0:00:45 > 0:00:52Hidden in a forest, in what is now the eastern part of Poland, near the border with Russia,
0:00:52 > 0:00:56lie the remains of a concrete town.
0:01:00 > 0:01:03For three crucial years during WWII
0:01:03 > 0:01:08this was home to one of the most infamous figures in world history.
0:01:11 > 0:01:19A man who said he and the nation he led would create an empire which would outlast any other.
0:01:19 > 0:01:22RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING
0:02:15 > 0:02:18Here at the Wolf's Lair,
0:02:18 > 0:02:25his headquarters in the forest of Rastenburg, in what was then German East Prussia,
0:02:25 > 0:02:30Adolf Hitler took decisions which shaped the course of WWII.
0:02:30 > 0:02:37The result was a level of destruction and suffering unprecedented in the history of war.
0:03:03 > 0:03:0655 million people died in WWII.
0:03:14 > 0:03:20The Germans took five million Russian prisoners of war alone.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22Only two million survived.
0:03:22 > 0:03:28During the war, Hitler authorised a policy unique in all history,
0:03:28 > 0:03:32the mechanised extermination of an entire people.
0:03:55 > 0:04:00All this was possible because the Nazis ruled Germany.
0:04:00 > 0:04:05How could it be that a cultured nation at the heart of Europe
0:04:05 > 0:04:12ever allowed such a man, and the Nazi party he led, to come to power?
0:04:14 > 0:04:18Leading Nazis explained their success easily.
0:04:18 > 0:04:24It was inevitable given what they called the superhuman qualities of their leader.
0:04:24 > 0:04:32But the true reasons for the Nazis' rise to power are not that simple and are much more alarming.
0:04:44 > 0:04:49Nazism, which was to create the Second World War,
0:04:49 > 0:04:52was born out of the first.
0:04:52 > 0:04:58On November 11th 1918, to the surprise of German troops, the war stopped.
0:04:59 > 0:05:03IN GERMAN:
0:05:29 > 0:05:36The myth grew among many of the surrendered German soldiers that they had been stabbed in the back,
0:05:36 > 0:05:40that the front-line troops and the two million German war dead
0:05:40 > 0:05:46were betrayed by Marxists and Jews who had fermented dissent at home.
0:05:46 > 0:05:54As the surviving troops returned to the newly democratic Germany, they took their bitterness with them.
0:05:54 > 0:06:00It would grow into Nazism in the south of Germany, in Bavaria.
0:06:28 > 0:06:34Bavaria is a picture-book land, famous for its lederhosen and its beer halls,
0:06:34 > 0:06:42but at the end of WWI, conditions existed here which would create a revolution.
0:06:42 > 0:06:47After the war, the Allies continued to blockade Germany
0:06:47 > 0:06:54and the returning troops were shocked to discover how much their families were still suffering.
0:06:56 > 0:06:59Millions of Germans were hungry
0:06:59 > 0:07:05and thousands more were dying of tuberculosis and influenza.
0:07:09 > 0:07:12Politics were polarised.
0:07:12 > 0:07:18Conservatives and Socialists became radical in the face of crisis.
0:07:27 > 0:07:33With the whole of Germany in turmoil in the spring of 1919,
0:07:33 > 0:07:40the unrest in Munich resulted in a left-wing takeover of the city, the Raterepublik.
0:07:40 > 0:07:45This culminated, in April 1919, in the Munich Soviet Republic,
0:07:45 > 0:07:50an attempt to create a soviet-style government of the city,
0:07:50 > 0:07:56only 18 months after the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.
0:07:56 > 0:08:03Government troops were sent to quash the rebellion and there was fighting on the streets of Munich.
0:08:03 > 0:08:06GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS
0:08:19 > 0:08:22More than 500 people were killed.
0:08:22 > 0:08:26The soldiers were supported by the Freikorps,
0:08:26 > 0:08:31right-wing mercenaries paid for by the government.
0:08:31 > 0:08:39In Munich, there were cases where the Freikorps simply shot members of the Raterepublik out of hand.
0:08:39 > 0:08:44Other Freikorps members heartily approved of the brutal measures
0:08:44 > 0:08:49used to suppress Communist revolutionaries throughout Germany.
0:09:06 > 0:09:12Eugene Levine's father was the leader of the Raterepublik.
0:09:12 > 0:09:15He was executed in June 1919.
0:09:15 > 0:09:19I understand, from my mother,
0:09:19 > 0:09:24that he had been very brave, the way he met his death.
0:09:24 > 0:09:27And in fact, he called out, er,
0:09:27 > 0:09:32"Long live the world revolution."
0:09:32 > 0:09:39And I realised that an honourable person would die sooner or later,
0:09:39 > 0:09:44either on the barricades or put up against a wall and shot.
0:09:44 > 0:09:47Eugene Levine's father was Jewish,
0:09:47 > 0:09:52and the anti-Semitic prejudice of those on the right
0:09:52 > 0:09:59was further fuelled by the fact that of the leadership of the Raterepublik, most were Jewish.
0:10:22 > 0:10:29To the Freikorps, who celebrated in Munich after the suppression of the Raterepublik,
0:10:29 > 0:10:32the Jews were convenient scapegoats,
0:10:32 > 0:10:36held to blame for all the country's ills.
0:10:37 > 0:10:43And the Freikorps had the support of right-wing officers in the army,
0:10:43 > 0:10:48like Captain Ernst Rohm, a man with a simple philosophy.
0:10:48 > 0:10:51"Since I am an immature and wicked man,
0:10:51 > 0:10:56"war and unrest appeal to me more than order."
0:10:56 > 0:11:02Rohm was involved in the violent politics of the extreme right,
0:11:02 > 0:11:06and in 1919, he joined the small German Workers' Party.
0:11:06 > 0:11:11Here he met a 30-year-old veteran of WWI, Corporal Adolf Hitler,
0:11:11 > 0:11:17a man who shared with Rohm a deep hatred of Communists and Jews.
0:11:17 > 0:11:21Hitler had also joined the German Workers' Party in 1919.
0:11:21 > 0:11:26His membership card said he was member 555,
0:11:26 > 0:11:29but in reality, he was member 55.
0:11:29 > 0:11:35They numbered from 500 to make it look as if they had more members.
0:11:35 > 0:11:41Hitler was like thousands of other ex-soldiers, drifting without a job.
0:11:41 > 0:11:44He discovered a natural talent.
0:11:44 > 0:11:50He could channel his anger at the way the war ended into powerful speeches.
0:12:19 > 0:12:27Hitler spoke about what he called the iniquity of the Versailles Treaty, signed at the end of WWI.
0:12:29 > 0:12:34Under the treaty, Germany lost large amounts of her own territory
0:12:34 > 0:12:38and was forced to pay reparations to the victors.
0:12:40 > 0:12:47In the early 1920s, inflation spiralled out of control.
0:13:19 > 0:13:26In Bavaria, by 1921, Hitler had become leader of the small German Workers' Party,
0:13:26 > 0:13:30renamed the National Socialist German Workers' Party,
0:13:30 > 0:13:33or the Nazis for short.
0:13:34 > 0:13:39It was still one of many different right-wing parties in Munich,
0:13:39 > 0:13:42and they still all said the same -
0:13:42 > 0:13:46Versailles was a crime and the Jews were behind it.
0:13:50 > 0:13:55But Hitler's dynamism, together with his uncompromising tone,
0:13:55 > 0:14:01began to attract other prominent Bavarians to the Nazi party.
0:14:08 > 0:14:12In 1922, a WWI flying ace joined the Nazis.
0:14:12 > 0:14:21Holder of awards for gallantry and Richthofen squadron commander during WWI, Hermann Goering.
0:14:21 > 0:14:30"I joined the party because it was revolutionary, not because of any ideological nonsense."
0:14:33 > 0:14:38The Nazi party spread its appeal into the Bavarian countryside.
0:14:38 > 0:14:45One agricultural student, who was to become a chicken farmer, found in the Nazis
0:14:45 > 0:14:52an expression of his obsession with the relationship between German blood and German soil.
0:14:52 > 0:14:58"The yeoman of his own acre is the backbone of the German people's character.
0:14:58 > 0:15:03"Cowards are born in towns, heroes in the country."
0:15:03 > 0:15:06The words of another Bavarian, Heinrich Himmler,
0:15:06 > 0:15:11chicken farmer and, later, commander of the SS.
0:15:15 > 0:15:22In January 1923, the Nazis exploited the discontent caused by the French occupation of the Ruhr.
0:15:22 > 0:15:26French troops came to enforce reparation payments.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30They succeeded in alienating the Germans.
0:16:08 > 0:16:15In Munich, in 1923, in the atmosphere of crisis caused by the occupation of the Ruhr,
0:16:15 > 0:16:18Hitler and the Nazis acted.
0:16:18 > 0:16:26Hitler stood on the stage of the Burgerbraukeller on November 8th, interrupting a right-wing meeting.
0:16:26 > 0:16:32He called for a revolution to overthrow the left-wing government in Berlin.
0:16:32 > 0:16:39The next day, the Nazis and other right-wing parties marched through Munich to gain support.
0:16:39 > 0:16:43They were stopped by the police at the war memorial.
0:16:43 > 0:16:49The Nazis hoped the army and police, many of whom were right-wingers,
0:16:49 > 0:16:52would join them in a march on Berlin.
0:17:05 > 0:17:08GUNFIRE
0:17:09 > 0:17:11The police didn't support them.
0:17:11 > 0:17:17Shots were fired and the marchers were routed. Hitler fled the scene.
0:17:17 > 0:17:21Four policemen and 16 Nazis lost their lives.
0:17:45 > 0:17:51Hitler was tried with other leaders of the putsch in early 1924.
0:17:51 > 0:17:56The trial was a media sensation with entrance by ticket only.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59The Nazis hadn't just killed four policemen,
0:17:59 > 0:18:03they had also organised a bank robbery.
0:18:03 > 0:18:06A defiant Hitler told the court,
0:18:06 > 0:18:09"You may pronounce us guilty,
0:18:09 > 0:18:14"but the goddess who presides over the eternal court of history
0:18:14 > 0:18:20"will, with a smile, tear in pieces the charge of the public prosecutor
0:18:20 > 0:18:22"for she acquits us."
0:18:22 > 0:18:26Hitler gained fame for his apparently brave stand.
0:18:26 > 0:18:29But it was a con trick,
0:18:29 > 0:18:34for he knew as he spoke that the judge would be lenient.
0:18:34 > 0:18:41Hidden from the public was the truth about a previous appearance Hitler had made in a Bavarian court.
0:18:41 > 0:18:44More than two years before,
0:18:44 > 0:18:49Nazi thugs, egged on by Hitler, had disrupted a left-wing meeting,
0:18:49 > 0:18:54dragged the speaker off the stage and beaten him up.
0:18:54 > 0:19:01Almost all the documents relating to the trial were seized by the Nazis when they came to power.
0:19:01 > 0:19:06But one or two from this trial survived, hidden in the archive,
0:19:06 > 0:19:10and they tell truths the Nazis wanted to hide.
0:19:15 > 0:19:20Hitler got the minimum sentence possible - three months in prison.
0:19:20 > 0:19:25The sympathy of the judge didn't stop there.
0:19:25 > 0:19:30He wrote to the appeal court and asked them to reduce his sentence.
0:19:30 > 0:19:35As a result, Hitler served only one month in prison
0:19:35 > 0:19:38and a period on probation.
0:19:38 > 0:19:43The judge in Hitler's first trial was called Georg Neithardt,
0:19:43 > 0:19:49the same judge whom the authorities let preside over the putsch trial.
0:19:49 > 0:19:54It must have been obvious to Hitler that the court would be lenient.
0:19:54 > 0:20:02Hitler had attempted revolution, incited murder and his followers had robbed a bank.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06He served nine months in Landsberg prison.
0:20:06 > 0:20:13But even so, by 1924, it seemed that Hitler and the Nazis had become an irrelevance.
0:20:31 > 0:20:40In the mid-1920s, the German economy recovered, as inflation was reduced to single figures.
0:20:49 > 0:20:56The Weimar government had solved the reparations problem by borrowing money from the Americans
0:20:56 > 0:21:01which it used to pay the French and British their own reparations.
0:21:01 > 0:21:05The good times were financed by short-term credit.
0:21:26 > 0:21:31There were Germans who disapproved of the "Weimar decadence".
0:21:35 > 0:21:39They joined non-political groups like the Wandervogel,
0:21:39 > 0:21:45who called for a return to an older, simpler way of life.
0:22:11 > 0:22:18One small political party sought to capitalize on this longing for old-fashioned values.
0:22:56 > 0:23:01In the mid-1920s, the Nazi party was small but radical.
0:23:02 > 0:23:08Their party programme promised that if the Nazi party came into power
0:23:08 > 0:23:14German Jews would be stripped of citizenship and could be expelled from the country.
0:23:14 > 0:23:18INTERVIEWER ASKS IN GERMAN:
0:24:09 > 0:24:17The fantasy of a world Jewish conspiracy was openly preached by the Nazis...and believed.
0:24:17 > 0:24:24Along with their anti-Semitism went a belief that violence was a part of the political process.
0:24:24 > 0:24:29The party had a paramilitary wing, the brown-shirted storm troopers,
0:24:29 > 0:24:36who protected Nazi meetings, intimidated the followers of other parties and drummed up support.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17Towering over the small party
0:25:17 > 0:25:22was the personality of the man now called the Fuhrer, Adolf Hitler.
0:25:22 > 0:25:29The way the party was evolving was essentially the way it would be structured when they ruled Europe,
0:25:29 > 0:25:32and the structure was a strange one.
0:25:32 > 0:25:38Though these images of Nazi offices in the 1920s seem ordered enough,
0:25:38 > 0:25:41the administration of the party was chaotic.
0:25:41 > 0:25:47Hitler hated committee meetings and disliked arbitrating between rivals.
0:25:47 > 0:25:50The Fuhrer was often late.
0:25:50 > 0:25:54One prominent Nazi, Gottfried Feder, complained to Hitler,
0:25:54 > 0:26:01"I regard your time management as very damaging for the entire movement."
0:26:03 > 0:26:05Yet the party still functioned.
0:26:05 > 0:26:10Hitler was a passionate believer in the law of natural selection.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13"Men dispossess one another
0:26:13 > 0:26:17"and one perceives that, at the end of it all,
0:26:17 > 0:26:21"it is always the stronger who triumphs.
0:26:21 > 0:26:24"The stronger asserts his will.
0:26:24 > 0:26:26"It's the law of nature."
0:26:26 > 0:26:31Hitler's obsession with this idea of the survival of the fittest
0:26:31 > 0:26:39meant that when a party member wrote to him and asked to be made leader of his local branch,
0:26:39 > 0:26:44he was answered thus by Max Amann, one of Hitler's confidants -
0:26:44 > 0:26:53"Herr Hitler takes the view that it is not the job of the leadership to appoint party leaders.
0:26:53 > 0:26:59"You state that almost all the local members have confidence in you,
0:26:59 > 0:27:04"so why don't you take over leadership of the branch?"
0:27:08 > 0:27:12But now, seven years after Hitler had become leader,
0:27:12 > 0:27:17the Nazi party was failing dismally in the great struggle.
0:27:17 > 0:27:21Despite the enthusiasm of the party faithful,
0:27:21 > 0:27:25the Nazis could not get themselves elected to power.
0:27:25 > 0:27:30In the 1928 election, the Nazis got just 2.6% of the vote.
0:27:30 > 0:27:35The vast majority of the German electorate, over 97%,
0:27:35 > 0:27:38rejected them and their leader.
0:28:31 > 0:28:36This secret government report, compiled before the 1928 election,
0:28:36 > 0:28:43says that the Nazi party has "no noticeable influence" on the great masses of the population.
0:28:43 > 0:28:48The Nazis were a tiny fringe party, almost a joke.
0:28:48 > 0:28:52Yet, just four years and eight months later,
0:28:52 > 0:28:54Hitler was chancellor of Germany,
0:28:54 > 0:28:58for the Nazis were helped by circumstance.
0:28:59 > 0:29:01Germany suffered.
0:29:01 > 0:29:06A drop in world agricultural prices brought poverty to the countryside
0:29:06 > 0:29:13and then the Wall Street Crash heralded a world economic slump.
0:29:20 > 0:29:23The Americans called in their loans.
0:29:23 > 0:29:29German unemployment rose to five and a half million in 1931.
0:30:44 > 0:30:49Unemployed lived rough in the cities
0:30:49 > 0:30:53as Germany became economically the worst-hit nation in the world.
0:31:08 > 0:31:11Then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse...
0:31:11 > 0:31:15Then, just when it seemed things couldn't get any worse...they did.
0:31:20 > 0:31:24The five major banks crashed in 1931.
0:31:24 > 0:31:28More than 20,000 German businesses folded.
0:31:28 > 0:31:31Now the middle class was suffering.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49In the economic crisis, the Nazis' vote increased.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51They still said the same -
0:31:51 > 0:31:59Versailles was a crime, Jews should lose citizenship, Marxism must be destroyed, Germany must be reborn.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04The message hadn't changed but more Germans were ready to hear it,
0:32:04 > 0:32:12and in this economic crisis, people who had never seen or heard Hitler still voted Nazi.
0:32:12 > 0:32:16RECORDING OF HITLER SPEAKING
0:32:18 > 0:32:23In a remote town in German East Prussia, like Neidenburg,
0:32:23 > 0:32:28in 1928, the Nazis got 2.3% of the vote.
0:32:28 > 0:32:32In 1930, their vote leapt up to 25.8%,
0:32:32 > 0:32:38yet Hitler didn't visit here and there was no Nazi party in the town.
0:32:38 > 0:32:43But the Communists started to pick up votes too.
0:32:43 > 0:32:47Something sinister was happening to this new democracy.
0:32:47 > 0:32:53It seemed to be splitting apart as voters rushed to the extremes.
0:32:53 > 0:32:58Alois Pfaller had joined the Communist party in the late 1920s
0:32:58 > 0:33:02and now took on the Nazis in the streets.
0:33:54 > 0:33:58SONG TRANSLATED FROM GERMAN:
0:34:26 > 0:34:30NEW SONG:
0:34:54 > 0:34:58FIRST SONG AGAIN:
0:35:20 > 0:35:26Hitler said that he was the man who could solve the economic crisis,
0:35:26 > 0:35:32at the head of a dynamic party that promised to destroy Germany's internal enemies.
0:35:32 > 0:35:37And Hitler campaigned in a fresh and original way.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40In his 1932 election campaign,
0:35:40 > 0:35:45he travelled by aeroplane to 20 cities in seven days.
0:35:50 > 0:35:55Though he was to lose the election to President Hindenburg,
0:35:55 > 0:36:00Hitler had established himself as a credible alternative leader.
0:36:33 > 0:36:38The Nazi party proposed little in the way of detailed policies,
0:36:38 > 0:36:44but it offered order, discipline and the personality of Adolf Hitler.
0:36:44 > 0:36:49Fridolin von Spaun met him in the early 1930s.
0:38:22 > 0:38:27By 1932, the majority of Germans, in voting for Communists and Nazis,
0:38:27 > 0:38:32were voting for parties openly committed to overthrowing democracy.
0:38:32 > 0:38:36Democracy had arrived in Germany at the end of WWI.
0:38:36 > 0:38:41Now the majority of Germans wanted rid of it.
0:38:41 > 0:38:47Hitler made it quite clear that a vote for the Nazis was a vote for dictatorship.
0:39:57 > 0:40:01As a result of the elections of July 1932,
0:40:01 > 0:40:07the Nazis became the biggest party in Germany, with 37% of the vote.
0:40:07 > 0:40:11One man stood between Hitler and the chancellorship,
0:40:11 > 0:40:16the man Hitler had challenged for the presidency.
0:40:16 > 0:40:20Hindenburg met Hitler on August 13th 1932.
0:40:20 > 0:40:23Hitler demanded to be chancellor.
0:40:23 > 0:40:28Hindenburg refused, and his state secretary recorded the reasons why.
0:40:28 > 0:40:34"He could not bring himself to give government power to a single party
0:40:34 > 0:40:38"which did not represent the majority of the electorate
0:40:38 > 0:40:45"and which was intolerant, lacking in discipline and frequently appeared violent."
0:40:45 > 0:40:51But then, different pressure groups began to lobby President Hindenburg.
0:40:51 > 0:40:58A group of businessmen, including the former president of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht,
0:40:58 > 0:41:05wrote to Hindenburg, arguing that Hitler must get the chancellorship for the good of Germany.
0:41:52 > 0:41:57New pressures came as the results of an army war game arrived.
0:41:57 > 0:42:05It said that in the event of civil unrest, the army couldn't control both the Nazis and the Communists.
0:42:05 > 0:42:12"It's been shown that the forces of law and order of the Reich and of the German states
0:42:12 > 0:42:20"could not protect the country against National Socialists and Communists and protect the borders."
0:42:20 > 0:42:26But if there were pressures on Hindenburg as 1932 came to a close,
0:42:26 > 0:42:29there were also pressures on the Nazis.
0:42:29 > 0:42:33The crowds outside Nazi headquarters in Munich
0:42:33 > 0:42:38weren't aware of the nature of the problem.
0:42:38 > 0:42:43They were going bankrupt due to the cost of fighting so many elections.
0:42:43 > 0:42:47A key figure in the party, Gregor Strasser, had just resigned
0:42:47 > 0:42:53and the Nazi vote had dropped to 33% in the November 1932 election.
0:42:53 > 0:42:56It looked like their support had peaked.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02But the traditional right felt they had to negotiate with Hitler.
0:43:02 > 0:43:05They too wanted to eliminate democracy
0:43:05 > 0:43:10and without the Nazis they had no access to mass support.
0:43:10 > 0:43:16A former chancellor, the aristocratic von Papen, came up with a deal.
0:43:16 > 0:43:21Hitler could be chancellor if von Papen was vice chancellor
0:43:21 > 0:43:26and there were only two other Nazis in the cabinet.
0:43:26 > 0:43:29The theory was Hitler would be tamed.
0:43:33 > 0:43:41As a result, Hindenburg offered Adolf Hitler the chancellorship on January 30th 1933.
0:43:41 > 0:43:45Von Papen crowed, "We've hired him,"
0:43:45 > 0:43:50and the new cabinet posed for the cameras.
0:43:50 > 0:43:54The Nazis would later try and rewrite history
0:43:54 > 0:44:00to say that he became chancellor simply because it was his destiny,
0:44:00 > 0:44:05but, in reality, he had been helped into power by economic circumstance
0:44:05 > 0:44:09and the support and miscalculation of others.
0:44:15 > 0:44:18It all happened so fast in those days,
0:44:18 > 0:44:22after one had seen it come gradually.
0:44:22 > 0:44:27The Communist party line, to which I still belonged,
0:44:27 > 0:44:31was that it doesn't matter if Hitler gets to power.
0:44:31 > 0:44:36He'll soon prove himself incompetent and then it's our turn.
0:44:36 > 0:44:39For some extraordinary reason,
0:44:39 > 0:44:45they didn't realise that he was going to change the law once he came to power,
0:44:45 > 0:44:48which he did very smartly.
0:45:10 > 0:45:15On January 30th 1933, the same day Hitler was appointed chancellor,
0:45:15 > 0:45:20the Nazis held a torchlight celebration parade in Berlin.
0:45:20 > 0:45:23The revolution had begun.
0:46:18 > 0:46:24There were a few storm troopers who had Jewish girlfriends
0:46:24 > 0:46:32and therefore, a lot of German Jews thought, "Oh, well, it's not going to be so bad.
0:46:32 > 0:46:37"They have Jewish girlfriends, they can't hate us all."
0:46:37 > 0:46:40Oh, it's heartbreaking.