0:00:02 > 0:00:09This programme contains some scenes which some viewers may find upsetting.
0:00:40 > 0:00:44Italy was the birthplace of Fascism,
0:00:45 > 0:00:53So an alliance between the Fascist government in Rome and the Nazi government in Berlin seemed natural.
0:00:54 > 0:00:57But on the 19th of July, 1943,
0:00:57 > 0:01:01the unthinkable happened - Rome was bombed.
0:01:03 > 0:01:09By 1943, nearly 200,000 Italian soldiers were dead or missing.
0:01:12 > 0:01:19The Italian alliance with Nazi Germany had resulted in nothing but disaster.
0:01:19 > 0:01:24During the four years of war, more or less, you know,
0:01:24 > 0:01:28Italy was practically half destroyed.
0:01:28 > 0:01:33Everybody understood that the war was lost.
0:01:33 > 0:01:40And, of course, everybody was thinking that Italy had to get out and not stay with Mussolini.
0:01:42 > 0:01:46On the night of the 24th of July, 1943,
0:01:46 > 0:01:52the Fascist Grand Council met and expressed its lack of confidence in Mussolini.
0:01:52 > 0:01:58They voted that the king should gain control of the armed forces.
0:01:58 > 0:02:02Benito Mussolini had been the first Fascist dictator,
0:02:02 > 0:02:08his success an inspiration to the Nazis. But now the Italians had had enough.
0:02:08 > 0:02:14The king summoned Mussolini to a meeting at the Villa Savoia
0:02:14 > 0:02:17on the 25th of July, 1943.
0:02:18 > 0:02:23Mussolini was told he was dismissed as Prime Minister.
0:02:23 > 0:02:28He walked down the hall out of the king's villa at 5.20pm.
0:02:28 > 0:02:33As soon as he set foot outside the front door,
0:02:33 > 0:02:39Mussolini was arrested by the Italian police and taken to prison.
0:02:43 > 0:02:48The Italians were jubilant. Now they were free of Mussolini
0:02:48 > 0:02:53and soon changed sides to be with the winners.
0:02:53 > 0:02:57The new Italian government first surrendered,
0:02:57 > 0:03:04and then, in October, 1943, declared war on its former ally, Nazi Germany.
0:03:04 > 0:03:07Not very honourable, certainly,
0:03:07 > 0:03:09whenever you...you...
0:03:11 > 0:03:14..betray a friend, an ally.
0:03:14 > 0:03:18It's not very noble, But it happens. It happens.
0:03:18 > 0:03:24We are more realistic sometimes than the Germans are, no?
0:03:24 > 0:03:30Being more realistic, we are not faithful to the present chief and so on.
0:03:30 > 0:03:33I don't say it's a noble thing,
0:03:33 > 0:03:37but it is...it is our character.
0:03:38 > 0:03:43If the Italians were capable of removing Mussolini in 1943,
0:03:43 > 0:03:47why couldn't the Germans remove Hitler?
0:03:47 > 0:03:51Why were the Germans fighting to the end?
0:04:00 > 0:04:06The first task facing anyone who sought to remove Hitler was gaining access to him -
0:04:06 > 0:04:09and that was not easy.
0:04:09 > 0:04:14For most of the war, Hitler hid himself here at the Wolf's Lair,
0:04:14 > 0:04:20in what was then German East Prussia, protected by minefields,
0:04:20 > 0:04:23barbed wire and his loyal SS bodyguard.
0:04:23 > 0:04:28Discussions with his generals dominated his time here.
0:04:28 > 0:04:36Deep into the war, the Fuhrer had still not lost his ability to dominate those around him.
0:04:37 > 0:04:40At that time,
0:04:40 > 0:04:42I respected him.
0:04:42 > 0:04:45I mean...
0:04:45 > 0:04:47He impressed me.
0:04:47 > 0:04:55He made me tense. Whenever I was near him, I was prepared in every respect to watch out.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01But the flair Hitler had was unusual.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08He could... Somebody who was almost ready for suicide,
0:05:08 > 0:05:14he could revive him and make him feel that he should carry the flag
0:05:14 > 0:05:18and die in battle. Very strange.
0:05:36 > 0:05:42But by the end of 1943, it was clear that Germany was losing the war.
0:05:58 > 0:06:05In November, 1942, the area of territory controlled by the Nazis and their European allies
0:06:05 > 0:06:07had reached its peak.
0:06:07 > 0:06:14Now, just over a year later, Soviet forces were making huge advances in the East.
0:06:14 > 0:06:19The British and Americans were fighting their way up through Italy
0:06:19 > 0:06:25and Allied forces were gathering in Britain for D-day - the invasion of France.
0:06:25 > 0:06:31But it was in the war in the East that the Germans were suffering their greatest losses.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35Four million German troops faced over six million Soviets.
0:06:35 > 0:06:43Hitler had said this would be a different war, a war of annihilation.
0:06:43 > 0:06:49The nature of this war was to be a crucial reason why the Germans fought to the end,
0:06:49 > 0:06:55for, in the East, the Nazis thought they were fighting sub-humans.
0:07:32 > 0:07:37Behind German lines, partisans resisted the Nazi occupation
0:07:37 > 0:07:42and were summarily executed wherever they were found.
0:07:42 > 0:07:44This partisan war
0:07:44 > 0:07:52gave the Nazis an easy excuse simply to hang and shoot anyone they didn't like the look of.
0:08:37 > 0:08:41German forces, unlike their Italian allies,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45committed countless atrocities in the East.
0:08:45 > 0:08:52This massacre of Polish prisoners in Lublin was carried out by the SS in July 1944.
0:08:52 > 0:09:00But not only the SS and the security police killing squads committed atrocities.
0:09:00 > 0:09:06Many Wehrmacht units, too, were deeply implicated in the barbarism.
0:09:06 > 0:09:11This war of annihilation made it harder for some to remove Hitler,
0:09:11 > 0:09:16the man ultimately responsible for all the killings.
0:09:16 > 0:09:19Almost all the Nazi Party hierarchy
0:09:19 > 0:09:23knew and approved of the criminal killings.
0:09:23 > 0:09:30There was another reason why the Nazi leadership found it hard to conspire against Hitler.
0:09:30 > 0:09:37From the beginning, Hitler had encouraged personal emnity to grow among his favourites,
0:09:37 > 0:09:44often by appointing two people to more or less the same job and then watching as they fought.
0:09:44 > 0:09:51The result was a leadership in which almost everybody hated and distrusted everyone else.
0:09:51 > 0:09:56Goering disliked Speer, Ribbentrop, Goebbels and Bormann.
0:09:56 > 0:10:02Goebbels had little time for either Goering, Ribbentrop or Bormann.
0:10:02 > 0:10:08Ribbentrop couldn't stand any of these leading Nazis and vice versa.
0:10:08 > 0:10:15The Nazi leadership was riven by dislike as they fought each other for Hitler's praise and favour.
0:10:15 > 0:10:21That left the military leadership. But they, too, had agreed
0:10:21 > 0:10:29to the killing of the Communist commissars in the East and felt bound by their oath to the Fuhrer.
0:10:29 > 0:10:34A conspiracy was only possible under conditions of great secrecy.
0:10:34 > 0:10:41Finally, almost a year after Mussolini's overthrow, one senior officer DID come forward.
0:10:41 > 0:10:44On the 20th of July, 1944,
0:10:44 > 0:10:49in the most famous attempt on the Fuhrer's life,
0:10:49 > 0:10:53Claus von Stauffenberg tried to kill Hitler.
0:10:54 > 0:10:59Stauffenberg was the only one who said, "I am prepared to do it."
0:10:59 > 0:11:02But my opinion was
0:11:02 > 0:11:05that it could only succeed
0:11:05 > 0:11:11if the man who tried to kill him killed himself at the same moment.
0:11:11 > 0:11:17The way the Palestinians do it now in Israel, you see?
0:11:17 > 0:11:20Self-sacrifice or kamikaze.
0:11:20 > 0:11:25Stauffenberg left a bomb in his briefcase
0:11:25 > 0:11:29in the conference room on this spot at the Wolf's Lair
0:11:29 > 0:11:34then hurried away to Berlin. At 12.42pm...
0:11:34 > 0:11:39on the 20th of July, 1944, the bomb exploded during a briefing.
0:11:39 > 0:11:43Karl Boehm-Tettelbach was in his office nearby.
0:11:43 > 0:11:50Suddenly my colleague came and said, "Did you hear that?" Suddenly there was a big bomb.
0:11:50 > 0:11:59He said, "Did you hear that?" Four or five minutes later, we saw the SS in battle uniform
0:11:59 > 0:12:03surrounding our barracks.
0:12:03 > 0:12:06I said, "Isn't that funny?"
0:12:06 > 0:12:14The bomb destroyed the conference room. But the force of the blast was dispersed by the wooden walls,
0:12:14 > 0:12:18and Hitler escaped with only minor injuries.
0:12:18 > 0:12:22Now the search was on for those responsible.
0:12:22 > 0:12:28But by no means every German officer had supported the plot.
0:12:28 > 0:12:34Nobody approached me because they knew that I wouldn't break my oath.
0:12:34 > 0:12:40They knew from the beginning that I would stick. Luckily nobody would approach me
0:12:40 > 0:12:45because I was air force and the air force was not involved.
0:12:45 > 0:12:49If you had been approached,
0:12:49 > 0:12:51what would you have said?
0:12:51 > 0:12:59To Stauffenberg? I would have said, "I am going to report to Hitler that you want to kill him."
0:13:01 > 0:13:02Ja.
0:13:02 > 0:13:05I had no other choice.
0:13:05 > 0:13:13If I had stayed quiet, they would put me down in a little notebook and I would be shot.
0:13:15 > 0:13:19All my comrades who were all shot, they didn't speak.
0:13:19 > 0:13:27Stauffenberg couldn't speak, Mertz couldn't speak, and Haeften. They were shot immediately.
0:13:27 > 0:13:33The other ones whom I worked with, they were later on condemned to death,
0:13:33 > 0:13:35but they didn't give away my name.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38I owe my life to them.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42Even under torture, they didn't give away the names.
0:13:43 > 0:13:51In the early hours of the 21st of July, Hitler spoke on the radio to the German people.
0:14:36 > 0:14:42Hitler visited the officers who had been injured in the blast.
0:14:42 > 0:14:45The propaganda newsreel
0:14:45 > 0:14:49expressed joy at the Fuhrer's survival
0:14:49 > 0:14:56and hatred for those who had tried to kill him, feelings that were shared by many.
0:15:39 > 0:15:42The roots of Hitler's popularity,
0:15:42 > 0:15:48carefully nurtured by Goebbels over the previous 11 years, went deep.
0:15:49 > 0:15:57Letters home from the frontline reveal what many soldiers felt about the assassination attempt.
0:15:57 > 0:15:59Though these letters were censored,
0:15:59 > 0:16:06there was no need for the soldiers to refer to Stauffenberg and the plot unless they wanted to.
0:16:06 > 0:16:11"..There's a deep disgust about this crime..."
0:16:11 > 0:16:16"..The honour of the officers corps has come under attack..."
0:16:16 > 0:16:19"..a sad chapter in German history..."
0:16:19 > 0:16:25Hitler ordered the armed forces be drawn deeper into the Nazi fold.
0:18:04 > 0:18:09Propaganda images of this perfect Nazi world
0:18:09 > 0:18:13showing the young members of the master race
0:18:13 > 0:18:18helping out around the farm, hid another truth.
0:18:18 > 0:18:24Unlike Italy, Germany had become a racist state.
0:18:24 > 0:18:31The German economy relied, not so much on the work of these young boys of the Hitler Youth,
0:18:31 > 0:18:38as on the sweat and toil of forced labour from the "inferior races" of the conquered territories.
0:18:38 > 0:18:45It was horrible...to take a young boy, a child, from the family,
0:18:45 > 0:18:51put him into forced labours and being beaten...
0:18:53 > 0:18:55He awoke me at 5am.
0:18:55 > 0:19:00I had to go to the work in the barn and the stable.
0:19:02 > 0:19:08Polish the horses, he had two horses and, I believe, six cows, pigs...
0:19:08 > 0:19:11And then after I had done all this,
0:19:11 > 0:19:16to go to the fields to work in the fields -
0:19:16 > 0:19:20it was spring - to prepare everything.
0:19:20 > 0:19:24Well, I never cried as much as at that time.
0:19:24 > 0:19:30Last...I would say last months of my childhood passed this way.
0:19:31 > 0:19:38By August, 1944, there were more than 7½ million forced labourers in the New Germany.
0:19:38 > 0:19:411,700,000 of them were Poles.
0:20:46 > 0:20:52The half million slave workers from the concentration camps, mostly Jews,
0:20:52 > 0:20:57suffered even more than the Polish forced labourers.
0:20:57 > 0:21:03At least 35,000 of them worked here at the chemical plant of IG Farben in Silesia.
0:21:03 > 0:21:09The name of the camp these workers lived in has become infamous.
0:21:09 > 0:21:11Auschwitz.
0:21:11 > 0:21:18But there were two types of camp at Auschwitz. The concentration camps for the slave workers...
0:21:18 > 0:21:25and the extermination camp with its gas chambers. New arrivals were selected to go to one or the other.
0:21:27 > 0:21:31Arriving at Auschwitz, we were separated.
0:21:31 > 0:21:34I remember the selection.
0:21:34 > 0:21:39"What are you? What's your profession?"
0:21:39 > 0:21:41"I am mechanic."
0:21:41 > 0:21:44To the right.
0:21:44 > 0:21:47"What are you?" "I am a doctor."
0:21:48 > 0:21:51"You must learn to work."
0:21:51 > 0:21:54He hit him.
0:21:55 > 0:21:57And so on.
0:21:57 > 0:22:04Women with children and men with chidren, to the left, and the others to the right.
0:22:04 > 0:22:06And I was thinking,
0:22:06 > 0:22:09the fool that I was,
0:22:09 > 0:22:12they were going into a family camp.
0:22:15 > 0:22:17In the gas chambers.
0:22:21 > 0:22:26And...we were taken by a truck... it was two o'clock in the morning,
0:22:26 > 0:22:28and...
0:22:28 > 0:22:32we came into the camp.
0:22:34 > 0:22:39This was the camp of the IG Farben.
0:22:41 > 0:22:47And the people there said, "You are now in a concentration camp.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50"To go out from here...
0:22:50 > 0:22:53"through the chimney."
0:22:54 > 0:23:02Selection for the work camp normally meant only a temporary postponement of death.
0:23:02 > 0:23:08One Nazi doctor estimated that life expectancy for the labourers was three months.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13We went to work...
0:23:13 > 0:23:16in lines of five men in groups.
0:23:18 > 0:23:23I always tried to be in the middle.
0:23:23 > 0:23:28Not to be hit from the SS. And it helped.
0:23:31 > 0:23:34I am not a man who says,
0:23:34 > 0:23:40"I must do something. Some sabotage or something." No.
0:23:42 > 0:23:45I wanted to stay alive.
0:23:45 > 0:23:48I wanted to live...
0:23:48 > 0:23:52and to see Germany destroyed.
0:23:52 > 0:23:56The Nazi system destroyed.
0:23:56 > 0:24:01The majority may not have known of the realities of Auschwitz.
0:24:01 > 0:24:06But EVERY German knew that their country had become a racist state.
0:24:07 > 0:24:15The Nazis said that every true German was a superior being, something this propaganda film,
0:24:15 > 0:24:19made in 1944, was designed to illustrate.
0:24:20 > 0:24:24But this belief that they were superior
0:24:24 > 0:24:31made it harder for Germans to accept that they were losing the war.
0:24:31 > 0:24:36Perhaps, the Nazis thought, they were having trouble winning
0:24:36 > 0:24:43because there weren't enough superior beings in their army.
0:24:43 > 0:24:50So they tried to recruite racially acceptable foreigners into the Waffen SS.
0:25:05 > 0:25:09400,000 foreigners joined the Waffen SS
0:25:09 > 0:25:14and fought alongside the Germans, many motivated by one reason.
0:26:13 > 0:26:20Jacques Leroy was badly injured in battle and lost an eye and an arm.
0:26:20 > 0:26:25A few weeks later, he begged to be allowed to rejoin his regiment.
0:26:25 > 0:26:29The SS agreed and he carried on fighting.
0:27:40 > 0:27:45It wasn't just on the front line the Germans were losing the war.
0:27:45 > 0:27:51In the last phase of the war, Allied bombing of Germany increased.
0:27:51 > 0:27:59In the last 15 months of the war, 350,000 Germans died as a result of the bombing raids -
0:27:59 > 0:28:05three times more than in the previous three years of the war put together.
0:28:05 > 0:28:11The British bomber were called by the Germans at that time,
0:28:11 > 0:28:14under the influence of Goebbels,
0:28:14 > 0:28:17"Churchill's Mordbuben."
0:28:17 > 0:28:20And they hated them.
0:28:20 > 0:28:22And...
0:28:22 > 0:28:25it was no fun to become...
0:28:25 > 0:28:30if you made out of the bomber and came down on the ground,
0:28:30 > 0:28:34never you know what will happen.
0:28:34 > 0:28:39Germans may have hated the bombing, but it did not break their will.
0:28:39 > 0:28:45Men like Wolf Falck believed the Allies would not stop the bombing
0:28:45 > 0:28:51until Germany was destroyed as an industrial power.
0:28:53 > 0:28:58When it was decided to destroy Germany, we have nothing to lose.
0:28:58 > 0:29:06We have nothing to lose, and so we fought for our people, for our country, to protect them.
0:29:06 > 0:29:14There was another, more powerful reason, to keep fighting - a dread of the advancing Soviet forces.
0:29:14 > 0:29:21Both sides had committed atrocities against each other in this war of annihilation.
0:29:21 > 0:29:27But now the supposed sub-humans were forcing the Germany army to retreat.
0:29:57 > 0:30:01NEWSREEL:
0:30:19 > 0:30:26Not only the propaganda newsreels tried to put the retreat in the best light,
0:30:26 > 0:30:33so did the Nazi guidance officers attached to each unit. Men like Walter Fernau.
0:33:01 > 0:33:06Also exhorting the Germans to continue fighting
0:33:06 > 0:33:10was the Nazi Propaganda Minister, Joseph Goebbels.
0:33:10 > 0:33:15In November, 1944, he addressed the Volkssturm,
0:33:15 > 0:33:19the German equivalent of the Home Guard.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19About six million men were in the Volkssturm,
0:34:19 > 0:34:25mostly those who had been thought too old or too young for military service.
0:34:25 > 0:34:32They were told they were the last bastion against the approaching Bolsheviks.
0:34:32 > 0:34:39The majority of the Italians had only been fighting against the British and the Americans.
0:34:39 > 0:34:44Nazi propaganda said the Russians were an entirely different enemy,
0:34:44 > 0:34:52sentiments echoed by Hitler the last time he ever broadcast to the German people on 30th January, 1945.
0:35:26 > 0:35:31It wasn't just fear of the Russians that kept the Germans fighting.
0:35:31 > 0:35:36It was fear of other Germans. In the last months of the war,
0:35:36 > 0:35:41Nazi oppression against German civilians increased dramatically.
0:35:41 > 0:35:48In the town of Zellingen by the river Main, a local farmer discovered what happened
0:35:48 > 0:35:52if you dared to criticise the local Nazis.
0:35:52 > 0:35:59On March the 25th, 1945, the local Volkssturm paraded in front of the parish church.
0:35:59 > 0:36:04They were exhorted to continue the struggle to fight to the end.
0:36:40 > 0:36:42One of the men who had sniggered
0:36:42 > 0:36:46lived on the edge of the parade ground.
0:36:46 > 0:36:49His name was Karl Weiglein,
0:36:49 > 0:36:54a local farmer with a reputation as something of a hothead.
0:36:54 > 0:36:56He was less than pleased
0:36:56 > 0:37:02when, two days later, local Nazis blew up the bridge over the Main,
0:37:02 > 0:37:07to prevent it being used by the approaching Allies.
0:37:07 > 0:37:13Weiglein remarked that the men who blew up the bridge should be hanged.
0:37:13 > 0:37:19The remark was overheard and Weiglein was arrested. A court martial was called,
0:37:19 > 0:37:25and Walter Fernau was told by his commanding officer to act as prosecutor.
0:37:37 > 0:37:42The court martial was held in a house near the parade ground.
0:37:42 > 0:37:50A trumped-up charge of sabotage was added to the case against Weiglein, and, after a brief hearing,
0:37:50 > 0:37:53as the hangman's noose was prepared,
0:37:53 > 0:37:56Walter Fernau made a final submission.
0:38:50 > 0:38:55Karl Weiglein was taken round the corner to a nearby tree.
0:38:55 > 0:38:58There, his head was put in a noose
0:38:58 > 0:39:02as his wife watched from their house a few feet away.
0:39:02 > 0:39:05A neighbour heard what happened next.
0:39:22 > 0:39:28Karl Weiglein was just one of thousands of victims of these flying court martials.
0:39:28 > 0:39:31For his part in Weiglein's death,
0:39:31 > 0:39:35Walter Fernau later served six years in prison.
0:40:01 > 0:40:06The ruins of Berlin now became Hitler's final bolt hole
0:40:06 > 0:40:08as the Soviet army advanced west.
0:40:18 > 0:40:24Even Goebbels' propaganda could not now conceal the reality -
0:40:24 > 0:40:26Hitler had become a physical wreck.
0:41:43 > 0:41:48Yet, even then, Hitler remained the undisputed leader of Germany.
0:41:48 > 0:41:55The Italians had turned to their king when they'd grown sick of Mussolini,
0:41:55 > 0:41:59but in Germany, Hitler held all the levers of power
0:41:59 > 0:42:02as head of state and chancellor.
0:42:04 > 0:42:09The price the Germans paid because Hitler remained their leader
0:42:09 > 0:42:13became heavier each day the war continued.
0:42:19 > 0:42:24Hitler had told his generals to act brutally.
0:42:24 > 0:42:30The advancing Soviet troops showed they too had learnt this Nazi lesson.
0:42:31 > 0:42:34On the very last day of Hitler's life,
0:42:34 > 0:42:37April the 30th, 1945,
0:42:37 > 0:42:42Soviet troops moved into the East German town of Demmin
0:42:42 > 0:42:44and destroyed it.
0:42:44 > 0:42:51The Germans were reaping the consequences of the suffering their army had sown in the East.
0:42:51 > 0:42:56Waltraud Reski was eleven when the Soviet soldiers came.
0:42:56 > 0:43:02She saw what the Russians did to the women of the town, including her own mother.
0:43:42 > 0:43:46Sooner than endure the Soviet occupation,
0:43:46 > 0:43:50more than 900 people in Demmin commited suicide.
0:43:50 > 0:43:53Hundreds drowned themselves here
0:43:53 > 0:43:57in the rivers which surround the town.
0:45:08 > 0:45:14It was Hitler and the Nazis who had brought this suffering on Germany.
0:45:18 > 0:45:22Now the Fuhrer too was to take his own life,
0:45:22 > 0:45:27but only when Soviet troops were yards away from him.
0:45:37 > 0:45:40He shot himself
0:45:40 > 0:45:42shortly before half past three
0:45:42 > 0:45:45on the afternoon of 30th April, 1945.
0:45:57 > 0:46:00Nazism had been destroyed
0:46:00 > 0:46:03but at a terrible cost.
0:46:03 > 0:46:10There were many reasons the Germans, unlike the Italians, had fought to the end,
0:46:10 > 0:46:15crucially, an inability to rid themselves of Hitler
0:46:15 > 0:46:19and a fear of the approaching Soviet forces,
0:46:19 > 0:46:24people they had been taught to believe were scarcely human.
0:46:24 > 0:46:27Hitler had said that when he died,
0:46:27 > 0:46:31he would leave a great and strong Germany behind him.
0:46:31 > 0:46:34He left a very different legacy -
0:46:34 > 0:46:38new knowledge of what human beings are capable of.
0:46:54 > 0:47:02The German-born philospher, Karl Jaspers, himself persecuted by the Nazis, wrote after the war,
0:47:02 > 0:47:05"That which has happened is a warning.
0:47:05 > 0:47:08"To forget it, is guilt.
0:47:08 > 0:47:10"It was possible for this to happen,
0:47:10 > 0:47:15"and it remains possible for it to happen again at any minute."
0:48:11 > 0:48:18Subtitles on 888 by Janice Hamilton and Judith Simpson BBC Scotland 1997