The Wrong War Nazis: A Warning from History

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In the mountains of southern Bavaria,

on the slopes of the Obersalzburg,

Adolf Hitler built his retreat - the Berghof.

Here, he would relax by watching feature films.

And he liked one film in particular.

TRANSLATION FROM GERMAN:

-These buttons represent troops, understand?

-Yes, sir.

-Good.

-The buttons are thickest near the north-west frontier.

-Yes. Always.

We have 300 million to protect.

To Hitler, the British rule of India was perfect proof of the superiority of the Aryan race.

HE ISSUES ORDERS

-Later, in 1941, he said...

-"Let's learn from the English,

"who, with 250,000 men in all,

"including 50,000 soldiers,

"governed 400 million Indians.

"What India is for England, the territories of Russia will be for us."

You keep me covered, I can make it.

Yet, in 1939, Hitler ended up at war with the country he most admired - Great Britain -

and allied to the country he most wanted to colonise - Russia.

How did he end up fighting what was, from his point of view, the wrong war?

MEN SING IN GERMAN

On 30th January 1933, the same day Hitler became Chancellor,

the Nazis paraded by torch light in Berlin.

After the years of unemployment, inflation and political uncertainty,

Hitler promised Germany would be reborn and national pride restored.

Germany would be a world power once again, her foreign policy decided in a new way.

By the desires of one man.

And every true German, especially the Nazi storm troopers,

now had to be obedient to the will of their Fuhrer.

HITLER ADDRESSES MEN, THEY RESPOND

ROUSING SINGING

Under Hitler, the German armed forces would have all the guns, tanks and planes they needed.

And more besides.

These armaments were paid for by a series of sophisticated loans

which mortgaged Germany's future.

The plan was masterminded by Reich Minister of Economics, Hjalmar Schacht.

Hitler wasn't interested in how Schacht worked the economic miracle.

He simply told Schacht to get on with the job any way he liked.

-He later said...

-"I have never had a conference with Schacht to find out what means were at our disposal.

"I restricted myself to, 'This is what I require. This is what I must have.' "

Hitler was obsessed with the idea of the survival of the fittest,

and Goebbels' propaganda films reflected this obsession.

Hitler believed humans were animals. The strongest animal would win.

If his subordinates were strong enough, they'd succeed without him.

Just as it was with animals,

so it was with great men, and even whole countries.

Hitler believed the entire world was locked in a permanent struggle in which the stronger must prevail.

This was the theory he developed in Mein Kampf, which he wrote in 1924.

He also wrote that the Germans were a nation who needed to expand.

Like the British, they needed colonies, and he was clear where they should find them.

"We're putting an end to the German march towards the south and west of Europe, turning our eyes to the east.

"When we speak of a new land in Europe, we must bear in mind Russia and the border states subject to her.

"Destiny itself seems to wish to point the way for us here."

In the years immediately after he became Chancellor,

Hitler repeatedly stated what he saw as Germany's central problem.

Germany simply wasn't big enough.

ROAR OF APPROVAL

Deutschland, Sieg Heil! CROWD RESPONDS

Hitler did openly announce one foreign policy goal.

He wanted, as he saw it,

to right the wrong of the Treaty of Versailles, by which Germany had lost territory at the end of WWI,

and was restricted to an army of 100,000.

At that time, the young people were enthusiastic and believed in Hitler.

It was a wonderful task to overcome the consequences of WWI, especially the Treaty of Versailles.

So we were in a high mood.

To help overcome Versailles, the Germans looked to the English.

England and Englishmen were admired by the German ruling classes.

They embraced what they took to be the ideals of the English gentleman.

Country estates and fox hunting.

I always hoped that England - I'm talking to you as an Englishman...

England would see what Germany was planning, was building up too much, and would agree to share Europe,

or whatever the politics.

Whilst the English may not have wanted to share Europe with the Germans,

they and the rest of Britain felt some form of accommodation should be reached with their former enemy.

The general view in Britain was that the French had imposed,

and we had obviously been connected with it, imposed too harsh a settlement on Germany in 1918,

and that this should be rectified.

And, to that extent, there was a slight feeling of "we ought to have done better".

If you call that a sentiment of guilt, all right. I'm not sure we felt it as guilt, quite.

The first fruits of Hitler's attempt to woo the British came in June 1935,

when Germany and Britain signed a naval agreement,

allowing Germany to rebuild her fleet beyond the level permitted by the Treaty of Versailles.

Hitler said the day the agreement was signed was the happiest of his life.

And Hitler sought to capitalise on the agreement, by sending the Nazi who had negotiated the deal,

Joachim von Ribbentrop, to London, as German ambassador, in the summer of 1936.

The task was 100% to find a German-British alliance,

because he had arranged before, quite well, the naval agreement

and that should be crowned by a German-English entente. Agreement.

And he, at the beginning, he worked on this.

Ribbentrop was not a success in Britain.

Not only did the British not want a wide-ranging treaty of alliance with Nazi Germany,

Ribbentrop committed a series of faux pas, like giving a Nazi salute to King George VI.

No, Ribbentrop was regarded as not a gentleman. That kind of thing.

And he wanted to be considered a gentleman. He was VON Ribbentrop. He wasn't just one of the rough Nazis.

I don't think that that went down at all well, even in circles which felt we must get on with the Germans.

I think his mission was disastrous.

GERMAN SPEAKER: Sometimes he shouted,

sometimes he was furious.

He threw pencils at the secretaries...

So, privately, he behaved very simply and stupidly, and very pompous.

And the British don't like this, pompous people. And he was very outspoken and very loud-voiced.

Goebbels said of Ribbentrop...

"He bought his name, he married his money and he swindled his way into office."

Count Ciano, the Italian foreign minister, revealed that Mussolini had remarked,

"You only have to look at his head to see that he has a small brain."

Ribbentrop was loathed by almost all the other leading Nazis.

They thought him a humourless upstart. Yet Hitler supported him.

Hitler said, when Ribbentrop wasn't present,

"With Ribbentrop, it is so easy.

"He's always radical.

"Meanwhile, all the other people I have, they come here,

"they have problems, they are afraid, they think we should take care,

"and then I have to blow them up to get strong.

"Ribbentrop was blowing the whole day, and I had to do nothing.

"I had to break, give breaks there. Much better."

Ribbentrop had a great insight into how to deal with Hitler.

He knew Hitler always smiled kindly on the person who came to him with a radical solution to any problem.

It didn't matter if Hitler didn't adopt the suggestion.

This was an insight another much more intelligent member of Hitler's regime didn't have.

Schacht told Hitler the German economy was overheating,

and armament production should be scaled down to stop hyperinflation.

Instead, Hitler was furious with his economics minister.

Schacht was sidelined.

The economy was now put in the hands of a man who, though ignorant of economic theory,

was certainly a proven radical.

Herman Goering.

HORNS PLAY

CHEERING

He was a... You would say, "a jolly good fellow."

Jolly good fellow! Loved to show off.

And loved rings and diamonds and...had funny hobbies.

Loved paintings and loved to live in luxury, in Karinhall,

which was near Berlin, in the Schorfheide, where he built some kind of castle for hunting purposes.

That was more than a castle. Just wonderful!

And upstairs, in the attic,

he had an electric train built. Various trains running round.

He played there like a child. Loved to play there.

So therefore, besides being a true, dependable vassal, to Hitler,

he was a big child.

What did Hitler want his new army for?

At first, it seemed the answer might be just to overturn the worst consequences of Versailles.

In 1936, Hitler moved his troops into the demilitarised portion of Germany - the Rhineland.

There was little international protest.

Then, at a secret meeting in November 1937, he told his generals Germany must expand to survive,

and announced that Germany's problem could be solved only by the use of force.

Austria and Czechoslovakia were named as the first targets.

The leading generals were not enthusiastic. They offered sober objections to Hitler's ideas.

Within 3 months, the war minister and commander of the army were removed after personal scandals.

Hitler took the opportunity to appoint the most radical Nazi

as commander in chief of the German armed forces. Himself.

It was in the mountains above Berchtezgaden in southern Bavaria

that Hitler liked to dream of Germany's forthcoming greatness.

He later said that his greatest ideas came to him in these mountains.

In the afternoon, he would go on walks between the great peaks of the Obersalzburg.

In the early evening, he would return to the Berghof -

a house run for him by Herbert Dohring - a member of Hitler's own personal guard.

At the Berghof, Hitler indulged himself by planning great cities he'd build in his new Germany.

Herbert Dohring constantly folded and unfolded huge building plans so his master could dream his dreams.

Sometimes, it seemed Hitler did little else.

INTERVIEWER:

When not dreaming of future German cities or of German expansion,

Hitler would lose himself in fantasy by watching feature films.

At the Berghof, always two a night.

He preferred escapist entertainment, and Goebbels always made sure there was plenty on hand.

DRAMATIC MUSIC PLAYS

ROMANTIC MUSIC PLAYS

At the Berghof, in the spring of 1938,

Hitler saw an opportunity to take the first step in achieving one of his most cherished dreams -

to bring other German-speaking people under his rule.

He capitalised on political instability in neighbouring Austria,

a country which had already come hugely under Nazi influence.

After checking that no foreign power would interfere, he ordered German troops to cross the border.

LOUD CHEERING

The majority of Austrians welcomed the Germans into their country.

The Austrians, too, had suffered as their empire was dismantled in the settlement at the end of WW1.

Now, united with Germany, they were a power once again.

CRIES OF "SIEG HEIL!"

It had been the nicest days of my life when we entered in Austria.

I entered with Hitler in the sixth car.

I had tears in my eyes.

All my dreams of reuniting Austria with Germany...

Don't forget, Austria was ruling Germany during 600 years.

And so, for me, after the defeat of the year '18 and Versailles,

for us it was a dream.

I suppose a lot of people in England would say, "They ARE Germans, after all. That's what they really want."

But it was, after all, a pretty nasty sort of takeover.

CROWD ROARS

CRIES OF "SIEG HEIL!"

CHILDREN CHANT "SIEG HEIL!"

CROWD ROARS

I think we cried.

Tears were running down our cheeks. With the neighbours it was the same.

And when Hitler came to me,

I nearly forgot to give him the hand.

I just looked at him and I saw good eyes.

And in my heart, I promised him,

"I always will be faithful to you."

I kept my promise.

All my free time, besides school,

I gave to the work, because he had called us.

"You all..." he had said that to us.

"You all shall help me build up my empire

"to be a good empire, with happy people

"who are thinking and promising

"to be good people."

But this was not going to be "a GOOD empire".

Heinrich Himmler, commander of the SS, was one of the first German Nazis into Austria.

Like Hitler, Himmler thought himself a radical and a visionary.

This former Bavarian chicken farmer

made Wewelsburg castle the spiritual home of the SS -

the elite group which had emerged from Hitler's own personal bodyguard.

MEN SING IN GERMAN

Himmler believed these were the superior beings who would crush Germany's enemies.

Himmler fantasised that the leaders of the SS would meet in this room,

like the Knights of the Round Table,

subordinate only to their own "King Arthur" - Adolf Hitler.

Here, they would plan how to rule over their own empire.

Himmler said in 1938,

"Germany's future is either agreater Germanic empire oranothing.

"I believeif we in the SS aredoingour duty,the Fuhrerwill create this greater Germanicempire,

"this greater Germanic Reich.

"The biggest empire ever created by mankind on the face of theearth."

In Austria, the first territory of this new, greater Germany,

the SS andother Nazisrevealed how they intended torule.

With intolerance and cruelty. Just as in Germany,

the Nazis made the Jews their scapegoats.

There was no protection from anywhere.

Anybody could come up to you and do what they want.

Austrian Jews were made to perform a variety of humiliating tasks,

like scrubbing the streets clean.

I once had to scrub the streets as well.

Can't remember anything, except that I saw in the crowd a well-dressed young woman,

and she was holding up a little girl, a blonde, lovely girl,

you know, with these curls, and she was smiling.

So that the girl could see better, a...maybe 22-year-old kicked an old Jew who fell down.

They all laughed, and she laughed as well.

Sort of, how happy. That was a wonderful...entertainment.

The Austrian Jews were so persecuted that many simply fled,

AFTER, of course, the SS had robbed them of most of their money.

17-year-old Walter Kammerling was seen off at Vienna station by his parents.

It's a nightmare situation.

I remember leaving Austria. It was like in a haze.

And it was only days after that it struck me, when I wanted to talk to my parents and, of course, couldn't.

After the Nazi takeover of Austria,

Adolf Hilter returned to Berlin to a tumultuous welcome.

WILD CHEERING

He was more popular now than he had ever been before.

His new Reich contained over 80 million Germans.

The humiliations of Versailles were almost forgotten. But not quite.

In euphoric mood, Hitler turned his eyes towards Czechoslovakia.

He focused his demands on the Sudeten Germans who lived in the border areas,

proclaiming that they too, as Germans, should be under his rule.

Not all German generals went along with Hitler's plans for expansion.

Some, like General Beck, feared he was leading Germany into another world war.

They secretly communicated their concerns to the British.

From then on, of course,

that group of generals, for they didn't represent ALL the generals,

kept in touch with us, by underground means,

and they used to come through me.

It was a sort of thing of, "If you and the French stand up to Hitler, we'll do something about him."

And we saying, "Hadn't you better start doing something about him, then perhaps we can help you?"

As Hitler had success after success, the possibility of the group getting rid of him became less and less.

With Germany threatening Czechoslovakia,

the British Prime Minister, Neville Chamberlain, tried to prevent war.

The crisis grew, as twice Chamberlain met Hitler,

and, on each occasion, Hitler increased his demands.

Finally, Chamberlain left for one last meeting, on 29th September 1938.

When I was a little boy,

I used to repeat,

"If at first you don't succeed,

"try, try, try again."

That's what I'm doing.

When I come back, I hope I may be able to say,

as Hotspur says in Henry IV,

"Out of this nettle, danger,

"we pluck this flower, safety."

CROWD CHEERS

Chamberlain sat alongside Ribbentrop, now promoted to German Foreign Minister,

as the motorcade made its way to the conference hall in Munich.

Finally, an agreement was reached,

brokered by Mussolini and Goering.

Hitler could have the Sudetenland, as long as he promised this was his final territorial demand.

Chamberlain, naturally, knew public opinion in Britain.

That's not the Foreign Office's job.

He knew public opinion in the Dominions, which mattered a good deal,

and felt, and I think quite rightly, really, that public opinion would not understand

getting involved as an ally of France, so to speak,

in a war with Germany, in Europe,

to prevent Germans being attached to other Germans.

But Hitler was still disgruntled.

Shortly after the agreement was signed, he said he'd been tricked.

I heard that, say, the day after the Munich conference

by some people who had been in the same hotel with Hitler or with his surrounding people...

and Ribbentrop, and so on, and they said that Hitler had the idea that he had failed to get his war.

That he had taken...

One German soldier took a home movie camera with him, as he entered the Sudetenland,

and filmed scenes reminiscent of the victorious German entry into Austria, just six months previously.

The German army officers were ecstatic too, as they controlled the Czech border defences -

the barbed wire, pillboxes and minefields with which the Czechs had sought to defend their country.

The rest of Czechoslovakia now lay naked in front of the German army...

and their commander in chief, Adolf Hitler.

BAND PLAYS

Hitler asked the ageing President Hacha of Czechoslovakia to Berlin, in March 1939, for talks.

Hitler humiliated Hacha by keeping him waiting.

He was busy that evening...

watching one of Goebbels' latest romantic comedies,

called A Hopeless Case.

Papa!

Hitler eventually saw Hacha at 1.15 in the morning.

He announced that in a few hours' time, German troops would invade his country.

At 4am, the distraught Hacha signed over the Czech people into Hitler's "care".

As dawn broke, Hitler held a celebration in his office.

There was a sort of private party, a sort of victory party, with champagne. Hitler had mineral water.

It was amazing to see how he behaved when he was among his friends,

and hadn't to behave like the statesman for the public.

So he was sitting...first of all, like this, everything here open.

Hair's like this. Drinking his mineral water.

And then the interesting thing... talking like this, the whole time...

In the meantime, he dictated to two secretaries one proclamation to the German people, one to the Czechs,

and a letter to Benito Mussolini to be transmitted by the Prince of Hesse the next morning.

So he did all that at the same time, and I was a youngster of 24,

so that's how a genius looks at home.

German troops assembling to cross into the Czech Republic that day were about to take a momentous step.

This boundary post marks the old border between the Sudetenland and the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Crossing this, Hitler showed his claim that he wanted only to unite German-speaking people was a sham.

The country these German troops now entered had never been German,

and had no German-speaking majority within it. This was an invasion.

BAND PLAYS SLOW MARCH

Gone were the cheering faces of Austria and the Sudetenland.

This time, the German military parade was watched by a silent crowd.

Hitler visited Prague and its castle - the old residence of the Czech kings -

less than 24 hours after he had first made his demands to President Hacha.

Looking over Prague, Hitler was full of joy.

But not all Nazi supporters were as pleased as their Fuhrer.

That changed the whole history, because from that moment on,

it was clear that Hitler was an imperialist and wanted to conquer whatever he wanted to conquer

and it had nothing more to do with the self-determination of the German people in Sudeten.

This was really terrible, what he did then.

SIR FRANK ROBERTS: And, of course, this came as a great shock to Chamberlain.

He thought at least Hitler would consult him before doing anything.

It opened Chamberlain's eyes.

It was rather like Saul on the road to Damascus, in some ways.

The British knew Hitler's next demand would be for the return of former German territory in Poland.

This time, Chamberlain pledged to resist.

If an attempt were made

to change the situation by force...

..in such a way as to threaten Polish independence...

..why, then, that would inevitably start a general conflagration,

in which this country would be involved.

Hitler demanded the return of Danzig to Germany -

a city in the so-called Polish corridor of land, between East Prussia and the rest of Germany.

As the crisis intensified,

Hitler retreated to the Berghof.

Hitler's dream of a grand alliance with Britain lay in ruins.

In its place, he faced war with Britain and France, if he did what he wanted and invaded Poland.

He needed a radical solution to his problems.

'Von Ribbentrop leaving for Moscow, ushers in a new, incomprehensible chapter in German diplomacy.

'What has happened to the principles of Mein Kampf?

'What can Russia have in common with Germany to throw over the peace front?'

Since spring 1939, on the back of trade negotiations with the Soviet Union,

the Nazis had been making tentative moves towards an alliance between the two countries.

On 23rd August 1939, Ribbentrop signed a non-aggression pact with the Soviet Union,

which protected Hitler from having to fight a war on two fronts.

A secret part of the pact guaranteed Stalin a share in the spoils, once Hitler invaded Poland.

Hitler was now allied to his ideological enemy.

As this was being signed in Moscow,

Hitler stood on the terrace of the Berghof and stared at the sky.

A Hungarian woman in Hitler's entourage looked at the sky, then turned to speak to her Fuhrer.

On the 1st of September 1939,

Germany invaded Poland.

On the 3rd of September, Britain and France declared war.

Subtitles by Valerie Maguire BBC Scotland, 1997