All language subtitles for H T L T o t T R S01E02 The Ascent 1080p HULU WEB-DL DDP5 1 H 264-FFG (1)_track3_[eng]

Mein Kampf means
literally my struggle.

And it was published in 1925.

Hitler evolves in
prison in the process of

writing Mein Kampf.

It was really a mythology
that he invented about himself,

to cover up the fact
that he was a nobody and,

in many ways, a failure.

Mein Kampf, of course,
is a politician's autobiography.

Hitler wants to tell a
story of the far right,

nationalist and
antisemitic activists

whose ideas are formulated.

The most striking example of
this is where Hitler describes

walking along the
streets of Vienna and

seeing an
orthodox Jewish person.

He sees this person who
looks slightly scary to him,

and he runs through
his mind, is this a Jew?

And is this a German?

Hitler obviously intends
the answers to be yes and no.

He's articulating
that there is a racial,

unbridgeable difference between
being Jewish and being German.

Mein Kampf
actually contains a
coherent view of the world.

It's an insane, totalitarian and
terrifying view of the world,

but it's coherent
view of the world.

It's a view of
the world which says,

"The Jews, they have to
be removed from the world."

Lebensraum literally means
living room or living space.

The basic idea is that Germany
has too much population crowded

into too small a space.

And what the Germans
really need is, in a sense,

to emulate the pattern of
American settlement westward.

And what Hitler aspired to do
is to create this vast empire in

the western reaches
of the Soviet Union.

As far as Hitler was concerned,

anyone east of
Germany was not fully human,

so the whole idea of
Lebensraum was always,

from the beginning,
almost explicitly genocidal.

It's so important to read
what Hitler says in Mein Kampf,

because you get a strategic
version of the world which then

plays itself out in his actions.

.

.

The sentence Hitler
was given for his leadership of

the Beerhall Putsch
was five years.

Hitler served only a
very short sentence,

he was basically given parole
after serving eight months.

Hitler was 35 years old when
he was released from prison

at the end of 1924.

Germany, in the 1920s, is
one of those really remarkable

flowerings of human
creativity in music,

in literature, in painting,

in science, in technology,

in business, in film.

Much like
the American Roaring '20s,

you have more of a
political stabilization,

the economy has
largely recovered from this

horrific hyper-inflation,
and the government is,

to some extent, working.

There's not much
Hitler can do with this,

he really needs crisis,
crisis is his oxygen,

and stability is
kind of stifling him.

He assembles party
leaders there and he lashes out

and tears into the Nazi party.

Hitler had a
very cunning and nasty,

but in many ways sophisticated,

understanding of
how to persuade people.

And it's this series
of events that really brings

Joseph Goebbels
closer to Hitler,

and drawn in by his
vision and charisma.

In the mid-1920s,
Joseph Goebbels is working in

publicity and propaganda in the
northern wing of the Nazi party.

Goebbels was
quite short and very slight,

he was born with a club foot,

so he really stuck out,
both intellectually but

also visually,
within the Nazi party.

He actually earned a
PhD in German literature,

so he had a kind
of unusual academic
profile for an early Nazi.

He had this deep desire for
acceptance from these tough guys

in the Nazi movement,
and he falls victim to

Hitler's one on one charisma.

Hitler was very good at meeting
someone and shaking their hand

and looking deeply into
their eyes and appraising them,

and it's clear he
does this with Goebbels,

and it's at this moment
that Goebbels really comes into

his element, and starts to
be one of the successful and

major Nazi party figures.

To Hitler,
politics was really personal.

The ways in which he
orchestrated Nazi party events

demonstrated this.

He understood the
power of spectacle.

Hitler made
his first speech after prison

in a Beerhall,

and the reporter of
the Munich Post was there.

Hitler attacked
his political enemies,

the Jews,

the Social Democrats, the
Democratic government in Berlin.

For the Post it was clear he
wanted to reboot his movement,

and he still was a
threat for the country.

It made
Hitler very, very angry.

Hitler used to say
that the Munich Post was

the poisoned kitchen.

He said they would
prepare his reports with

untruths and defamations.

From
Hitler's point of view,

the newspaper is the enemy,

because the newspaper reporter
goes out into that real world

and writes about it
in a, in an objective way.

Hitler is against that,
he's against that entire model.

He uses a word
which he didn't invent,

but which is quite
common on the German right,

which is Lügenpresse.

Which translates quite
literally as fake news.

In other words, you
take the people who are
doing the actual reporting

and you claim that the
actual reporting is the lie.

Someone who does the
work to find out the
truth is a volksfeind.

An enemy of the people.

To Hitler,
truth was not something that

you prove with evidence.

To Hitler, truth was
something that you feel,

the truth was how he
presented it that day.

.

Right.

Berchtesgaden is a
town in the Bavarian Alps,

a couple of hours from Munich,

and actually very
close to Salzburg, Austria.

Hitler had been
renting a house on the
mountain above Berchtesgaden,

he liked to spend time there.

He would go there
almost every weekend,

and sometimes for longer.

GÖRTEMAKER: If you look
at Hitler's social relations

from the beginning,

you'll see that
he never, ever was alone,

he did nothing alone.

He didn't eat alone, he
didn't went to a restaurant

or hotel alone.

He was surrounded
by men and women

who became his
substitute family.

Hitler was very insecure,

that he hated to meet
people he didn't know.

To this day, Adolf Hitler
is viewed as a person without

human bonds or feelings,

the truth is, Hitler was
a weak person who needed

the huge circle
around him to function,

and they took care even
of his private matters.

Rudolf Hess, for instance, took
care of Hitler's girlfriends.

Hitler's sexuality
and his relations with women is

something that has
been written about a lot,

it's been speculated a lot.

We know that he was
very much a sexist,

to some degree a misogynist,
he seems to have liked women

who were sort of round faced,

and certainly a good
bit younger than he was.

Angela Raubal,
or Geli, as she was called,

was Hitler's niece,
she was in her mid-teens.

They seem to
have become romantically
involved in the late 1920s,

Hitler's father was the
uncle of Hitler's mother,

it's certainly
factual that Hitler was
the uncle of Geli Raubal,

and there was some kind
of romantic relationship there.

Geli Raubal seems to have been
a very extroverted, cheerful,

vivacious young woman, and,

for whatever reason, that
either gravitated to her being

trapped into this rather
stifling relationship with

this rather odd man.

GÖRTEMAKER: Hitler and
Geli Raubal moved in an

apartment together at
Prinzregentenplatz 16.

Their relationship
became difficult.

They often had disputes.

There's some indication
that she might have been jealous

of him when he
flirted with, with other women.

There's evidence that
Hitler's attitude to her

might have been
really controlling.

and the
Great Depression has begun.

The world
economic crisis started and

the massive unemployment
became a reality, not only,

but also in Germany,
changed the political landscape,

the economic
landscape completely.

I think it's very
hard to see the rise of Nazism

in the way it happened
without the Great Depression.

Germany, of all the
major countries in Europe,

is the hardest hit.

Unemployment around a third.

Industrial production
falling 40, 50%.

You've got a large
share of the population almost

literally slowly
starving to death.

You've got a kind
of creeping famine.

And it's the kind of crisis
that can give Hitler the oxygen

he needs to be a,
a crisis politician.

His message is that
the liberal democratic republic

in Germany, the Weimar Republic,

is a disaster,
it's full of corrupt,

squabbling politicians
who don't do anything.

Meanwhile, Germany
is being victimized
by Marxists and by Jews.

Hitler was someone who
was seen as a politician outside

of the norm, because clearly
the norm was not working.

Someone seen as having all
Germans' interests at heart.

And, really, above all else,
someone who was simply an outcry

of protest against
what was happening.

Ernst Röhm, as a
former military man was one of

the individuals that actually
facilitated Hitler's entry into

the higher circles of power.

The SA crystallized under the
leadership of Ernst Röhm into

this paramilitary formation, it
really becomes a personal army

that is at the beck
and call of Hitler.

The SA is
short for the Sturmabteilung,

which is the paramilitary
wing of the Nazi party.

It is essentially the muscle
of the Nazi party at the time.

The function of
the SA, or the Stormtroopers,

was to move into neighborhoods

that the Nazis wanted
to control politically,

very often this
would be a working class,

big city
neighborhood dominated by

the social democrats
or the communists.

And they would basically
fight a gang war with them.

Germany was
characterized by a situation

of almost a civil war.

This permanent violence between

the communists
and the, uh, Nazis.

the Nazis are deliberately
causing trouble to force

the people of Germany to
believe that there is a threat

of violent communism
in their midst,

that only by
supporting the Nazis can
they avoid another revolution.

Hitler played
cleverly on the SA as an image.

Many middle-class people that
Hitler was trying to court as

voters might be expected to be
put off by that violence, but,

the violence the SA committed
was against communists,

so it seems that a lot of
middle-class people would

react by saying, "Well,
those SA boys, they're rough,

but they're
beating up communists, so

God love 'em, they're, they're
beating up the right people."

And so, the Nazis could
use the SA as a kind of

advertisement for their
decisiveness and toughness.

This was a
way to demonstrate that

the Weimar Democracy
didn't function, so it was

also instrumental for Hitler.

Hitler always
wanted to make the claim that

he was essentially
married to Germany.

He also said, if German
women knew he had a wife or,

or a serious girlfriend he would
lose all the women's votes.

Hitler was driving
away from Munich on the road

to give a speech,

Geli Raubal shot herself in
his apartment with his gun.

The scandal that
erupted after Geli's suicide

was his personal life
blowing up in his face.

Here was an instance in which
this kind of unknowableness

contributed to all
kinds of wild speculation,

and if you were his enemy,

either on the
right or, or on the left,

this was a great opportunity.

The Post
reported with many details about

her death, it made
Hitler very, very angry,

and some were afraid
that he might kill himself.

He can speak out,
he can threaten,

he can bluster, but, at
that point in Germany he cannot

control what is reported
in the non-Nazi press.

He is
really grief stricken.

He is angry, and
he's so controlling of

his public persona and
his public presentation,

and this is a moment that
really punctures that in a way

that he has absolutely
no control over.

At a pretty delicate
moment, politically,

because the electoral
breakthrough is beginning.

Hitler's conception of
himself as a leader rules out

the possibility of
him doing something like

serving as an ordinary deputy.

It doesn't comport with his
vision of himself destined to

lead Germany, serving it
in some cabinet position,

was unthinkable to him.

Presidency, that
was a different matter.

In the political system
of a Weimar Republic,

the President is elected
directly by the electorate,

he appoints the cabinet,

the chancellor, and has
an unusual amount of power.

REPORTER (over TV);
Von Hindenburg announces
his reluctant decision to

run again for the Presidency.

Presidential election
for Hitler was a, a long shot,

he was running
against Paul von Hindenburg.

He was a absolutely
legendary figure in
German military history,

in German politics, he
was the representative figure

of conservative
nationalist Germany.

No one would
claim Paul von Hindenburg was

particularly bright or
particularly energetic.

Hindenburg is
an old man by this point,

he's in his early to mid-80s.

He was so old that they were
worried whether or not he could

handle another
presidential campaign in 1932.

By this time, Hitler takes
a really important lesson away

from the failure of
the Beerhall Putsch.

He understands now that
he's not gonna be able to see

his power in a
violent coup d'état.

He's gonna have to
come to power playing by

the constitutional rules
of the Weimar Republic,

which is only going
to put all the more emphasis on

his abilities as a speaker,
as someone who can rally people,

you know, willingly,
to his side.

He was the first
modern politician to use

an airplane to fly
from event to event.

It was exotic, politicians
didn't do this, they,

they rode in motorcades
or they rode on trains,

they didn't
arrive in an airplane.

The landing of the
airplane and the exit out of

the airplane, it
was all very dramatic.

Flying from city to
city enabled him, of course,

to reach a lot of audiences,
it was the symbolism that was

really important,
and, Goebbels, again,

in his clever way,
kind of milked it.

He had a good idea of how
modern media could be used.

The Nazis were really
modern media forward, you know,

today they'd be
masters of Twitter and,
and whatever all else.

The slogan of their
campaign actually was,

"Hitler over Germany."

Mm-hmm.

Sieg! Heil!

Sieg! Heil!

Heil! Heil!

Sieg! Heil!

Heil! Heil! Heil!

Women would faint in the
excitement at his rallies, or,

or men would jump up on
tables and pump their fists in

the air and yell approval.

If you look at a lot of
his speeches there's not a lot

in there about the Jews.

A blunt, overt, aggressive,
very hostile, racialist,

antisemitism is
not a big vote getter.

He's talking
about making Germany a
great nation again, and,

combining those
with a set of grievances.

What the Nazis
really were was a successful,

anti-globalist protest movement.

That's the sort of common theme
in everything Hitler's saying,

it's a protest about what
the world's doing to Germany,

and it's an assertion of
nationalism as the remedy.

The Nazi party finally
reaches the position in which

it's the largest single
party in the German Reichstag.

The problem though is can
this momentum be sustained?

Heil! Heil!

At the
age of 84 he is reelected,

defeating Adolf Hitler.

He loses the
presidential election,

and the chancellorship is
the only thing left for him.

He sees power so close,
but Hitler's stubbornness

threatens to throw it all away.

It
was very strongly that you,

of President Von
from Hindenburg,

in the middle of 1932,
that it would be most dangerous

to put power in
Hitler's hands, wasn't it?

There are multiple
attempts of Hitler to try and

force Hindenburg's hand to
offer him the chancellorship,

and he is repeatedly refused.

Hindenburg doesn't
really see much in Hitler,

he doesn't like his politics,
he doesn't like the man.

Hindenburg and his
government really want to find

a way to get this
big base of support,

which is nationalist
and militarist behind them,

and they can use it basically
to crush the social democrats.

But they wanna get it
behind them in a way that

they can control it, they don't
wanna just hand power to Hitler.

They want to basically co-opt
Hitler's support for themselves.

Hitler was absolutely
necessary for Germany?

Hindenburg decides
that the only way to get
a right wing coalition,

a real right wing big
base of support to make

a stable government, is
to let Hitler in the door.

So, January 30th, 1933,
that's the day that Hitler

actually gets
sworn in as Chancellor.

When he finally
appoints Hitler Chancellor

on January 30th, 1933.

The historians would argue
that Paul von Hindenburg was an

old man, he probably did not
fully realize what he was doing.

But Hindenburg
knew what he was doing.

When Hitler becomes
Chancellor he gets to form

a cabinet, but, not
the way that he wishes.

But rather, he's heavily
monitored by Franz von Papen,

who has promised
Hindenburg that he was
going to watch over Hitler.

And there's a common
feeling that they would keep

Hitler in line, that
they would be, you know,

the adults in the room.

So there was this expectation
this would be a short and

probably ineffectual government.

Many German Jews
themselves also hoped that this

was going to just blow over and
that Hitler was just going to be

one other chancellor
of the Weimar Republic.

I think it's hard
for us to imagine someone being

on trial for treason
just less than a decade later

being made
Chancellor of a country.

One can see that there
is this real soft spot

for people who essentially
commit all sorts of crimes.

That just sort of focus on the
fact that they were really doing

it with their heart
in the right place.

This is the
single most catastrophic,

political miscalculation
in modern history.

The Reichstag
actually has two meanings,

it has a literally meaning
of a building in Berlin where

Germany's parliament met, and it
has the more abstract meaning of

being Germany's
National Parliament.

The Reichstag fire
comes four weeks exactly

into Hitler's
time as Chancellor.

Everybody
was running and panting
towards the Reichstag, and

three black Mercedes
cars drew up, and I said,

"I bet that's Hitler,"

and he said, "I do hope to
God that this, as I believe,

is the work of the communists.

This will give us the
chance that we need."

There has been a running
debate from 1933 until now

over who actually set the fire.

Of course, the Nazis
claimed it was the communists,

the communists, of course,
claimed it was the Nazis.

This is a
unsolved question,

and probably it will
remain unsolved, uh.

But it is actually not the
most interesting question,

because there is no
doubt that the Nazis perfectly

instrumentalized the situation.

Hitler and his
government immediately presented

a really draconian
emergency decree,

which is known informally
as the Reichstag Fire Decree.

Which basically tore the guts
out of Germany's constitution

and ended all civil liberties.

Germany
has been placed under a system

of martial law, decree having
being signed which aims to

the total
destruction of communism.

Hitler had long been
promising to save Germany from

the communist menace, well, here
was the communist menace burning

down the Reichstag, and
so here is Hitler doing

what he said he was going to do.

The
importance of this law,

for the rest of the Third Reich,

cannot be overestimated.

From then on, the Nazi terror
against political opponents

was basically unlimited.

In the evening,
SA troops went to the Post,

pillaged and
destroyed the office.

They threw the furniture,
copies and documents through

the windows and
burned everything in
front of the building.

Most of the editors of
the Post went into exile.

The story of the
Munich Post is very important.

They risk it, their lives,

for a free press and
for democratic Germany.

The Munich Post
predicted almost everything

that would happen in Germany.

Dictatorship,
violation of human rights,

persecution of the Jews,

of political enemies.

In the end, the
democratic experiment in Germany

had to be killed off,
it had to be murdered,

and that's what Hitler
and the Nazi party did.

From then on,
the way was clear for Hitler

to realize all
his demonic plans.

It's a typical Hitler
pattern to delay and delay and

delay until the
last possible moment,

and then, when he strikes,

to strike really
ruthlessly and brutally.

The
Night of Broken Glass,

30,000 Jewish men are
sent to concentration camps.

The only crime was
that I was born Jewish.

Hitler wasn't
a politician at heart,

he was a visionary, that's
how he would describe himself.

GÖRTEMAKER: Now Hitler's inner
circle constantly told him that

he's a genius, that he can
change and conquer the world.

Captioned by
Cotter Media Group.