Original subtitles

In late 1933,

Chancellor Adolf Hitler is one step away from total power.

Only Germany's elderly president, Paul von Hindenburg,

stands in his way -

the one man with the power to sack a Chancellor -

so it's vital for Hitler to keep him onside.

Believe it or not, Hitler can be charming...

..and he exercised this charm on Hindenburg,

I think, to probably quite good effect.

Von Hindenburg, he, perhaps against his better judgment,

becomes a little impressed by Hitler.

This is the story of how Hitler went from Chancellor

to all-powerful dictator.

To piece together how it happened, historians and experts have examined

this period - each from a different individual perspective.

You cajole, you influence,

you manipulate.

They'll take us inside the minds of those that fought fascism...

They realised that these people are after your heads.

They want to annihilate you from existence altogether.

..and the Nazis themselves.

Himmler genuinely believed that he would create a racially pure

Germany, where the Aryan race would reign supreme.

The moments when history hung in the balance

and the world's worst atrocities

could have been prevented.

Mass murder was no problem...

..but it was important to be socially acceptable.

Do people care about the truth?

Adolf Hitler will go on to oversee the murder of millions of people.

But, in 1933,

he is the outwardly respectable Chancellor of Germany,

the equivalent of Prime Minister.

But, just under a year into the job,

he's finding being in government a difficult balancing act.

He has two very different audiences to please...

..the aristocratic elite,

the president,

the generals

and his Vice Chancellor.

They're uneasy about the Nazis, seeing them as thuggish

and worrying they could destabilise the whole system.

On the other hand, Hitler has his base,

the Stormtroopers, the paramilitary wing of the Nazis.

Over two million angry young men.

They're waiting for Hitler

to deliver the Nazi revolution he promised.

None more so than the leader of the Stormtroopers.

For Rohm, the aim was a revolution in Germany

to change the political system.

Ernst Rohm was a trained officer.

He was military and ruthless.

Rohm is an adventurer.

He is not really a politician.

Hitler owes Rohm a lot and he knows

that Rohm is one of his oldest comrades.

Hitler promised Rohm that they would get rid of the old elites,

that they would get rid of the rich

and they would change the whole system.

Hitler couldn't hold his promises.

Unleashing violence against their left wing enemies,

Rohm's Stormtroopers have been useful to Hitler -

but now they could become a threat.

Their violent attacks are upsetting the public.

As Chancellor, Hitler wants things to appear calm.

Rohm's actions pose a problem for Hitler because Hitler

needed to persuade the elites.

He needed to persuade the conservative establishment.

He needed to persuade Hindenburg that he was to be trusted,

that he was a solid bourgeois statesman.

Hitler got increasingly concerned about Rohm's discontent,

as it were, and about his whole kind of persona as a rough,

soldierly, violent type.

But Hitler needs to placate Rohm and,

in a move that risks upsetting the aristocratic elites,

he brings the revolutionary Rohm into the political fold,

giving him a job in the cabinet.

He's minister without portfolio.

But Rohm isn't satisfied.

He feels he and his millions of Stormtroopers were promised more.

Rohm doesn't want to command auxiliaries.

He wanted an army.

He saw himself as a commander, the commander of the new Nazi army.

These are promises Hitler made before he became Chancellor.

In his view, Hitler...

..betrays his friends.

So, running out of patience,

Rohm makes a wild and bold move.

He goes behind Hitler's back and tries to take control of the army

from the aristocratic generals,

men who report directly to the army supreme commander,

President Hindenburg.

I suspect Hindenburg is pretty horrified at this.

The armed forces are the servants of that state and of its people...

..on a apolitical basis,

and there is no room for political manoeuvring

by the armed forces of any state.

They were just a load of bully boys and were, by no means,

an army which could, for example, attack France and prevail.

I mean, it is unthinkable.

That was the job of the army proper.

So Hitler can't afford to upset the generals and the president.

But, with Rohm, it's more than politics -

it's personal.

Rohm opened gates for Hitler.

Rohm was the one who had influence.

Hitler is a frequent visitor to the Rohm family,

Rohm's mother and his sister, Eleonore,

so they became friends.

And therefore Rohm is someone who supports Hitler

not only politically, but, at the same time, personally.

And when Hitler's niece and rumoured lover killed herself,

it was Rohm he wanted with him at the graveside.

Hitler is stuck between the president and his friend.

When it comes to dealing with Rohm,

Hermann Goring has no such qualms.

For Goring, the problem with Rohm, I think,

is that Rohm has ambitions to be a second, perhaps,

to Hitler. You know, that's what Goring wants to be.

Is it possible, perhaps, that Rohm is thinking of launching some kind

of revolution, even putting Hitler to one side?

Now, for Goring, that would be unthinkable.

He's got to find a way of persuading Hitler that, you know,

this is a point at which he's got to break that friendship with Rohm.

He's got to recognise that Rohm is not just a companion

but he's a threat,

so all that Goring has got to do is to show Hitler evidence

that Rohm is not loyal.

So Goring orders his secret surveillance organisation,

the Research Bureau, to go after Rohm...

..building a file of everything Rohm says or does.

And Hitler publicly forces Rohm to back down from his demands

for the Stormtroopers to take over Germany's army.

He summons Rohm and the army leaders to a meeting,

where he makes it clear that the army,

and not the Stormtroopers,

are Germany's military force.

It's a devastating blow for Rohm.

He's even forced to shake hands

with the defence minister - General Blomberg.

Shaking hands with Blomberg meant nothing to Rohm.

He, er, saw...

..the Nazi Party, the Nazi militia,

now in the driver's seat.

Afterwards, Rohm makes a series of thinly veiled threats.

"Hitler is a ridiculous corporal

"and should go on leave."

Rohm very openly criticised Hitler

for his decision to go with an army,

therefore he was, kind of, a dangerous person

because Rohm didn't let go. He doesn't accept it.

And he was a danger to this whole notion of Hitler as Fuhrer.

Goring now makes a shrewd move in his plot against Rohm.

He enlists the help of his rival -

Heinrich Himmler.

Over the past year,

Himmler has taken over police forces across Germany,

but the biggest and most powerful remains outside his control.

In April, Goring gives Himmler the thing he wants most -

his Gestapo.

In exchange, Goring plans to harness Himmler's terror network

to bring down Rohm.

Himmler is pleased.

He's now inspector of the Gestapo, so he's almost there,

on his way to taking over control of all German police forces.

One character trait about Himmler that is the most important one

is his absolute careerism and his ruthlessness -

his ambition, his drive, to make it to the top.

Here is someone who prioritises rational procedures over emotions -

over human feelings.

As head of the Stormtroopers,

Rohm is Himmler's superior, a man he'd once hero worshipped.

But Himmler now dreams of destroying the Stormtroopers

and making his own SS Germany's only paramilitary force.

Himmler, in public, had to display some loyalty towards Rohm.

Behind the scenes,

Himmler had no qualms about getting rid of Rohm.

Himmler is collecting evidence against Rohm,

putting Rohm into a really bad light,

in terms of Rohm's private life,

in terms of Rohm's political activities.

Himmler makes sure that it reaches Hitler's desk.

Himmler hopes very much that Hitler will finally act

and eliminate Rohm.

Rohm has an Achilles heel

that Goring and Himmler are keen to exploit.

He is openly gay at a time when it's illegal.

He frequented Berlin's famous gay club, The Eldorado,

sipping cocktails with men dressed in drag.

Rohm lived a different life than all others.

He was a homosexual

and he lived this kind of life

more and more openly.

He met with male prostitutes.

In the view of his comrades,

he was not normal.

Since the Nazis came to power,

they have strictly enforced the socially conservative laws -

meaning Rohm could face imprisonment for his sexuality.

Defying his colleagues, Rohm has joined an organisation

campaigning for gay rights.

The Nazis wanted to transform society.

Everything should be clean, Aryan...

Er, no prostitutes.

No smoking, women...

..and Rohm...

..dismissed this.

It shows the stern character of Rohm that he openly

lived his homosexuality.

In a letter, he said, "I know it's a criminal act in Germany,

"but, then, I'm a criminal and they have to take me like this."

Rohm obviously felt very secure

because he was such a close friend to Hitler.

For years, Rohm's sexuality has been an open secret.

Hitler even defended Rohm when the press tried to expose him.

Hitler wasn't particularly bothered by Rohm's homosexuality.

He, as it were, forgave him because of his services

to the movement and his obvious loyalty to Hitler.

Hitler didn't really want to know about people's private lives,

I think.

Hitler had a certain kind of loyalty to old comrades,

which he certainly felt towards Rohm.

But now Hitler sees that Rohm's sexuality

could be a way to bring him down.

Meanwhile, Rohm is making his own moves.

In early 1934,

Rohm stages Stormtrooper manoeuvres across Germany.

Stormtrooper membership is growing fast

and Rohm now commands around four million men.

He publicly calls for revolution.

Unable to bring Rohm to heel,

Hitler's ability to pass himself off as a respectable statesman

is under threat.

The elites that surround President Hindenburg are getting nervous.

The aristocratic Vice Chancellor Franz von Papen

helped Hitler get into power.

Now he's dealing with the consequences.

Papen has been uneasy...

..because of the...

..the general lawlessness

is now becoming the talking point of the civilised world.

These Stormtroopers are intimidating diplomats,

people who are going to report back to their own country.

It is a troubling thing for him to see that this will essentially

end up by damaging Germany's reputation in the outside world.

Then news comes through that the president is on his last legs

and won't live much longer.

Hitler wants President Hindenburg to name him successor before he dies

so he can take complete control of Germany.

If the ruling class wants to stop that from happening,

it's now or never.

And the next move comes from an unlikely player.

Inside the Vice Chancellor's office is Papen's speech writer,

Edgar Jung,

a right wing intellectual, who is secretly plotting Hitler's downfall.

Jung belongs to the educated upper bourgeois

and he grows up steeped in their values.

He sees himself as belonging to the class that should be ruling.

He sees himself as a potential Minister of the Interior,

if not a Chancellor of a future Germany.

So, when the Nazis first come in, Jung is absolutely delighted.

He sees them as a very convenient vehicle for change.

They are very strong leadership.

They are bringing a new authoritarian sense

of direction to Germany.

1933, '34 is a very bad year for Germany.

There is still huge amounts of violence,

with the Stormtroopers on the streets.

There isn't the immediate economic miracle they had hoped for.

The honeymoon period for the Nazis is over.

I think Jung feels a real sense of responsibility and guilt

for enabling someone like this to then entrench themselves

at the leadership, at the very highest levels

of his country's politics.

Deep within Papen's Vice Chancellery,

Jung and others have formed a resistance cell.

He's working with people who have got connections in intelligence.

They are trying to warn people before they get arrested,

they're trying to get people out of the country when possible,

they're trying to get people out of prison when they have been arrested.

Politically, they're manoeuvring inside the Reichstag,

so they're doing really quite important

and very dangerous political work.

Jung had even made a plan to assassinate Hitler...

..but abandoned it in case it damaged his own political ambitions.

Instead, Jung plans to get Hitler removed from power.

He'll write a high profile speech for Papen

that will expose the violent truth about Rohm,

the Stormtroopers and Nazi rule.

The speech should be enough to force Hindenburg to get rid of Hitler...

..but it all hinges on getting Papen to deliver it.

Jung realises that this is a good moment,

both because we have public discontent,

we have the threat of violence turning into something more,

perhaps a political putsch...

..and we have Hindenburg's deteriorating health.

It's the time to act and, conveniently, at this moment,

Papen gets an invitation from the University of Marburg

to give a speech, which is perfect.

Jung is an intellectual and he's a communicator,

and he puts pen to paper, and what he drafts is basically

his alternative manifesto,

or at least his alternative path for Germany.

Jung doesn't trust Papen to deliver the speech,

but he has some insurance policies.

He distributes advanced copies to the press...

..and gets Goebbels' propaganda ministry

to agree to a live radio broadcast

so that Hindenburg can listen from his estate.

And Jung doesn't give Papen the speech

until he is on his way to Marburg.

Papen is travelling towards Marburg in Hesse, in central Germany,

to give a speech to some 600 people.

Papen, as a leading representative, the Vice Chancellor,

is a representative of the government

sent out, essentially, to do...

..call it what you will, marketing or PR for the government.

And he reads the speech,

the words that are being put into his mouth, and he is alarmed.

He says that this speech could cost him his head.

But the speech has already been sent out, and therefore some members

of the press already have the speech. He can't go back on it,

so he reluctantly agrees to deliver the speech.

Jung knows that Papen...

..maybe he won't have the backbone to give the talk word-for-word,

as he's written it, but then also maybe he hasn't got the intellect

or the backbone to replace it with something else.

It's all very last-minute, so he's really on tenterhooks

to see what is delivered.

Jung is listening to the radio, incredibly anxious.

"What's going to happen?"

And Papen begins to deliver the speech.

And he gives is pretty much as given.

Because he gets on a roll, he responds to his audience.

This is revolutionary stuff.

It is a very dramatic speech, as well.

He uses this incredibly strong language,

so he talks about it being time to silence the fanatics

and, er, make room for the work of serious men to do the serious work.

There's thunderous applause in the hall and Papen adores being adored,

and so he gets on a real roll

and he delivers the whole thing word for word.

Jung can hardly believe it.

He's banging his hand repeatedly on the table,

saying, "He bought it! He bought it!"

So he's absolutely delighted.

Some of the Stormtroopers quite pointedly walk out of the room,

but essentially it's a huge success.

Papen seems to be delighted.

There's a wonderful photograph of him walking down the steps

of the hall afterwards and he really looks like

the cat that's got the cream.

He was the object of the adulation of the crowd

and that sort of thing probably goes to his head a little bit.

The Marburg speech sent shock waves across Germany

and the public rally in support of Papen,

who sees an opportunity to become President himself.

To topple Hitler,

all Papen needs to do now is seize the momentum and get to Hindenburg.

But when the Nazis order news of the speech to be banned,

Papen's ego is bruised and he decides to first visit Hitler.

Papen is furious and goes to complain to Hitler,

threatening to resign as Vice Chancellor of the Reich.

That was a big problem for him.

There's a danger that Von Papen would go to see Hindenburg

and get his blessing to become his successor.

So this is not the moment Hitler wants to see a rebellion

within his own cabinet.

Danger was that the army would link up with Von Papen

and the Conservatives because they saw very much eye-to-eye.

The senior generals themselves are political conservatives,

they weren't Nazis at this stage,

and the danger was there'd be some kind of Conservative coup.

Hitler convinces Papen to delay his visit to see Hindenburg,

suggesting they make the trip together instead.

He manages to run rings around Papen because Papen suddenly loses

that ability to see the urgency of the situation -

that he needs to get to East Prussia to talk to Hindenburg.

If he moved at precisely that moment,

he might be able to do something.

But, as it is, he loses that chance and fails to seize the moment

which might have been actually instrumental

in bringing Hitler down.

Hitler has played Papen cleverly.

Going behind his back,

Hitler arranges to meet with the president at his country estate.

Hitler himself hotfoots it up to Neudeck, in East Prussia,

to go and see Hindenburg and find out what sort of state

his health's in and whether he's likely to fall off the perch quickly,

or whether they need to do something about it fast.

Hindenburg and his generals issue an ultimatum to Hitler to bring

the revolutionary troublemakers under control or face martial law

and the transfer of power to the army.

Hindenburg is pointing to the Stormtroopers and saying,

"Enough is enough."

Hitler, now seeing that he is slightly pinched on both sides,

both by the rebellious nature of Papen...

..and the fact that the President, who can dismiss him,

is looking angrily at him about the Stormtroopers,

Hitler then decides to act.

And now Jung has created the crisis and the man that capitalises

on the crisis is not Papen,

it's not Jung, it's Hitler.

And suddenly he realises that there is more to this man,

that there is a real potential problem here.

Papen has missed a historic opportunity to stop Hitler.

Realising his life may now be in danger, Jung starts planning

to flee the country.

Jung should have realised immediately

that his plan is unravelling

and that potentially he himself is personally in danger.

British intelligence has uncovered that he is likely to be arrested

and he is warned by a British journalist and a member

of the Reichstag that his arrest is likely to be imminent.

Eventually, he concedes that perhaps it is safer for him probably to get

to Switzerland at this point.

Hitler needs to now decide how to deal with the two impending

threats to his power,

Rohm and the Stormtroopers, and the aristocratic right

that could still yet persuade Hindenburg to get rid of him.

Ready for this moment,

Himmler and the SS have been busy inventing evidence...

..planting the seed of an idea that Rohm and the elites have in fact

joined forces to launch a coup against Hitler.

Himmler is working tirelessly in June 1934...

..cos Himmler knows that this is a now or never moment for himself,

for the SS, to win the upper hand against the Stormtroopers

and to retaliate against members of the conservative elite

who have expressed criticism of the Nazis -

people like Jung, people like Papen.

Himmler created this dossier about Rohm's alleged putsch plans

against Hitler. Rohm is planning a putsch aided by the former

German Chancellor, Von Schleicher, one of the archenemies of Hitler.

Himmler really manages to construct this image of a conspiracy,

of a coalition between the conservative right

and the Stormtroopers.

There was no such coalition.

All of these charges were completely trumped up.

All of these charges are completely trumped up.

Meanwhile, Himmler's Gestapo agents burst into Jung's apartment

just as his bags are packed for Switzerland.

When they arrest him, they do a thorough search of his apartment

and they discover papers negotiating the fee

he would get for writing that speech from Papen,

so that is their evidence.

It's now clear that he is the author of the Marburg speech.

He goes to the bathroom and he actually scribbles "Gestapo"

on the bathroom cabinet - to warn his friends what has happened.

With Jung in custody, Papen finally understands what's at stake

and just who he's dealing with.

Papen hears that Edgar Jung has been arrested and flies to Berlin

and demands an audience with Hitler.

Hitler refuses to see him.

At this point, Papen sees the urgency

of visiting Hindenburg and arranges to meet him

in Neudeck, in East Prussia.

This is a critical moment.

Hindenburg's health has taken a turn for the worse.

If Papen is to stop Hitler, he must get to Hindenburg immediately.

But news of Papen's meeting reaches Himmler, who is readying the SS

to strike against the aristocracy and the Stormtroopers.

Himmler summons SS leaders and he tells them that the Stormtroopers

are planning a putsch. Robust action must be taken swiftly, ruthlessly

and decisively, so Himmler and the SS are beginning to prepare lists

of Stormtroopers who are to be arrested, who are to be executed.

But even as the time to act draws near,

Hitler seems to remain loyal to Rohm.

And Rohm promises to lie low.

He takes leave at the Bavarian lakeside resort of Tegernsee.

Rohm leaves Berlin for Bavaria, Tegernsee,

where he stays in a nice hotel,

and Rohm feels...

..not very well.

He had has problems with his health and he is...

..very thoughtful during this time.

He is very, kind of, remote and this is definitely not a time for him

to party or to celebrate. He seems to think about his future.

Opposition inside and outside the Nazi Party

must now be annihilated...

..but Goring and Himmler still need word from Hitler

before they can move against their enemies.

On the 28th of June,

Hitler and Goring go to the wedding of a local Gauleiter.

It's a normal ceremony for Hitler to attend.

The conspirators have devised a plan

to psychologically prepare Hitler to take action.

In the middle of the wedding,

there's a moment of drama.

Himmler arrives and this is the point at which

they're going to tell Hitler about the dangers that he's facing.

Himmler comes in with the news that Papen...

..is about to see President von Hindenburg

on his estate in East Prussia.

This raises the alarm for Hitler.

Hitler is extremely concerned that, if he doesn't act swiftly

against the Stormtroopers, now that he knows that Papen

will be seen by Hindenburg, then Hindenburg might stop

supporting the Nazi regime, that Hitler might lose some of his power,

that the army might be given some more power.

To give him a final push, Hitler is shown documents that allege Rohm

and the Stormtroopers are plotting against him.

I think, for Hitler, it's a difficult moment, psychologically,

to confront the fact that Rohm could be...

..guilty of plotting against Hitler, plotting against the regime.

Having two people there prodding him, providing him with

what was in fact rather spurious evidence

about the possibility of a coup,

is, for Hitler, really necessary, you know?

He needs to have his indecision ended.

He needs somebody to prod him...

..but then it needs to be his decision.

So, he's prodded and prodded and prodded

and suddenly says, "Yes, that's it."

You know, "I've had enough."

And what follows is, you know, can be described only,

really, as mafia politics.

Hitler travels through the night to personally arrest Rohm at his hotel.

Rohm doesn't expect Hitler coming,

practically with all members of the inner circle,

to arrest him.

As far as we know, Rohm was really stunned.

He was very quiet during this time of arrest.

Rohm just sat there and it seems

as if Rohm still feels very confident...

..that there is no danger for him, personally.

Meanwhile, Goring and Himmler are poised for action in Berlin.

Goring and Himmler have returned to Berlin from Essen, from the wedding.

They lock themselves away in the Leipzig Palace,

they surround it with armed guards, just in case there really is

an attack from the Stormtroopers.

Himmler, in this situation, is very cool.

He's very calculated.

He is patient.

He knows that he needs to wait for the order

of the Fuhrer to come through.

At 10.00am, Goring and Himmler receive the code word.

Then, throughout Germany, sealed orders are opened by SS men -

revealing lists of their victims.

Goring is the kind of impresario of the drama and Himmler, once again,

is the obedient secretary,

carrying everything out that needs to be carried out.

Himmler is coordinating the arrests and executions in Berlin

together with Goring. They go through lists, they go through lists

of who's to be arrested, of who is to be shot.

The killing begins.

Former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher is murdered at home,

alongside his wife.

Rebel Nazis, who once threatened to split the party,

are also taken care of.

The men in Papen's office are also on the list.

Papen is arrested and placed under house arrest.

He can't do anything to act, to save the members

of his own department, and various people in his entourage

are, essentially, murdered. He is lucky, in many respects,

to survive with his life.

All we know with Jung is that he is executed.

The place of death is left unrecorded,

which is a mark of disrespect, as well,

and sometime later his family receive his ashes

and his empty wallet.

That is the end of Jung.

It sounds very bizarre to us, but Himmler is guided

by a different moral compass.

Himmler believes that it is necessary for the survival

of the Nazi regime to act so ruthlessly against the people

on the list of those to be arrested, of those to be executed.

For Himmler, it is an office job routine.

For at least 100 people who were murdered

in the aftermath of the Night of the Long Knives...

..this was the end of their lives.

By the evening of June the 30th,

dozens have been executed.

Any possible conservative or Stormtrooper rebellion

has been crushed.

Still alive, though, is Hitler's friend -

Ernst Rohm.

almost as if nothing had happened.

It curiously resembled, I think, the way that some murderers,

when they've murdered somebody, they wash their hands,

they change their clothes, they want to put all that behind them

and then they can walk out into the streets -

as if nothing had happened.

This is a really incongruous scene.

Imagine that some of the bloodiest murders in the history

of the Third Reich have taken place on the previous day.

Now, Hitler has invited members of the Reich cabinet

and their wives to a party.

Himmler and Goring learned that Rohm has not been executed.

He's an old companion, old fighter,

and he just can't bring himself to order Rohm to be murdered.

So it's one of those occasions where Hitler hesitates and he needs

other people to prod him again into making that decision.

And for Goring and Himmler, it's really important.

You know, the whole thing was to get rid of Rohm!

So they've got to get Hitler to make the decision

that Rohm must be executed, too.

As with other major decisions,

Hitler has waited for the crucial moment to play his hand.

Hitler was always prepared to use violent action in the end.

He didn't have any hesitation about having people shot, killed,

murdered, robbed, beaten up or tortured -

it didn't really matter to him.

In that sense, the so-called Rohm putsch,

the murder of scores of people

he regarded as traitors to the cause,

that wasn't particularly something that he felt was bad.

He felt, by this stage, he was above the law.

In a sense, he'd always felt he was above the law.

Hitler's decision is to offer Rohm

the honourable way out.

At Stadelheim Prison,

Rohm is forced to make a terrible choice.

For Rohm, it must have been astonishing, then,

to see Theodor Eicke, who is the

commander of the Dachau concentration camp.

A pistol is put into Rohm's cell,

together with a copy of the Volkischer Beobachter Nazi newspaper,

with stories about the Rohm purge,

about Rohm's alleged conspiracy.

I wouldn't see Rohm as a victim.

He himself, and he says this very openly,

he himself would kill people, would kill his enemies.

Killing was no problem for Rohm.

Rohm does not want to shoot himself.

So, after ten minutes,

the commander of the Dachau camp, Theodor Eicke,

storms into Rohm's cell and shoots him at close range.

This is the end of the Night of the Long Knives.

This is the end of Rohm.

This is the end of the leader of the Stormtroopers,

who was, until then, Hitler's closest ally,

Hitler's closest supporter.

Hitler was always relieved after he'd made up his mind

on a difficult issue and taken action -

that gave him a sense of relief and fulfilment.

He knew, he felt in his bones, that he had solved

a really difficult problem.

This is it.

This is the end of this period of seizing power

and establishing power.

Now we can move forward as one united government, state,

people under my command.

Goring finally achieves his ambition.

As a reward for his brutality,

Hitler promotes him and names him as his successor.

He will go on to oversee many of the Nazis' worst atrocities.

Later on, at Nuremberg, when Goring is on trial for war crimes,

he's asked about Rohm, "What did you think? Why did you do it?"

He said, "Well, he was in my way."

For Goring, you know, it wasn't a question

I think he would have understood.

You know, "Did you have a guilty conscience afterwards?"

"No, of course not."

After the Night of the Long Knives,

Hitler makes the SS a fully autonomous organisation.

Under Himmler's watch,

it becomes one of the most feared institutions in Germany,

presiding over the systematic murder of minorities,

homosexuals and Jews.

One of the keys to understanding Himmler's personality

and Himmler's career is by reflecting about the word "decency".

Himmler thought that he had always been acting decently,

that, in organising the Night of Long Knives

had been decent, that killing Jews during the Second World War

had been decent. This is abhorrent.

Himmler thought that he had done the right thing

for the survival of the Germanic race.

By crushing the Stormtroopers,

Hitler wins the support of most of the German public,

the army, the elites,

and President Hindenburg.

Hindenburg was always frightened of instability.

So, when action is taken in this way, erm...

..I suppose, I don't know, a fit of relief or something

and pens a letter to Hitler, saying, basically, "Well done."

Having won Hindenburg's approval,

Hitler presents a new piece of legislation

combining the offices of President and Chancellor

to take effect on Hindenburg's death.

A day later, Hindenburg is on his deathbed.

When Hitler goes to pay his respects,

he finds Hindenburg drifting in and out of consciousness,

addressing him as "Your Majesty".

I'm dubious about his ability to make rational judgment

as he approached his death.

Might explain some of the very difficult questions

regarding his shift

vis-a-vis Hitler and the Nazi Party.

In his last rational moments,

what did he think of when he thought about Germany's future?

Difficult to answer that one.

He would want to vindicate his own decisions,

but he may be disturbed by...

..what has happened since Hitler took office.

So he might have died a...

..rather troubled man.

And so Hitler now had nothing left to restrain him.