Original subtitles

[Music]

Joseph Geral Hitler's Infamous minister

of propaganda the original master of

spin who Brainwashed the German people

into joining the Nazi cause his lies

paved the way for the Holocaust and

ushered in the most devastating war in

modern

history his commitment was

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[Applause]

total to murder or six children it

requires devotion that becomes evil in

itself most people from my generation

don't understand how over 70 years ago a

small group of Nazis could start a war

that killed 60 million people I want to

find out and to help me I'm going to use

playing cards today they used by both

the military and law enforcement to help

identify their targets but nobody has

ever put together a pack of cards for

the most notorious group of killers in

history working with experts I want to

know where each of these Nazis rank in

the hierarchy of evil my name is James

Ellis this is Hitler's Most

Wanted I think thing about the Geral is

to me that's so ironic that he's this

key figure in the regime but he's this

short guy he's he's something like 5T

tall he has a pronounced limp from club

foot disability

he does not come across in any way as

this ideal Nazi that's particularly true

in a society and in a political movement

that euthanizes people with disabilities

and he's extremely quick-witted and he

also has a certain amount of charm and

and Geral you know could play that very

very successfully he he not only

demonstrated uh some narcissistic

personality but also he appeared to

suffer from depression he had

significant insecurity quite dramatic at

times yet he holds this incredibly

important and Powerful position

in the Nazi regime so how did Joseph GBL

seduce the German people into

Nazism I've come to Berlin the center of

gal's propaganda

machine so this is Babel plats yes and

that's uh humble University yes I'm in

Babel plats to find out more about a

moment that defined

GBL here we have it I've met up with

political activist yur

Brown this Monument I can see there's

what empty bookshelves in

there on the night of May 10th 1933 Less

Than 3 months after Hitler took power

Nazi supporters torched a mountain of

books by Jewish authors right here in

this

[Applause]

Square for

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so they burnt 25,000 volumes of books

right here yes and I understand there

was something like 40,000 people

gathered in this

[Applause]

Square the book burnings these were

conceed of as a cleansing and a

purification by fire so it really was a

ritual in the service of Nazi

ideology gbls and the Nazis used

spectacle and pageantry and iconography

to absolutely dazzling effect the

massive swap sticker banners the fires

the nighttime marching it is visually so

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impressive with his incendiary speech

Joseph Gobles put a government seal of

approval on This Racist

act he ordered the film of the event to

be played in cinemas across the

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country his goal was to turn the nation

against the

Jews propaganda is simply selling a

political message and trying to sell it

really hard so that people are going to

buy it now you know the harder the thing

you're trying to sell the better the

propaganda has got to be buy us the Nazi

party and we will make the econom better

buy us the Nazi party and we will get

rid of the

Jews but who was Hitler's minister of

propaganda in 1924 Joseph Gobles was a

27-year-old PhD and failed author

working at dead end jobs just to get

by Germany's economy was a mess like

many Gobles was looking for inspiration

and someone to blame for his

problems GBL was stuck he was depressed

he didn't see any prospects and he

became entranced with the person of

Adolf Hitler he began reading

anti-semitic tracks he began buying into

to anti-semitic conspiracy theories he

began thinking of himself as somebody

who was loyal to the idea of the folk or

the race and he saw Adolf Hitler almost

as a religious savior he wrote we need a

firm hand in Germany throw out the Jews

who refus to become real Germans give

them a good beating too

Germany is yearning for an individual a

man as the Earth yearns for rain in the

summer GBL realizes that Hitler is the

one he's going to be the one who's going

to solve Germany's problems he's frankly

captivated by Hitler and as a result he

joins the Nazi party you know he's he's

there pretty near the

beginning Gobles was an intellectual and

proved to be a skilled speech writer and

Powerful public

speaker Hitler quickly recognized him as

a valuable Ally in 1926 he sent Gobles

to Berlin to spearhead the Nazi cause

there Geral you know is good at stage

managing his own appearances Hitler does

the same thing you know like all good

public speakers they have an instinctive

feel for Their audience but they also um

have that kind of narcissism that drives

that type of figure

on he starts to Pedal propaganda you

know he gets those leaflets printed he

starts coun ing an information War now

who's Gobles targeting with his

information War well it's the same old

enemies it's the Communists and the

[Applause]

Jews it was the beginning of an

unprecedented campaign of hate that

would soon engulf Germany and the

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world it's history that yur brown storf

who owns Berlin's tski bookstore fears

we may soon be doomed to

repeat internet propaganda fueled by

far-right groups is sharply on the rise

in

Germany these groups exploit the recent

influx of migrants and Asylum seekers in

order to spread fear and

misinformation so this is a meeting with

people from the local community and

they're here to discuss a forthcoming

counter protest against what they're

describing as a Neo-Nazi demonstration

the upcoming far right March and others

like it has yur and his group fearing

that Germany is on a dangerous path

towards fascism once

again they've invited me to observe

their counter March in a few days time

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in the late 1920s Joseph Geral organized

similar marches as part of his campaign

to propel Hitler and the Nazi party into

power at the end of the decade his

efforts get a huge Boost from a global

crisis the stock market crash of 1929

and the resulting worldwide depression

created adverse conditions for Germany

and Geral exploited those conditions to

his own benefit and to the benefit of

the Nazi party you have a series of

elections in which Geral is able to

engage in electioneering and to see the

Nazis increase their share of the

vote in 1933 Hitler became chancellor of

Germany as his minister of propaganda

Joseph Geral moved to control newspapers

radio broadcasts and Film

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[Applause]

Production Geral now commanded a

national stage and cultivating

anti-Semitism became official government

policy in the spring of that year Geral

took to the podium in front of a massive

Berlin

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crowd Gales was committed to removing

Jews from the social cultural political

and economic life of Germany and he was

committed to spreading propaganda in

order to make this

happen the speech spot to Surge in

vandalism to intimidate Jewish business

owners and discourage

customers for Geral and the Nazis

graffiti was a cheap and easy method of

propaganda to spread

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hate and it's making a comeback we're

going to the playground where the first

swasti car in our neighborhood was

painted in a children's playground

yes on my journey to find out where

Joseph ranks in Hitler's hierarchy of

evil I've met up with artist IBO Amari

but graffiti as you can see in Berlin is

all around us yes Nazi graffiti is on

the rise in Germany just as it was in

the early years of gal's rise to power

so where are you taking me now we're

going to the playground where the first

swasti car in our neighborhood was

painted and as you can see is's a quite

busy playground a lot of kids a lot of

families same here you can see graffiti

everywhere yeah everywhere ebo is on a

mission to find Berlin's Nazi graffiti

and paint over it the project started

right here in this predominantly

immigrant

neighborhood it was there actually you

can see the black border parts of the

black

outline

here here here so it was quite big as

you can see like

yeah so when did this happen when was

the swastika placed here this was 2

years ago two years ago yes and had you

seen anything like that before in this

area no no like uh the last was I

personally uh it's over 25 years 25

years yes I just can't believe the size

of it you said it's like a meter and a

half by a meter and it's in a children's

playground yes like children and like

there's kids playing here right now and

there are apartment over risk to get

caught and he took a lot of uh risk to

spread his hateful message and uh to ebo

the swastika sudden reappearance here

was no

coincidence the top two leading books

that week when this swastika was painted

were uh from a guy called Zarin he tries

to connect uh genetics with your

intelligence yeah and a racist uh and

the second place was the corrected

version of mine K the book from adol

Hitler and that's across Germany or

across Germany yes so the most popular

book was essentially a racist book and

the second most popular from is mine yes

it was the start of a disturbing Trend

since then ebo has painted over scores

of swas stickers and other Nazi symbols

if you see them and just think there's

just one idiot but out of one idiot is

two and four and eight and all of a

sudden they have a party and get

voted it's an eerie reminder of what

happened here in the 1930s gal's barrage

of propaganda over multiple platforms

spread the word of fascism across the

country country Nazi ideology became

inescapable but there was one medium

that obsessed him more than any

other propaganda meant the use of images

and mass media to spread ideas and Geral

was a master of that and also the na

medium of

[Applause]

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film Geral made hundreds of propaganda

films sometimes personally overseeing

their

production I want to find out more about

the methods he used so I've come to a

Berlin Cinema to screen one with someone

who knows the tricks of the

trade Alexa hi I'm James Alexa Kolinski

is a documentary

filmmaker I understand you have an

interesting perspective on Nazi

propaganda films um I grew up Jewish in

Germany all my grandparents were

Holocaust Survivors so in order to

understand U my own identity and and

where I was growing up I I was always

very interested in

basically uh how this was how this could

have happened and how the Nazis were um

able to win over the hearts and minds of

the German people so what makes

propaganda different to say art and

documentary art is there to you know as

an expression of an of of the artist or

as a comment on society and I and I

think that propaganda is there to

basically make you feel like you are

part of something larger and that you

get to partake in like a collective

narcissism for example in the case of

Nazis or new flareups when it comes to

National white supremacy I think this

is we're watching a never relased

propaganda film shot in warsaw's Jewish

ghetto the film features callous Jewish

policemen mistreating fellow

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Jews its intent was to betray them as a

subhuman infestation of

Poland so we're seeing here obviously um

violence being meted out against people

but the people who are committing the

violence they not Nazis cuz they got the

Star of David on their

arms this kid

here it's the same boy getting up twice

in different shots it's yeah the same

kid I mean I wonder if this whole thing

was

staged everybody's wearing these gray

and dark coats and he has this like

crisp cream colored or white trench coat

you can just he really Pops in the

crowd you know that's smart styling and

art

Direction this is just the kind of

visual trickery Joseph Gobles became a

master

of despite the Twisted nature of how he

employed these methods some consider him

to be ahead of his

time the whole idea that any violence

that you see in this is being

perpetrated not by Nazis but by Jews so

it's Jewish violence against Jewish

people and building that whole

conspiracy that they do it to themselves

and you wonder how staged those actions

actually are like that as an example

whether they're just grabbing someone

random or yeah they probably are

grabbing someone random I don't

know although that woman's reaction

makes you w that no that was real that

was for sure that was

real I mean it's real in the sense that

there are real people on the street and

they're like run just run yeah go run

today even a modestly trained eye could

spot gal's filming

tricks that back in 1942 this just

wasn't the case you have to imagine a

public that is not used to mass media

and perhaps not as sophisticated in

separating uh truth from from fiction in

recognizing manipulation of images as we

like to think we

are fiction and reality are cleverly

blurred in effect he's producing a 1940s

version of what we now call fake news

this is racism at its ugliest and most

hateful to audiences back then it served

to reinforce the stereotypes about Jews

that Geral had been pedling for

years so what are some of the

stereotypes that we are seeing on screen

here Jews

bargaining doing business the color is

like flipped up two men talking with

each other maybe they're up to no good

also in the propaganda footage and all

this footage you usually see Jews as

kind of like sheepish like just

following and walking and sad and hungry

you rarely see them defending themselves

yeah so they're depicting them as poor

despicable dirty

people the consequence of being part of

the Jewish World conspiracy is that is

how you will end

up propaganda is absolutely vital for

them in order to be able to sell what

they want to do in order to promote all

the objectionable policies that they're

going to carry out without the

propaganda you know the Nazi grip on

power would have surely been a lot

weaker dissecting gal's cinematic

technique was a deeply disturbing

experience but now I'm about to see

firsthand what happens when people

believe far-right propaganda and act on

it it's the day of jur brown dorf's

counter-protest against a planned

far-right March through Berlin it comes

on the anniversary of a huge turning

point in Germany's history October the

third reunification

day what should be a celebration of

German Unity has instead become a

standoff between two deeply opposed

ideals cord off area there are hundreds

of people here I'm being told there

might be up to a thousand farri Marchers

going through the city and at some point

and they will be confronted by these

people

[Applause]

here we're expecting a far right March

from here at any moment there are

hundreds of counter protesters here

behind this barricade and hundreds more

on the other side in this area there are

dozens of cops some of them in riot gear

here it is so tense right now you can

tell that they don't know what to expect

and they're clearly prepared for things

to get

violent see my goodness that looks like

an armored

vehicle they're definitely preparing for

the worst that's for

sure they're making their presence very

clear to the marches that are on their

way it's very tense the can of

protesters are behind the barricades the

cops are here right gear there's cops

all around this area Anything Could

Happen right

now here they

come I'm in Berlin on a mission to find

out where Nazi propaganda Minister

Joseph Geral ranks in Hitler's hierarchy

of

evil right now a farri right March

fueled by the same kind of hate

propaganda Geral produced during the

Nazi era is heading straight for me

so the people from some of these

buildings have been throwing stuff down

on the Marchers and some sort of a

scuffle has broken

[Applause]

out one marcher is Led away with a head

injury

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[Applause]

[Applause]

it's so strange to be in the middle of

this to think this is Berlin 2018

thankfully there were no serious

confrontations the farri marches pass

and I looked for counter-protest

organizer jur Brown to get his

thoughts so why is it so important that

you protest marches like that

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the people who protested against the

March have their way of fighting fascism

but others choose to do it

differently not far away graffiti artist

IBO Amari is teaching today's Young

biners some visual trickery of his own

so this Workshop is teaching these kids

how to transform swas stickers into

artwork so we've got one here that's

being transformed into looks like a king

or a queen um here a stereo

player a Windows and a

house so what they're really doing is

they're getting young people to

understand what these symbols

mean and take them and transform them

into something completely different a

really really important social

project why is it so important to get

kids doing it they are the future

actually so if they are not teached to

not tolerate stuff like this who else

the old heads they it's more difficult

to teach old old people so and they have

fun are inspired and it's the best

combination young people getting

creative and doing something good

Against Racism

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yes eo's classes wrap up with a little

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fieldwork by each stroke he's reducing

pain actually so the more he Paints the

less uh hateful the message gets and

when he's done that you can see what it

was before

yeah you've seen the kids yeah what

they've done yeah so you as an adult

should be much easier for

you I don't know about that yes that yes

little little closer I don't have a clue

what I'm doing but I'm going to try it

out

[Music]

anyway

yeah so was it difficult no it was easy

see like next time when you see a swasa

nobody removes it just go there grab two

cans and make a catet as you

did Miss

puan she she just said she can draw

better than you oh I'm sure she

can that's because you've gone to his

Workshop yeah that's kind exciting yeah

I just love how you do this like you

transform something that's so horrible

but you're sending a message because say

someone had uh whoever put that swat

sticker there originally comes by then

they suddenly like oh my God like what

happened to my SW it's now a cat like

it's a real like you're sticking it to

those

people it is an answer definitely and we

did we did not like leave a hateful

message like that unanswered no so it's

an answer with love creativity and uh a

lot of fun huh M yeah

yeah this has been such an amazing

experience being a part today of this

program whereby they are transforming

these horrible racist images of swas

stickers and they are changing them into

these beautiful pieces of artwork

instead I think it's so empowering and

it sends such an important message to

the creators of the swas stickers here

that these people are not going to let

it stand and that they are going to

transform it into something completely

different I think it's so important and

it is it's been such a powerful

experience for me to be part of this if

anyone had attempted this 80 years ago

however they would have been arrested

possibly even killed in Germany under

Nazi rule resistance was close to

futile by 1941 the country was fully

under gal's propaganda spell but he was

about to use that control to help launch

an attack that was nothing short of

Madness his method of rallying support

for that campaign relied on one of the

oldest tricks in the book he buil fear

we can never win that war without

crushing s

Union my mission to find out where

Joseph Geral ranks in Hitler's hierarchy

of evil brings me to a war memorial in

Berlin's trepa Park built to honor

Soviet soldiers who died in the Battle

of

Berlin the Hollywood perception of the

second World War I feel is this focus on

the American aspect that America's role

in defeating Nazi Germany accompanied by

its Western allies Britain and Canada

but people forget the brunt of the

fighting was carried out by the Soviet

Union and they lost millions of their

citizens in the process and they were

the ones that finally conquered the Nazi

Capital

Berlin now that is one hell of a statue

it's huge made to be seen historian

Sebastian garhart is an expert on

Germany's war against the

Soviets I can't get over the scale of

this

place so what exactly is it

it is a Soviet War Memorial prepared

shortly already after second world war

but it came at a high

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price on June 22nd 1941 Geral took to

the airwaves to announce that Hitler had

just launched an invasion of the vast

Soviet Union the hated communist enemy

that Geral had been campaigning against

since his first days in the Nazi

party but the country was massive in

both size and population and this made

him

uneasy the Nazi invasion of the Soviet

Union in June 1941 represents a real

challenge to Geral because he doesn't

really agree with it he has his doubts

to drive all those tanks and airplanes

you know Eastward into Russia but Gobles

is nothing if not loyal to Hitler and

adaptable and you know he will use every

propaganda tool in his basket to try and

get the cell through to the German

people he made a strong case out of

producing fear of Soviet style communism

fear of such a big Power in the east of

Europe we can never win that war without

crushing Soviet Union and we have to win

that war because otherwise Soviet Union

would win and that would result in a

complete disaster for Germany complete

destruction of German

people Hitler launched a war of complete

Annihilation on the Soviets in the

opening days of the campaign the Nazis

drove deep into Soviet

territory writing in his diary Geral was

ecstatic the Divine Judgment of history

is being passed onto the Soviet

Union I believe the war against Moscow

will prove to be our greatest coup

psychologically and perhaps even

militarily as well

But ultimately Russia's sheer size and

seemingly endless supply of troops were

just too much for the Nazis the Red Army

stopped Hitler's advance in the bitterly

cold winter of 1942 at the city of

Stalingrad German losses were

staggering what really fights gbl's

propaganda and there's nothing he could

do about it is the death of someone in

your family if you've lost a son if

you've lost a husband if you've lost a

father on the Russian front no words

from Geral no propaganda message is

going to counter that sense of loss

Geral realized the war was going badly

and tried to Rally the

[Applause]

nation he called for total war against

what he called an inferior

people Lord

[Applause]

and the irony is that the Soviets did

come and they did defeat the Nazis and

they did conquer half of

Germany yes they did but even after they

liberated all parts of the Soviet Union

from Nazi occupation at the end of 1944

afterwards by going to other countries

in Eastern Europe and going to berin

outside the Soviet Union have been

killed more than 1 million Soviet

soldiers I mean do we have an idea of

how many Soviet citizens soldiers and

civilians died defeating Nazi Germany

about 27 million Soviet citizens killed

during Second World War 27 million

million out of a population of about 190

million people that makes that every

family had

casualties that those numbers that's

just absolutely unbelievable it is

understandable why the Soviet Union did

not break down even with these heavy

casualties there really was no choice

than to win the war against Hitler it

was either win or face Annihilation yes

either

or like all Soviet War memorials in

Berlin it is a cemetery 2o for about

7,000 Soviet soldiers buried here wow so

many

losses yeah I think it's interesting to

understand that we're in the middle of

Berlin we're not in Russia we're in the

middle of Berlin and we're standing in a

Soviet War Memorial and graveyard in

Berlin yes that's because the Soviets

conquered Berlin at the end of the war

in Europe there was no other chance to

take an end make an end to Nazi Germany

and so they had

to in April 1945 the Red Army arrived at

the gates of Berlin with payback on its

mind well the Revenge aspect yes the

very end in Berlin there was Heavy

fighting up to May the 2

19945 and in the uh Battle of Berlin how

many Soviet soldiers are estimated to

have been killed about 880,000 that is

the official Soviet account 80,000,000

how short a period are we talking here

we are speaking about Less Than 3 weeks

in 3 weeks 80,000 Soviet soldiers dead

yeah

wow while the Battle for Berlin raged in

the streets Joseph Gobles along with his

wife Magda and their six children took

Refuge with Hitler and other

high-ranking Nazis in an underground

bunker in the city's Central District

it was there that Geral spent his final

days and where his story came to a

horrifying

conclusion to

water in my mission to find where Joseph

Geral ranks in Hitler's hierarchy of

evil I'm looking for the Berlin sight of

the underground funker where he died

it's not easy to

find I'm here to meet Berlin journalist

lot Haner who's going to tell me about

gal's Final hours as the Red Army closed

in on this spot hi hello James hello

James good very nice to meet you okay so

I had quite a trouble finding this place

because there's there's nothing left

here of the bunker so no nothing nothing

nothing is it OB yet Red

Army how long has that plaque been there

so how did it all end here

for on April 30th 1945 Hitler committed

suicide to avoid the humiliation of

being captured only a day earlier the

furer had named Joseph Geral to be his

successor as chancellor of Germany

Joseph Gobles and his wife were dead

German soldiers tried to burn the

couple's bodies in the courtyard to keep

the Soviets from using them as

trophies but the sight of Geral charred

remains when nothing compared to what

was discovered deep inside the bunker

itself Joseph and Magna Gobles make the

most appalling and evil decision that

any parent can make and that is to

murder their

children they couldn't imagine any

purpose in living or in having their

children live in a world without Adolf

Hitler and without national

socialism for 21 years Geral was devoted

to Hitler and the Nazi party it it was

his life it was his everything uh in

many ways it was love the worst kind of

love an obsessional lust for for for

Pure

Evil it could be the ultimate uh final

sacrifice of a of a true

Zealot learning about Joseph gal's

Devotion to Hitler has been both a

fascinating and disturbing

experience now it's time for me to

determine where this master of Nazi

propaganda fits into Hitler's hierarchy

of evil you know to murder your six

children requires devotion that becomes

evil in

itself my journey across Berlin has

given me new insight into the role

Joseph Gobles played in the Nazi

regime now it's time for us to decide

what he should be placed in the

hierarchy of

evil using our unique system of playing

cards I want to determine where goal's

ranks in Hitler's Most

Wanted of all the places I visited

connected to goal's Story the one that

really struck me the most was the site

of the famous May 1933 book burning and

Gobles was there acting as the sort of

Master of

Ceremonies Jud intellectualism is soon

to end the thing about Geral is that he

really believed in anti-Semitism some of

these really senior Nazis you know were

there they were anti for practical

reasons in order to get ahead Geral he

really believed in it I think some

people will think that because he was so

anti-semitic that that suggests uh an

elevation of evil Anthony what influence

do you think his message of of hatred

and violence had uh on the German masses

when you think about Nazism the frenzy

of Nazi rallies the emotional whipping

up of support and passion that's all

down to Geral and without that you don't

have this Mass buying and this Mass

participation I think Geral is sometimes

oversold as a master propagandist and

I'll tell you why this is a dictatorship

how hard can it be to get your message

across when you own the radio and indeed

the newspapers it's not that difficult

I've seen how Geral used his propaganda

tools to manipulate the German people

rousing the nation into war but Gobles

continued to blanket them with Nazi lies

long after you knew that wall was lost

and millions would continue to suffer

and die you get a sense certainly with

other Nazi figures are very much aware

that what they're doing is bad there's

always that doubt there but with Gales

there never appears to be any doubt it

makes him very chilling yeah pure

devotion he's doing it that's wrong he's

doing it anyway Geral really was devoted

to the cast to prove his loyalty to

Hitler and the Nazi regime gobl not only

kills himself but kills all of his

children what does that say about him I

think that does prove uh exceptional

evil from the perspective of of of a

father you to murder your six children

requires uh devotion that becomes evil

in itself I would see it as a genuine

sense that there was no point having his

children alive in a world without Nazism

without Hitler as a savior it's hard to

imagine a more severe version of f

ISM it's this level of commitment to the

Nazi cause that makes him one of the

most dangerous of all Hitler's followers

a True Believer to the very end so what

I'd like to do now is discuss where the

three of you think that Gobles would

rank in the Nazi hierarchy of evil so

Anthony what are your thoughts first the

Nazi crimes weren't random they were

systematic and as minister of propaganda

as the choreographer of Nazi pageantry

and as a fanatical anti-semite Geral was

Central to that system because of that

he's number three guy yeah I might take

exception to you a little bit you know

the point is the Nazis controlled the

media how hard is it to get your message

across when you do so that makes me want

to go lower than you but reluctantly I'm

going to go for a three as

well he certainly was the master

ceremonies he was Central this couldn't

have happened without him but I'm

curious about whether he would have been

able to hold the knife himself I'm going

to rate him a little lower four or five

I'm going to disagree with you Matt

because I think he did get his hands

bloody he did murder his own children

for the cause and his children's became

victims of narcisism also his role as

the minister of propaganda I understand

where you're coming from completely guy

but I just feel that that message being

sent out and and how verant violent it

was I think that played such an

important role in the crimes of the Nazi

regime so I'm going to have to say he

ranks number three and that

is the Ace of

diams minister of propaganda Joseph

Geral orchestrated the brainwashing of

Germany to pave the way for the

Holocaust and the second world war for

that and the murder of his six children

he ranks third in Hitler's hierarchy of

evil

[Music]