.

[Distant explosions]

Hitler was in a triumphant mood,

and Gesche and the overall SS escort seemed to share it,

consequently lowering their guard.

They were to get a rude wake-up call just two months later.

[Crowd cheering ]

On November 8, 1939, Hitler went to

the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall in Munich

for one of the Nazi Party's most sacred rituals --

the anniversary celebration

of the attempted Putsch in 1923.

He began speaking just after 8:00 PM,

earlier than usual,

because he had urgent business to attend to in Berlin.

By 9:07 PM,

he left the hall.

His old comrades continued

to drink and reminisce.

[ Explosion ]

Just 12 minutes later,

a bomb exploded behind the speaker's rostrum.

Eight people were killed and 60 injured.

For Hitler, his escape was proof of his divine mission,

but it was one of the nearest misses of his career.

Dietrich and Himmler also escaped the carnage,

but it was bad news for the latter.

The RSD was responsible for checking every location

before any Hitler event.

How on earth

had Himmler's men missed the bomb?

How could they have missed the man who planted it there?

It was a serious error

that had come within 12 minutes of killing the Führer.

Himmler's henchmen did catch the bomber, George Elser,

a 36-year-old cabinetmaker and communist from Württemberg.

But his confession, extracted by the Gestapo,

made uncomfortable reading for Himmler.

Elser had been able to spend 30 nights in the beer hall

planting his time bomb.

It was a severe embarrassment for Himmler and the RSD.

What was the point of spending millions of Deutschmarks

on security if an assassin could just walk in?

It confirmed Hitler's cynicism

about his own security measures.

Man: "In the two really dangerous attempts

"made to assassinate me,

"I owed my life not to the police

but to pure chance."

Powell: The attempt led to a major review

of Hitler's security measures.

A 60-page report recommended that

the SS Central Security Office,

the RSD, and the Gestapo must work more closely together,

particularly on surveillance of buildings

associated with Hitler.

Himmler was now so distracted

that he left Gesche alone for the early part of the war.

Victory after victory followed for Germany.

By early 1942,

Hitler was master of Europe,

with his conquering armies

advancing deep into the Soviet Union.

Gesche shared in the euphoria.

As the Fuhrer strutted on the Berghof terrace,

Gesche witnessed the parade of grandees

who came to seek his patronage.

Hitler did not touch alcohol,

preferring a glass of apple juice,

but many of his senior commanders and party officials

were tremendous drinkers.

This was fatal for Gesche --

when he drank, he often got out of control.

In April 1942, he went too far.

A report was soon on Himmler's desk.

During a binge-drinking session,

Gesche had pulled out his pistol

and threatened another SS officer.

He was soon calmed down, but this time,

Hitler could not prevent his punishment.

Gesche was dismissed from command

of Hitler's personal escort

and banned from drinking for three years.

But far worse, he was sent for basic army training.

At the age of 37,

this man who had enjoyed the luxury

of Hitler's court was to be sent

to the Eastern Front

to face the full fury of fighting the Russians.

It must have seemed like a death sentence.

For Gesche, it looked like the end of the line.

For Himmler, it seemed that at last

he had got his revenge.

The unit to which Bruno Gesche was sent

after being sacked from command of Hitler's escort group

was a Waffen-SS Panzer division.

By mid-1942,

the original Leibstandarte-SS guard regiment

had grown into an army of more than 12 divisions.

Regarded as an elite force,

the Waffen-SS was often used in the most critical

and dangerous sections of the front.

Gesche was given eight weeks' training

and then sent to a unit fighting in southern Russia.

It was a severe challenge

for a 37-year-old with

no combat experience at all.

[Gunfire]

He arrived just in time

for the major summer offensive --

Operation Blue.

By the end of July, the Germans had

burst through the Red Army and were approaching

their objective -- the oil fields

of the Caucasus.

But the speed of

the Panzers' advance overstretched

their supply lines.

They shuddered to a halt just outside Stalingrad.

Gesche fought well during the offensive

and was evacuated after being wounded.

Much to Himmler's surprise, he was ordered to return

to Hitler's headquarters in December 1942.

Years of easy living in the SS escort

had not made him too soft for battle,

and Hitler was pleased with his performance.

He re-appointed Gesche commander of his close escort,

but this was largely symbolic.

Much of the administrative burden

was undertaken by the SS adjutants.

[Gunfire]

It was a lucky escape for Gesche.

In November,

the Soviets unleashed a ferocious counterattack

at Stalingrad that trapped and then annihilated

thousands of German troops in a desperate last stand.

Gesche could have been among them.

Shortly after this disaster, an order was issued

that no one who had served in Hitler's headquarters

was to be allowed to fight on the Eastern Front.

Their capture

and interrogation by the Soviets

could seriously compromise the Fuhrer's security.

By now, Hitler was spending most of his time

at his main military headquarters,

code-named the Wolfsschanze, or Wolf's Lair,

near Rastenburg in East Prussia.

Today, this is in Poland.

The remains of the massive concrete buildings and bunkers

can still be seen deep in the forest.

The Begleitkommando and RSD still provided

the close protection with a much-enlarged

Fuhrer protection battalion of the Wehrmacht providing

the mass of sentries, patrols,

and anti-aircraft units.

From the Wolfsschanze,

Gesche and his team would accompany Hitler on his

occasional visits to headquarters nearer the front

or to Berlin or Berchtesgaden.

Usually these trips were made by air,

despite the increasing danger of interception

by Allied aircraft.

Gesche kept his head down

and avoided any conflict with Himmler

for the whole of 1943

and most of 1944.

By then, the war had turned

decisively against Nazi Germany.

On the Eastern Front,

the debacle at Stalingrad had been followed in July 1943

by a catastrophic defeat

near the city of Kursk.

From then on,

the German armies were on the retreat.

By the middle of 1944,

the Red Army was pushing across the border of Poland,

and by the end of August,

it was just a few miles short of Warsaw.

Even worse for the Germans,

the long-awaited Second Front had begun in June

with US, British, and Canadian forces

crossing the English Channel

and establishing a bridgehead in northern France.

By the end of August, they had broken out,

and Paris had been liberated.

Gesche saw the Fuhrer rapidly age before him.

No longer invigorated with success,

Hitler shuffled around his headquarters,

directing his frustration

not at the enemy,

but his own generals.

It was they who had let down Hitler's great schemes.

It was they who were

conspiring against him.

And he was right.

Many generals wanted an end to the war

while they could still negotiate a deal with the Western Allies.

On July 20, 1944, Hitler was studying battle maps

at the Wolfsschanze when, in a carefully-planned

assassination attempt, a bomb exploded

beneath the table.

Four officers were killed,

but Hitler survived.

"I am immortal!" he crowed.

He owed his life to the flimsy construction of the building

and its open windows which helped diffuse the blast.

Once again, luck had come to Hitler's rescue.

Yet again, his security forces had failed to intercept

the plotters and their bomb.

But the Fuhrer's good fortune

could not eradicate the mood of deep depression

that descended on him and his associates.

Their time was running out.

In December 1944, Gesche took to drink again,

pulled a pistol,

and fired several shots at a colleague.

This time, Himmler personally wrote

the letter of condemnation.

Man: "You are known to me as a notorious drunk

"from the year 1938, as well as from reports

"in recent years and months.

"Since I cannot tolerate drunks in the Fuhrerkorps,

"I demote you.

"Only based on your long association

"will I allow you to remain in the SS.

"I will give you the opportunity

"to serve in the Dirlewanger Brigade,

"and by proving yourself before the enemy,

"it might be possible that you will be able to wipe out

"the shame you have brought onto yourself

"and the entire SS.

"I expect you to abstain from alcohol

"for the rest of your life,

"without any exceptions.

"Should your willpower be already damaged by alcohol

"to the extent that you cannot keep this pledge,

then I expect you to hand in your resignation."

Powell: It was a harsh punishment.

The Dirlewanger Brigade was a penal unit full of criminals

expected to die fighting in the front line.

It was Himmler's final blow against

the bodyguard that had most avoided his control.

With just weeks left of his evil regime,

this may have given him some grim satisfaction.

Gesche didn't receive the letter

until January 1945, and by then,

the Third Reich had only four months left.

He probably toasted its arrival with a stiff drink.

He could not be sent to the Dirlewanger Brigade

because it was fighting on the Eastern Front.

The risk that he might

fall into Soviet hands was too great.

Instead, Gesche fought as part of the 16th SS Division

in its long and bitter retreat

through Italy, Slovenia, and Hungary.

No longer part of Hitler's SS escort,

he did not share the final days with his Fuhrer

in the bunker deep beneath a devastated Berlin.

He did not have to make a decision about

whether to end his own life

or face capture by the Soviets

and almost certain execution as a member of the SS.

Ironically,

Himmler had done him a favor,

removing him from almost certain death in Berlin.

Instead, it was the Reichsfuhrer-SS

who chose suicide when he was captured by the British.

Despite being Hitler's number-one bodyguard,

possibly the most dangerous job in the world,

protecting a man who had so many enemies

and had so many assassination attempts against him,

Gesche survived it all.

He survived over a decade

of vendetta against Himmler, the most lethal man

in the Third Reich,

and he had survived the war.

It was a remarkable achievement.

That Hitler entrusted his most personal security arrangements

to such an unstable character was odd,

but typical of his affection

for those comrades who first served him back in the 1920s.

It also revealed

how Hitler trusted to chaos --

or good luck -- as early attempts

on his life would soon show.

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