Original subtitles

Powell: Adolf Hitler caused the deaths 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.

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,

even after the gloves had come off

when World War II began.

Hitler's favorite general was Erwin Rommel,

the "Desert Fox, "

who outwitted and outfought the Allies

in the deserts of North Africa.

He was a master of tank warfare,

bold and swift in his attacks on the enemy.

Hitler praised him, and the Allies feared him --

so much so that after two years of battle

and a series of shattering retreats,

British General Bernard Montgomery

had to rebuild the morale of his troops

to take on this elusive and deadly warlord

and finally win his decisive victory

over Rommel at El Alamein.

But few people know that Rommel

started his formidable World War II career

as a chief of Hitler's bodyguards.

Rommel distinguished himself in World War I

as an outstanding infantry officer --

winning Germany's highest award for valor, the Pour le Mérite --

but by the 1930s he was still

only an obscure military instructor

with the rank of colonel.

He first came to Hitler's attention in 1936

when he supervised the military security

at the September Nuremberg rally.

This was a huge undertaking --

a gathering of Nazi party members

so enormous, it had to take place outside the city

in a specially constructed arena

that had previously been used to land Zeppelin airships.

A quarter of a million Nazis gathered at the rally,

watched by 70,000 spectators.

Spectacular effects -- including a cathedral of light

using more than one hundred powerful searchlights --

were created by Hitler's favorite architect,

Albert Speer.

By 1936, Hitler was ready to show off

his massively re-equipped

and expanded armed forces at the Nuremberg rally.

Thousands of troops marched past him --

despite the fact that the Versailles treaty

insisted that Germany should only

have a small army of just 100,000 men.

This strong military theme

showed a new emphasis within the Nazi party.

Hitherto, it had been

the black-uniformed SS and Leibstandarte

which were the primary keepers of security

at major Nazi events.

Now Hitler was ready to entrust

his protection to the military --

a sign that they were marching arm in arm

to restore German power in the world.

It was a great honor and challenge for Rommel

to be put in charge of organizing the military security

at this high-profile event.

With hundreds of thousands of people at the rally,

it was a security nightmare.

Any one of them could have been a potential assassin.

We know that at least one ex-Nazi émigré group --

Otto Strasser's Black Front organization --

was targeting Nuremberg as a place

to assassinate Hitler and his top henchmen.

But the rally passed off without major security scares,

and the army demonstrated that it could be

as loyal and effective a bodyguard

as the fanatics of the SS.

The success of this event

meant that Hitler kept Rommel close to him.

And when Hitler forced union with Germany

onto Austria in March 1938, Rommel commanded

the small unit of military bodyguards

that accompanied the Fuhrer to Vienna.

A year later, when Hitler took over

the whole of Czechoslovakia, it was Rommel and his bodyguards

that also accompanied him to Prague.

This was a dummy run for more serious security situations --

for the first time, Hitler had moved

outside areas occupied by ethnic Germans.

His bodyguard would now be facing whole populations

of hostile people, many of whom would be

delighted to assassinate Hitler at any time

and anywhere they could get to him.

The Fuhrer was further impressed

when he read Rommel's 1938 book of infantry tactics.

The man was clearly as intelligent

as he was good at managing soldiers.

He decided to put the 48-year-old Rommel

in charge of a new unit of military bodyguards.

War was approaching fast --

with Poland next on Hitler's list of targets.

Hitler hoped that, as previously,

he might be able to getaway with an invasion

without Britain and France declaring war --

but he knew that this time

his bluff would almost certainly be called...

and that if war did come, he could no longer rely

just on his close circle of SS bodyguards --

loyal old comrades like Bruno Gesche,

who headed his SS-Begleitkommando escort --

or even the Leibstandarte palace guard.

He needed a battalion-strength unit of trained soldiers

as a bodyguard to protect his headquarters as he followed

the Polish campaign.

Troops were selected from the elite

Grossdeutschland infantry regiment

and from Luftwaffe ground forces,

and in August 1939, the new Fuhrer Begleit Battalion

was formally established.

Rommel -- newly promoted to brigadier general --

was in command.

The Fuhrer Begleit Battalion

numbered just over 500 officers and men

organized into four companies --

The 1st Guard Company, for close Sentry duty.

The 2nd Mobile Company, with armored cars and motorcycles

to escort the Fuhrer's convoy.

The 3rd Heavy Weapons Company, equipped with anti-tank guns.

And the 4th Machine Gun Company, to secure an outer perimeter.

Attached to this was an antiaircraft flak unit

provided by the Luftwaffe.

The air force also supplied

the two antiaircraft gun carriages at either end

of Hitler's headquarters train.

The main duties of the bodyguard battalion included

security on this train when it was on the move.

When the train stopped and he drove out in a motor convoy,

the battalion would then protect him with its motorcycles

and armored cars racing ahead.

At a more personal level, security was also stepped up.

From now on, Hitler always carried a pistol

for self-defense,

and his hats were armored with a steel lining.

War finally came on September 1, 1939,

with Hitler's armies

bursting across Poland's borders.

Within two days,

Britain and France had declared war.

Hitler now faced a war on two fronts.

But a brutally effective and swift campaign

soon removed this danger.

The full force of Blitzkrieg --

the new tactics of swift, deep-thrusting armor

supported by air power --

overwhelmed the gallant Polish resistance.

Hitler spent the first three days of the war

in the Reich Chancellery in Berlin.

He then boarded his special headquarters train

on September 3rd and traveled

through eastern Germany to Bad Polzin.

The train carried an all-star team of Hitler's top bodyguards.

There were the 10 men

of Bruno Gesche's SS-Begleitkommando --

more old friends than security officers --

and 10 agents from the RSD, the Reich Security Service.

Outnumbering them both was

Rommel's Fuhrer Begleit Battalion,

with 500 heavily armed soldiers,

plus the Luftwaffe antiaircraft gun carriages.

Above them flew a squadron of German fighter aircraft,

commanded by Captain Hans Baur, Hitler's personal pilot.

It was from Bad Polzin the next morning

that Hitler, his generals, and his bodyguard escort

set off to inspect the German front line

in a heavily protected convoy of six-wheeler Mercedes G4s

protected by armored cars and motorcycle troops.

Despite their closeness to the fighting,

the mood was relaxed.

The troops moving up as reinforcements

cheered their Fuhrer as he stopped to review them.

Lunch was taken at a field kitchen --

where a special vegetarian option

had been laid on for Hitler.

Then, as they moved on closer to the action,

there came a sobering incident --

one of the leading armored cars

crashed head on with an army truck

whose driver had been shot by a Polish sniper

as he approached Hitler's convoy.

It was a close call.

At Topolno, Hitler was watching his troops

cross the Vistula River when Polish aircraft

dropped bombs just over a mile away.

After this excitement, the convoy returned

to the headquarters train, which had moved closer to the front.

Several more trips followed over the next 10 days,

as the German Blitzkrieg

smashed deeper into Poland, surrounding

and annihilating the woefully under-equipped Polish troops.

By September 18th,

Hitler and his headquarters train were based

at Goddentow-Lanz station near Danzig,

modern Gdansk, on the Baltic coast.

From here, Hitler visited the city

whose seizure had been part of the excuse

for the attack on Poland.

[Crowd cheering ]

There were many German-speaking people living in the area,

and Hitler felt so relaxed about his welcome

that he stood down Rommel's military escort at Zoppot.

He visited the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein

that had started the war by blasting Polish

coastal defenses.

During the visit, even his SS and RSD guards

didn't bother to accompany him.

The Fuhrer felt so safe

that he left his protection to the local police.

On September 22nd, Hitler flew to the outskirts of Warsaw

to watch an artillery bombardment of its suburbs.

The city was now under siege

and facing a constant and devastating air assault.

[ Explosions ]

It fell on September 27th,

two days after Hitler had returned to Berlin,

to start planning the next stage of his war --

an assault in the west against Britain and France.

But he was back in Poland again

on October 5th for a massive victory parade.

This time he was escorted into the city

by an army detachment, and closely shadowed

by his close escort.

Their country may have been defeated,

but there were plenty of Poles

ready to sacrifice themselves in order to kill

their conqueror.

Hitler's bodyguard knew that their task

had become even more difficult.

It is possible that the new dangers

had made them take their eye

off the fact that at home in Germany,

there were still people who hated him.

Once again, it was not a network of foreign plotters

that would threaten him, but a lone assassin.

And that assassin would come to within minutes

of ending Hitler's life.

[Crowd cheering ]

Two months into World War II,

and Hitler returned to a special place.

It was November 8, 1939, and he was due to make

the anniversary speech

at the Bürgerbräu Bierkeller in Munich.

[Crowd cheering ]

It was from here

that Hitler first made

his bid for political power in 1923.

That putsch had failed,

but the attempt set him on the path to political power.

And every year, the Fuhrer and his henchmen

would commemorate the day with a march

along the original route,

and a gathering at the Bierkeller.

It had become one of the most significant ceremonies

in the Nazi calendar, and an occasion

of particular concern for Hitler's bodyguard...

for the event was one of the few

entirely predictable days in the Fuhrer's year.

Every potential assassin knew precisely where he would be

and what he would be doing.

For a man who saw unpredictability

as one of the strongest weapons in his security armory,

this was a rare chink in his defenses.

Waiting for their Fuhrer that evening

was an audience of specially invited Nazis,

many of them Alte Kameraden,

the Old Comrades

who had marched alongside him on that fateful day.

Sepp Dietrich, commander of the SS-Leibstandarte,

was there -- he had been thrown out of the police force

for supporting the putsch attempt.

So too was Heinrich Himmler --

the SS chief had carried a banner on that fateful day.

He should have felt very safe sitting in the hall.

For it was his RSD, the Reich Security Service,

that would have checked the location thoroughly.

At 8:00 p.m., the Nazi Blood Standard

was carried into the hall --

the bloodstained flag carried during

the failed putsch.

Hitler followed, to the roar of cheers

from hundreds of the party faithful.

He mounted the podium and spoke rapidly.

Behind him on a column hung a large swastika flag.

Normally, Hitler would have happily

gone on talking to past 9:30 p.m., but this time

he cut his speech short

because he had urgent business in Berlin.

The Fuhrer left the hall at 9:08 p.m.,

accompanied by several senior Nazis.

[ Explosion ]

At 9:20 p.m.,

a massive bomb tore the podium apart.

It exploded from inside the column

holding the swastika flag

behind where Hitler had been speaking.

The explosion brought down the roof of the hall,

with wood and bricks collapsing on the podium

and the table where Hitler was just minutes before.

Six Nazis and one waitress were killed immediately.

Another Nazi died from his injuries.

Over 60 were badly injured.

Hitler would undoubtedly have been killed.

When the bomb went off, Hitler was in his car,

on the way to the station.

He had missed death by a matter of minutes.

On hearing the news, Hitler claimed it was evidence

of his divine mission -- he was protected by fate.

It was undoubtedly

one of the greatest near misses of his career.

Amongst the wreckage, investigators found

the remains of what appeared to be

the timing device for the bomb.

Who was responsible for such an effective plot?

Did it involve army generals, foreign agents --

a vast network of conspirators?

Certainly, Hitler believed it had to be a complex plot.

But on the night of the explosion,

just one man was arrested --

36-year-old Johann Georg Elser.

It was pure luck he was caught.

He was just a hundred yards from the Swiss border

when two German guards stopped him

for a routine check of his identity papers.

Under Gestapo interrogation,

Elser admitted planting the bomb in the Beer Hall.

A cabinetmaker from Wurttemberg with strong socialist beliefs,

he was angry that Hitler had let down German workers,

and he wanted to stop the war in Europe.

Elser had spent a year preparing his assassination attempt.

Moving to Munich, he visited the Bürgerbräu Beer Hall

night after night, hiding there after it closed.

Carefully, he dug a hole in the pillar

behind the speaker's podium.

Into this, he placed a time bomb he designed himself.

Expecting Hitler to be still talking at 9:20 p.m.,

he set the timer on his bomb, but Hitler cheated him,

delivering a shorter speech than usual.

The funeral of those killed in the blast

was turned into another Nazi extravaganza,

but the pomp could not disguise one embarrassing fact --

that Elser had been able to visit

such an iconic Nazi location day after day

without being noticed by the RSD.

Its operatives were trained to search

for bombs and anything unusual.

When the swastika flag was hung

on the column behind the podium containing the bomb,

why did no one notice anything?

Why was there no SS guard on the main hall day and night?

The RSD knew that this anniversary was

one of the most dangerous moments of Hitler's year,

and on this occasion it was only his erratic timekeeping

that had saved him from certain death.

It could be said that the very enormity and complexity

of Hitler's security services had conspired against him.

With so many agencies devoted to his protection,

some personnel may have been confused.

They may have believed that others had checked the premises

when they had not.

Himmler was thoroughly embarrassed by Elser's bomb.

He had been there and could well have been

one of many senior Nazis killed in the explosion.

Ultimately, it was his security services

that had failed to protect the Führer.

Such a mess-up put tremendous pressure

on Himmler and his SS associates

to investigate the plot thoroughly.

Hitler made his own sardonic comment on the affair.

Man: "In the two really dangerous attempts made

"to assassinate me, I owed my life not to the police,

but to pure chance."

Powell: Pure chance saved Hitler --

not the RSD or the SS -- and the Nazis

devoted to protecting the Fuhrer could not believe

that Elser had acted alone.

Germany was at war, and they were convinced

that Elser was part of an international plot

to stop the fighting -- with British secret agents

almost certainly involved.

It was time to open up the investigation

and accuse foreign powers of trying to kill their leader.

The opportunity to link Elser's bomb with a foreign conspiracy

came just a day after the bomb went off--

one of Hitler's cleverest and most ruthless security chiefs

was running a sting operation on the British

which was too neat to ignore.

The man who now became involved

in the follow-up to the Elser plot

was a 29-year-old SS intelligence officer,

Walter Schellenberg.

Schellenberg was born smart.

He studied medicine and law at Bonn University

and joined the SS in 1933.

He rose rapidly within its ranks and worked closely

with both Himmler and Heydrich.

By 1939, he was head

of the Gestapo counter-espionage department.

His mission was to get to assassins

before they got to Hitler.

As part of this, Schellenberg had been tasked

by his boss, Reinhard Heydrich,

head of the Gestapo and Security Service,

with running a misinformation operation

against the British Secret Service.

It was being conducted in the Netherlands,

which had remained neutral.

He was using a political refugee who had

fled to the Netherlands to feed information to London,

since the man was known

as a virulent anti-Nazi,

the British were ready to believe his reports.

Thus, they were very interested when the contact told them

that high-ranking officers

within the German army were working against Hitler.

This had been true in the previous year --

1938 -- when war with Czechoslovakia looked likely.

Some generals had protested

that they weren’t ready for war in central Europe.

They had prepared to launch a coup

against Hitler and even to kill him.

But now that Hitler was victorious in Poland

and the Allies seemed unable to stop him,

his disgruntled generals were fully behind him.

Nevertheless, the reports

coming from the double agent in the Netherlands

chimed in with the earlier mood of the German general staff

and seemed convincing enough to the British.

Schellenberg now took the deception further.

He decided to impersonate one of the conspirators

and set up a meeting with British agents

in the neutral Netherlands.

Two British agents from

the Special Intelligence Service, SIS,

were assigned to the mission --

Captain S. Payne Best,

who lived in the Netherlands with a Dutch wife,

and Major RH. Stevens.

Schellenberg took the identity of a real officer,

Hauptman Schaemel,

from the Military Transport Department.

Having done that, he set up a meeting

with Captain Best and Major Stevens at Arnhem.

They talked as Best drove a large Buick

through the Dutch countryside.

Schellenberg explained that German generals were shocked

at the level of casualties in the Polish campaign

and wanted an end to the war.

They wanted an end to Hitler, too.

Best and Stevens replied that they were empowered to speak

on behalf of the British government,

and they, too, wished to see Hitler removed.

This was in stark contrast to the year before.

Then, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain’s government

had been reluctant to help

any German attempts to remove the Führer.

It was too late now, but Best and Stevens

reported back favorably to London.

Schellenberg was delighted

with the level of trust he had established

and saw it as a tremendous opportunity

to plant false information.

But then came Elser's bomb on November 8th.

The next day,

Schellenberg had scheduled a meeting

with the British agents to carry on their discussions.

But on the evening of the explosion,

Himmler telephoned Schellenberg from Berlin.

The furious head of the SS

told Schellenberg that they had just missed

being killed.

He said that Hitler believed

it was the work of the British Secret Service.

Schellenberg must change his plans

and turn his meeting into a kidnapping.

Hitler wanted the agents interrogated

about their part in the bomb plot.

Schellenberg was assigned a hit squad of SS troops.

They accompanied him as he set off to meet Best and Stevens

at the Dutch border with Germany

and then go to a café in Venlo, a small town

5 miles inside Holland.

On November 9th,

just after lunchtime, Schellenberg

and his SS snatch team

took up their positions at the isolated

and infrequently used border crossing.

Schellenberg waited for the British

just by the German barrier.

The British agents arrived at 3:20 p.m.

Payne, Best and Stevens were accompanied

by a Dutch officer and a chauffeur.

They drove through the Dutch barrier towards Schellenberg --

and straight into the SS trap.

As the car halted,

the SS hit squad burst out.

[Gunfire]

The car was rushed

and its occupants forced out at gunpoint.

As they emerged, the Dutch officer pushed free

and raced off, turning to fire

at the SS men.

He was cut down and died a short while later.

Best and Stevens were driven to Berlin,

where they were interrogated by the Gestapo.

Schellenberg was invited to the Reich Chancellery.

There, he and other SS officers involved in the Venlo incident

were presented by Hitler with the Iron Cross, First Class.

The Fuhrer was delighted to get one over

on the British Secret Service, which he admired greatly.

It was a brutal affair,

but highly successful.

Under Gestapo interrogation, the two kidnapped British agents

revealed a network of other spies in Europe.

From then on, British intelligence was wary

of dealing with any Germans

claiming to be anti-Hitler plotters.

Following the Venlo incident,

Hitler was angry at the involvement

of the supposedly neutral Dutch

and felt that this conduct justified his later

invasion of their country.

Above all, he was convinced that these captured agents

were actually involved in a plot to kill him --

and this was linked to Elser's bomb.

Schellenberg now became involved in the quest to find out

whether Elser had had support in carrying out his plot.

For the rumored military plot to overthrow Hitler --

cooked up by Schellenberg as a way

of enticing the British agents

to meet him -- soon became interpreted

in the labyrinthine corridors of Hitler's security empire

as part of the foiling of a real attempt on his life.

That these two events --

Elser's bomb and Venlo --

happened on successive days

helped to link them in Hitler's brain --

a man who took every major incident

as an omen on his path of destiny.

The quest for this link now tormented

Himmler, Heydrich, and Schellenberg

over the next three months.

They knew there was no connection --

it had been pure coincidence --

but they had to explore every avenue

in order to satisfy an increasingly paranoid Hitler.

The questioning of Elser was supervised

by Heinrich Muller -- the brutal head of the Gestapo.

The prisoner admitted to planting the bomb

and happily described how he made it,

but insisted that he acted alone.

The Gestapo did not believe him.

Beatings, carried out personally by Muller, achieved nothing.

Then three psychiatric doctors were allowed to work on Elser.

They injected him with high doses

of the truth drug Pervitin, but each time,

he kept to his story -- he acted alone.

Schellenberg dictated a minute

detailing his own meeting with Elser.

Man: "He had a high forehead

"and strong, sensitive hands.

"He looked a highly skilled craftsman,

"and his work was, in its way, a masterpiece.

"At first,

"he was very shy.

"It was only when we began to ask him about his work,

"to praise its ingenuity and precision,

"that he came out of his shell.

"He went into a long and enthusiastic explanation

"of the problems he had to solve to construct the bomb.

"I became fascinated by his explanation,

almost forgetting its deadly purpose."

Powell: The Gestapo installed a carpenter's workshop

for Elser to recreate the bomb.

They built a wooden pillar identical to the one

that stood behind Hitler in the Beer Hall.

Elser showed them how he installed his bomb

and set the timer.

Eventually, Elser did admit

to having two anonymous accomplices.

This was the news that Schellenberg wanted.

But Elser went no further.

He would not and could not identify them.

The Gestapo next used hypnotists to prise the truth from him.

Man: "One of these hypnotists

"made a precise analysis of Elser's character.

"He said the assassin was

"a fanatic who always acted alone.

"He had strong compulsions,

"especially related to technical matters.

"They sprang

from a need to achieve something really important."

Powell: The hypnotists also revealed

that Elser was motivated by revenge.

His brother was a Communist and had been

thrown into a concentration camp by the Nazis.

Man: "By killing the leader of the Third Reich,

"he would satisfy all these desires,

"because he would become famous himself

"and he would have felt morally justified

"by freeing Germany from a great evil.

"Such self-sacrificing urges

are typical of religious and sectarian fanatics."

Powell: As far as Schellenberg was concerned,

these deep-rooted motivations explained Elser.

He was not part of a wider conspiracy.

The investigation culminated

in a robust exchange of views between Himmler and Hitler

during a dinner at the Reichschancellery.

Man: "There is no possibility of any connection

"between Elser and Best and Stevens.

"I don't deny that British Intelligence may be connected

"with Elser through other channels.

"They may have made use of Germans --

members of Strasser's Black Front."

Powell: This was a sore point for Hitler.

He hated and feared Otto Strasser.

He had had Strasser's brother, Gregor, murdered

during the Night of the Long Knives.

In exile, Otto had set up the Black Front,

a devil's alliance of ex-Nazis and Jews,

who had launched several

assassination attempts against him.

Man: "Elser admits he was connected with two unknown men,

"but whether he was in touch

"with any political group, we just don't know.

"They may have been Communists,

"agents of the British Secret Service,

"or members of the Black Front.

"There is only one other clue.

"Our technical men are practically certain

"that the explosives and the fuses used in the bomb

were made abroad."

Powell: Hitler seized on this reference

to a foreign-made bomb.

Man: "That sounds quite possible.

"What I want to know is,

"what type of man we are dealing with.

"I want you to use every possible means

"to induce this criminal to talk.

"Use hypnosis, give him drugs --

"everything that modern science has developed in this direction.

I've got to know who stands behind this plot."

Powell: Hitler wanted Elser put on trial

with both Best and Stevens as a high-profile event

to show the world that he had defeated

an international plot against him,

but the failure to make Elser

involve Best and Stevens stymied him.

Eventually, Hitler lost interest in Elser.

He remained in Dachau concentration camp

until executed only days

before the end of World War II.

Best and Stevens were luckier.

They, too, stayed in prison for the rest of the war,

but were finally liberated by American troops.

Although the attempts

to link the Elser bomb plot with the British

distracted senior SS commanders pointlessly for weeks,

the affair did reveal

significant gaps in Hitler's security.

As a result, the SS announced

a complete overhaul of arrangements for his protection.

A 60-page directive was sent to every Nazi security agency.

Closer coordination was recommended between the RSHA --

the SS Central Security Office --

the RSD, and the Gestapo.

The constant surveillance of all locations

closely associated with Hitler was ordered.

Another Beer Hall bomb would never happen again.

With the Polish campaign won, Hitler withdrew

to his private residence at the Berghof

in the Bavarian alps.

He felt safest there.

He was far away from the intrigue of Berlin

and gained megalomaniac inspiration

from the mountain grandeur.

For the bodyguard, it was a quiet time.

Hundreds of SS Leibstandarte guards

patrolled the perimeter,

and anyone suspicious could be stopped

long before they reached the house.

Hitler was surrounded by old comrades

and their children and pets --

including his long-term companion, Eva Braun,

and enjoyed the nearest thing

to a normal life he had ever experienced.

Within the house, Bruno Gesche

and his SS-Begleitkommando bodyguards

provided a constant presence,

and when the Fuhrer went to bed,

a detail slept on the same floor

in nearby bedrooms.

From October 1939 to May 1940,

this was where Hitler spent much of his time,

plotting his future campaigns.

It became his Fuhrer Headquarters -- the FHQ --

to which his generals came to plan and receive their orders.

He spread out maps on the huge marble table

in the main conference room

with its magnificent picture window

that was lifted electrically.

Hitler's work regime was relaxed --

he would rise late and take a leisurely lunch

and then a walk.

Often, planning meetings would not start

until late in the afternoon and go on late into the night.

He had hoped to be able to turn west immediately

and attack While Britain and France were still mobilizing,

but on this occasion, his generals were able

to persuade him that the army was totally unprepared.

The need to move the panzer divisions west

and build up their strength would take time.

And despite its apparent invincibility,

the army had shown substantial weaknesses --

particularly in supplying and maintaining

the fast-moving tanks -- which needed to be put right.

For the next few months, nothing appeared to happen

in Hitler's conflict.

It was what the British dubbed "the phony war",

and the Germans,

the Sitzkrieg.

[ Barking ]

The winter was a particularly severe one.

The two sides built up their forces

and watched each other from behind their defenses.

Despite the pre-war belief that war would bring

massive and devastating air attacks,

no one wanted to be the first to start --

and risk massive retaliation.

The British launched a few raids on the German naval bases --

and quickly discovered that their bombers were

highly vulnerable to the German defenses.

Beyond that, only propaganda leaflets were dropped.

Such action as there was was at sea --

German U-boats began their attempt

to strangle Britain's supply lifeline,

but there were too few to have a major impact.

The powerful British navy hunted down Germany's surface warships,

forcing most back to port

and cornering and destroying the pocket battleship Graf Spee

off the coast of Uruguay.

But on the western border of Germany,

laborers were secretly constructing

military headquarters for Hitler.

The first was in the village of Rodert, near Munstereifel,

just south of Bonn.

It was code-named Felsennest -- the Rocky Nest.

This consisted of four bunkers and several barracks.

General Erwin Rommel, head of Hitler's military security,

visited the site and ensured it was fit for use.

The Felsennest was surrounded by barbed wire

and camouflaged against aerial attack.

Antiaircraft gun emplacements were constructed

and air-conditioning installed in all the bunkers.

Ominously, this FHQ was

less than 30 miles from the Belgian border.

It was the clearest sign that the war in the west

was about to erupt.

Hitler was still at the Berghof when the war in the west began.

On April 9, 1940, German troops burst into Denmark

and occupied it in just 24 hours.

At the same time, German paratroopers

dropped on Norway

to seize key airfields.

And airborne troops were then flown in...

while seaborne forces seized the main ports.

As the German troops moved north from their bridgeheads,

they met some resistance, but the Norwegian defenders

were steadily pushed back.

By the end of May, despite an attempt

by the British and French

to intervene, most of Norway

was securely in German hands.

The occupation of these two neutral countries

was just a curtain raiser --

designed to secure Germany's northern flank

as a preliminary for the main campaign --

knocking Britain and France out of the war.

Now Hitler and his bodyguard would have to move

outside the Berchtesgaden comfort zone --

for the Fuhrer was going to the front again,

and this time, his armies faced an enemy

which outnumbered them in most areas.

Soon Hitler's journeys by car

would expose him and other senior Nazis

to an extreme risk of roadside assassination.

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