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Hidden in a forest, in what is now
the eastern part of Poland,
near the border with Russia,

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00:00:52,320 --> 00:00:56,120
lie the remains of a concrete town.

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For three crucial years during WWII

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this was home to one of the most
infamous figures in world history.

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A man who said he and the nation
he led would create an empire
which would outlast any other.

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RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING

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Here at the Wolf's Lair,

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his headquarters
in the forest of Rastenburg, in
what was then German East Prussia,

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Adolf Hitler took decisions
which shaped the course of WWII.

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The result was a level

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of destruction and suffering

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unprecedented in the history of war.

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55 million people died in WWII.

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The Germans took five million
Russian prisoners of war alone.

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Only two million survived.

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During the war, Hitler authorised
a policy unique in all history,

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the mechanised extermination
of an entire people.

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All this was possible
because the Nazis ruled Germany.

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How could it be that a cultured
nation at the heart of Europe

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ever allowed such a man,
and the Nazi party he led,
to come to power?

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Leading Nazis explained
their success easily.

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It was inevitable given what they
called the superhuman qualities
of their leader.

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But the true reasons for the Nazis'
rise to power are not that simple
and are much more alarming.

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Nazism, which was to create
the Second World War,

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was born out of the first.

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On November 11th 1918,
to the surprise of German troops,
the war stopped.

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IN GERMAN:

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The myth grew among many of the
surrendered German soldiers that
they had been stabbed in the back,

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that the front-line troops
and the two million German war dead

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were betrayed by Marxists and Jews
who had fermented dissent at home.

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As the surviving troops returned to
the newly democratic Germany, they
took their bitterness with them.

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It would grow into Nazism in
the south of Germany, in Bavaria.

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Bavaria is a picture-book land,
famous for its lederhosen
and its beer halls,

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but at the end of WWI,
conditions existed here
which would create a revolution.

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After the war, the Allies
continued to blockade Germany

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and the returning troops
were shocked to discover how much
their families were still suffering.

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Millions of Germans were hungry

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and thousands more were dying
of tuberculosis and influenza.

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Politics were polarised.

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Conservatives and Socialists became
radical in the face of crisis.

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With the whole of Germany
in turmoil in the spring of 1919,

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the unrest in Munich resulted in
a left-wing takeover of the city,
the Raterepublik.

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This culminated, in April 1919,
in the Munich Soviet Republic,

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an attempt to create a soviet-style
government of the city,

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only 18 months after the victory of
the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.

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Government troops were sent to
quash the rebellion and there was
fighting on the streets of Munich.

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GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS

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More than 500 people were killed.

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The soldiers were supported
by the Freikorps,

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right-wing mercenaries
paid for by the government.

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In Munich, there were cases where
the Freikorps simply shot members
of the Raterepublik out of hand.

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Other Freikorps members heartily
approved of the brutal measures

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used to suppress Communist
revolutionaries throughout Germany.

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Eugene Levine's father was
the leader of the Raterepublik.

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He was executed in June 1919.

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I understand, from my mother,

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that he had been very brave,
the way he met his death.

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And in fact, he called out, er,

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"Long live the world revolution."

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And I realised that an honourable
person would die sooner or later,

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either on the barricades
or put up against a wall and shot.

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Eugene Levine's father was Jewish,

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and the anti-Semitic prejudice
of those on the right

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was further fuelled by the fact
that of the leadership of
the Raterepublik, most were Jewish.

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To the Freikorps,

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who celebrated in Munich after

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the suppression of the Raterepublik,

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the Jews were convenient scapegoats,

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held to blame
for all the country's ills.

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And the Freikorps had the support
of right-wing officers in the army,

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like Captain Ernst Rohm,
a man with a simple philosophy.

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"Since I am an immature
and wicked man,

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"war and unrest appeal to me
more than order."

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Rohm was involved in the violent
politics of the extreme right,

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and in 1919, he joined
the small German Workers' Party.

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Here he met a 30-year-old veteran
of WWI, Corporal Adolf Hitler,

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a man who shared with Rohm a deep
hatred of Communists and Jews.

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Hitler had also joined
the German Workers' Party in 1919.

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His membership card
said he was member 555,

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but in reality, he was member 55.

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They numbered from 500 to make it
look as if they had more members.

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Hitler was like thousands of other
ex-soldiers, drifting without a job.

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He discovered a natural talent.

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He could channel his anger
at the way the war ended
into powerful speeches.

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Hitler spoke about what he called
the iniquity of the Versailles
Treaty, signed at the end of WWI.

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Under the treaty, Germany lost
large amounts of her own territory

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and was forced to pay reparations
to the victors.

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In the early 1920s,
inflation spiralled out of control.

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In Bavaria, by 1921,
Hitler had become leader
of the small German Workers' Party,

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renamed the National Socialist
German Workers' Party,

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or the Nazis for short.

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It was still one of many different
right-wing parties in Munich,

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and they still all said the same -

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Versailles was a crime
and the Jews were behind it.

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00:13:50,520 --> 00:13:55,640
But Hitler's dynamism, together
with his uncompromising tone,

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began to attract other prominent
Bavarians to the Nazi party.

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In 1922,
a WWI flying ace joined the Nazis.

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Holder of awards for gallantry
and Richthofen squadron commander
during WWI, Hermann Goering.

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"I joined the party because it was
revolutionary, not because
of any ideological nonsense."

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The Nazi party spread its appeal
into the Bavarian countryside.

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One agricultural student,

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who was to become a chicken farmer,

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found in the Nazis

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an expression of his obsession
with the relationship between
German blood and German soil.

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"The yeoman of his own acre
is the backbone
of the German people's character.

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"Cowards are born in towns,
heroes in the country."

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The words of another Bavarian,
Heinrich Himmler,

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chicken farmer and, later,
commander of the SS.

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In January 1923, the Nazis
exploited the discontent caused by
the French occupation of the Ruhr.

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French troops came to enforce
reparation payments.

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They succeeded
in alienating the Germans.

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In Munich, in 1923,
in the atmosphere of crisis caused
by the occupation of the Ruhr,

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Hitler and the Nazis acted.

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Hitler stood on the stage of the
Burgerbraukeller on November 8th,
interrupting a right-wing meeting.

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He called

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for a revolution to overthrow

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the left-wing government in Berlin.

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The next day, the Nazis and
other right-wing parties marched
through Munich to gain support.

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They were stopped by the police
at the war memorial.

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The Nazis hoped the army and police,
many of whom were right-wingers,

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would join them
in a march on Berlin.

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GUNFIRE

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The police didn't support them.

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Shots were fired and the marchers
were routed. Hitler fled the scene.

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Four policemen and 16 Nazis
lost their lives.

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Hitler was tried with other leaders
of the putsch in early 1924.

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The trial was a media sensation
with entrance by ticket only.

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The Nazis hadn't just killed
four policemen,

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they had also
organised a bank robbery.

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A defiant Hitler told the court,

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"You may pronounce us guilty,

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"but the goddess who presides over
the eternal court of history

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"will, with a smile, tear in pieces
the charge of the public prosecutor

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"for she acquits us."

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Hitler gained fame
for his apparently brave stand.

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But it was a con trick,

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for he knew as he spoke
that the judge would be lenient.

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Hidden from the public was the
truth about a previous appearance
Hitler had made in a Bavarian court.

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More than two years before,

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Nazi thugs, egged on by Hitler,
had disrupted a left-wing meeting,

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dragged the speaker off the stage
and beaten him up.

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00:18:54,240 --> 00:19:01,400
Almost all the documents relating
to the trial were seized by
the Nazis when they came to power.

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00:19:01,400 --> 00:19:06,440
But one or two from this trial
survived, hidden in the archive,

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and they tell truths
the Nazis wanted to hide.

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Hitler got the minimum sentence
possible - three months in prison.

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The sympathy of the judge
didn't stop there.

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He wrote to the appeal court and
asked them to reduce his sentence.

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As a result, Hitler served
only one month in prison

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and a period on probation.

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The judge in Hitler's first trial
was called Georg Neithardt,

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the same judge whom the authorities
let preside over the putsch trial.

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It must have been obvious to Hitler
that the court would be lenient.

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Hitler had attempted revolution,
incited murder and his followers
had robbed a bank.

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He served nine months
in Landsberg prison.

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But even so, by 1924,
it seemed that Hitler and the Nazis
had become an irrelevance.

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In the mid-1920s, the German
economy recovered, as inflation
was reduced to single figures.

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The Weimar government had solved
the reparations problem by
borrowing money from the Americans

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which it used to pay the French
and British their own reparations.

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The good times were financed
by short-term credit.

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There were Germans who disapproved
of the "Weimar decadence".

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00:21:35,400 --> 00:21:39,880
They joined non-political groups
like the Wandervogel,

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who called for a return
to an older, simpler way of life.

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One small political party sought
to capitalize on this longing
for old-fashioned values.

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In the mid-1920s, the Nazi party
was small but radical.

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Their party programme promised that
if the Nazi party came into power

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German Jews would be stripped
of citizenship and could be
expelled from the country.

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00:23:14,640 --> 00:23:18,760
INTERVIEWER ASKS IN GERMAN:

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00:24:09,520 --> 00:24:17,040
The fantasy of a world Jewish
conspiracy was openly preached
by the Nazis...and believed.

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Along with their anti-Semitism
went a belief that violence was
a part of the political process.

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The party had a paramilitary wing,
the brown-shirted storm troopers,

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who protected Nazi meetings,
intimidated the followers of other
parties and drummed up support.

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Towering over the small party

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was the personality of the man
now called the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.

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The way the party was evolving
was essentially the way it would be
structured when they ruled Europe,

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and the structure was a strange one.

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Though these images of Nazi offices
in the 1920s seem ordered enough,

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the administration of the party
was chaotic.

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00:25:41,960 --> 00:25:47,400
Hitler hated committee meetings and
disliked arbitrating between rivals.

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00:25:47,400 --> 00:25:50,160
The Fuhrer was often late.

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00:25:50,160 --> 00:25:54,880
One prominent Nazi, Gottfried Feder,
complained to Hitler,

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00:25:54,880 --> 00:26:01,280
"I regard your time management
as very damaging
for the entire movement."

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Yet the party still functioned.

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00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:10,720
Hitler was a passionate believer
in the law of natural selection.

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00:26:10,720 --> 00:26:13,320
"Men dispossess one another

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00:26:13,320 --> 00:26:17,760
"and one perceives that,
at the end of it all,

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"it is always the stronger
who triumphs.

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00:26:21,280 --> 00:26:24,120
"The stronger asserts his will.

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"It's the law of nature."

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00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:31,880
Hitler's obsession with this idea
of the survival of the fittest

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00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:39,640
meant that when a party member
wrote to him and asked to be made
leader of his local branch,

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00:26:39,640 --> 00:26:44,800
he was answered thus by Max Amann,
one of Hitler's confidants -

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00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:53,160
"Herr Hitler takes the view that
it is not the job of the leadership
to appoint party leaders.

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00:26:53,160 --> 00:26:59,000
"You state that almost all the local
members have confidence in you,

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00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:04,040
"so why don't you take over
leadership of the branch?"

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00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:12,480
But now, seven years after
Hitler had become leader,

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00:27:12,480 --> 00:27:17,000
the Nazi party was failing dismally
in the great struggle.

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00:27:17,000 --> 00:27:21,040
Despite the enthusiasm
of the party faithful,

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00:27:21,040 --> 00:27:25,680
the Nazis could not
get themselves elected to power.

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00:27:25,680 --> 00:27:30,720
In the 1928 election,
the Nazis got just 2.6% of the vote.

200
00:27:30,720 --> 00:27:35,720
The vast majority
of the German electorate, over 97%,

201
00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,760
rejected them and their leader.

202
00:28:31,240 --> 00:28:36,680
This secret government report,
compiled before the 1928 election,

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00:28:36,680 --> 00:28:43,560
says that the Nazi party has
"no noticeable influence" on
the great masses of the population.

204
00:28:43,560 --> 00:28:48,080
The Nazis were a tiny fringe party,
almost a joke.

205
00:28:48,080 --> 00:28:52,120
Yet, just four years
and eight months later,

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00:28:52,120 --> 00:28:54,960
Hitler was chancellor of Germany,

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00:28:54,960 --> 00:28:58,680
for the Nazis were helped
by circumstance.

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00:28:59,720 --> 00:29:01,760
Germany suffered.

209
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:06,880
A drop in world agricultural prices
brought poverty to the countryside

210
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:13,440
and then the Wall Street Crash
heralded a world economic slump.

211
00:29:20,800 --> 00:29:23,840
The Americans called in their loans.

212
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:29,840
German unemployment rose to
five and a half million in 1931.

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00:30:44,960 --> 00:30:49,000
Unemployed lived rough
in the cities

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00:30:49,000 --> 00:30:53,920
as Germany became economically
the worst-hit nation in the world.

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00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:11,280
Then, just when it seemed things
couldn't get any worse...

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00:31:11,280 --> 00:31:15,080
Then, just when it seemed things
couldn't get any worse...they did.

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00:31:20,280 --> 00:31:24,320
The five major banks crashed
in 1931.

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00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:28,760
More than 20,000 German businesses
folded.

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00:31:28,760 --> 00:31:31,800
Now the middle class was suffering.

220
00:31:44,560 --> 00:31:49,080
In the economic crisis,
the Nazis' vote increased.

221
00:31:49,080 --> 00:31:51,600
They still said the same -

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00:31:51,600 --> 00:31:59,040
Versailles was a crime, Jews should
lose citizenship, Marxism must be
destroyed, Germany must be reborn.

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00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:04,840
The message hadn't changed but
more Germans were ready to hear it,

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00:32:04,840 --> 00:32:12,680
and in this economic crisis,
people who had never seen
or heard Hitler still voted Nazi.

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00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:16,200
RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING

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00:32:18,840 --> 00:32:23,680
In a remote town in German
East Prussia, like Neidenburg,

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00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:28,080
in 1928,
the Nazis got 2.3% of the vote.

228
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:32,520
In 1930,
their vote leapt up to 25.8%,

229
00:32:32,520 --> 00:32:38,360
yet Hitler didn't visit here and
there was no Nazi party in the town.

230
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:43,120
But the Communists started
to pick up votes too.

231
00:32:43,120 --> 00:32:47,960
Something sinister was happening
to this new democracy.

232
00:32:47,960 --> 00:32:53,440
It seemed to be splitting apart
as voters rushed to the extremes.

233
00:32:53,440 --> 00:32:58,480
Alois Pfaller had joined the
Communist party in the late 1920s

234
00:32:58,480 --> 00:33:02,440
and now took on the Nazis
in the streets.

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00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:58,840
SONG TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN:

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00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:30,160
NEW SONG:

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00:34:54,720 --> 00:34:58,520
FIRST SONG AGAIN:

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00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:26,200
Hitler said that he was the man
who could solve the economic crisis,

239
00:35:26,200 --> 00:35:32,880
at the head of a dynamic party
that promised to destroy
Germany's internal enemies.

240
00:35:32,880 --> 00:35:37,320
And Hitler campaigned
in a fresh and original way.

241
00:35:37,320 --> 00:35:40,160
In his 1932 election campaign,

242
00:35:40,160 --> 00:35:45,600
he travelled by aeroplane
to 20 cities in seven days.

243
00:35:50,400 --> 00:35:55,640
Though he was to lose the election
to President Hindenburg,

244
00:35:55,640 --> 00:36:00,920
Hitler had established himself
as a credible alternative leader.

245
00:36:33,800 --> 00:36:38,840
The Nazi party proposed little
in the way of detailed policies,

246
00:36:38,840 --> 00:36:44,640
but it offered order, discipline
and the personality of Adolf Hitler.

247
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:49,160
Fridolin von Spaun met him
in the early 1930s.

248
00:38:22,000 --> 00:38:27,520
By 1932, the majority of Germans,
in voting for Communists and Nazis,

249
00:38:27,520 --> 00:38:32,560
were voting for parties openly
committed to overthrowing democracy.

250
00:38:32,560 --> 00:38:36,760
Democracy had arrived in Germany
at the end of WWI.

251
00:38:36,760 --> 00:38:41,000
Now the majority of Germans
wanted rid of it.

252
00:38:41,000 --> 00:38:47,600
Hitler made it quite clear
that a vote for the Nazis
was a vote for dictatorship.

253
00:39:57,560 --> 00:40:01,600
As a result of the elections
of July 1932,

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00:40:01,600 --> 00:40:07,280
the Nazis became the biggest party
in Germany, with 37% of the vote.

255
00:40:07,280 --> 00:40:11,560
One man stood between Hitler
and the chancellorship,

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00:40:11,560 --> 00:40:16,000
the man Hitler had challenged
for the presidency.

257
00:40:16,000 --> 00:40:20,440
Hindenburg met Hitler
on August 13th 1932.

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00:40:20,440 --> 00:40:23,280
Hitler demanded to be chancellor.

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00:40:23,280 --> 00:40:28,440
Hindenburg refused, and his state
secretary recorded the reasons why.

260
00:40:28,440 --> 00:40:34,440
"He could not bring himself to give
government power to a single party

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00:40:34,440 --> 00:40:38,960
"which did not represent
the majority of the electorate

262
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:45,520
"and which was intolerant,
lacking in discipline
and frequently appeared violent."

263
00:40:45,520 --> 00:40:51,040
But then, different pressure groups
began to lobby President Hindenburg.

264
00:40:51,040 --> 00:40:58,160
A group of businessmen,
including the former president
of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht,

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00:40:58,160 --> 00:41:05,680
wrote to Hindenburg, arguing that
Hitler must get the chancellorship
for the good of Germany.

266
00:41:52,360 --> 00:41:57,400
New pressures came as the results
of an army war game arrived.

267
00:41:57,400 --> 00:42:05,120
It said that in the event of civil
unrest, the army couldn't control
both the Nazis and the Communists.

268
00:42:05,120 --> 00:42:12,160
"It's been shown that the forces
of law and order of the Reich
and of the German states

269
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:20,800
"could not protect the country
against National Socialists and
Communists and protect the borders."

270
00:42:20,800 --> 00:42:26,320
But if there were pressures on
Hindenburg as 1932 came to a close,

271
00:42:26,320 --> 00:42:29,840
there were also pressures
on the Nazis.

272
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:33,960
The crowds outside
Nazi headquarters in Munich

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00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:38,000
weren't aware of the nature
of the problem.

274
00:42:38,000 --> 00:42:43,160
They were going bankrupt due to the
cost of fighting so many elections.

275
00:42:43,160 --> 00:42:47,720
A key figure in the party,
Gregor Strasser, had just resigned

276
00:42:47,720 --> 00:42:53,120
and the Nazi vote had dropped to
33% in the November 1932 election.

277
00:42:53,120 --> 00:42:56,640
It looked like their support
had peaked.

278
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:02,160
But the traditional right felt
they had to negotiate with Hitler.

279
00:43:02,160 --> 00:43:05,720
They too wanted
to eliminate democracy

280
00:43:05,720 --> 00:43:10,440
and without the Nazis
they had no access to mass support.

281
00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:16,960
A former chancellor,
the aristocratic von Papen,
came up with a deal.

282
00:43:16,960 --> 00:43:21,600
Hitler could be chancellor
if von Papen was vice chancellor

283
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:26,120
and there were only two other Nazis
in the cabinet.

284
00:43:26,120 --> 00:43:29,680
The theory was
Hitler would be tamed.

285
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:41,480
As a result, Hindenburg offered
Adolf Hitler the chancellorship
on January 30th 1933.

286
00:43:41,480 --> 00:43:45,800
Von Papen crowed,
"We've hired him,"

287
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:50,040
and the new cabinet posed
for the cameras.

288
00:43:50,040 --> 00:43:54,480
The Nazis would later try
and rewrite history

289
00:43:54,480 --> 00:44:00,000
to say that he became chancellor
simply because it was his destiny,

290
00:44:00,000 --> 00:44:05,520
but, in reality, he had been helped
into power by economic circumstance

291
00:44:05,520 --> 00:44:09,360
and the support and miscalculation
of others.

292
00:44:15,280 --> 00:44:18,840
It all happened so fast
in those days,

293
00:44:18,840 --> 00:44:22,280
after one had seen it come
gradually.

294
00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:27,320
The Communist party line,
to which I still belonged,

295
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:31,840
was that it doesn't matter
if Hitler gets to power.

296
00:44:31,840 --> 00:44:36,680
He'll soon prove himself incompetent
and then it's our turn.

297
00:44:36,680 --> 00:44:39,240
For some extraordinary reason,

298
00:44:39,240 --> 00:44:45,200
they didn't realise
that he was going to change the law
once he came to power,

299
00:44:45,200 --> 00:44:48,040
which he did very smartly.

300
00:45:10,160 --> 00:45:15,920
On January 30th 1933, the same day
Hitler was appointed chancellor,

301
00:45:15,920 --> 00:45:20,960
the Nazis held a torchlight
celebration parade in Berlin.

302
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,480
The revolution had begun.

303
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:24,560
There were a few storm troopers
who had Jewish girlfriends

304
00:46:24,560 --> 00:46:32,400
and therefore, a lot
of German Jews thought, "Oh, well,
it's not going to be so bad.

305
00:46:32,400 --> 00:46:37,680
"They have Jewish girlfriends,
they can't hate us all."

306
00:46:37,680 --> 00:46:40,520
Oh, it's heartbreaking.