All language subtitles for Inside.the.SS.S01E02.Hitlers.Killing.Machine.480p.x264-mSD[eztv.io]

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.

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This is the story of SS fanaticism,

bloodlust and terror...

Told from the inside.

Summer 1941.

Hitler has unleashed
his troops on the Soviet Union.

In order to kill Jews, the Nazis had
already formed special units...

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.

The paradox was that the SS
didn't see themselves as criminals,

but as victims,
soldiers defending themselves.

Oskar Groning, 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.

Executioners... victims...

Switching the roles
authorised every crime.

Not every SS man took part

but many agreed with it.

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 the bullet wounds.

But his demands for executions
only increased.

Listen to his voice
as he speaks to his generals.

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 percent Jewish,
mixed blood, etc.

It was a formidable system

and the first step
towards extermination.

STATELY MUSIC

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."

Throughout Europe, the new Nazi
lords took over the finest homes.

Another castle
was occupied in Krakow, Poland.

It was here that Hitler's
former lawyer lived and worked...

Hans Frank,
Poland's Governor-General.

In the north of Germany, we met
his son, the writer Niklas Frank.

He remembers the SS who guarded him
in Krakow during his childhood

as mediocre individuals.

He was not the only one...
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.

As the Jewish people
gradually disappeared,

the SS profited and dreamed.

Himmler had promised them
the brightest of futures.

The Third Reich will last
1000 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 civilisation

against the barbarians.

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 the French-speaking Belgians,

the French themselves and
the Italians Latin peoples

to whom Himmler gave the hope
of entering into the Nazi elite.

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."

One of these Muslim volunteers
met Himmler

who was more calculating
than ever.

The Fuehrer'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.

Behind the lines,

the Waffen-SS were now
fighting against Stalin's partisans,

soldiers in civilian clothing who,
according to the Nazi propaganda,

failed to respect the laws of war.

You could never tell
whether it was a partisan or not.

You think
you are in a quiet position.

And suddenly,
there is all hell got loose.

The partisans' gunmen were shooting
right, left and centre.

An ordinary Jew, to go and kill him?
No, I didn't.

I can stick well,
it is over there

I can stick my hand on the Bible
and swear to it. I didn't.

I had no occasion...

I was lucky that I didn't have to.

If you had been ordered to do that,
would you have done it?

Now, you ask me... I think I would.

Because an officer ordered me to do.

And an order is to be obeyed.

Even shooting civilians, children,
or women, with no weapon?

Oh, no. No.

Not that.

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 all European Jews.

In a few months, Himmler's men
set up a new network of death.

A sophisticated, sinister web
on a vast scale...

from the Atlantic coast
to the plains of Poland,

they ferried their victims
to the camps

where they were exterminated.

Europe was a prison.

It became a morgue...
antiseptic and efficient.

See how calm these SS men are.

They have partially delegated
everyday tasks

to deportees themselves...

and are content just to survey
events and keep their hands clean.

Unsullied, distant, superior.

And more cynical than ever.

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.

What did the Auschwitz
SS guards feel?

How could they live
amid such slaughter?

We sought to meet some of them

recently targeted
by the German judiciary.

The only ones willing to speak
about Auschwitz are the Waffen-SS

who weren't even there,
and who don't believe it happened.

Inadmissible insults
to the victims.

A denial of reality,

despite the countless proofs
of genocide

committed against those
the Nazis judged undesirable.

Here, for example, with
the deportation of Dresden's Jews.

Almost all would die in Auschwitz.

An unbearable truth
for most SS veterans.

It ruins the dreams of their youth.

Herta Bothe could not deny
the existence of the camps.

She worked in several
before moving to Bergen-Belsen.

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 Reichsof camp,
120 miles from Auschwitz.

The Auschwitz camp itself
was much sought-after.

It was here,
to this 470-acre complex,

that Oskar Groning was sent
as an accountant in 1942.

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

Oskar Groning 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 men and women of the SS,
who behaved like monsters,

were human beings.

And there lies the problem.

July 20, 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 frontlines,

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.

"Better kill 1000 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
six miles away at the time, he says.

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 'Malgre-nous' -
'Against our will'.

In 1944, as the army withdrew,

they discovered from the inside

the pitiless methods
of the Black Order.

Born and bred on Nazism,

these SS men couldn't imagine
their Fuehrer's demise.

Or their own.

Their leaders warned them...

German civilisation 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.

At the end of 1944,
their demise was certain,

but they hung on nevertheless.

Hitler had promised
miracle weapons...

devastating rockets
that would turn the tide of the war.

The V2s caused havoc in England,
but nothing actually changed.

Himmler continued to send
reinforcements to the front.

EXPLOSION

January 1945.

Himmler, who wanted to erase
all traces of the genocide,

ordered that Auschwitz be evacuated.

An amateur film shot by a member of
the Czech resistance from his window

shows the last train
leaving the camp bound for Germany.

On board the open cars, in
temperatures of minus-5 Fahrenheit,

are SS guards and their prisoners,

thousands of Jewish deportees
who have escaped the gas chambers.

It was in liberating the camps

that the Allies discovered
the massacre committed by the SS.

Six million Jewish victims.

Hundreds of thousands
of 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.

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 was relieved,
because I was still alive!

May 8, 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.

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.

"The justice of conquerors"
they say.

Because the atrocities
committed by the Allies -

the bombings of Japanese and
German cities - went unpunished.

That the Germans were all punished

is a myth
maintained by all 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.

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.

Spring, 1945.

The last pictures of the SS.

"Achtung!" this man mocks.

They're American soldiers,
disguised as SS.

For them, the Black Order
has become the butt of jokes.

'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring'
by Bach plays

For Germany, one of the cradles
of humanism and European culture,

the discovery of the extent
of Nazi crimes was traumatising.

"I'm ashamed to be a German"

wrote one Munich citizen
on May 28, 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.

In the midst of the Cold War,
Werner Volkner,

after having spent several years
in a prisoner-of-war camp,

joined the British army.

To finish the job
against the Russians, he said.

It wasn't until 2015

that the former Auschwitz
accountant, SS Sergeant Groning

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...

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