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♪ ♪
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Narrator: They were, they thought, the third reich's racial elite.
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Men superior to others.
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Ready to do anything for thetriumph of national socialism.
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Men hitler could count on to the death.
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To apply their racial theories,they were prepared to eliminatetheir adversaries,
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To decimate the jewish people,
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To massacre civilian populations.
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Over 70 years later, some of them are still living among us.
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-One people, one reich,
one führer!
That was our motto.
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Eberhard: I felt anti-semitic.
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Herbert: We wanted
a pure state.
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No jews in the third reich!
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Narrator: This is the story of ss fanaticism, bloodlust and terror...
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(theme music plays)
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Told from the inside.
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Summer 1941.
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Hitler invades the soviet union.
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A war of a kind that has neverbeen seen before, to conquer"living space" and exterminate
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The "judeo-bolsheviks," as he calls them.
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Alongside the regular army the wehrmacht, the führer has at his disposal more than
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100,000 men who have sworn loyalty to the death: The ss.
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This horrific scene was filmed behind the lines.
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Jewish men were assassinated and buried in the sand.
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Just one of the terrible consequences of the indoctrination of the 1930's.
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(gunshot)
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Hans friedrich was in the first ss infantry brigade.
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A few months before his death in 2005, he confessed on film to his part in the
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Murder of several thousand jews.
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Hans: They were in
such a state of shock
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And so scared
that we could do what we
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Wanted with them.
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Try to imagine,
there's a ditch.
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On one side, there are people.
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And opposite,
there are soldiers.
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That was us.
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And we shot.
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The ones who were hit,
fell in the ditch.
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Interviewer: What
were you thinking and
feeling while you were firing?
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Can you tell us?
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-Nothing.
I just thought...
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Aim well.
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So they'd be killed
with a single shot.
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That was my only thought.
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Interviewer: That
was your only thought?
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You didn't have any feelings
for the jewish civilians
you were executing?
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(sighs).
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-No.
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-And why not?
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-Because my hatred of
the jews was too strong.
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-The hardened ss
who took part so
enthusiastically were mad.
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They wanted
to be "super-nazis." and this
meant exterminating non-stop.
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In terms of public
opinion, when you talked
to people about the jews,
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Many would say: "the
only thing we can do
is exterminate them."
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Narrator: The extermination: Not all took part but many agreed with it.
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In order to kill jews, the nazis had been employing special units they used for
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The invasion of poland.
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The einsatzgruppen, detachments of killers made up of ss members,
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Police and locally recruited auxiliaries.
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Here is one of their leaders, ss general jeckeln.
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He would be hanged by the allies in 1946 for the murder of more than 100,000 people.
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His method of execution: Sardine packing.
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He applied it here, in the babi yar ravine, where he executed more
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Than 30, 000 jews.
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They were laid on top of one another and shot,
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Then buried in layers like sardines.
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Men, women, children.
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-A woman with a child
fell to the ground and begged:
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"shoot me! Shoot me!"
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The ss soldier, a ukrainian,
took the child's head,
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Placed it next to the woman's
head and shot through it.
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And he said: "one bullet!"
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Narrator: The paradox was that the ss didn't see themselves as criminals,
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But as victims,
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Soldiers defending themselves.
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Oskar gröning is one of the last auschwitz ss men still alive.
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He believed at the time that it was the jews who had brought the world to
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Wage war against germany.
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This twisted racism meant he believed that they deserved their fate.
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-We were convinced, and this
was our vision of the world,
that we germans had been
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Betrayed by the whole world
and that there was a huge
jewish conspiracy against us.
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Children weren't our
enemies at that point.
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The enemy was the blood,
which flowed in them.
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But the children
would grow up and become
potentially dangerous jews.
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That was why the
children were included.
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Narrator: Executioners, victims.
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Switching the roles authorized every crime.
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In the view of ss chief himmler, those who killed jews were carrying out
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Indispensable work for the survival of the country.
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He wanted to attend a massacreand see for himself hundredsof bodies piled up in a ditch.
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He is said to have felt queasy seeing the blood spurt from bullet wounds.
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But his demands for executions only increased.
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Listen to his voice as he speaks to his generals.
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Narrator: To wipe out 11 million european jews, according to the ss's own
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Calculations himmler appointed a technocrat of crime,
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Ss member reinhard heydrich.
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"the man with the iron heart," as hitler called him.
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The genocide, it's him.
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A former officer expelled fromthe navy, he ran the rsha,the reich's central security
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Office in charge of all state security.
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One of his sons gave us his family films, notably these holiday movies.
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Married to an aristocrat from northern germany.
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He embodies the ideal ss man: A cold-blooded, athletic and efficient nazi.
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With his secret police force, he had files on millions of germans, notably the jews,
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Whom he divided into several racial groups: 100% jewish, mixed blood, etc.
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It was a formidable system,
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And the first step towards extermination.
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♪ ♪
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For his services, hitler made him head of bohemia-moravia.
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You can see him here at home in prague castle, the former residence of the
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Austro-hungarian emperor.
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A king surrounded by his court.
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When she learned of his nomination, his wife lina was overcome:
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"I was submerged by a feeling of exaltation",
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She wrote.
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"I said to myself I was no longer a mere mortal but a princess,
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And that I was living in a fairy tale."
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Many people benefited from the war.
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These waffen ss soldiers, for example, who crisscrossed
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Europe from one conquest to the next.
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For them, it was like a great adventure.
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In France in particular.
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When I had a
chance, I went to buy butter
from a farmer and, of course,
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I paid for it.
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That was my state of mind.
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I didn't feel like the
soldier of an occupying army.
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I always had normal
human relations with
people in France.
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Not military ones.
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♪ ♪
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Narrator: As the jewish people gradually disappeared, the ss profited and dreamed.
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Himmler had promised them the brightest of futures.
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The third reich will last 1,000 years, he tells them.
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As greece fought rome, as rome conquered carthage and jerusalem,
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So germany will crush the judeo-bolshevik ussr.
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It is the last war, he tells them, so we may as well win it swiftly.
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It will put an end to centuries of racial strife.
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♪ ♪
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These are arguments that hit home.
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The ss wanted to believe that in conquered soviet land, himmler would give them vast
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Agricultural holdings where thousands of slav workers
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Would work for them, as slaves.
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Like the teutonic knights of old, the new lords would defend german civilization
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Against the barbarians.
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While history has proven himmler to be a murderous monster,
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Some of his ss followers still see him as their hero.
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Egon: The ideology was:
Out with the jews! Get out!
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We can see the state
of mind of himmler, the
biggest bastard of all time.
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-Himmler was a decent man,
a man of honest character.
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Himmler wanted the best
for the german people.
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Narrator: And apparently not only for the german people.
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From 1940, with the aim of founding a german empire, he opened the doors of the ss to
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The inhabitants of several defeated countries.
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The danes, the norwegians, the dutch: They were all germanic, said himmler.
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As the war continued, the ss opened up also to the french-speaking belgium's,
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The french themselves and the italians, latin peoples,
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To whom himmler gave the hope of entering into the nazi elite.
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-Joining the waffen ss
was a promotion for us.
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I was in germany.
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I'd heard that the
germans were underfed,
but this was false.
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And badly dressed, not true.
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Everything I saw in
germany was much better.
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For me, it was an
excellent model.
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Costamagna: The national
socialist party had done a
lot of good in germany for the
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Workers by giving
them jobs, getting them
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Involved, building them
houses and gardens, etc.
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We thought
it was a model, yes.
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Exactly.
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My dream was to see
germany win the war.
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For me germany was the
supreme nation in europe.
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When I joined the
waffen-ss, I considered
myself to be one of them.
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Narrator: An illusion.
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None of these non-germanic, latin or here muslim slav peoples would ever actually
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Belong to the black order.
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Attracted by the wages and the family allowances,
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They wore the uniform but were cannon fodder.
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"for every foreigner who dies," said the head of recruitment,
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"no german mother cries."
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The führer's residence in bavaria.
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Here are the architects of the final solution:
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Himmler the cynic in the company of reinhard heydrich,
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His dark shadow.
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Confidence on their faces.
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In 1942, the nazis controlled a large part of europe and were putting into practice
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Their racial theories.
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They believed they would soon defeat the ussr.
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They knew, however, that their death machine would not be sufficient to
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Complete the extermination.
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And that some of their men were disgusted by the tasks they were
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Being asked to perform.
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Narrator: In 1942, there were still some ten million european jews left to kill,
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According to heydrich's calculations.
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After several experiments, the ss leaders believed they'd found the solution.
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How to kill far more people while sparing their troops.
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Death camps.
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This amateur footage shot by ss guards shows the inside of the posen camp,
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One of the first in occupied poland.
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Interning undesirables as in the 1930s was no longer enough,
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They were to be killed.
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In the greatest secrecy, the ss tested toxic gas.
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In a specially built gas chamber hidden behind these outer walls,
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They had already eliminated 400 mentally ill prisoners by 1939.
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Gassing was a gentler form of death, they said.
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Particularly for the killers.
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And so the ss now used this technique to re-launch their killing machine,
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Targeting against all european jews.
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-Where the nazis were
very smart was with the
extermination in the
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Concentration camps.
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They managed to keep it
all perfectly secret.
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There were a lot of
people to exterminate.
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Narrator: Most would be sent to the slaughterhouse.
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Notably to auschwitz.
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These photos, taken by an ss guard,
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Show the arrival of prisoners and their sorting by ss doctors.
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On one side are the young and healthy who will work.
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On the other, those who willbe killed in the coming hours.
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Once they were designated, the ss guards avoided them.
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They merely supervised the killing process, dropping toxic gas canisters into the
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Gas chamber via a hatch.
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Then other prisoners removedand burnt the bodies in ovens.
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The only ones willing to speak about auschwitz are members of the waffen ss,
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Who weren't even there.
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Yet, despite the indisputable facts of history, astonishingly,
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They hold on to the myth that the holocaust never happened.
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-Everything that's been
said about the massacres,
I've heard it all.
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But I didn't believe it all.
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And even today,
I don't believe it all.
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Herbert: What happened to
the dead from auschwitz?
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Where are they?
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Kaisergruber: If hitler had
really wanted to annihilate
the jewish people,
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Don't you think he
would have succeeded?
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It wouldn't have
been hard for him.
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-For me, the word
auschwitz doesn't exist.
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I just don't recognize it.
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Whether there were mass graves
or not, or they were killed
with this product or that,
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Or gassed or shot,
the subject's of no
interest to me at all.
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Narrator: Holocaust denial is shocking and offensive to our ears,
237
00:23:52,064 --> 00:23:55,433
And it is against the law in some countries.
238
00:23:55,668 --> 00:24:00,104
The terrible truth that these men refuse to accept is that the nazis,
239
00:24:00,273 --> 00:24:05,142
With the ss at the helm, committed genocide against the jewish people and
240
00:24:06,078 --> 00:24:09,246
Others they condemned as undesirable,
241
00:24:10,116 --> 00:24:14,151
Resulting in the loss of millions of lives.
242
00:24:14,253 --> 00:24:18,055
A fact of history that cannot be negated.
243
00:24:22,695 --> 00:24:26,831
Herta bothe could not deny the existence of the camps.
244
00:24:28,067 --> 00:24:31,869
She worked in several before moving to bergen-belsen.
245
00:24:34,974 --> 00:24:37,675
Herta: My first
impression wasn't bad.
246
00:24:38,678 --> 00:24:43,113
Right away, a ss sergeant
said: "oh, here's
my little blondie!"
247
00:24:45,585 --> 00:24:48,586
I thought that was
nice for a young girl.
248
00:24:50,923 --> 00:24:54,024
I got on well with the ss men.
249
00:24:55,962 --> 00:25:00,664
They wanted to be important,
and they did what they
wanted with the prisoners.
250
00:25:04,937 --> 00:25:08,939
There was one guard,
kopp, she was a madwoman.
251
00:25:12,812 --> 00:25:17,948
Her fiancé was
adolf hitler's driver; she
thought she had every right.
252
00:25:29,929 --> 00:25:32,897
Narrator: Most of the ss guards in the camps experienced a
253
00:25:32,999 --> 00:25:35,199
Feeling of power.
254
00:25:36,769 --> 00:25:40,304
Many were delighted to be appointed there.
255
00:25:42,508 --> 00:25:49,079
The camps were a safe haven, the staff were not risking their lives and himmler had
256
00:25:49,649 --> 00:25:52,716
Made sure they'd be comfortable.
257
00:25:53,686 --> 00:25:58,022
Like here, at the reischof camp, 120 miles from auschwitz.
258
00:26:01,394 --> 00:26:04,528
The auschwitz camp itself was much sought-after.
259
00:26:05,464 --> 00:26:11,168
It was here, to this 470-acre complex, that oskar gröning was sent
260
00:26:12,271 --> 00:26:15,272
As an accountant in 1942.
261
00:26:18,711 --> 00:26:21,579
Oskar: The main camp
at auschwitz was
like a small town,
262
00:26:21,981 --> 00:26:24,682
With its gossip and rumors.
263
00:26:25,151 --> 00:26:28,852
There was a grocer's
where you could buy
marrowbone to make a soup.
264
00:26:31,757 --> 00:26:34,258
A canteen, a cinema.
265
00:26:36,596 --> 00:26:39,763
There was a theatre, where
they regularly put shows on.
266
00:26:40,933 --> 00:26:44,134
A sports club,
where I was a member.
267
00:26:44,604 --> 00:26:48,339
It was joyful and lively,
like in a small town.
268
00:26:52,945 --> 00:26:57,081
Narrator: They even had a rural leisure resort, 20 miles from the camp.
269
00:27:04,390 --> 00:27:07,491
-Alcohol was very important.
270
00:27:08,294 --> 00:27:11,829
They gave us a ration every
day and sometimes we had
serious drinking parties.
271
00:27:20,206 --> 00:27:24,975
Narrator: Oskar gröning was, he claims, disgusted by the massacres and asked for a
272
00:27:25,077 --> 00:27:28,612
Transfer to the front two years after his arrival.
273
00:27:31,283 --> 00:27:35,719
Although he too has retained some fond memories of his times at the camp.
274
00:27:39,358 --> 00:27:45,629
-The particular situation of
auschwitz enabled us to forge
friendships that I still
275
00:27:45,731 --> 00:27:48,699
Remember with pleasure today.
276
00:27:53,806 --> 00:27:58,475
Narrator: The men and women of the ss, who behaved like monsters,
277
00:27:58,577 --> 00:28:01,145
Were human beings.
278
00:28:03,516 --> 00:28:05,916
And there lies the problem.
279
00:28:16,762 --> 00:28:20,397
Narrator: July 20th 1944.
280
00:28:20,766 --> 00:28:24,034
The beginning of the end.
281
00:28:24,336 --> 00:28:27,604
This time, their idol was almost eliminated.
282
00:28:28,274 --> 00:28:33,610
At a senior staff meeting, hitler's bunker was blown apart by a bomb.
283
00:28:36,649 --> 00:28:40,851
A wehrmacht officer from germany's old elite was behind the attack.
284
00:28:43,255 --> 00:28:46,590
Hitler was only slightly wounded, but everyone was deeply affected:
285
00:28:48,728 --> 00:28:53,430
The third reich, supposed to last 1000 years, was under threat.
286
00:28:57,770 --> 00:29:01,238
The normandy landings are now a month old.
287
00:29:02,208 --> 00:29:06,510
In the east, in the west, everywhere the germans are retreating.
288
00:29:09,682 --> 00:29:14,451
To try to shore up their crumbling front-lines, hitler scales up the deployment of
289
00:29:14,553 --> 00:29:19,423
The waffen-ss: The "frontline firemen, "as they call them.
290
00:29:23,329 --> 00:29:26,630
The ss know they have everything to lose.
291
00:29:30,469 --> 00:29:35,839
Since the 1930s, they've staked everything on hitler.
292
00:29:38,577 --> 00:29:43,447
If he falls, they fall with him.
293
00:29:44,083 --> 00:29:48,418
Ekkehard: That was what
the war was about, total
war, where the human being
294
00:29:48,721 --> 00:29:50,454
Has no importance.
295
00:29:50,556 --> 00:29:51,889
None.
296
00:29:51,991 --> 00:29:57,294
The only question was:
How to win the war?
297
00:29:59,331 --> 00:30:01,865
That was the question.
298
00:30:01,967 --> 00:30:05,903
Narrator: "better kill one thousand russians too many than one too few,"
299
00:30:06,138 --> 00:30:08,806
Their leaders on the eastern front told them.
300
00:30:08,908 --> 00:30:13,744
Confronted with a similar insurrection in France, they applied the same terror.
301
00:30:15,447 --> 00:30:20,117
To dissuade the population from supporting the resistance.
302
00:30:20,786 --> 00:30:26,490
At oradour, the das reich division assassinated 642 people.
303
00:30:27,960 --> 00:30:31,995
Ss soldier guhr was 6 miles away at the time, he says.
304
00:30:33,732 --> 00:30:36,867
-Concerning the
village of oradour, I
didn't know about it.
305
00:30:39,171 --> 00:30:43,106
When you're a partisan,
you must know that it's
best not to go up against
306
00:30:43,843 --> 00:30:46,743
Combat troops who are
used to responding
307
00:30:46,812 --> 00:30:50,380
Immediately with
every weapon available.
308
00:30:58,524 --> 00:31:02,125
-I saw civilians hanging
from trees and lampposts.
309
00:31:02,962 --> 00:31:05,429
They said: You see what we do.
310
00:31:05,531 --> 00:31:08,699
If you do anything against
us, then we'll hang you.
311
00:31:09,134 --> 00:31:11,501
We'll kill you!
312
00:31:11,604 --> 00:31:14,905
Narrator: Certain waffen-ss soldiers from the das reich division
313
00:31:15,407 --> 00:31:17,708
Were forcibly enrolled.
314
00:31:17,810 --> 00:31:20,978
Nothing like the others who were volunteers.
315
00:31:21,647 --> 00:31:26,683
From the alsace border region, they were born french butthe nazis saw them as german.
316
00:31:27,987 --> 00:31:31,455
They were called the "malgré nous," "against our will".
317
00:31:35,060 --> 00:31:37,895
In 1944, as the army withdrew,
318
00:31:37,997 --> 00:31:41,698
They discovered from the inside the pitiless methods of the black order.
319
00:31:44,036 --> 00:31:48,305
-All those who weren't with
them were against them.
320
00:31:48,407 --> 00:31:51,508
If you caught
traitors, resistance
fighters, civilians,
321
00:31:51,610 --> 00:31:54,111
Then you could shoot
them and that was that!
322
00:31:54,213 --> 00:31:55,412
Except for the blacks.
323
00:31:55,514 --> 00:31:57,547
The blacks weren't
worth a bullet.
324
00:31:57,650 --> 00:32:00,517
You put their heads under
your arm and bust their
skulls with a shovel.
325
00:32:00,886 --> 00:32:02,619
That's what they told us.
326
00:32:03,255 --> 00:32:06,757
-You could
feel the fanaticism
in their every move.
327
00:32:14,366 --> 00:32:18,035
They said the whole world
was against them but
they would win anyway.
328
00:32:19,905 --> 00:32:24,074
-Until now everything had gone
fine, they thought it would
continue and that hitler would
329
00:32:24,176 --> 00:32:26,343
Do whatever was necessary.
330
00:32:26,445 --> 00:32:30,047
They thought; for now we're
retreating, but the time will
come when we'll stop them and
331
00:32:30,149 --> 00:32:32,015
We'll be able to
advance again.
332
00:32:43,128 --> 00:32:49,032
Narrator: Born and bred onnazism, these ss men couldn'timagine their fuhrer's demise.
333
00:32:51,670 --> 00:32:54,705
Or their own.
334
00:32:56,675 --> 00:33:02,112
Their leaders warned them: German civilization will disappear if the jews and
335
00:33:02,214 --> 00:33:04,781
The communists prevail.
336
00:33:09,755 --> 00:33:13,657
To replace heydrich, executed in prague by the czech resistance,
337
00:33:14,893 --> 00:33:19,429
Himmler appointed another ss officer, kaltenbrunner.
338
00:33:20,032 --> 00:33:23,200
And the reign of terror continued unabated.
339
00:33:26,839 --> 00:33:31,908
For some time now, reality had no longer concerned them.
340
00:33:38,951 --> 00:33:45,055
The reality is what allied troops found in 1945 when they liberated the camps and
341
00:33:46,158 --> 00:33:49,893
Discovered the massacre committed by the ss.
342
00:33:52,631 --> 00:33:55,665
Six million jewish victims.
343
00:33:55,934 --> 00:33:59,503
Hundreds of thousands of political prisoners assassinated.
344
00:34:01,940 --> 00:34:05,942
Homosexuals, priests, gypsies, disabled people.
345
00:34:13,252 --> 00:34:17,654
Only some of the 40,000 ss guards were arrested and identified.
346
00:34:19,291 --> 00:34:24,928
These men who thought they were superior to others looked very ordinary.
347
00:34:25,998 --> 00:34:30,667
Some were disguised as prisoners, in striped uniforms,
348
00:34:31,537 --> 00:34:34,538
In an attempt to pass unnoticed.
349
00:34:40,813 --> 00:34:45,449
Most of them were identified by the blood group tattoo under their arms,
350
00:34:46,318 --> 00:34:50,353
Stamped when they first joined the ss.
351
00:34:50,456 --> 00:34:55,358
A mark they could never wash off, even if they cut and re-stitched their skin.
352
00:35:05,170 --> 00:35:08,572
Among them were 3000 female camp guards.
353
00:35:09,074 --> 00:35:11,374
Including herta bothe.
354
00:35:14,379 --> 00:35:18,281
For two days, the allies made them bury their victims.
355
00:35:19,751 --> 00:35:24,654
Interviewed over 50 years after the events, herta bothe had not one word to
356
00:35:24,756 --> 00:35:27,724
Say about the dead prisoners in the camps.
357
00:35:30,529 --> 00:35:32,996
She believes she was the victim.
358
00:35:38,770 --> 00:35:45,208
-To go to the toilet,
we had to do it on the ground,
and wash our hands with urine.
359
00:35:48,180 --> 00:35:50,614
It's true, it's really true!
360
00:35:54,419 --> 00:35:57,921
The concentration
camp ruined my life.
361
00:36:01,326 --> 00:36:04,895
I was just a simple guard.
362
00:36:05,497 --> 00:36:09,599
I was there, and I did
what I was asked to do.
363
00:36:12,237 --> 00:36:14,404
Interveiwer: Do
you feel guilty?
364
00:36:16,542 --> 00:36:20,143
-No.
Me personally, no.
365
00:36:20,245 --> 00:36:22,078
I knew I could do
nothing for them.
366
00:36:22,181 --> 00:36:25,782
I couldn't help
them; otherwise I'd
have been locked up.
367
00:36:36,528 --> 00:36:40,497
Narrator: They had been the new lords, they had become pariahs.
368
00:36:45,103 --> 00:36:48,838
Until the bitter end, most of them continued to fight on the front,
369
00:36:50,809 --> 00:36:53,643
Or what was left of it.
370
00:36:55,280 --> 00:36:58,582
Living the legend, remaining pure.
371
00:37:04,790 --> 00:37:07,891
-I remember everyone
had to form a semi-circle.
372
00:37:11,697 --> 00:37:17,934
And our leader soberly
told us what he'd just
heard on the radio:
373
00:37:21,740 --> 00:37:24,841
"hitler has fallen in berlin.
374
00:37:25,644 --> 00:37:29,980
As a result, you are no
longer bound by the oath
you swore to hitler,
375
00:37:30,082 --> 00:37:33,750
But you are still beholden
to the german people."
that was it.
376
00:37:33,852 --> 00:37:36,052
Then we dispersed
without a word.
377
00:37:46,565 --> 00:37:49,833
Narrator: May 8th 1945.
378
00:37:50,602 --> 00:37:52,969
Germany surrenders.
379
00:37:54,840 --> 00:37:59,342
The ss were moved into prisoner-of-war camps where they would spend months,
380
00:37:59,444 --> 00:38:01,611
Even years.
381
00:38:06,618 --> 00:38:11,221
Disguised as a police sergeant, their leader, himmler, hid among the crowd.
382
00:38:12,791 --> 00:38:17,127
After several weeks of wandering, he was arrested by the allies and committed
383
00:38:17,229 --> 00:38:19,729
Suicide with a cyanide capsule.
384
00:38:25,003 --> 00:38:29,039
-I found myself
in the pow camp with
other ss members.
385
00:38:29,908 --> 00:38:32,709
They were still just as
fanatical at that point.
386
00:38:33,478 --> 00:38:36,479
Don't believe they
were saying, "what
idiots we've been!"
387
00:38:40,519 --> 00:38:44,988
But we germans were so
stupid to have compared
the jews to rats.
388
00:38:45,957 --> 00:38:48,892
We were so dumb.
389
00:38:51,596 --> 00:38:55,298
Narrator: Some of them were sentenced to death by the allied courts.
390
00:38:56,368 --> 00:39:02,305
Like these waffen-sssoldiers, accused of executingamerican prisoners in 1944.
391
00:39:06,078 --> 00:39:10,780
Convinced they were right, they refuse to listen to their sentences to the end.
392
00:39:22,928 --> 00:39:26,629
Narrator: "the justice of conquerors," they say.
393
00:39:26,732 --> 00:39:30,967
Because the atrocities committed by the allies, the bombings of japanese and
394
00:39:31,069 --> 00:39:33,870
German cities, went unpunished.
395
00:39:38,744 --> 00:39:41,478
-Why did they bomb dresden?
396
00:39:41,580 --> 00:39:44,013
Why nagasaki?
397
00:39:44,116 --> 00:39:46,116
Why yokohama?
398
00:39:47,319 --> 00:39:51,554
Why were the poles
massacred by the russians?
399
00:39:51,957 --> 00:39:55,458
Why haven't those
people been tried?
400
00:39:56,361 --> 00:39:59,329
Nobody talks about that.
401
00:39:59,431 --> 00:40:03,099
Germany certainly
committed crimes, for sure.
402
00:40:03,769 --> 00:40:05,969
But they've all been punished.
403
00:40:07,572 --> 00:40:12,041
Narrator: That the germans were all punished is a myth maintained by the veterans.
404
00:40:12,944 --> 00:40:16,980
Apart from a few leaders, most of the ss slipped through the net.
405
00:40:19,551 --> 00:40:22,786
As if only one man should really pay the price.
406
00:40:25,624 --> 00:40:28,725
-Hitler betrayed me.
407
00:40:34,266 --> 00:40:38,735
He pushed us into misery
when he'd promised us joy.
408
00:40:44,476 --> 00:40:49,813
He perpetrated such
crimes that I can only
see it as treason.
409
00:40:55,353 --> 00:40:59,055
Narrator: A good ss member must be able to wipe out even his close family
410
00:40:59,858 --> 00:41:03,259
If they rebel against adolf hitler's ideas.
411
00:41:03,562 --> 00:41:06,229
So said their generals.
412
00:41:06,998 --> 00:41:10,800
-During all those years
I experienced some
very difficult times.
413
00:41:15,540 --> 00:41:18,308
I don't regret them
for one moment.
414
00:41:26,885 --> 00:41:31,688
-No, I have no
regrets, no way.
415
00:41:32,357 --> 00:41:35,658
And I don't doubt
for a moment that if
I had to do it again,
416
00:41:35,760 --> 00:41:38,394
I'd do exactly
the same thing.
417
00:41:40,065 --> 00:41:42,932
I have no reason
to give up my ideas.
418
00:41:44,169 --> 00:41:47,670
And it's not the moment
to change my mind.
419
00:41:55,714 --> 00:41:59,249
Narrator: Germany: One of the most creative nations in history.
420
00:42:02,521 --> 00:42:07,824
"I'm ashamed to be a german", wrote one munich citizen on may 28th 1945 on the
421
00:42:08,894 --> 00:42:11,294
Ruins of the feldherrnhalle.
422
00:42:11,830 --> 00:42:15,498
The place where the ss had once sworn their allegiance.
423
00:42:24,276 --> 00:42:27,610
But how to get out of the cult?
424
00:42:33,752 --> 00:42:39,422
Eberhard heder, a captain inthe wiking division, abandonedhis racist convictions and
425
00:42:40,825 --> 00:42:44,627
Pursued a career in the army of the federal republic of germany.
426
00:42:50,635 --> 00:42:56,773
Ekkehard guhr, a member of the ss's das reich division who dreamed of chivalry
427
00:42:58,009 --> 00:43:00,476
Became a pastor.
428
00:43:03,982 --> 00:43:10,253
Egon kuhn became a trade unionist, speaking tirelessly of the brainwashing he had
429
00:43:10,355 --> 00:43:12,855
Received in his youth.
430
00:43:16,761 --> 00:43:19,262
But they were exceptions.
431
00:43:20,465 --> 00:43:25,568
Many of them would remain incorrigible and nostalgic, often joining waffen ss
432
00:43:26,237 --> 00:43:29,739
Veterans' associations, which still exist today.
433
00:43:32,444 --> 00:43:34,310
Like manfred diener.
434
00:43:34,713 --> 00:43:39,248
Or kurt barkhausen, whose speeches are still used by extremist networks.
435
00:43:43,488 --> 00:43:48,958
Herbert von mildenburg set up businesses in south america, while maintaining relations
436
00:43:50,061 --> 00:43:53,062
With several notorious revisionists.
437
00:43:59,471 --> 00:44:03,339
It wasn't until 2015 that the former auschwitz accountant,
438
00:44:03,441 --> 00:44:08,044
Ss sergeant gröning was tried by the german courts.
439
00:44:09,614 --> 00:44:14,817
He was sentenced to four years in prison for complicity in the murder of
440
00:44:14,919 --> 00:44:20,857
300,000 jews. Pending appeal.
441
00:44:22,260 --> 00:44:23,660
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