All language subtitles for Inside the SS - 1x02_track3_eng

♪ ♪

Narrator: They were,
they thought, the third
reich's racial elite.

Men superior to others.

Ready to do anything for the
triumph of national socialism.

Men hitler could
count on to the death.

To apply their racial theories,
they were prepared to eliminate
their adversaries,

To decimate the jewish people,

To massacre
civilian populations.

Over 70 years later,
some of them are
still living among us.

-One people, one reich,
one führer!
That was our motto.

Eberhard: I felt anti-semitic.

Herbert: We wanted
a pure state.

No jews in the third reich!

Narrator: This is the
story of ss fanaticism,
bloodlust and terror...

(theme music plays)

Told from the inside.

Summer 1941.

Hitler invades
the soviet union.

A war of a kind that has never
been seen before, to conquer
"living space" and exterminate

The "judeo-bolsheviks,"
as he calls them.

Alongside the regular army
the wehrmacht, the führer has
at his disposal more than

100,000 men who have sworn
loyalty to the death: The ss.

This horrific scene was
filmed behind the lines.

Jewish men were assassinated
and buried in the sand.

Just one of the
terrible consequences of the
indoctrination of the 1930's.

(gunshot)

Hans friedrich was in the
first ss infantry brigade.

A few months before his
death in 2005, he confessed
on film to his part in the

Murder of several
thousand jews.

Hans: They were in
such a state of shock

And so scared
that we could do what we

Wanted with them.

Try to imagine,
there's a ditch.

On one side, there are people.

And opposite,
there are soldiers.

That was us.

And we shot.

The ones who were hit,
fell in the ditch.

Interviewer: What
were you thinking and
feeling while you were firing?

Can you tell us?

-Nothing.
I just thought...

Aim well.

So they'd be killed
with a single shot.

That was my only thought.

Interviewer: That
was your only thought?

You didn't have any feelings
for the jewish civilians
you were executing?

(sighs).

-No.

-And why not?

-Because my hatred of
the jews was too strong.

-The hardened ss
who took part so
enthusiastically were mad.

They wanted
to be "super-nazis." and this
meant exterminating non-stop.

In terms of public
opinion, when you talked
to people about the jews,

Many would say: "the
only thing we can do
is exterminate them."

Narrator: The extermination:
Not all took part but many
agreed with it.

In order to kill jews, the
nazis had been employing
special units they used for

The invasion of poland.

The einsatzgruppen,
detachments of killers
made up of ss members,

Police and locally
recruited auxiliaries.

Here is one of their
leaders, ss general jeckeln.

He would be hanged by the
allies in 1946 for the murder
of more than 100,000 people.

His method of execution:
Sardine packing.

He applied it here,
in the babi yar ravine,
where he executed more

Than 30, 000 jews.

They were laid on top
of one another and shot,

Then buried in
layers like sardines.

Men, women, children.

-A woman with a child
fell to the ground and begged:

"shoot me! Shoot me!"

The ss soldier, a ukrainian,
took the child's head,

Placed it next to the woman's
head and shot through it.

And he said: "one bullet!"

Narrator: The paradox
was that the ss didn't
see themselves as criminals,

But as victims,

Soldiers defending themselves.

Oskar gröning is one
of the last auschwitz
ss men still alive.

He believed at the time
that it was the jews who
had brought the world to

Wage war against germany.

This twisted racism
meant he believed that
they deserved their fate.

-We were convinced, and this
was our vision of the world,
that we germans had been

Betrayed by the whole world
and that there was a huge
jewish conspiracy against us.

Children weren't our
enemies at that point.

The enemy was the blood,
which flowed in them.

But the children
would grow up and become
potentially dangerous jews.

That was why the
children were included.

Narrator:
Executioners, victims.

Switching the roles
authorized every crime.

In the view of ss chief
himmler, those who killed
jews were carrying out

Indispensable work for the
survival of the country.

He wanted to attend a massacre
and see for himself hundreds
of bodies piled up in a ditch.

He is said to have felt
queasy seeing the blood
spurt from bullet wounds.

But his demands for
executions only increased.

Listen to his voice as he
speaks to his generals.

Narrator: To wipe out
11 million european jews,
according to the ss's own

Calculations himmler appointed
a technocrat of crime,

Ss member reinhard heydrich.

"the man with the iron
heart," as hitler called him.

The genocide, it's him.

A former officer expelled from
the navy, he ran the rsha,
the reich's central security

Office in charge of
all state security.

One of his sons gave us
his family films, notably
these holiday movies.

Married to an aristocrat
from northern germany.

He embodies the ideal
ss man: A cold-blooded,
athletic and efficient nazi.

With his secret police force,
he had files on millions
of germans, notably the jews,

Whom he divided into several
racial groups: 100% jewish,
mixed blood, etc.

It was a formidable system,

And the first step
towards extermination.

♪ ♪

For his services, hitler made
him head of bohemia-moravia.

You can see him here at
home in prague castle, the
former residence of the

Austro-hungarian emperor.

A king surrounded
by his court.

When she learned
of his nomination, his
wife lina was overcome:

"I was submerged by
a feeling of exaltation",

She wrote.

"I said to myself
I was no longer a mere
mortal but a princess,

And that I was living
in a fairy tale."

Many people benefited
from the war.

These waffen ss soldiers,
for example, who crisscrossed

Europe from one
conquest to the next.

For them, it was like
a great adventure.

In France in particular.

When I had a
chance, I went to buy butter
from a farmer and, of course,

I paid for it.

That was my state of mind.

I didn't feel like the
soldier of an occupying army.

I always had normal
human relations with
people in France.

Not military ones.

♪ ♪

Narrator: As the jewish
people gradually disappeared,
the ss profited and dreamed.

Himmler had promised them
the brightest of futures.

The third reich will last
1,000 years, he tells them.

As greece fought
rome, as rome conquered
carthage and jerusalem,

So germany will crush
the judeo-bolshevik ussr.

It is the last war, he
tells them, so we may
as well win it swiftly.

It will put an end to
centuries of racial strife.

♪ ♪

These are arguments
that hit home.

The ss wanted to believe that
in conquered soviet land,
himmler would give them vast

Agricultural holdings where
thousands of slav workers

Would work
for them, as slaves.

Like the teutonic knights
of old, the new lords would
defend german civilization

Against the barbarians.

While history has
proven himmler to be
a murderous monster,

Some of his ss followers
still see him as their hero.

Egon: The ideology was:
Out with the jews! Get out!

We can see the state
of mind of himmler, the
biggest bastard of all time.

-Himmler was a decent man,
a man of honest character.

Himmler wanted the best
for the german people.

Narrator: And apparently not
only for the german people.

From 1940, with the aim of
founding a german empire, he
opened the doors of the ss to

The inhabitants of several
defeated countries.

The danes, the norwegians,
the dutch: They were all
germanic, said himmler.

As the war continued, the
ss opened up also to the
french-speaking belgium's,

The french themselves and
the italians, latin peoples,

To whom himmler gave
the hope of entering
into the nazi elite.

-Joining the waffen ss
was a promotion for us.

I was in germany.

I'd heard that the
germans were underfed,
but this was false.

And badly dressed, not true.

Everything I saw in
germany was much better.

For me, it was an
excellent model.

Costamagna: The national
socialist party had done a
lot of good in germany for the

Workers by giving
them jobs, getting them

Involved, building them
houses and gardens, etc.

We thought
it was a model, yes.

Exactly.

My dream was to see
germany win the war.

For me germany was the
supreme nation in europe.

When I joined the
waffen-ss, I considered
myself to be one of them.

Narrator: An illusion.

None of these non-germanic,
latin or here muslim slav
peoples would ever actually

Belong to the black order.

Attracted by the wages and
the family allowances,

They wore the uniform
but were cannon fodder.

"for every foreigner
who dies," said the
head of recruitment,

"no german mother cries."

The führer's
residence in bavaria.

Here are the architects of
the final solution:

Himmler the
cynic in the company
of reinhard heydrich,

His dark shadow.

Confidence on their faces.

In 1942, the nazis controlled
a large part of europe and
were putting into practice

Their racial theories.

They believed they would
soon defeat the ussr.

They knew, however,
that their death machine
would not be sufficient to

Complete the extermination.

And that some of
their men were disgusted
by the tasks they were

Being asked to perform.

Narrator: In 1942, there
were still some ten million
european jews left to kill,

According to heydrich's
calculations.

After several experiments,
the ss leaders believed
they'd found the solution.

How to kill far more people
while sparing their troops.

Death camps.

This amateur footage shot
by ss guards shows the
inside of the posen camp,

One of the first
in occupied poland.

Interning undesirables
as in the 1930s
was no longer enough,

They were to be killed.

In the greatest secrecy,
the ss tested toxic gas.

In a specially
built gas chamber hidden
behind these outer walls,

They had already
eliminated 400 mentally
ill prisoners by 1939.

Gassing was a gentler
form of death, they said.

Particularly for the killers.

And so the ss now used
this technique to re-launch
their killing machine,

Targeting against
all european jews.

-Where the nazis were
very smart was with the
extermination in the

Concentration camps.

They managed to keep it
all perfectly secret.

There were a lot of
people to exterminate.

Narrator: Most would be
sent to the slaughterhouse.

Notably to auschwitz.

These photos,
taken by an ss guard,

Show the arrival
of prisoners and their
sorting by ss doctors.

On one side are the young
and healthy who will work.

On the other, those who will
be killed in the coming hours.

Once they were designated,
the ss guards avoided them.

They merely supervised the
killing process, dropping
toxic gas canisters into the

Gas chamber via a hatch.

Then other prisoners removed
and burnt the bodies in ovens.

The only ones willing to
speak about auschwitz are
members of the waffen ss,

Who weren't even there.

Yet, despite the
indisputable facts of
history, astonishingly,

They hold on to the myth that
the holocaust never happened.

-Everything that's been
said about the massacres,
I've heard it all.

But I didn't believe it all.

And even today,
I don't believe it all.

Herbert: What happened to
the dead from auschwitz?

Where are they?

Kaisergruber: If hitler had
really wanted to annihilate
the jewish people,

Don't you think he
would have succeeded?

It wouldn't have
been hard for him.

-For me, the word
auschwitz doesn't exist.

I just don't recognize it.

Whether there were mass graves
or not, or they were killed
with this product or that,

Or gassed or shot,
the subject's of no
interest to me at all.

Narrator: Holocaust
denial is shocking and
offensive to our ears,

And it is against the
law in some countries.

The terrible truth
that these men refuse to
accept is that the nazis,

With the ss at the helm,
committed genocide against
the jewish people and

Others they condemned
as undesirable,

Resulting in the loss
of millions of lives.

A fact of history that
cannot be negated.

Herta bothe could not deny
the existence of the camps.

She worked in several before
moving to bergen-belsen.

Herta: My first
impression wasn't bad.

Right away, a ss sergeant
said: "oh, here's
my little blondie!"

I thought that was
nice for a young girl.

I got on well with the ss men.

They wanted to be important,
and they did what they
wanted with the prisoners.

There was one guard,
kopp, she was a madwoman.

Her fiancé was
adolf hitler's driver; she
thought she had every right.

Narrator: Most of
the ss guards in the
camps experienced a

Feeling of power.

Many were delighted
to be appointed there.

The camps were a safe haven,
the staff were not risking
their lives and himmler had

Made sure they'd
be comfortable.

Like here, at the
reischof camp, 120
miles from auschwitz.

The auschwitz camp itself
was much sought-after.

It was here,
to this 470-acre complex,
that oskar gröning was sent

As an accountant in 1942.

Oskar: The main camp
at auschwitz was
like a small town,

With its gossip and rumors.

There was a grocer's
where you could buy
marrowbone to make a soup.

A canteen, a cinema.

There was a theatre, where
they regularly put shows on.

A sports club,
where I was a member.

It was joyful and lively,
like in a small town.

Narrator: They even had
a rural leisure resort,
20 miles from the camp.

-Alcohol was very important.

They gave us a ration every
day and sometimes we had
serious drinking parties.

Narrator: Oskar gröning was,
he claims, disgusted by the
massacres and asked for a

Transfer to the front two
years after his arrival.

Although he too has
retained some fond memories
of his times at the camp.

-The particular situation of
auschwitz enabled us to forge
friendships that I still

Remember with pleasure today.

Narrator: The men and
women of the ss, who
behaved like monsters,

Were human beings.

And there lies the problem.

Narrator: July 20th 1944.

The beginning of the end.

This time, their idol
was almost eliminated.

At a senior staff
meeting, hitler's bunker
was blown apart by a bomb.

A wehrmacht officer
from germany's old elite
was behind the attack.

Hitler was only slightly
wounded, but everyone
was deeply affected:

The third reich,
supposed to last 1000
years, was under threat.

The normandy landings
are now a month old.

In the east, in the
west, everywhere the
germans are retreating.

To try to shore up their
crumbling front-lines, hitler
scales up the deployment of

The waffen-ss: The "frontline
firemen, "as they call them.

The ss know they have
everything to lose.

Since the 1930s, they've
staked everything on hitler.

If he falls, they
fall with him.

Ekkehard: That was what
the war was about, total
war, where the human being

Has no importance.

None.

The only question was:
How to win the war?

That was the question.

Narrator: "better kill
one thousand russians too
many than one too few,"

Their leaders on the
eastern front told them.

Confronted with a similar
insurrection in France,
they applied the same terror.

To dissuade
the population from
supporting the resistance.

At oradour,
the das reich division
assassinated 642 people.

Ss soldier guhr was 6 miles
away at the time, he says.

-Concerning the
village of oradour, I
didn't know about it.

When you're a partisan,
you must know that it's
best not to go up against

Combat troops who are
used to responding

Immediately with
every weapon available.

-I saw civilians hanging
from trees and lampposts.

They said: You see what we do.

If you do anything against
us, then we'll hang you.

We'll kill you!

Narrator: Certain
waffen-ss soldiers from
the das reich division

Were forcibly enrolled.

Nothing like the others
who were volunteers.

From the alsace border region,
they were born french but
the nazis saw them as german.

They were called the
"malgré nous,"
"against our will".

In 1944, as the army withdrew,

They discovered from the
inside the pitiless methods
of the black order.

-All those who weren't with
them were against them.

If you caught
traitors, resistance
fighters, civilians,

Then you could shoot
them and that was that!

Except for the blacks.

The blacks weren't
worth a bullet.

You put their heads under
your arm and bust their
skulls with a shovel.

That's what they told us.

-You could
feel the fanaticism
in their every move.

They said the whole world
was against them but
they would win anyway.

-Until now everything had gone
fine, they thought it would
continue and that hitler would

Do whatever was necessary.

They thought; for now we're
retreating, but the time will
come when we'll stop them and

We'll be able to
advance again.

Narrator: Born and bred on
nazism, these ss men couldn't
imagine their fuhrer's demise.

Or their own.

Their leaders warned them:
German civilization will
disappear if the jews and

The communists prevail.

To replace heydrich,
executed in prague by
the czech resistance,

Himmler appointed another
ss officer, kaltenbrunner.

And the reign of terror
continued unabated.

For some time now, reality
had no longer concerned them.

The reality is what allied
troops found in 1945 when
they liberated the camps and

Discovered the massacre
committed by the ss.

Six million jewish victims.

Hundreds of thousands
of political prisoners
assassinated.

Homosexuals, priests,
gypsies, disabled people.

Only some of the 40,000
ss guards were arrested
and identified.

These men who thought they
were superior to others
looked very ordinary.

Some were disguised
as prisoners, in
striped uniforms,

In an attempt to
pass unnoticed.

Most of them were identified
by the blood group
tattoo under their arms,

Stamped when they
first joined the ss.

A mark they could never
wash off, even if they cut
and re-stitched their skin.

Among them were 3000
female camp guards.

Including herta bothe.

For two days, the allies
made them bury their victims.

Interviewed over 50 years
after the events, herta
bothe had not one word to

Say about the dead
prisoners in the camps.

She believes she
was the victim.

-To go to the toilet,
we had to do it on the ground,
and wash our hands with urine.

It's true, it's really true!

The concentration
camp ruined my life.

I was just a simple guard.

I was there, and I did
what I was asked to do.

Interveiwer: Do
you feel guilty?

-No.
Me personally, no.

I knew I could do
nothing for them.

I couldn't help
them; otherwise I'd
have been locked up.

Narrator: They had been
the new lords, they
had become pariahs.

Until the bitter end,
most of them continued to
fight on the front,

Or what was left of it.

Living the legend,
remaining pure.

-I remember everyone
had to form a semi-circle.

And our leader soberly
told us what he'd just
heard on the radio:

"hitler has fallen in berlin.

As a result, you are no
longer bound by the oath
you swore to hitler,

But you are still beholden
to the german people."
that was it.

Then we dispersed
without a word.

Narrator: May 8th 1945.

Germany surrenders.

The ss were moved into
prisoner-of-war camps where
they would spend months,

Even years.

Disguised as a police
sergeant, their leader,
himmler, hid among the crowd.

After several weeks of
wandering, he was arrested
by the allies and committed

Suicide with a
cyanide capsule.

-I found myself
in the pow camp with
other ss members.

They were still just as
fanatical at that point.

Don't believe they
were saying, "what
idiots we've been!"

But we germans were so
stupid to have compared
the jews to rats.

We were so dumb.

Narrator: Some of them
were sentenced to death
by the allied courts.

Like these waffen-ss
soldiers, accused of executing
american prisoners in 1944.

Convinced they were right,
they refuse to listen to
their sentences to the end.

Narrator: "the justice
of conquerors," they say.

Because the atrocities
committed by the allies,
the bombings of japanese and

German cities,
went unpunished.

-Why did they bomb dresden?

Why nagasaki?

Why yokohama?

Why were the poles
massacred by the russians?

Why haven't those
people been tried?

Nobody talks about that.

Germany certainly
committed crimes, for sure.

But they've all been punished.

Narrator: That the germans
were all punished is a myth
maintained by the veterans.

Apart from a few
leaders, most of the ss
slipped through the net.

As if only one man should
really pay the price.

-Hitler betrayed me.

He pushed us into misery
when he'd promised us joy.

He perpetrated such
crimes that I can only
see it as treason.

Narrator: A good ss member
must be able to wipe out
even his close family

If they rebel against
adolf hitler's ideas.

So said their generals.

-During all those years
I experienced some
very difficult times.

I don't regret them
for one moment.

-No, I have no
regrets, no way.

And I don't doubt
for a moment that if
I had to do it again,

I'd do exactly
the same thing.

I have no reason
to give up my ideas.

And it's not the moment
to change my mind.

Narrator: Germany:
One of the most creative
nations in history.

"I'm ashamed to be a german",
wrote one munich citizen on
may 28th 1945 on the

Ruins of the feldherrnhalle.

The place where the ss had
once sworn their allegiance.

But how to get
out of the cult?

Eberhard heder, a captain in
the wiking division, abandoned
his racist convictions and

Pursued a career in
the army of the federal
republic of germany.

Ekkehard guhr, a member of
the ss's das reich division
who dreamed of chivalry

Became a pastor.

Egon kuhn became a trade
unionist, speaking tirelessly
of the brainwashing he had

Received in his youth.

But they were exceptions.

Many of them would remain
incorrigible and nostalgic,
often joining waffen ss

Veterans' associations,
which still exist today.

Like manfred diener.

Or kurt barkhausen, whose
speeches are still used
by extremist networks.

Herbert von mildenburg set up
businesses in south america,
while maintaining relations

With several
notorious revisionists.

It wasn't until
2015 that the former
auschwitz accountant,

Ss sergeant gröning was
tried by the german courts.

He was sentenced
to four years in prison for
complicity in the murder of

300,000 jews.
Pending appeal.

Captioned by cotter
captioning services.