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(narrator) Down this road
on a summer day in 1944,

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the soldiers came.

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Nobody lives here now.

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They stayed only a few hours.

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When they had gone,

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a community, which had lived
for a thousand years, was dead.

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This is Oradour-sur-Glane in France.

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The day the soldiers came
the people were gathered together.

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The men were taken
to garages and barns,

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the women and children
were led down this road,

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and they were driven into this church.

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Here, they heard the firing
as their men were shot.

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Then they were killed, too.

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A few weeks later
many of those who had done the killing

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were themselves dead in battle.

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They never rebuilt Oradour.
lts ruins are a memorial.

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lts martyrdom stands for thousand
upon thousand of other martyrdoms

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in Poland, in Russia,

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in Burma, in China,

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in a world at war.

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(♪ military march)

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Germany, 1933.

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A huge, blind excitement
fills the streets.

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The National Socialists
have come to power

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in a land tortured by unemployment,

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embittered by loss of territory,
demoralised by political weakness.

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Perhaps this will be the new beginning.

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Most people think the Nazis
a little absurd here,

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too obsessive there.

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But perhaps the time
for thinking is over.

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Adolf Hitler did not seize power.

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He was offered it just
as his voting strength was declining.

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The politicians
who made Hitler chancellor argued,

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"We are hiring him."

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Their figurehead was
the ancient President von Hindenburg.

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Communists and Socialists
tried to take Hitler coolly.

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00:03:56,736 --> 00:03:58,862
"This wouldn't last," they said.

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ConserVative anti-Nazis
took comfort from the fact

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00:04:02,325 --> 00:04:05,953
that their old war leader Hindenburg,
still head of state,

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00:04:06,037 --> 00:04:09,122
was known to despise
the vulgar little corporal.

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00:04:09,207 --> 00:04:11,291
(speaking German)

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00:04:15,129 --> 00:04:17,214
So, fertig?

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00:04:21,386 --> 00:04:23,929
Na, jetzt wird es fertig sein.

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00:04:26,766 --> 00:04:31,144
(all shout out "Heil!")

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With mock solemnity,
Hitler and his lieutenants

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00:04:39,570 --> 00:04:43,448
walked to the ceremonial opening
of parliament.

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The party's strength had been built up
by revolutionary violence.

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They had never imagined that
they could take office legally.

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When the old Reichstag building
was mysteriously gutted by fire,

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Hitler seized his chance
to suspend all civil liberties.

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His followers could hardly believe
their luck.

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The old Hindenburg, the symbol
of apparent continuity, presided

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as they turned office into power
by acts of sham legality.

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00:05:16,983 --> 00:05:19,526
ln March, when the Reichstag voted

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to allow Hitler
to govern without parliament,

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Hindenburg made no comment.

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The legal chancellor
marched irresistibly

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into the role of the legal dictator.

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Hitler proclaimed the new Germany,

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and meant it to last a thousand years.

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The new Germany
began to round up its enemies -

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Communists, Socialists, impertinent
journagists, even Reichstag deputies.

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Antreten zum Arbeiten.

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At Oranienburg concentration camp,
just north of Bergin,

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conditions were at first crude
rather than brutal.

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At this time the camps were run
by the Sturmabteilungen - the SA.

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They bullied more than they murdered.

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From the first moment, Hitler unleashed
his promised campaign against the Jews.

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The SA organised boycotts
of Jewish-owned shops.

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The real point
was to encourage the German people

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00:07:00,044 --> 00:07:04,965
to think and act anti-Semitic
as a matter of course.

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The outside world was horrified,

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but there were those,
including many German Jews,

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who thought the anti-Jewish campaign
the work of Nazi extremists -

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something Herr Hitler would put
a stop to when he felt more secure.

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There was to be
a cultural revolution, too.

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German culture would be purged
of the Jewish-Bolshevist taint.

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(♪ singing in German)

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Books flew into the fire.

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Many of those who flung them
were students and teachers.

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And, as the sparks rose,
the intellectuals fled -

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writers and scientists -

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to give their talents
to Western Europe and America.

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A hundred years before
the German-Jewish poet, Heine,

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whose books now went into the fire,
had warned:

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"Where one burns books,
there one eventually burns people."

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(peal of church bells)

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Some of Hitler's most earnest followers
found new ways to show loyalty -

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they married or got married
all over again under a Nazi ritual.

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The Nazis had mass support
among the unemployed,

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but less among the organised workers.

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The leff wing of the party

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wanted to start a workers' movement
inside the factories,

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but Hitler took a simpler course.

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He granted the unions the May Day
holiday they had always demanded.

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Next day he abolished the unions.

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Nazi supporters
were basically middle class -

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00:09:04,585 --> 00:09:09,172
shopkeepers ruined by the Depression,
clerks who had lost their savings,

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00:09:09,298 --> 00:09:12,175
craffsmen squeezed out
by mass production.

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(chants of "Sieg Heil!")

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These were Hitler's worshippers.

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(♪ congregation singing)

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00:09:31,362 --> 00:09:34,155
To this army of those
who had come down in the world

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00:09:34,240 --> 00:09:37,409
belonged the small farmers,
the peasants.

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Hitler had enlisted them
during the Depression.

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Now he told them that their blood
and soil were Germany's treasure.

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He passed laws to give them
safe possession of their fields

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and he gave them bread.

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The Treaty of Versailles in 1919

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had bitten deep
into Germany's frontiers.

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Alsace-Lorraine and the Saarland
had been lost.

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East Prussia was cut off
by the new Polish state,

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Silesia cut in two,

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Danzig, a League of Nations city.

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00:10:28,919 --> 00:10:31,046
(man speaking in German)

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To every patriot, Germany could not
be free while Versailles stood.

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Hitler alone seemed the saviour foretold
by the monuments of the border:

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"Never, German, forget
what blind hate stole from thee."

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(♪ German national anthem)

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"Wait for the hour that avenges
the bleeding frontier crime."

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Abroad there were some
who admired the way

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this new Germany stood up for herself.

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ln America we've had reports
against your new government,

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and, in most cases, this has caused
hasty demonstrations everywhere.

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l can now say to you that
the American people today realise

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these stories are untrue
and without foundation.

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00:11:23,099 --> 00:11:26,351
l find that there's a new,
fresh vitality here in Germany

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00:11:26,435 --> 00:11:29,521
under your great leader
and chancellor, Adolf Hitler,

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of whom l'm a great admirer.

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The new Germany will live

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for you have the best centralised
government in the world today.

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(narrator) ln fact, the new Germany

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was a bundle of different interests
and grievances

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held together by the strap
of the National Socialist Party,

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and the buckle of the strap was Hitler.

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00:11:49,250 --> 00:11:51,710
(Hitler speaking German)

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Well, really, it was the only party
that promised to get us out of the hole.

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And their idea was principally

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that that would only be possible

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if we developed as a nation
a team spirit, a solidarity,

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and pulling all on the same rope,

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instead of quarrelling
about petty differences of opinions

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in foreign politics and social politics,
and so on and so forth.

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00:13:02,198 --> 00:13:04,324
(speaks German)

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00:13:06,118 --> 00:13:08,036
(translator) What did he promise?

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00:13:08,120 --> 00:13:10,413
Work and bread for the masses,

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for the millions of workers who were
unemployed and hungry at that time.

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00:13:15,753 --> 00:13:19,297
Nowadays, in our prosperous society,

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work and bread
doesn't mean anything any more,

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but then it was
an absolutely basic need.

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And this promise,
which wouldn't make any sense today,

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then it sounded like
a promise of paradise.

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00:13:37,399 --> 00:13:39,776
(speaks German)

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00:13:39,860 --> 00:13:43,696
(translator) All this seemed
ideal ground for a prophet to say:

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00:13:43,781 --> 00:13:48,618
"l will lead you to the promised land.
l will deliver you from evil."

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00:13:48,702 --> 00:13:52,831
Anyone who said that
would be greeted with enthusiasm.

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00:14:00,506 --> 00:14:04,092
Of course, there were people
who said this is a false prophet,

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00:14:04,176 --> 00:14:07,470
but who was to know
whether they were right or not?

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00:14:07,555 --> 00:14:09,222
At that time no one did.

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00:14:09,306 --> 00:14:12,600
(♪ people singing
"Silent Night" in German)

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00:14:17,940 --> 00:14:21,150
(narrator) Christmas, 1933.

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00:14:21,235 --> 00:14:23,611
One year of Hitler's Reich.

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Peace on earth,
goodwill towards men.

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The concentration camps were full,
parliament a rubber stamp,

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political parties
and trade unions abolished,

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00:14:36,876 --> 00:14:41,296
the Jews out of the civil serVice,
a free press strangled,

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personal liberties destroyed.

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Germany lived under
a permanent state of emergency.

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Adolf Hitler's state
was all-powerful, even almighty.

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(church bells ringing)

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But he still felt threatened.

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He feared his old conserVative rivals.

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He feared the army.

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And he feared those sections of his own
party which were still revolutionary,

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like the leadership
of the storm troopers.

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The army, too, hated the SA.

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00:15:33,015 --> 00:15:40,355
Hitler saw how he could conciliate
the generals and clear his own path.

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The head of the SA was one of
his oldest comrades, Ernst Röhm.

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On June 30, 1934, Röhm was arrested...

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(gunshot)

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..and shot.

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His SA commanders
and more than 100 others

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dragged from their beds were shot, too.

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(gunfire)

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00:16:02,670 --> 00:16:05,630
Murder exploded across Germany.

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00:16:05,756 --> 00:16:09,008
The killers were the new force
in Germany -

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00:16:09,093 --> 00:16:12,011
the SS, Hitler's bodyguard -

188
00:16:12,096 --> 00:16:16,015
which now became
his personal instrument of terror.

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00:16:17,184 --> 00:16:21,646
Göring gave a press conference
at the propaganda ministry.

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00:16:21,730 --> 00:16:24,190
Goebbels was the minister of propaganda,

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00:16:24,274 --> 00:16:27,443
but Goebbels had wisely stayed
with Hitler at that time

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because Göring hated his guts

193
00:16:30,280 --> 00:16:34,951
and might have taken the opportunity
to bump him off if he'd been in Berlin.

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00:16:35,035 --> 00:16:38,830
Göring had that press conference
for the foreign press.

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00:16:38,914 --> 00:16:44,002
Before that the telephones had been
cut off to all foreign countries.

196
00:16:44,086 --> 00:16:47,255
Göring came striding in and said,

197
00:16:47,381 --> 00:16:51,634
"l know you boys
always like to have a story," -

198
00:16:51,719 --> 00:16:57,223
he used the English word -
"l've got a story for you all right,"

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and described how
that previous night and that morning

200
00:17:03,814 --> 00:17:08,818
he and Hitler had acted against
dissident forces,

201
00:17:08,902 --> 00:17:13,740
both of the Right and of the Leff,

202
00:17:13,824 --> 00:17:16,200
that Röhm had been shot,

203
00:17:16,285 --> 00:17:19,662
that a second revolution
had been quashed.

204
00:17:19,747 --> 00:17:26,419
He also made a rather obscure reference
to General von Schleicher

205
00:17:26,503 --> 00:17:31,007
who had preceded Hitler
as German chancellor.

206
00:17:31,091 --> 00:17:35,762
Then he leff the room, came back again
in a few seconds and said:

207
00:17:35,846 --> 00:17:39,140
"lt's been suggested
that l didn't make myself quite clear

208
00:17:39,224 --> 00:17:41,059
about General von Schleicher."

209
00:17:41,143 --> 00:17:44,645
"He was shot dead this morning
while resisting arrest."

210
00:17:45,064 --> 00:17:51,110
30 June, '34,
was a very, very important day,

211
00:17:51,195 --> 00:17:57,533
because it became obvious that
this government, as a government,

212
00:17:57,618 --> 00:18:00,411
started to become a murderer.

213
00:18:00,496 --> 00:18:04,582
You remember that
they shot a great number of people

214
00:18:04,666 --> 00:18:07,835
without any bringing them to court.

215
00:18:07,961 --> 00:18:10,046
They just killed them.

216
00:18:10,130 --> 00:18:17,929
And not only direct enemies of Hitler
in that moment -

217
00:18:18,055 --> 00:18:22,642
not only Röhm, the head of the SA -

218
00:18:22,726 --> 00:18:27,688
but also other people
who they felt were unpleasant.

219
00:18:27,773 --> 00:18:30,858
And they just did it at the same time.

220
00:18:30,943 --> 00:18:33,486
(♪ solemn dirge)

221
00:18:39,451 --> 00:18:42,954
(narrator) That summer
another rival disappeared.

222
00:18:44,373 --> 00:18:49,627
President Hindenburg
died in his bed on August 2.

223
00:18:52,005 --> 00:18:54,048
While the old man was still breathing

224
00:18:54,133 --> 00:18:56,884
Hitler had abolished
the office of president,

225
00:18:56,969 --> 00:18:59,804
proclaiming himself
Führer and Chancellor,

226
00:18:59,888 --> 00:19:02,515
head of state and government.

227
00:19:08,522 --> 00:19:11,232
And before his corpse was laid to rest,

228
00:19:11,316 --> 00:19:14,235
Hitler usurped his command
over the army.

229
00:19:14,862 --> 00:19:18,197
The armed forces paraded
to swear a new oath.

230
00:19:18,282 --> 00:19:21,617
Where once they had sworn loyalty
to the constitution,

231
00:19:21,702 --> 00:19:25,788
now they pledged themselves to Hitler,
personally, by name.

232
00:19:26,456 --> 00:19:31,419
- lch schwöre bei Gott...
- (men repeat sentence)

233
00:19:31,503 --> 00:19:34,297
..diesen heiligen Eid...

234
00:19:34,423 --> 00:19:37,049
(men repeat)

235
00:19:37,134 --> 00:19:42,680
..dass ich den Führer
des Deutschen Reiches und Volkes...

236
00:19:42,764 --> 00:19:47,602
(men repeat)

237
00:19:47,686 --> 00:19:49,687
..Adolf Hitler...

238
00:19:49,771 --> 00:19:51,898
(men repeat)

239
00:19:51,982 --> 00:19:56,569
(narrator) For German officers,
an oath was almost physically real.

240
00:19:59,489 --> 00:20:01,782
Hitler had trapped them.

241
00:20:01,867 --> 00:20:06,829
Now they could not disobey him
without disobeying the fatherland.

242
00:20:06,914 --> 00:20:10,249
- lch schwöre...
- (men repeat)

243
00:20:10,334 --> 00:20:13,252
- lch schwöre bei Gott...
- (men repeat)

244
00:20:13,337 --> 00:20:16,339
lch schwöre Adolf Hitler...

245
00:20:16,423 --> 00:20:18,674
Adolf Hitler.

246
00:20:18,759 --> 00:20:20,343
(men) Adolf Hitler.

247
00:20:20,427 --> 00:20:21,761
Adolf Hitler!

248
00:20:21,845 --> 00:20:23,387
(men) Adolf Hitler.

249
00:20:23,472 --> 00:20:24,972
Adolf Hitler!

250
00:20:25,057 --> 00:20:26,849
(train whistle)

251
00:20:29,102 --> 00:20:33,814
Hitler kept up the pace. That same month
the Germans had to go again to the polls

252
00:20:33,899 --> 00:20:37,818
to approve his assumption
of state and government powers.

253
00:20:37,903 --> 00:20:40,238
By now the machinery
of ballot management

254
00:20:40,322 --> 00:20:44,492
by threat, propaganda, forgery and fraud
was functioning excellently.

255
00:20:44,618 --> 00:20:46,702
(crowd chant in German)

256
00:20:51,333 --> 00:20:54,252
Hitler had a 90% Ja.

257
00:20:55,045 --> 00:20:58,589
Four million still voted Nein.

258
00:20:59,716 --> 00:21:01,175
Hitler proclaimed:

259
00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:06,889
"For the next thousand years, there will
be no other revolution in Germany."

260
00:21:11,728 --> 00:21:15,356
The Nazis preached the doctrine
of "folk-community",

261
00:21:15,440 --> 00:21:19,568
of learning to be Germans
one of another.

262
00:21:19,653 --> 00:21:24,115
Winter Help, the main street collection
for charity, was one symbol,

263
00:21:24,199 --> 00:21:27,827
and the leaders of the party,
for the benefit of the cameras,

264
00:21:27,911 --> 00:21:30,913
showed themselves as folk comrades, too.

265
00:21:32,332 --> 00:21:34,709
Göring displayed himself -

266
00:21:34,793 --> 00:21:38,921
a war hero, a man who laughed
and enjoyed life,

267
00:21:39,006 --> 00:21:42,508
a moderating force in the party,
it was believed.

268
00:21:42,592 --> 00:21:45,928
Joseph Goebbels,
the little propaganda minister,

269
00:21:46,013 --> 00:21:49,390
whom the backstreet
called "poison dwarf".

270
00:21:49,474 --> 00:21:53,144
His sharpness was feared,
but respected.

271
00:21:54,479 --> 00:21:58,816
- Warum lachen Sie?
- Die Dame spricht nicht Deutsch.

272
00:21:58,900 --> 00:22:04,947
The deputy Führer, Rudolf Hess,
a puzzling figure to the crowds.

273
00:22:05,073 --> 00:22:10,995
The Nazi way of ruling was to be remote,
but to seem not to be.

274
00:22:11,079 --> 00:22:14,915
All classes were encouraged
to relish the same meals -

275
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,669
the soldier, the boss,
the worker, the banker.

276
00:22:18,754 --> 00:22:21,213
The party believed in community,

277
00:22:21,298 --> 00:22:24,550
but the industrialists stayed rich.

278
00:22:24,634 --> 00:22:28,054
They had financed the Nazis
when they seemed likely to win,

279
00:22:28,138 --> 00:22:32,892
and now they submitted to Nazi direction
without too much distaste.

280
00:22:32,976 --> 00:22:35,561
Business was picking up fast.

281
00:22:37,773 --> 00:22:41,275
The economy was reviving
when the Nazis came to power,

282
00:22:41,360 --> 00:22:43,277
but they reaped the credit,

283
00:22:43,362 --> 00:22:47,114
speeding recovery
with an enormous public works programme

284
00:22:47,199 --> 00:22:48,991
for the unemployed.

285
00:22:49,076 --> 00:22:55,706
Other nations, where mass unemployment
persisted, watched Germany with envy.

286
00:23:24,861 --> 00:23:30,241
The workless built the autobahns -
the first motorways in the world,

287
00:23:30,325 --> 00:23:34,245
binding a still-provincial Germany
together.

288
00:23:34,329 --> 00:23:37,331
The autobahns were not least
for private pleasure,

289
00:23:37,416 --> 00:23:40,751
in the fascist notion
of Strength through Joy.

290
00:23:40,877 --> 00:23:43,796
And they were presented
less as a transport system

291
00:23:43,922 --> 00:23:46,465
than as a triumph of national will,

292
00:23:46,550 --> 00:23:48,759
linked with other prestige projects,

293
00:23:48,844 --> 00:23:52,471
like the design
for the Führer's new Berlin.

294
00:24:13,034 --> 00:24:15,119
(woman) Voll Anmut und Gesundheit,

295
00:24:15,203 --> 00:24:19,248
gläubig und ihrer großen Pflichten
und Aufgaben bewusst,

296
00:24:19,332 --> 00:24:23,210
sind sie glückliche Mädel
unserer großen Zeit.

297
00:24:26,131 --> 00:24:28,924
(narrator) These were members
of Faith and Beauty,

298
00:24:29,009 --> 00:24:31,719
older sister to
the League of German Maidens,

299
00:24:31,803 --> 00:24:34,263
the girls' equivalent
of the Hitler Youth.

300
00:24:34,347 --> 00:24:36,056
And so on.

301
00:24:36,141 --> 00:24:42,271
All young people learnt party songs,
drilled and danced and belonged.

302
00:24:49,362 --> 00:24:50,988
(cheering)

303
00:24:53,116 --> 00:24:56,952
Each year the farmers and their wives
gathered at the Buckeberg

304
00:24:57,037 --> 00:24:59,872
to meet their Führer at harVest time.

305
00:24:59,956 --> 00:25:05,586
ln 1936 those who stood and waited
for the leader numbered one million.

306
00:25:10,383 --> 00:25:11,926
The leader was late.

307
00:25:12,010 --> 00:25:15,054
He always arrived late -
it built up tension.

308
00:25:15,138 --> 00:25:18,224
(crowd cheer and shout "Heil, Hitler!")

309
00:25:25,232 --> 00:25:28,150
(♪ band strikes up)

310
00:25:58,306 --> 00:26:01,809
Then he came,
letting the excitement spill over.

311
00:26:01,893 --> 00:26:03,561
As he marched to the rostrum,

312
00:26:03,645 --> 00:26:07,022
the masses were allowed
to see him close and even to touch him.

313
00:26:07,107 --> 00:26:11,443
Deliberately,
women were placed in the front rows.

314
00:26:11,570 --> 00:26:15,823
(translator)
When he went up the mountain,

315
00:26:15,907 --> 00:26:18,617
l couldn't understand
how it was possible

316
00:26:18,702 --> 00:26:20,744
that people could shout so much.

317
00:26:22,956 --> 00:26:27,918
Yet when he came towards our group,
l too came under his spell

318
00:26:28,003 --> 00:26:33,090
and shouted "Heil!"
just gike everyone egse.

319
00:26:33,174 --> 00:26:38,262
But then when he was really close,
greeting people to his leff and right,

320
00:26:38,346 --> 00:26:44,643
shaking their hand and exchanging
a few words, and he also shook my hand,

321
00:26:44,728 --> 00:26:49,565
l suddenly noticed that
everybody in his immediate presence

322
00:26:49,649 --> 00:26:52,818
was completely silent.

323
00:26:53,987 --> 00:26:57,698
For the first ten minutes
he wasn't a good speaker.

324
00:26:57,782 --> 00:27:04,079
He just began warming up
and finding the words.

325
00:27:04,164 --> 00:27:09,585
But then he turned out to be
a terribly good speaker, you know.

326
00:27:09,669 --> 00:27:14,298
He just...
l don't know the words in English.

327
00:27:14,382 --> 00:27:17,718
Er massierte his public!

328
00:27:19,220 --> 00:27:25,309
And the whole atmosphere

329
00:27:25,393 --> 00:27:27,978
grew more and more hysterical.

330
00:27:29,147 --> 00:27:37,154
He was interrupted nearly
affer every phrase by big applause,

331
00:27:37,238 --> 00:27:41,909
and women began screaming.

332
00:27:41,993 --> 00:27:49,958
lt was like a mass religious ceremony.

333
00:27:52,837 --> 00:27:55,506
Well, l listened to his speech

334
00:27:55,590 --> 00:28:03,138
and l felt that more and more
excited atmosphere in the hall

335
00:28:03,223 --> 00:28:09,645
and for some seconds again and again
l had a feeling,

336
00:28:09,729 --> 00:28:14,400
"What a pity that
l can't share that belief

337
00:28:14,484 --> 00:28:16,694
of all those thousands of people,

338
00:28:16,778 --> 00:28:21,115
that l am alone,
that l am contrary to all that."

339
00:28:21,199 --> 00:28:27,246
lt was very funny. l thought,
"He is talking all the nonsense l know,

340
00:28:27,330 --> 00:28:29,498
the nonsense he always talked."

341
00:28:29,582 --> 00:28:35,838
But still, l felt it must be wonderful

342
00:28:35,922 --> 00:28:41,552
just to jump into that bubbging pot

343
00:28:41,636 --> 00:28:46,932
and be a member
of all those who are believers.

344
00:28:47,016 --> 00:28:49,727
(siren / uproar)

345
00:29:01,364 --> 00:29:05,492
(woman) One lady in our village,
she went to Berlin

346
00:29:05,618 --> 00:29:09,413
to a birthday reception
for Adolf Hitler,

347
00:29:09,497 --> 00:29:14,543
and she came back and told us,
"The Führer shook hands with me."

348
00:29:14,627 --> 00:29:19,631
And from this time on
she was like a saint in our village.

349
00:29:29,934 --> 00:29:33,687
(♪ "Adolf Hitler's Edelweiss")

350
00:29:40,361 --> 00:29:45,032
Hitler's home life took place on a ledge
in Bavaria, at Berchtesgaden.

351
00:29:45,116 --> 00:29:48,452
These pictures are from
the home movies of Eva Braun,

352
00:29:48,536 --> 00:29:52,289
the discreet young woman
who stayed with him till his death.

353
00:29:52,415 --> 00:29:56,210
To the Berghof, for tea and tactics,
came the elect.

354
00:29:56,294 --> 00:29:58,837
Some a little ill at ease,

355
00:29:58,922 --> 00:30:00,714
some genuinely intimate.

356
00:30:02,509 --> 00:30:05,010
(♪ song continues)

357
00:30:42,173 --> 00:30:47,553
Even in private Hitler had to correspond
to the image sold to the public.

358
00:30:48,972 --> 00:30:51,056
Adolf with children.

359
00:30:52,350 --> 00:30:54,476
Adolf with dogs.

360
00:30:56,020 --> 00:30:58,772
Adolf with a magnifying glass.

361
00:31:06,447 --> 00:31:08,532
Adolf with friends.

362
00:31:13,371 --> 00:31:18,375
Out for a walk, like a good
Bavarian bourgeois on a Sunday.

363
00:31:25,758 --> 00:31:28,927
ln this closed circle
Eva Braun posed herself

364
00:31:29,012 --> 00:31:34,016
as the girl who was
natural, healthy, joyfully physical.

365
00:32:13,014 --> 00:32:18,060
Up at the Berghof
there were jovial, friendly bodyguards

366
00:32:18,144 --> 00:32:20,228
and colder ones.

367
00:32:20,313 --> 00:32:23,690
Heinrich Himmler, lord of the SS,

368
00:32:23,775 --> 00:32:28,070
came with Heydrich,
his terrible, handsome lieutenant.

369
00:32:34,661 --> 00:32:38,580
On formal occasions,
the SS Guard turned out.

370
00:32:38,665 --> 00:32:43,001
They were the reality of the great
tyranny centred in distant Berlin,

371
00:32:43,086 --> 00:32:46,755
their hands soon to be red
with the blood of millions.

372
00:32:47,674 --> 00:32:52,052
For that reality,
Hitler would leave his chintz chair,

373
00:32:52,136 --> 00:32:56,014
his tea parties and his mistress.

374
00:32:56,099 --> 00:32:59,309
The car was waiting
at the foot of the steps.

375
00:33:04,190 --> 00:33:06,274
(♪ brass band)

376
00:33:09,487 --> 00:33:14,574
lf Germany was to be strong again,
Germany must re-arm.

377
00:33:14,659 --> 00:33:21,707
A people frightened by war had to become
once more familiar with arms,

378
00:33:21,791 --> 00:33:23,625
to touch them,

379
00:33:23,710 --> 00:33:25,585
to play at soldiers.

380
00:33:45,940 --> 00:33:48,608
Germany had to train pilots.

381
00:33:48,693 --> 00:33:50,902
Versailles forbade Germany an air force,

382
00:33:50,987 --> 00:33:54,364
so the League for Air Sports
used gliders

383
00:33:54,449 --> 00:33:58,368
to train men, still officially
civilians, for the future Luffwaffe.

384
00:34:00,079 --> 00:34:01,496
(excited shouting)

385
00:34:02,915 --> 00:34:06,460
And the army began to swell
beyond the limits set by Versailles

386
00:34:06,544 --> 00:34:09,463
from the moment
Hitler became chancellor.

387
00:34:09,547 --> 00:34:13,091
ln secret, it trebled its strength
in two years.

388
00:34:14,052 --> 00:34:16,136
(men singing)

389
00:34:27,565 --> 00:34:31,485
Any foreign military attaché
could see what was happening,

390
00:34:31,569 --> 00:34:33,528
but the world did nothing decisive,

391
00:34:33,613 --> 00:34:37,324
and in March 1935
Germany announced conscription -

392
00:34:37,450 --> 00:34:40,577
a peacetime army of half a million men.

393
00:34:46,501 --> 00:34:49,961
The new tanks came out into the open.

394
00:34:59,055 --> 00:35:02,641
The first Luffwaffe squadrons flew past.

395
00:35:10,900 --> 00:35:13,819
The new German navy was under way.

396
00:35:21,911 --> 00:35:24,371
Hitler kept Europe bewildered.

397
00:35:24,455 --> 00:35:30,335
Proclaiming Versailles extinct,
he proposed a limit on armaments.

398
00:35:30,461 --> 00:35:33,713
Britain, the first democracy
to make a pact with the Nazis,

399
00:35:33,798 --> 00:35:35,423
signed a naval agreement.

400
00:35:35,550 --> 00:35:37,801
Hitler was reassured.

401
00:35:37,885 --> 00:35:42,430
lt might be safe to start tampering
with the hated frontiers.

402
00:35:42,515 --> 00:35:46,268
One part of Versailles
had already been undone.

403
00:35:46,352 --> 00:35:49,729
ln January 1935
the territory of the Saar,

404
00:35:49,856 --> 00:35:53,859
the little coal-mining region
which had been German before 1918,

405
00:35:53,943 --> 00:35:57,404
voted overwhelmingly,
and under international superVision,

406
00:35:57,488 --> 00:36:00,282
to return to Germany.

407
00:36:07,540 --> 00:36:10,959
Next door, the Rhineland
remained a demilitarised zone.

408
00:36:11,043 --> 00:36:13,295
Beyond dispute,
this was part of Germany,

409
00:36:13,379 --> 00:36:16,381
but to recover it
would directly challenge the Allies

410
00:36:16,465 --> 00:36:18,425
and, above all, France.

411
00:36:19,886 --> 00:36:25,765
The troops rode over the Rhine bridges
at dawn on March 7, 1936.

412
00:36:25,850 --> 00:36:29,519
Secretly, the commanders were ready
to bolt back across the river

413
00:36:29,604 --> 00:36:31,479
if France showed any sign of fight.

414
00:36:31,606 --> 00:36:33,690
But there was none.

415
00:36:35,693 --> 00:36:38,195
The Rhineland city of Cologne
and all Germany

416
00:36:38,279 --> 00:36:40,488
went wild with relief and delight.

417
00:36:41,073 --> 00:36:44,117
A part of German honour
had been recovered.

418
00:36:44,202 --> 00:36:47,162
Hitler had taken a chance and won.

419
00:36:48,706 --> 00:36:54,794
Two years later, Austria, Hitler's
birthplace, lay ripe for the taking.

420
00:36:54,921 --> 00:37:00,258
Austrian Nazis were rioting
for Anschluss - union with Germany.

421
00:37:00,343 --> 00:37:05,180
To prevent a plebiscite on independence,
Hitler marched in.

422
00:37:12,021 --> 00:37:15,398
The German troops were greeted
by hysterical crowds.

423
00:37:15,483 --> 00:37:20,237
Vienna suffered a Jew-baiting terror
which even Germany had not yet seen.

424
00:37:20,363 --> 00:37:23,073
Austria became a province.

425
00:37:23,157 --> 00:37:26,785
Germany's neighbours,
appalled, uncertain, unprepared,

426
00:37:26,869 --> 00:37:29,204
once again did nothing.

427
00:37:36,587 --> 00:37:40,173
Czechoslovakia
was no lost German province,

428
00:37:40,258 --> 00:37:46,012
but an independent nation, allied
to Britain, France and the Soviet Union.

429
00:37:46,097 --> 00:37:50,141
Within its northern border
lived the Sudeten Germans.

430
00:37:50,226 --> 00:37:53,853
Hitler incited this minority,
which had never been part of Germany,

431
00:37:53,980 --> 00:37:56,439
to demand union with the Reich.

432
00:37:56,524 --> 00:37:59,025
Europe prepared for war.

433
00:38:00,611 --> 00:38:03,655
But though Czechoslovakia
was ready to fight,

434
00:38:03,739 --> 00:38:05,949
Britain and France gave way.

435
00:38:06,033 --> 00:38:08,868
At Munich, in September 1938,

436
00:38:08,953 --> 00:38:11,496
Chamberlain for Britain,

437
00:38:11,580 --> 00:38:13,915
ltaly's Mussolini,

438
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:16,584
Daladier for France

439
00:38:16,669 --> 00:38:18,628
signed with Hitler the treaty

440
00:38:18,713 --> 00:38:21,506
which stripped Czechoslovakia
of the Sudetenland

441
00:38:21,590 --> 00:38:24,134
and leff her broken and abandoned.

442
00:38:39,150 --> 00:38:41,318
The Germans crossed the border,

443
00:38:41,402 --> 00:38:45,905
welcomed as liberators
by the Sudeten population.

444
00:38:46,866 --> 00:38:50,118
At home, the German generals
who opposed Hitler,

445
00:38:50,202 --> 00:38:55,248
hoping that a rebuff over Czechoslovakia
would fatally injure his prestige,

446
00:38:55,333 --> 00:38:57,917
gave up their plots in despair.

447
00:39:17,313 --> 00:39:21,649
Hitler sat with his troops in the field
and planned ahead.

448
00:39:23,611 --> 00:39:27,113
The Sudetenland was easily digested.

449
00:39:27,198 --> 00:39:29,908
The next course could be taken fast.

450
00:39:32,745 --> 00:39:36,998
The shrunken Czech lands and Slovakia
lay helpless before him.

451
00:39:37,083 --> 00:39:40,377
He struck on March 15, 1939.

452
00:39:43,255 --> 00:39:46,633
The German troops reached Prague
the same day.

453
00:39:46,717 --> 00:39:49,260
There was no resistance.

454
00:39:50,888 --> 00:39:55,392
The last democracy in Central Europe
was wiped out.

455
00:39:58,187 --> 00:40:01,815
The Czechs
would never trust the West again.

456
00:40:01,899 --> 00:40:04,692
The West trusted Hitler no more,

457
00:40:04,777 --> 00:40:09,155
and realised at last
that only force would stop him.

458
00:40:19,250 --> 00:40:22,377
Berlin: more cheers, more worship.

459
00:40:23,421 --> 00:40:27,382
Yet what was in the minds
of those who cheered?

460
00:40:27,466 --> 00:40:29,467
Very few wanted wars of conquest

461
00:40:29,552 --> 00:40:31,428
or hoped, like Hitler,

462
00:40:31,512 --> 00:40:35,557
for a German empire
from the Urals to the Atlantic.

463
00:40:35,641 --> 00:40:39,936
Most thought they were taking back
what had been robbed from them

464
00:40:40,020 --> 00:40:45,525
and restoring, not destroying,
the order and unity of Europe.

465
00:40:45,609 --> 00:40:48,153
(jubilant singing)

466
00:40:57,621 --> 00:41:04,002
For these crowds it seemed that
Hitler's statesmanship could never fail.

467
00:41:04,086 --> 00:41:06,254
Others who stayed at home that night

468
00:41:06,338 --> 00:41:09,883
feared a war was coming
which might destroy Germany itself.

469
00:41:09,967 --> 00:41:13,761
But now they saw no hope
for a rising against Hitler,

470
00:41:13,846 --> 00:41:16,139
they were leff with the moral question:

471
00:41:16,223 --> 00:41:20,810
"Should one resist a tyranny
without hope of success?"

472
00:41:21,937 --> 00:41:27,734
Well, l think it's difficult
first of all to make up your mind

473
00:41:27,860 --> 00:41:31,946
that you should do something
against a government.

474
00:41:33,199 --> 00:41:36,784
This is very rare, first of all.

475
00:41:36,911 --> 00:41:41,289
Secondly, if it is extremely dangerous,

476
00:41:41,373 --> 00:41:44,918
as it is in a dictatorship,

477
00:41:45,002 --> 00:41:50,048
it's even more complicated
because everybody likes his own life.

478
00:41:51,425 --> 00:41:56,221
l think everything that came to us
when we were living in Germany

479
00:41:56,347 --> 00:41:59,390
came very gradually.

480
00:41:59,475 --> 00:42:06,898
That was part, perhaps, of the way
Hitler managed these things.

481
00:42:06,982 --> 00:42:10,151
lt came on us rather drip by drip,

482
00:42:10,236 --> 00:42:13,655
rather like an anaesthetic,
one could almost say,

483
00:42:13,739 --> 00:42:21,454
and it was only when a specific thing
that he did hit you personally

484
00:42:21,539 --> 00:42:27,585
that you actually realised
what was going on.

485
00:42:28,963 --> 00:42:35,260
ln my particular case, l think
l could say that it hit me personally

486
00:42:35,344 --> 00:42:40,515
when the Jewish doctor of my children,

487
00:42:40,599 --> 00:42:43,351
whom l'd always had, came...

488
00:42:43,435 --> 00:42:48,606
He was a very busy man, but he seemed
to be having always more time to spare.

489
00:42:48,691 --> 00:42:51,025
l remember one night

490
00:42:51,110 --> 00:42:56,114
he came and spent the night
looking affer my very sick child.

491
00:42:56,198 --> 00:42:58,950
And in the morning the child was better

492
00:42:59,034 --> 00:43:03,121
and when he leff he asked me,

493
00:43:03,205 --> 00:43:06,207
did l still want him
to look affer my children?

494
00:43:06,292 --> 00:43:10,086
And l was tired and l said,
"Well, for goodness' sakes, why not?"

495
00:43:10,170 --> 00:43:13,464
And he told me that
his clinic, his children's clinic,

496
00:43:13,549 --> 00:43:17,260
which he had started in Hamburg
was going...

497
00:43:17,344 --> 00:43:20,930
He was going to be dismissed,
and he'd had threatening letters

498
00:43:21,015 --> 00:43:25,810
that if he laid his hands on
Aryan children, he was in for trouble.

499
00:43:28,731 --> 00:43:35,111
(narrator) ln November 1938
a Jew shot a German diplomat in Paris.

500
00:43:35,195 --> 00:43:37,905
The Nazi leaders organised a reprisal.

501
00:43:37,990 --> 00:43:43,244
Synagogues were burned and Jewish
shops looted all over Germany.

502
00:43:44,455 --> 00:43:47,081
On that "Crystal Night",

503
00:43:47,166 --> 00:43:50,460
named for the smashed glass
sparkling in the gutters,

504
00:43:50,544 --> 00:43:54,839
thousands of Jews
were thrown into concentration camps.

505
00:43:57,635 --> 00:43:59,719
(speaks German)

506
00:44:03,349 --> 00:44:06,142
(translator) Do you want to know
how the night was?

507
00:44:06,226 --> 00:44:08,936
lf you want to know, l will tell you.

508
00:44:09,021 --> 00:44:13,816
We were all shoved together,
beaten and punched

509
00:44:13,901 --> 00:44:18,154
and made to stand in ranks
and be counted and so on.

510
00:44:19,490 --> 00:44:23,743
Because l'd been a soldier
l didn't find that so very difficult,

511
00:44:23,827 --> 00:44:27,538
but the others
who didn't fall in properly,

512
00:44:27,623 --> 00:44:30,124
they were beaten right away.

513
00:44:31,877 --> 00:44:33,795
And the most terrible thing was

514
00:44:33,879 --> 00:44:36,589
when somebody grabbed hold
of a big, strong man,

515
00:44:36,674 --> 00:44:39,342
he said, "Don't grab me."

516
00:44:39,426 --> 00:44:43,221
"What? l shouldn't grab you!"
And he hit him.

517
00:44:46,934 --> 00:44:53,106
And this man was immediately
overpowered by three people - SS people.

518
00:44:53,190 --> 00:44:55,274
A block was brought.

519
00:44:55,359 --> 00:44:59,237
He was tied down to it
and the camp commander said,

520
00:44:59,321 --> 00:45:04,659
"The Jew lsrael," or "The Jew ltzik," -
l can't remember exactly now -

521
00:45:04,743 --> 00:45:07,203
"is sentenced to 25 lashes."

522
00:45:10,374 --> 00:45:12,583
Then a huge man came,

523
00:45:12,668 --> 00:45:17,255
an SS man with a huge horsewhip,
and started to beat him.

524
00:45:19,049 --> 00:45:24,679
The man just groaned a bit at first,
but then he shouted, "Stop, stop!"

525
00:45:24,763 --> 00:45:27,598
The commander said,
"What do you mean, stop?"

526
00:45:27,683 --> 00:45:31,561
"We'll start all over again,
from the beginning."

527
00:45:31,645 --> 00:45:35,106
But affer three more lashes
the blood was spurting,

528
00:45:35,190 --> 00:45:38,401
then he stopped and salt
was rubbed into the wounds,

529
00:45:38,485 --> 00:45:40,778
or pepper, l can't remember.

530
00:45:40,863 --> 00:45:43,030
The man was dragged away.

531
00:45:43,115 --> 00:45:45,658
We never saw him again.

532
00:45:47,536 --> 00:45:53,958
Of course, in '38,
when the synagogues were burning,

533
00:45:54,042 --> 00:45:56,502
everybody knew what was going on.

534
00:45:56,628 --> 00:46:01,507
l remember that my brother-in-law,
the husband of my sister Lena,

535
00:46:01,592 --> 00:46:07,305
when he went in the morning affer
the day of the Reichskristallnacht -

536
00:46:07,389 --> 00:46:10,224
"Crystal Night", or how you say -

537
00:46:11,393 --> 00:46:14,228
he went by train to his office downtown

538
00:46:14,313 --> 00:46:17,857
and between the stations of
Savignyplatz and Zoological Garden

539
00:46:17,983 --> 00:46:23,279
there is the Jewish synagogue,ja,
and he saw that it was burning,ja?

540
00:46:23,363 --> 00:46:26,324
And he murmured, "Kulturschande."

541
00:46:26,408 --> 00:46:31,746
That is an insult for culture -
"Shame to our culture."

542
00:46:31,830 --> 00:46:36,042
Well, right away a gentleman
in front of him turned his Revers

543
00:46:36,126 --> 00:46:41,714
and showed his Partelabzeichen -
party badge,ja?

544
00:46:41,799 --> 00:46:46,886
And took out his papers
that he was a man of the Gestapo,

545
00:46:46,970 --> 00:46:52,141
and he had to show his papers,
to give his address,

546
00:46:52,226 --> 00:46:56,813
and was ordered to come to the party
office next morning, nine o'clock.

547
00:47:07,491 --> 00:47:09,575
(narrator) April, 1939.

548
00:47:09,660 --> 00:47:13,579
The Wehrmacht prepares to celebrate
Hitler's 50th birthday.

549
00:47:14,706 --> 00:47:19,335
They hope for the usual
"Führer weather" - a fine day.

550
00:47:31,306 --> 00:47:34,934
The Führer drives through Berlin,
under the Brandenburg Gate

551
00:47:35,018 --> 00:47:39,730
and down the Siegesallee -
the AVenue of Victories.

552
00:47:56,290 --> 00:48:02,211
The army lining his route has increased
sevenfold in just four years.

553
00:48:13,432 --> 00:48:16,309
Among the Wehrmacht's 51 divisions,

554
00:48:16,393 --> 00:48:20,938
the new panzer units -
the instrument of blitzkrieg.

555
00:48:35,537 --> 00:48:38,915
ln spite of appearances,
the high command is by no means sure

556
00:48:38,999 --> 00:48:42,126
that this army is fit for war... yet.

557
00:48:43,587 --> 00:48:46,047
Hitler is ready to overrule them.

558
00:49:06,485 --> 00:49:10,988
The word in every diplomatic
conversation that summer was Danzig.

559
00:49:11,114 --> 00:49:14,450
The free city,
with its mixed German-Polish people,

560
00:49:14,534 --> 00:49:16,369
had been separated from Germany

561
00:49:16,453 --> 00:49:20,498
and made the responsibility
of a League of Nations commissioner.

562
00:49:22,292 --> 00:49:26,587
Danzig and East Prussia
were now sundered from the Reich

563
00:49:26,672 --> 00:49:30,800
by a strip of Polish territory -
the Corridor.

564
00:49:30,884 --> 00:49:33,302
Hitler was demanding
the return of Danzig

565
00:49:33,387 --> 00:49:37,264
and free access to East Prussia
across the Corridor.

566
00:49:37,349 --> 00:49:39,225
Poland refused.

567
00:49:39,309 --> 00:49:44,689
ln March, 1939, Britain and France
guaranteed her frontiers.

568
00:49:44,773 --> 00:49:50,069
ln August, Britain promised to fight
if Poland was attacked.

569
00:49:51,530 --> 00:49:55,950
Once again, myths about the persecution
of a German minority were used

570
00:49:56,034 --> 00:49:59,036
to build up a case
for armed interVention.

571
00:49:59,121 --> 00:50:03,290
German refugees told piteous tales
of Polish brutality.

572
00:50:03,375 --> 00:50:05,459
(speaks German)

573
00:50:10,298 --> 00:50:13,884
Nazi propaganda filmed them greedily
for the cinema newsreels

574
00:50:13,969 --> 00:50:17,263
throughout July and August.

575
00:50:18,015 --> 00:50:22,059
Hitler's plan was to wipe Poland
off the map.

576
00:50:22,144 --> 00:50:24,729
But this might mean
war with Soviet Russia,

577
00:50:24,813 --> 00:50:26,522
and he was not ready for that.

578
00:50:27,566 --> 00:50:31,152
His foreign minister, Ribbentrop,
flew to Moscow on August 23

579
00:50:31,236 --> 00:50:34,697
to sign the Nazi-Soviet Pact.

580
00:50:34,781 --> 00:50:37,241
Poland's fate was sealed.

581
00:50:42,122 --> 00:50:45,458
The new alliance
stunned the unsuspecting West.

582
00:50:45,542 --> 00:50:47,626
(♪ newsreel intro)

583
00:50:50,464 --> 00:50:52,548
Germany gloated.

584
00:50:55,218 --> 00:50:57,344
(reporter speaking German)

585
00:51:02,476 --> 00:51:05,644
You will have read the report
about the agreement reached

586
00:51:05,729 --> 00:51:10,524
between Russia and Germany,
which has surprised the world.

587
00:51:10,609 --> 00:51:14,403
As the life of all nations depends,
in the last resort,

588
00:51:14,488 --> 00:51:17,698
upon mutual respect
for one another's rights

589
00:51:17,783 --> 00:51:22,745
and reasonable confidence that they can
each live their life in their own way,

590
00:51:23,538 --> 00:51:25,164
l would earnestly hope...

591
00:51:32,547 --> 00:51:37,510
..which cannot be retraced,
reason may yet prevail.

592
00:51:37,636 --> 00:51:39,512
(narrator) The German newsreels

593
00:51:39,596 --> 00:51:42,973
tried to show Britain
distracted, still uncertain.

594
00:51:43,058 --> 00:51:45,726
(reporter speaking German)

595
00:51:53,318 --> 00:51:55,778
(reporter continues in German)

596
00:52:01,326 --> 00:52:05,746
(narrator) One young German
leff England for home.

597
00:52:06,540 --> 00:52:09,500
(man) l had a girlfriend
whom l wanted to marry

598
00:52:09,584 --> 00:52:15,548
and l said, "Well, l'll dare go home."

599
00:52:15,632 --> 00:52:21,804
When l came to Cologne
l read the first German newspapers,

600
00:52:23,348 --> 00:52:31,188
and l knew at once that
there was great danger of a war now.

601
00:52:31,273 --> 00:52:37,403
The tone of the German press
was absolutely hysterical.

602
00:52:38,155 --> 00:52:42,950
And l thought what a fool l was.

603
00:52:43,034 --> 00:52:47,329
l had just gone home in that moment!

604
00:52:48,665 --> 00:52:53,460
(narrator) All over Europe
the reserVists got their telegrams.

605
00:52:53,545 --> 00:52:59,967
ln the last hours of peace, the soldiers
put on uniform with a tired grin.