Hitler in His Own Words
Transcript
00:00:00We must act radically.
00:00:21The Jews must clear out of Europe, but if they refuse to go voluntarily, I see no other
00:00:27solution but extermination.
00:00:34When I think about it, I realize I'm extraordinarily humane.
00:00:43The Second World War is long over, but the nightmare world of Adolf Hitler still represents
00:00:49the ultimate in evil.
00:00:52His legacy was 40 million dead, including the attempted annihilation of an entire race.
00:01:03But just how did one man lead the world to the brink of destruction?
00:01:52It's convenient to dismiss Hitler as something alien, a monstrous aberration somehow different
00:02:02from the rest of us.
00:02:03But the uncomfortable fact remains that he was human.
00:02:09Despite being the most written about and filmed individual in history, he remains a shadowy
00:02:14figure, lost amid flickering newsreel footage, overshadowed by the horror he unleashed.
00:02:28Idolized and adored by millions, Hitler inspired unwavering loyalty.
00:02:33Winston Churchill described him as this wicked man, the repository and embodiment of soul-destroying
00:02:39hatred.
00:02:41But to his devoted followers, he was a brooding mythical hero, wrapped in a cloak of righteous
00:02:47vengeance.
00:02:49So what power allowed this man to unleash the greatest mass slaughter in human history?
00:03:10A
00:03:31mesmerizing speaker, it was with words that Hitler transformed Germany from a republic
00:03:37to a brutal dictatorship.
00:03:39It was with words that he led his country down the path to war.
00:03:45It is through the records of his speeches and conversations that we must seek to understand
00:03:50him.
00:04:06Hitler was born in the small town of Braunau, just inside the Austrian border with Germany,
00:04:11on April 20, 1889.
00:04:21He was the fourth child of Clara, whose first three children had not survived beyond infancy.
00:04:27As a result, Hitler's mother was utterly devoted, lavishing him with care and attention.
00:04:36The young adult was a restless, lazy, unhappy child, always at odds with his strict authoritarian
00:04:42father, Alois, a minor civil servant.
00:04:47At the back of his mind, he had the idea that his son should become a government official,
00:04:53but it nauseated me to think that one day I might be fettered to an office stool.
00:04:58I used to say to my father, Father, just think, and he would immediately interrupt me, My
00:05:04son, I have no need to think, I am a public official.
00:05:11School was ridiculously easy.
00:05:14What gave me pleasure, I learned.
00:05:16What seemed unimportant, I sabotaged completely.
00:05:19By far my best subjects were geography and history.
00:05:23I always had the best marks.
00:05:25On the other hand, I had less impeccable behavior.
00:05:29I became a little ringleader that was hard to handle.
00:05:35In fact, Hitler's conduct was perfectly satisfactory, but he was never much of a student.
00:05:41His grades were so bad that he was forced to leave school at age 16.
00:05:48As always, Hitler's memory was highly selective.
00:06:11Contrary to his father's wishes, Hitler insisted he wanted to become an artist.
00:06:16When his father died in 1905, Hitler's indulgent mother allowed him to move to Vienna to make
00:06:22application to the National Arts Academy.
00:06:26But while his work was competent, even interesting, it did not impress the Academy's Board of
00:06:31Governors, and his application was rejected.
00:06:40For me, Vienna represents five years of hardship and misery.
00:06:46Five years in which I was forced to earn my living, first as a day laborer, and then
00:06:50as a painter.
00:06:51I had no other friends than care and everlasting hunger.
00:06:59Despite my dubious surroundings, I always preserved my good name.
00:07:09Hitler drifted from one flophouse to another, without friends or interests, living on a
00:07:14small orphan's pension and what money his mother could send him.
00:07:19He occupied his time seeking out amateur political theorists and social malcontents like himself.
00:07:32He grew intolerant, hating smoking and drinking, Marxists, military officers, the educational
00:07:38system that had rejected him, and the Jews.
00:07:48I did not come across the word Jew with any frequency until it was in connection with
00:07:52political discussions.
00:07:55The fact that Jews had been persecuted turned my distaste of unfavorable remarks about them
00:08:05into horror.
00:08:07Then one day, as I was strolling through the inner city of Vienna, I encountered an apparition
00:08:11in black kaftan and black hair locks.
00:08:15Is this a Jew?
00:08:16To be sure, they had not looked like this in the Ince.
00:08:20I bought my first anti-Semitic pamphlet, but the accusations seemed so monstrous.
00:08:26Then, wherever I went, I began to see Jews, and the more I saw them, the more they became
00:08:34distinguished from the rest of humanity.
00:08:40My ideas with regard to anti-Semitism were the greatest transformation of all.
00:08:45I no longer avoided discussion of the Jewish question.
00:08:48Now, I sought it.
00:08:51Gradually I began to hate them.
00:08:53I had ceased to be a weak-kneed cosmopolitan and became an anti-Semite.
00:09:02I had come to Vienna to observe three important problems.
00:09:06The social question, the race problem, and finally, the Marxist movement.
00:09:12I left Vienna a confirmed anti-Semite, a deadly foe of Marxists, and pro-German in my politics.
00:09:20Since then I have had to learn little and have altered nothing.
00:09:27By his own admission, aged 23, Hitler had learned all he ever needed to know.
00:09:48When World War I swept through Europe, Hitler seized the opportunity to escape his miserable,
00:09:54pointless life.
00:09:56Since I knew the destiny of Germany-Austria would not be fought in the Austrian army alone,
00:10:02I enlisted in the German army.
00:10:04The change seemed to agree with him.
00:10:08The struggle of the year 1914 came like a redemption from the vexations of my youth.
00:10:14To this day, I am not ashamed to say that I sank down on my knees and thanked heaven
00:10:20from an overflowing heart.
00:10:23Serving as a company messenger, Private, later Corporal Hitler, took part in 48 battles,
00:10:30was wounded twice, and received the Iron Cross First Class for bravery under fire.
00:10:50Hitler did not, however, make any friends.
00:10:53Brooding in the trenches, he would fly into rages, ranting to his fellow soldiers about
00:10:58the Communists and Jews.
00:11:05In October 1918, he was temporarily blinded in a gas attack.
00:11:14One month later, as he lay in a darkened hospital room, a greater darkness descended across
00:11:20Germany.
00:11:21The war was lost.
00:11:39At the end of the war, many of Europe's great monarchies disintegrated.
00:11:43In their place came anarchy, military collapse, and social breakdown.
00:11:50Germany teetered on the brink.
00:11:54Swathes of border territories were confiscated by foreign powers.
00:11:58The country was stripped of its military and crippled by war debts.
00:12:03Communists, monarchists, and the unemployed took to the streets.
00:12:09Germany was plunging toward anarchy.
00:12:12Hitler, still technically in the army, was assigned to spy on the more dissident groups.
00:12:19One of them, calling itself the German Workers' Party, had only 25 members, but it captured
00:12:25his attention.
00:12:26This absurd little organization with its few members seemed to possess the advantage that
00:12:33it left the individual an opportunity for real personal activity.
00:12:38The smaller the movement, the more readily it could be put into proper form.
00:12:46Hitler joined the group, and in less than six months became its primary spokesman, where
00:12:51his natural gift for public speaking drew ever larger crowds.
00:12:58By early 1920, it was attracting a thousand people.
00:13:04Within a year, Hitler had imposed himself as chairman of the group and changed its name
00:13:10to the National Socialist German Workers' Party, or NSDAP, commonly called the Nazis.
00:13:19He also adopted the swastika as the party emblem.
00:13:24I remember in 1923 the first time I spoke in a hall that could hold more than 2,000
00:13:30people.
00:13:31I told them, in the masses, a great energy is slumbering, and it only awaits the man
00:13:37who will summon it from its slumber and hurl it into the great battle for the destiny of
00:13:41the German race.
00:13:45Only months later, the German economy finally collapsed.
00:13:48Inflation soared.
00:13:50It became cheaper to burn paper money than buy firewood.
00:14:01The misery of our people is horrible to behold.
00:14:06Families are unemployed and starving.
00:14:08The whole middle class has been impoverished.
00:14:11When this collapse finally reaches the German peasant, we will be faced with an immeasurable
00:14:16disaster.
00:14:20To unemployed workers, Hitler preached the evils of capitalism, while to capitalists
00:14:25he insisted he was anti-communist.
00:14:30At all our meetings, I had party members in the audience, with orders to interrupt
00:14:35along carefully prepared lines, to give the impression of a spontaneous expression of
00:14:40public opinion.
00:14:42These interruptions strengthened the force of my arguments.
00:14:47Hitler also organized a motley crew of street thugs and bullies he called the SA, or brownshirts.
00:14:54I shock troops, those jolly rogues, with what confidence they followed me.
00:15:00They gave themselves body and soul, ready to break up communist meetings.
00:15:10I ordered them to treat our opponents roughly and chuck them out of our meetings.
00:15:15I disorganized the meetings of other parties by sending members of our party in the disguise
00:15:19of ushers, but in reality with instructions to riot and break up the meetings.
00:15:26As for their assumed brutality, they were simply somewhat close to nature.
00:15:43Through all the centuries, force and power are the determining factors.
00:15:48Only force rules.
00:15:50Force is the first law.
00:15:53If you wish to lead a people successfully through a difficult period of history, you
00:15:57must have no doubt that any individual who either actively or passively excludes himself
00:16:02from the activities of the community must be destroyed.
00:16:09Extremes must be fought with extremes.
00:16:12We must be, on principle, the most fanatical nationalists.
00:16:16A nation's economic life depends on the strength of a national state.
00:16:22It does not depend on such phrases as freedom of the people.
00:16:30We have no scruples, no bourgeois hesitations.
00:16:34They regard me as an uneducated barbarian.
00:16:37Yes, we are barbarians.
00:16:40We want to be barbarians.
00:16:42It is an honorable title.
00:16:46In 1923, Hitler and his barbarians finally saw a chance to flex their growing political
00:16:52muscle.
00:16:53Three thousand Nazi party members swarmed through the streets of Munich, attempting
00:16:59to overthrow the barbarian government.
00:17:01They believed the police would cooperate.
00:17:04But instead, they machine-gunned the Nazi column, killing sixteen.
00:17:09Three days later, 34-year-old Adolf Hitler was arrested and charged with treason.
00:17:16Sentenced to five years in prison, Hitler spent his time dictating his memoirs to loyal
00:17:21acolyte Rudolf Hess.
00:17:23Mein Kampf, or My Struggle, was a long, rambling diatribe against Hitler's favorite targets
00:17:30– the Jews, foreigners of every type, and communists.
00:17:38Hitler was incarcerated for just 11 months, but it was enough for him to change his mind
00:17:43about revolutionary politics.
00:17:46Instead of working to achieve power by an armed coup, we shall have to hold our noses
00:17:51and enter the government.
00:17:53If out-voting them takes longer than out-shooting them, at least the results will be guaranteed
00:17:58by their own constitution.
00:18:01Sooner or later, we shall have a majority.
00:18:03And after that, we will have Germany.
00:18:08Thanks to Hitler's fiery rhetoric, the Party's new populist tactics, and the ever-deepening
00:18:27German economic crisis, Nazi Party membership swelled from 27,000 in 1924 to nearly 180,000
00:18:37four years later.
00:18:39In 1928, the Nazis won 12 seats in the German National Assembly.
00:18:44Two years later, they were the second most powerful party in Germany.
00:18:50For us, winning seats in Parliament is not an end to itself, but only a means to an end.
00:18:56We are not, on principle, the parliamentary party.
00:18:59That would be a contradiction to our whole outlook.
00:19:03The party must not rust away in Parliament.
00:19:06It must not spend itself in superfluous battles of words.
00:19:09But the banner with the white circle and the black swastika will be hoisted over the whole
00:19:14of Germany on the day which will mark the liberation of our people.
00:19:22In the 1932 presidential election, Hitler ran against the aging German president and
00:19:27World War I hero, Field Marshal von Hindenburg.
00:19:33One way or the other, if the election does not decide, the decision must be brought about
00:19:37by other means.
00:19:40Hitler lost the bid for president, but by now the Nazis had become the largest party
00:19:45in Germany.
00:19:48But Hitler had no intention of cooperating with other political parties.
00:19:53And in an attempt to control Nazi violence, Hindenburg appointed Hitler Chancellor.
00:19:59Within six months, Hitler was virtually ruling the country, completely ignoring the 85 year
00:20:05old Hindenburg.
00:20:10When Hindenburg died the following August, the office of president and that of chancellor
00:20:15were incorporated into the single office of leader, Führer in German.
00:20:21Aha, what a happy inspiration I had in refusing the title of president of the Reich.
00:20:28Can you imagine it?
00:20:30President Adolf Hitler.
00:20:32There is no finer title than Führer.
00:20:45Now if anyone tries to impose conditions on me, I shall say to him, just wait and see
00:20:51what conditions I impose on you.
00:20:54I alone lead the movement.
00:20:56No one imposes conditions on me.
00:21:00It had taken just ten years for Hitler to rise from a petty political agitator to absolute
00:21:05master of Germany.
00:21:13In spite of his ability to dominate huge crowds, Adolf Hitler was awkward around individuals
00:21:30and was never able to form lasting friendships.
00:21:36To many, it seemed that the Führer only found self-confidence behind a podium.
00:21:45At formal occasions, he fidgeted constantly, tugging at his clothes and wringing his hands.
00:21:53To disguise his awkwardness, Hitler often resorted to being rude.
00:22:00On one occasion, an admirer asked the Führer how he greeted foreign ambassadors at a reception.
00:22:07It is very simple. I look him straight in the eyes until he loses his composure.
00:22:13Then I ask, does the Berlin climate agree with your excellency?
00:22:17And while he stammers an answer, I have already moved on to the next person.
00:22:24Hitler, however, was particularly fond of women, and they of him.
00:22:28They rhapsodized over his blue eyes.
00:22:32What lovely women there are in the world!
00:22:35My particular tragedy is that as head of state, I always have the most worthy ladies as my
00:22:40dinner partner.
00:22:41I'd rather go and pick up some pretty little typist or salesgirl.
00:22:45The greater the man, the less important the woman.
00:22:53Still Hitler insisted that women should be respected.
00:22:57A state of society in which women were regarded merely as slaves would be a clear regression
00:23:02for humanity.
00:23:06In prehistoric times, matriarchy was a fairly widespread form of social organization.
00:23:15But Hitler had his limits.
00:23:17I detest women who dabble in politics, and if their dabbling extends to military matters,
00:23:23it becomes utterly unendurable.
00:23:26In no section of the Nazi party has a woman ever had the right to hold even the smallest
00:23:31post.
00:23:43A girl's object should be to get married.
00:23:46Nature wants a woman to be fertile.
00:23:49Many women go slightly off their heads when they don't bear children.
00:23:52It is a thousand times better that she should have a child, and thus a reason to exist.
00:24:06Most of the women in Hitler's life came from backgrounds as humble as his own.
00:24:17Hitler's only long-term companion was Eva Braun.
00:24:21She was a pretty young sales clerk who would remain utterly devoted to the very end when
00:24:26she became Hitler's wife.
00:24:30Curiously, Adolf Hitler seemed genuinely fond of children.
00:24:36He thoroughly enjoyed their company, and was an adept storyteller, mimicking the voices
00:24:40of one character after another to the delight of his diminutive audience.
00:24:46As delightful as they were, children too had a greater purpose in Hitler's Germany.
00:25:02The Hitler Youth was an organisation modelled on the scout movement, but Hitler youth were
00:25:08taught to throw hand grenades and swear undying allegiance to their Führer and the Nazi party.
00:25:16I am very pleased to see how we bind the youth of German land with ever closer bonds to National
00:25:23Socialism and the German way of thought.
00:25:32Anyone who knows the soul of youth will understand that it is they who lend an ear most joyfully
00:25:38to the battle cry.
00:25:40Youth go on working and working for an idea, regardless of anything the older generation
00:25:46does to stop them.
00:26:11With his harsh, grating voice and gift for self-dramatisation, Hitler was able to exercise
00:26:29an almost hypnotic effect over vast crowds of people.
00:26:33But his success wasn't down to just technique.
00:26:37It was what he said.
00:26:38Like many political leaders before and since, Hitler found that a fast, effective way to
00:26:43unite people was to find a common enemy.
00:26:55The function of propaganda is not to ponder the rights of different people.
00:27:00Its task is to serve our own right always and unflinchingly.
00:27:05The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they
00:27:10belonged to one category.
00:27:14Improvements of any kind whatsoever absolutely must be supplemented with a struggle against
00:27:18some social class or caste.
00:27:22My objective is to create revolutionary upheavals, regardless of what methods I have to use in
00:27:28the process.
00:27:32With this in mind, I had to find the right kind of victim.
00:27:36I examined every possible solution and came to the conclusion that a campaign against
00:27:41the Jews would be as popular as it would be successful.
00:27:46They are totally defenceless and no one will stand up to protect them.
00:28:02They are totally defenceless and no one will stand up to protect them.
00:28:33Always beginning in hushed tones, Hitler's speeches built, in a matter of minutes, to
00:28:39fanatical tirades.
00:28:41Inevitably, when he reached this point, members of the audience began to faint.
00:28:46Pleased as he was with the results, Hitler despised the masses as sheep or cattle to
00:28:52be led blindly.
00:28:57All propaganda must be popular and its intellectual level must be adjusted to the most limited
00:29:03intelligence.
00:29:07Consequently, the greater the mass it is to reach, the lower its intellectual level will
00:29:12have to be.
00:29:14Propaganda must avoid intellectual demands on the public.
00:29:18People need wholesome fear.
00:29:20They want to fear something.
00:29:22They want someone to frighten them and make them shudderingly submissive.
00:29:26Terror is absolutely indispensable in founding a new power.
00:29:44One of the secrets of Hitler's success was understanding that different audiences needed
00:29:48to hear very different things.
00:29:52And it wasn't just Germans that he became adept at manipulating.
00:29:59We must systematically draw all the Germanic people of Europe into the German channel of
00:30:05thought.
00:30:06But propaganda destined for abroad must not be based on that used for home consumption.
00:30:12Broadcasts to Britain, for example, must contain plenty of music of the type popular among
00:30:17the British.
00:30:18This way they will acquire the habit of listening to it more and more.
00:30:23As the old saying goes, little drops of water will wear away the stone.
00:30:31During the early years of his dictatorship, the image Hitler projected to the world beyond
00:30:36Germany was that of a reasonable man struggling to rebuild his shattered nation.
00:30:48In Germany, the people decide their own existence.
00:30:51They determine the principles of government.
00:30:54For the first time in German history, we have a state which has abolished absolutely all
00:30:59social prejudices.
00:31:06I state definitely that minorities who live in Germany are not persecuted.
00:31:16Our prejudices can't be maintained in a socially advanced state like ours.
00:31:20We favor the development of people of worth.
00:31:23The party should enable the poorest child to lay claim to the highest functions, if
00:31:29he has the talent.
00:31:31Our duty is to teach men to see whatever is lovely and truly wonderful in life, and not
00:31:37become ill-tempered and spiteful.
00:31:40Enjoy what is beautiful, and avoid anything that might do harm to people like ourselves.
00:31:54Hitler told the world exactly what it wanted to hear.
00:31:58I don't want to force national socialism on anybody.
00:32:02If I'm told that some countries want to remain democracies, very well.
00:32:06They must remain democracies at all costs.
00:32:15The national government is impressed with its duty to use equal rights as an instrument
00:32:20to secure and maintain the peace which the world requires today more than ever before.
00:32:27My party comrades will not fail to understand me when they hear me speak of universal peace,
00:32:33disarmament, and mutual security pacts.
00:32:37Hitler's cynical platitudes were lapped up by nations refusing to face their worst fears.
00:32:46But Hitler's party comrades were well aware of what Hitler really thought.
00:33:03According to the Americans themselves, America has the finest, biggest, and most efficient
00:33:09of everything in the world.
00:33:11They have the brains of a hen.
00:33:13Well, the disillusionment will be all the more severe when their house of cards collapses.
00:33:21The British have no conception of chivalry in war.
00:33:25They are realists, devoid of any scruples, and cold as ice.
00:33:31The German is always restrained by moral scruples.
00:33:37The rulers of present-day Russia are common criminals.
00:33:44The scum of humanity which has wiped out thousands in a wild bloodlust.
00:33:49Do not forget that the international Jew completely dominates Russia.
00:33:56In his own way, Stalin is a hell of a fellow.
00:34:03Hitler's venom even extended to his few allies.
00:34:08The touchiness of the Italians comes from an inferiority complex.
00:34:12It is the touchiness of a people with a guilty conscience.
00:34:16Hitler's bigotry wasn't restricted by mere nationality.
00:34:20Religion was a favorite target.
00:34:26Christianity is the invention of sick brains.
00:34:30It promulgates inconsistent dogmas and imposes them by force.
00:34:35The mere sight of one of these abortions in a cassock makes me wild.
00:34:51For Hitler, the German people were special.
00:34:55The German people have made moral law the governing principle of all action.
00:35:00We Germans have that marvelous sense of duty which other people lack.
00:35:05The Germans are the highest species of humanity on earth.
00:35:10Hitler swore to his people that he would make their nation the hub of Europe.
00:35:20Germanic people must compose the nucleus around which all Europe will federate.
00:35:26When we have solidly organized Europe, who knows,
00:35:29perhaps one day we shall be able to entertain other ambitions.
00:35:37In fact, Hitler entertained other ambitions from the earliest days.
00:35:42Never consider the Reich secure unless it is in a position to give every one of its descendants
00:35:48a piece of ground that he can call his own.
00:35:54To guarantee living space for the German people,
00:35:57we are bound to think first of Russia and her border states.
00:36:01Circumstance must be adapted to aims.
00:36:04This is impossible without the invasion of foreign states or attacks upon foreign property.
00:36:10My long-term policy aims at having a hundred million Germans settled in the conquered territories.
00:36:21German colonists in our new eastern colonies ought to live on handsome, spacious farms.
00:36:30Beyond that would be another world where the Russians can live as they like.
00:36:35I absolutely forbid the organization of any sort of hygiene or cleanliness in these territories.
00:36:41No vaccinations and no soap to get the dirt off them.
00:36:45This would only result in an increase in the local population.
00:36:50But let them have all the vodka and tobacco they want.
00:37:06GERMANY
00:37:22Unfortunately for history, Hitler was no mere idol procrastinator.
00:37:28As soon as he took power, he turned his words into action and the world was changed forever.
00:37:39Germany can only be saved through action.
00:37:42A government needs power. It needs strength.
00:37:45It must, with brutal righteousness, press through the ideas which it recognizes to be right.
00:37:58Democracy is fundamentally not German. It is Jewish.
00:38:03This Jewish democracy with its majority decisions has always been a means towards the destruction of Aryan leadership.
00:38:11Restrictions on personal liberty, on the right of free expression and the right of assembly are permissible beyond the legal limit.
00:38:20Nature is cruel. Therefore, we have the right to be cruel.
00:38:25When I send the flower of German youth into the steel hail of the next war,
00:38:30without feeling the slightest regret over the precious German blood that is being spilled,
00:38:35should I not also have the right to eliminate millions of an inferior race that multiplies like vermin?
00:38:46In 1933, as soon as he became Chancellor, Hitler began stripping away individual rights.
00:38:55Jews were denied any role in political life, stripped of their citizenship and denied the right to do business or hold a job.
00:39:04It is beside the point whether the individual Jew is decent or not.
00:39:13My first task will be the annihilation of the Jews.
00:39:17The Jews will have gallows built in Rome. Jews will be hanged indiscriminately.
00:39:22And they will remain hanging until they stink.
00:39:26As soon as they have been untied, the next batch will be strung up until the last Jew has been exterminated.
00:39:33It is a shameful spectacle to see how the whole democratic world is oozing sympathy for the poor tormented Jewish people.
00:39:48The End
00:39:55If Hitler was to have any chance of defying the world and creating a Third Reich that his beloved German people deserved,
00:40:02he would first need to rebuild the economy and then rearm.
00:40:08No economic policy is possible without a sword.
00:40:12No industrialization without power.
00:40:15Today we no longer have a sword grasped in our fist, so how can we have a successful economic policy?
00:40:22As much as he hated other countries, he was not above holding up their successes as an example of what Germany might become.
00:40:31Ein Führer! Ein Reich! Ein Land!
00:40:41In America, everything is machine-made, so their workers need no specialized training, and they are therefore interchangeable.
00:40:50In this respect, we are far behind the Americans.
00:40:54The End
00:41:12To help lift Germany out of the Depression and demonstrate his interest in the German people,
00:41:17Hitler undertook a massive public works project to construct 1,500 miles of new highways and a scheme to provide inexpensive automobiles.
00:41:30The first German automobile of this sort will be the Volkswagen.
00:41:35It is the car of the future.
00:41:38The End
00:41:46Cheap cars were the least of Germany's problems.
00:41:49It lacked nearly every natural resource required by heavy industry.
00:41:54To obtain natural wealth meant taking it from someone else by force.
00:42:08The End
00:42:13Originally, war was a struggle for pastureland.
00:42:17Today, it is a struggle for the riches of nature.
00:42:20By virtue of inherent law, these riches belong to him who conquers them.
00:42:25The law of natural selection justifies this incessant struggle by allowing the survival of the fittest.
00:42:34Hitler began rearming his country in open defiance of the Treaty of Versailles, which had disarmed Germany at the end of the First World War.
00:42:44The End
00:42:54In 1934, the German army contained 100,000 men, no tanks, no airplanes, and very little artillery.
00:43:03Within five years, Hitler had expanded the military from eight divisions to 38, with a total of over four million men.
00:43:15Hitler constantly exaggerated Germany's military strength, as if defying someone to stop him.
00:43:22What the world shuts its ears to today, it will not be able to ignore in a year's time.
00:43:29The End
00:43:44Despite his threats and posturing, Hitler knew Germany could not survive a prolonged war.
00:43:50Its limited natural resources and the threat of a naval blockade imposed by Britain demanded something new,
00:43:57something that would be fast and devastatingly effective.
00:44:04In war, the soldier who achieves the greatest success is the one who has the most modern technical means at his disposal,
00:44:11not only in battle itself, but also in the field of communications and supply.
00:44:19The important thing is to have technical superiority in every case.
00:44:26We must meet the enemy with novelties that take him by surprise, so we can continually retain the initiative.
00:44:33This new, highly mobile and technologically advanced army would engage the enemy in a series of fast, hard-hitting strikes
00:44:42designed to take the opposition off guard and keep them that way.
00:44:51This was the basic theory of what Hitler called Blitzkrieg, the lightning war.
00:44:57And if it worked the first time, Hitler saw no reason why it should not work indefinitely.
00:45:04We will always strike first. We will always deliver the first blow.
00:45:08I shall shrink from nothing. Nothing will prevent me from making use of any advantage.
00:45:14The next war will be unbelievably bloody and grim.
00:45:18It will make no distinction between military and civilian competence.
00:45:28Germany is entirely ready to renounce all offensive weapons.
00:45:32Germany is prepared to agree to any solemn pact of non-aggression.
00:45:36As a strong state, we are ready to embark on a policy of understanding with the world around us.
00:45:42We want to be the first country in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:46We want to be the first country in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:50We want to be the first country in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:54We want to be the first country in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:56We want to be the first country in the world to have a nuclear weapon.
00:45:58We have no wishes or demands. We want peace.
00:46:03While Hitler talked peace, the army prepared war.
00:46:09On February 27th 1936, German forces entered the Rhineland, Germany's former industrial heartland
00:46:16which had been divided between France and Belgium after the great war.
00:46:24Again, Hitler spoke to the world and awaited Europe's reaction.
00:46:29Now that complete German sovereignty and equality have been restored to the Rhineland,
00:46:35with all my heart I hope that the intelligence and goodwill of responsible European governments
00:46:41will succeed in preserving peace for Europe.
00:46:44Peace is our dearest treasure.
00:46:48France, Belgium and Great Britain did nothing.
00:46:52Privately, Hitler was deeply relieved.
00:46:57The 48 hours after the march into the Rhineland were the most nerve-wracking in my life.
00:47:03If the French had marched into the Rhineland, we would have had to withdraw with our tails between our legs.
00:47:10The military resources at our disposal would have been wholly inadequate for even moderate resistance.
00:47:19To celebrate their first major victory, Hitler and the Nazi party held a massive rally in the city of Nuremberg,
00:47:26where Hitler gloated over the annexation of the Rhineland.
00:47:30Abroad, perhaps, we are not loved, but we are respected and we receive attention.
00:47:37That is the important thing.
00:47:40Above all, we have given the greatest possible good fortune to millions of our fellow citizens.
00:47:46Their return to our greater German life.
00:48:12Hitler now set his sights on his homeland.
00:48:15The ruins of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
00:48:18Rudderless since its collapse in 1918, Austria was largely Germanic in culture and language.
00:48:26German Austria must return to the great German mother country.
00:48:31Not because of any economic constraints, but because one blood demands one Reich.
00:48:39Few carefully engineered assassinations, intense political pressure and thinly veiled threats
00:48:45all helped convince the Austrian government that it should surrender itself to Germany.
00:49:03On March 11, 1938, German troops rolled across the border.
00:49:08Once again, Hitler's Reich had been expanded without a shot being fired.
00:49:14GERMANY
00:49:33Gambling that virtually no amount of aggression would rouse England and France,
00:49:38Hitler began publicly agitating for his next conquest, the Sudetenland.
00:49:4442,000 square miles of former German territory ceded to Czechoslovakia at the end of World War I.
00:49:54Once the Sudeten problem is settled, it will be the last territorial demand I have to make in Europe.
00:50:00I hope that in a few days the problem will finally be solved
00:50:04and we shall have occupied all the areas which belong to us.
00:50:08Thus one of Europe's most serious crises will be ended.
00:50:16I realised vividly how Herr Hitler feels that he must champion other Germans.
00:50:22He told me privately and last night he repeated publicly
00:50:28that after the Sudeten German question is settled,
00:50:31that is the end of Germany's territorial claims in Europe.
00:50:38The British and French governments believed Hitler
00:50:41and in late 1938 signed a peace agreement in Munich
00:50:45allowing Germany to take the Sudetenland and guaranteeing Czechoslovakia against further losses.
00:50:58While all Europe celebrated what the British Prime Minister called
00:51:01peace in our time, Hitler was candid with his inner circle.
00:51:07It is my unalterable decision to smash Czechoslovakia by military action in the near future.
00:51:13The Czechs are inferior.
00:51:15It is enough for a Czech to grow a moustache for anyone to see from the way the thing droops
00:51:19that his origin is Mongol.
00:51:22But Hitler remained cautious.
00:51:24I will take action against Czechoslovakia only if I am convinced that France
00:51:29and therefore England will not intervene.
00:51:34In March 1939, only 13 months after Germany annexed the first of its lost territories,
00:51:41a terrified Czechoslovakia surrendered to Nazi Germany without military action.
00:51:47Hitler's public announcement was short and to the point.
00:51:52Czechoslovakia has ceased to exist.
00:52:00Hitler's seizure of Czechoslovakia just four months after guaranteeing its safety
00:52:05was not the last treaty Hitler would discard that year.
00:52:09Flushed with success and the refusal of Czechoslovakia's allies to come to her aid,
00:52:15Hitler immediately set his sights on neighboring Poland
00:52:19with whom he had signed a non-aggression pact five years earlier.
00:52:26But long before Hitler signed his pact with the Poles,
00:52:29he had harbored a seething hatred for Polish people.
00:52:35The Poles are especially born for hard labor.
00:52:38The people should be used by us merely as a source of unskilled labor.
00:52:43There should be only one master for the Pole, the Germans.
00:52:47All representatives of the Polish intelligentsia are to be exterminated.
00:52:52I would like to kill without mercy all men, women and children of the Polish race
00:52:57or who speak the Polish language.
00:53:03Adolf Hitler was about to open the gates of hell.
00:53:47Adolf Hitler was about to open the gates of hell.
00:53:52Adolf Hitler was about to open the gates of hell.
00:54:17Since Hitler had proclaimed himself Fuhrer of Germany in 1933,
00:54:21he had embarked on a steady program of economic, military and territorial expansion.
00:54:27Within six years, Germany had reclaimed nearly all its land and people
00:54:32lost at the end of the First World War, 21 years earlier.
00:54:41Europe had done nothing to stop Hitler's aggression,
00:54:44even when the Reich invaded Czechoslovakia,
00:54:47an independent country that had never been part of Germany.
00:54:51As the world awaited Hitler's next move with bated breath,
00:54:55none were more apprehensive than neighboring Poland.
00:55:18Poland
00:55:23Poland
00:55:28Poland
00:55:33Poland
00:55:38Poland
00:55:48Poland
00:55:59At 4.45 a.m. on September 1, 1939,
00:56:03the massive and technologically superior German military machine
00:56:08plunged across Poland's border.
00:56:17Poland
00:56:22Poland
00:56:27Although Hitler had disregarded yet another international treaty by attacking Poland,
00:56:33he had still felt the need to justify the Reich's actions legally.
00:56:41As with Germany's recently regained territories,
00:56:44the Polish port of Danzig had once been German,
00:56:47and nearly a million Germans resided there.
00:56:50Hitler wanted them back inside the Reich.
00:56:53Poland was doomed.
00:57:02To the world, Hitler had announced,
00:57:04Danzig was and is a German city.
00:57:08All the German minorities living there have been ill-treated.
00:57:14But in private, he was more direct.
00:57:17Danzig is not the subject of the dispute at all.
00:57:20It is a question of expanding our living space in the East.
00:57:27Hitler did not want to provoke France and Britain into war,
00:57:30and publicly claimed that in fact Poland had been about to invade Germany.
00:57:35The Polish state has refused the peaceful settlement of relations.
00:57:40Germans in Poland are persecuted with bloody terror and driven from their homes.
00:57:50A series of violations along the German-Polish border
00:57:53prove that Poland is no longer willing to respect the frontiers of the Reich.
00:57:59Does anyone really believe that the German nation will stand for that from such a ridiculous state?
00:58:05To put an end to this lunacy,
00:58:07I have no other choice than to meet force with force.
00:58:11Long live the Reich!
00:58:31Hitler's instructions to his military were clear.
00:58:34Close your hearts to pity. Act brutally.
00:58:3780 million people must obtain what is their right.
00:58:40The strongest man is always right.
00:58:49In 18 days of fire and hell, the German military decimated Poland.
00:58:5450,000 Poles were killed, and three quarters of a million had been taken prisoner.
00:59:05A GLOATING HITLER
00:59:11A gloating Hitler invited foreign correspondents to view the wreckage of Warsaw, Poland's capital.
00:59:17Gesturing toward the devastated city, he said,
00:59:20A great crime has been committed here.
00:59:23The Polish military went mad, and look at the crime committed against their own people.
00:59:28They were drunk with power, and talked of marching on Berlin.
00:59:32Then they barricaded themselves in the city, and look at Warsaw now.
00:59:42Sheer sympathy for women and children caused me to make an offer to those in command of Warsaw,
00:59:48to at least let the civilian inhabitants leave the city.
00:59:56In truth, Hitler had ordered special SS units to follow the army across Poland.
01:00:01It was their job to murder every educated Pole they could find.
01:00:05Doctors, police, the clergy, Jews, landlords and the nobility were all butchered.
01:00:15When Poland finally surrendered, less than 3% of the Polish upper class remained alive.
01:00:32THE END
01:00:35This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note,
01:00:43stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock,
01:00:49that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland,
01:00:54a state of war would exist between us.
01:00:59I have to tell you now, that no such undertaking has been received,
01:01:05and that consequently, this country is at war with Germany.
01:01:21Although England and France both declared war on Germany, they still failed to act.
01:01:27Hitler now held all the cards, and he was not about to relinquish the initiative.
01:01:35Privately, Hitler mocked British and French leaders,
01:01:38calling them coffee-drinking old aunties, and referring to their diplomats as worms.
01:01:44But publicly, he continued to offer reassurances.
01:01:49I have declared that the frontier between France and Germany is a final one.
01:01:54I have repeatedly offered friendship and the closest cooperation with Britain.
01:01:59Germany has no interest in the West, and we have no aims there for the future.
01:02:04With this assurance, we are in solemn earnest.
01:02:08As long as others do not violate the neutrality of Holland and Belgium,
01:02:12we will take every care to respect it.
01:02:16As always, Hitler had something very different to say to his inner circle.
01:02:22My decision is unchangeable.
01:02:25I shall attack France and England at the earliest favourable moment.
01:02:33The neutrality of Belgium and Holland is of no importance.
01:02:37If France and England strike, let them do so.
01:02:40It is a matter of complete indifference to me.
01:02:43Today is Tuesday. By next Monday, we will be at war with someone.
01:02:52THE GENERAL STAND-OFF
01:02:57Over the winter of 1939 and 1940, German troops made light of the continuing stand-off.
01:03:06But Hitler's general staff were laying plans for all-out war.
01:03:21The basic aim is to lend the operation the character of a peaceful occupation
01:03:26designed to protect, by force of arms, the neutrality of the northern countries.
01:03:31But the operation should come as a complete surprise.
01:03:35We must deal the enemy a decisive blow right at the start.
01:03:39If Holland and Belgium are successfully occupied and held,
01:03:43and if France is also defeated,
01:03:45the fundamental conditions for a successful war against England will have been secured.
01:04:06While Germany prepared for an offensive in the west,
01:04:09the British boarded a German supply vessel, the Altmark, in a Norwegian fjord.
01:04:15Hitler was furious.
01:04:18The Nazi war machine moved into action on April 9, 1940, and struck north.
01:04:40THE GENERAL STAND-OFF
01:04:51Britain and France launched an attempted counter-invasion, but did not persist for long.
01:05:00In a matter of days, Denmark and Norway collapsed under the German onslaught.
01:05:10DENMARK
01:05:14Just one month after the occupation of Denmark and Norway,
01:05:18the German Wehrmacht launched its full-scale offensive into Western Europe.
01:05:28Holland, Belgium and France were invaded and overrun in only 40 days.
01:05:40FRANCE
01:05:43British and French troops resisted the onrushing tide of panzer tanks,
01:05:48but the dive bombers and soldiers surging toward the Atlantic coast were relentless.
01:05:54GERMANY
01:06:06Even Hitler was amazed at the ease of his latest victory.
01:06:11The German armed forces have truly surpassed themselves in this campaign.
01:06:16Nothing is impossible for the German soldier.
01:06:18No power in the world can drive us out of this region against our will.
01:06:25What General Weygand has called the Battle of France is over.
01:06:30The Battle of Britain is about to begin.
01:06:34Upon this battle depends the survival of Christian civilization.
01:06:49Reveling in the collapse of France,
01:06:51Hitler laid aside the question of Great Britain long enough to visit Paris
01:06:55and gloat over his latest triumph.
01:07:00The generations which follow us will no doubt accept without comment
01:07:04the unification of Europe which we are about to accomplish.
01:07:10I cannot stress too strongly that this had not been made possible by the efforts of statesmen,
01:07:16but by the force of arms.
01:07:19But Hitler had already made his first mistake.
01:07:46Nearly a half a million French and British troops had been trapped on the French coast of Dunkirk,
01:07:52but Hitler had called off the panzers.
01:07:57Had Hitler pressed his advantage,
01:07:59he could have wiped out any effective Allied resistance for years to come.
01:08:04But he let the moment pass.
01:08:06Between May 28th and June 4th,
01:08:09the Royal Navy evacuated more than 300,000 experienced combat troops to the safety of England.
01:08:16It was a mistake that would come back to haunt the master of Europe.
01:08:22For the moment, Hitler believed he was invincible.
01:08:26If anybody other than myself had been at the head of the Reich,
01:08:30he would have lost his nerve.
01:08:32No one will ever have the confidence of the German people as I do.
01:08:37There will probably never again be a man with more authority.
01:08:47From the Atlantic coast of France in the west,
01:08:50to the Russian border in the east,
01:08:52and from the north coast of Norway to the Mediterranean,
01:08:55Adolf Hitler held Europe in a stranglehold.
01:09:17Europe will be an impregnable fortress,
01:09:20safe from any threat of blockade.
01:09:22After that, everything will be simply a matter of organisation.
01:09:32To secure the newly conquered Atlantic coast,
01:09:35Hitler ordered the construction of 1,500 new gun emplacements
01:09:39extending from the northernmost point of Norway to the Spanish frontier.
01:09:47Building would go on for years to come.
01:09:51I am irrevocably determined to make the European front unassailable by any enemy.
01:10:00Nothing could persuade us to abandon such safe posts as those on the Channel coast.
01:10:07You know, we have given Europe a great piece of good fortune.
01:10:11Namely, peace.
01:10:13Peace that will be protected by German might.
01:10:17And this might can no longer be broken by any world power.
01:10:22That is our pledge.
01:10:24Sieg Heil!
01:10:37Among the German military and at home,
01:10:40the Führer's popularity could hardly have been higher.
01:10:43Thousands of streets bore his name,
01:10:46and in 1940 alone, he sold nearly one million copies of Mein Kampf.
01:11:07Despite his antagonism toward everyone else,
01:11:10Hitler never quite decided how to deal with the British.
01:11:15Imagining them members of the German race,
01:11:18he seemed to think they would eventually join his genocidal crusade.
01:11:24If the English are clever, they will make an about turn and march on our side.
01:11:30By getting out of the war now,
01:11:32the English could succeed in putting their principal competitor, the United States,
01:11:36out of the game for 30 years.
01:11:41But Britain's tough new Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, was having none of it.
01:11:45He said that,
01:11:47if Hitler were to invade hell,
01:11:49I would find occasion to make a favorable reference to the devil.
01:11:57We shall fight on the seas and oceans.
01:12:00We shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air.
01:12:06We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be.
01:12:10We shall fight on the beaches.
01:12:12We shall fight on the landing grounds.
01:12:15We shall fight in the fields and in the streets.
01:12:19We shall fight in the hills.
01:12:21We shall never surrender.
01:12:25Hitler was well aware that the island nation presented technical problems
01:12:29to a traditional blitzkrieg type attack.
01:12:35Britain enjoys one immense natural advantage.
01:12:39She is completely surrounded by a gigantic anti-tank ditch.
01:12:53Hitler made one last appeal for Britain to see reason.
01:12:58I feel it my duty to appeal once more to reason and common sense in Great Britain.
01:13:07I am in a position to make this appeal,
01:13:09because I am not the vanquished begging favors,
01:13:12but the victor speaking in the name of reason.
01:13:17I see no reason why this war must go on.
01:13:23Churchill replied with action.
01:13:25In August 1940, Britain's Royal Air Force bombed Germany.
01:13:43Hitler struck back with interest.
01:13:48The trouble has come.
01:13:50I did everything humanly possible,
01:13:52almost to the point of self-abasement, to avoid it.
01:13:56I repeatedly made offers to the British,
01:13:59but it was all in vain.
01:14:01They wanted war, and they made no secret of it.
01:14:16It will not be as easy a war as they think.
01:14:19It will be a war of such destructiveness as no one has imagined.
01:14:36Just weeks after the collapse of France,
01:14:39German planes began an intense bombing campaign against Britain.
01:14:44The Battle of Britain and the London Blitz,
01:14:47which continued for seven gruelling months,
01:14:50took the lives of more than 7,000 civilians.
01:14:54GERMAN PLANES
01:15:14Despite England's tenacious resistance
01:15:17and the loss of more than 300 German warplanes,
01:15:20Hitler remained confident that England would collapse in a matter of weeks.
01:15:33As an island, Britain might have been immune to Hitler's panzers,
01:15:37but its vital supply lines were desperately exposed to the German U-boats.
01:15:43With this in mind, Hitler began planning his next major conquest.
01:15:51GERMAN PLANES
01:16:09Since the beginning of his political career,
01:16:12Hitler had considered communism one of the world's great evils,
01:16:16and frequently insisted that any cooperation with Russia is out of the question.
01:16:25But just before invading Poland, Hitler had surprised the world.
01:16:33The government of the Reich is ready to cultivate,
01:16:36with the Soviet Union, friendly relations profitable to both parties.
01:16:41Given the fact that Soviet Russia has no intention of exporting its doctrine to Germany,
01:16:47I no longer see any reason why we should still oppose one another.
01:16:57Russia and Germany wasted no time in dividing up the spoils of Poland between them.
01:17:12My pact was only meant to stall for time.
01:17:15We will crush the Soviet Union.
01:17:18Hitler needed time to marshal his resources
01:17:21and prepare the armed forces before taking on the Russian behemoth.
01:17:26He knew his enemy well enough to realize that if Germany didn't attack Russia,
01:17:30sooner or later Russia would attack Germany.
01:17:34By late 1940, Hitler somehow convinced himself,
01:17:38before even Britain had capitulated,
01:17:40that Germany could conquer Russia in just two months.
01:17:56The German army was ready.
01:17:59The German armed forces must be prepared,
01:18:02even before the conclusion of the war against England,
01:18:05to crush Soviet Russia in a rapid campaign.
01:18:09We need only kick in the front door
01:18:11and the whole rotten edifice of communism will come crashing down.
01:18:16What matters is that Bolshevism be exterminated.
01:18:21Moscow, as the center of the doctrine, must disappear from the Earth's surface.
01:18:25No organized Russian state must be allowed to exist.
01:18:48The German invasion of Russia would repeat the Blitzkrieg-style attack
01:18:52that had worked so successfully in Eastern and Western Europe,
01:18:56but on a scale far more vast than anything in human history.
01:19:11Stripping 80% of Germany's military out of occupied Europe,
01:19:15Hitler assembled an invasion force of more than 3 million men.
01:19:19Supported by 3,000 tanks, 6,000 field weapons and 2,000 aircraft.
01:19:39On June 22, 1941, Operation Barbarossa began.
01:19:44The German banner crashed across Russia's 1,200-mile-long western border.
01:19:50In the north, they headed towards Leningrad.
01:19:54In the south, toward the Ukrainian capital of Kiev.
01:19:58And in the center, toward Moscow itself.
01:20:15The Russian military were incapable of mounting any real defense.
01:20:20A string of bloody purges by Stalin had left 35,000 of his own officers dead.
01:20:44After only one month, Russian prisoners of war marched in columns,
01:20:48stretching from horizon to horizon.
01:20:54After five months, the captives would number nearly 4 million.
01:20:58The loss of Russian equipment was staggering.
01:21:01Collapse seemed imminent.
01:21:04Hitler openly scorned the poorly equipped and badly led Russian soldiers.
01:21:09This enemy consists not of soldiers, but of beasts.
01:21:13They fight with truly stupid fanaticism.
01:21:17With the primitive brutality of an animal that sees itself trapped,
01:21:21this must be a war of extermination.
01:21:32Increasingly, Hitler was interfering with his generals' decisions.
01:21:38Stunning victories in the west, and now rapid success in the east,
01:21:42had boosted his confidence.
01:21:46Certain that Russia was doomed, Hitler paused the drive on Moscow,
01:21:50and diverted his panzers to mopping up operations.
01:21:54Before the advance was resumed, three weeks of invaluable dry weather were lost.
01:22:04In spite of his generals' warnings, Hitler had started a war on two fronts,
01:22:09and winter was fast approaching.
01:22:12November 1941
01:22:35By November 1941, the weather began closing in on the German army.
01:22:40Rain bogged down men and equipment,
01:22:43and when the temperature dropped to minus 40 degrees,
01:22:46the advance ground to a halt.
01:22:54Hitler's generals begged permission to retreat to defensible positions for the winter,
01:22:59but Hitler refused.
01:23:01The troops are to dig in where they are, and hold every square yard of ground.
01:23:07I believe I'm entitled to ask any German soldier to lay down his life.
01:23:14With temperatures so low that a man could be permanently crippled by the cold
01:23:19seeping into his flesh through the nails in his boot soles,
01:23:22the blitzkrieg ground to a halt only 20 miles from Moscow.
01:23:29Unable to accept reality, Hitler accused his own men of cowardice,
01:23:34and his generals of being incompetent and traitorous.
01:23:39The commander-in-chief's job is to train the army in the National Socialist idea,
01:23:45and I know of no general who could do that as I have done.
01:23:49For that reason, I have decided to take over command of the army myself.
01:23:57On December 5th, 1941, the Russian army, reinforced by thousands of fresh troops
01:24:03brought in from Siberia, launched a massive and totally unexpected counter-attack.
01:24:12Half frozen and starving, the German army abandoned vehicles and equipment,
01:24:17and began fighting their way back toward German territory 500 miles to the west.
01:24:25By the end of December, German losses exceeded 800,000,
01:24:30more than a quarter of the original invasion force.
01:24:37At first, Hitler blamed Russian obstinacy for the disaster.
01:24:43The offensive spirit that inspires the Russian soldier does not surprise me.
01:24:48The explanation for it is their bottomless stupidity.
01:24:54Then Hitler blamed simple bad luck.
01:24:57Supplying the Russian front creates enormous problems.
01:25:00The catastrophe of the temperature falling from 2 degrees to 38 below in two days paralyzed everything.
01:25:07The situation was entirely unexpected.
01:25:14The truth was that Hitler and his high command had been so confident of a quick victory
01:25:19that they had ordered winter clothes for only one-fifth of the invasion force.
01:25:24The fault was entirely their own.
01:25:39Even before the onset of the Russian winter, the battle for Britain had turned against Germany.
01:25:45Retaliatory bombing raids on the German homeland increased,
01:25:49and aircraft losses were becoming incalculable.
01:25:55However, Germany's U-boat war against Britain was murderously successful.
01:26:03Hitler, as always, only ever saw the upside.
01:26:08I cannot conceive of anyone in England still believing in victory.
01:26:15The last thing these English know how to practice is fair play.
01:26:19They're very bad at accepting their own defeat.
01:26:25What does Churchill care for the lives of others?
01:26:28He is the most bloodthirsty, amateurish strategist in history.
01:26:34His abnormal state of mind can only be symptomatic of a paralytic disease or a drunkard's ratings.
01:26:42Opposition to Churchill is in the process of gaining strength in England.
01:26:47I never met anyone who didn't say he was off his head.
01:26:51He is an utterly amoral, repulsive creature.
01:26:56Britain was not surrendering.
01:26:59The Russians were not retreating.
01:27:01And perhaps most important of all, the United States was beginning to make its presence felt.
01:27:21The United States had initiated a massive aid program to Britain
01:27:25soon after the German air force began bombing British cities.
01:27:29But Hitler was convinced no amount of support could save the embattled British.
01:27:39All this talk about a new war,
01:27:42all this talk about a new war,
01:27:45all this talk about a new war,
01:27:48all this talk about American reserves of men and material,
01:27:52it's just nonsense.
01:27:53I don't see much future for America.
01:27:55It's a decayed country.
01:27:57My feelings against the Americans are feelings of hatred and deep repugnance.
01:28:04Predictably, Hitler's hatred for Americans was directed toward their president,
01:28:09Franklin Roosevelt.
01:28:13I cannot be insulted by Roosevelt because I consider him mad.
01:28:19First he incites war, then falsifies the causes,
01:28:23then odiously wraps himself in a cloak of Christian hypocrisy
01:28:27and slowly but surely leads mankind to war.
01:28:34But the Americans could not be wished away.
01:28:40On December 7, 1941, Germany's allies, the Japanese,
01:28:45attacked the American naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
01:29:08Hitler was stunned by the unexpected turn of events.
01:29:12He preferred to keep the Americans out of the war for at least one and preferably two years,
01:29:17giving Germany time to rebuild its forces.
01:29:24Putting the best face on a bad situation,
01:29:27Hitler congratulated the Japanese ambassador.
01:29:33This method is the only proper one.
01:29:35Always strike as hard as possible and not waste time declaring war.
01:29:42Supporting his Japanese allies, Hitler then declared war on the United States.
01:30:02By the end of 1942, thanks to a massive influx of American weapons, equipment and manpower,
01:30:09England had virtually become one massive military base,
01:30:12used as a staging point for unending air raids on fortress Europe.
01:30:20The British bombed Germany by night and the Americans bombed by day.
01:30:261944
01:30:36Furious, Hitler refused to believe his defenses would not hold.
01:30:40He lashed out at Roosevelt and Churchill.
01:30:43The West can never win this war.
01:30:45The Allies are led by a drunk and a cripple.
01:30:56Realizing an Allied invasion of the continent was only a matter of time,
01:31:01Hitler tried to demoralize the Allies with propaganda.
01:31:06I shall arrange an interview with foreign journalists
01:31:09on the subject of the British attempting to land on the coast of Europe.
01:31:13I will treat the subject in a manner that will come as a cold douche to the British.
01:31:18I will not say that I do not believe in the possibility of an invasion.
01:31:23On the contrary, I will emphasize that German military precision and thoroughness
01:31:28ensure that we are prepared for any and every eventuality.
01:31:35Privately, he began preparing for the inevitable invasion.
01:31:40We must aim at securing a defensive line on Dutch soil,
01:31:43because the war with England would be a life and death struggle.
01:31:49The idea that we can get off cheaply is dangerous.
01:31:52There is no such possibility.
01:31:57When the enemy invades in the West, it will be the moment of decision in this war,
01:32:02and that moment we must turn to our advantage.
01:32:05Obstacles do not exist to be surrendered to, but only to be broken.
01:32:23German intelligence
01:32:31By spring 1944, German intelligence reported that the Allies were in a high state of readiness.
01:32:44As weeks turned to months, the bombing raids increased.
01:32:49Germany was being softened up for invasion.
01:33:05Obviously, an Anglo-American invasion in the West is going to come.
01:33:09The enemy's invasion must not, under any circumstances,
01:33:13be allowed to survive longer than hours or, at most, days.
01:33:18Once defeated, the enemy will never again try to invade.
01:33:34On June 6, 1944, the largest amphibious invasion force in history set sail for the French coast.
01:33:435,000 transport ships and 11,000 planes carried 176,000 men across the English Channel.
01:33:54The long-awaited Allied invasion of Europe had begun.
01:34:13France
01:34:30From their first tenuous foothold on the Normandy coastline,
01:34:33the Allies steadily drove the German army back through France.
01:34:38In the East, the Russians continued their massive assault.
01:34:47The Third Reich was being crushed in a vast, unyielding place.
01:35:08Paris
01:35:18On August 24, the city of Paris was liberated.
01:35:22Now desperate, Hitler clung to the belief that if he wanted something bad enough,
01:35:27he could make it happen by sheer willpower.
01:35:32The myth of our vulnerability in the event of a prolonged war must resolutely be disregarded.
01:35:39It is not permissible to believe that time is working against us.
01:35:46It is essential to deprive the enemy of his belief that victory is certain.
01:35:51I will continue this struggle, no matter against whom, until the safety of the Reich is secured.
01:36:02The day Paris was liberated, German-occupied Romania surrendered to Russian forces.
01:36:09Two months later, Yugoslavia fell.
01:36:12Hitler's Nazi empire was being torn apart, piece by piece.
01:36:19As much as I may be tormented by worries,
01:36:22nothing will make the slightest change in my decision to fight on till the scales tip to our side.
01:36:29We shall smash the Americans completely. We shall yet master fate.
01:36:46As the tide of war turned inexorably against Germany,
01:36:50Hitler became isolated and withdrawn.
01:36:53Public appearances became rare.
01:36:56Like most Berliners, Hitler was forced to live beneath ground level.
01:37:01Moving from one dark underground bunker to another,
01:37:04Hitler grew morose, often overcome by fits of depression.
01:37:10No longer able to sleep, he wandered the dark halls, whistling and muttering to himself.
01:37:19I shall not live much longer.
01:37:21My health is growing worse all the time.
01:37:24We must hurry. We must hurry.
01:37:27It never occurred to Hitler that the disaster was entirely his own creation.
01:37:32It was always someone else's fault.
01:37:35If the world would only mind its own business, that was all I wanted,
01:37:40before the madmen made me fight for the existence of Germany.
01:37:45I had plans and work for my people for fifty years to come.
01:37:49I didn't need to start a war to stay in office.
01:37:53Now, if something happens to me, Germany will be left without a leader.
01:37:58I have no successor.
01:38:01That something would happen to Hitler was always likely.
01:38:05Adolf Hitler was a hypochondriac, convinced that he was suffering from some life-threatening illness.
01:38:12His actual condition began to worsen back in 1935,
01:38:16when he met Dr. Theodor Morell, a quack who spent the next ten years
01:38:21pandering to Hitler's imagined illnesses and injecting him with secret formulas.
01:38:30The effect can only be guessed at,
01:38:32but they undoubtedly contributed to Hitler's mental deterioration.
01:38:37Between Morell's treatments and the unending military disasters,
01:38:42Hitler became subject to violent fits of anger.
01:38:45He lashed out at anyone and everyone, stammering, drooling and spitting,
01:38:50until he choked himself into exhaustion.
01:38:59I will outlast your President Reich,
01:39:03I will outlast your President Roosevelt.
01:39:06I will also outlast this crazy man, Churchill.
01:39:09I can afford to wait and win this war my way.
01:39:13No power on earth can shake the German Reich now.
01:39:20Divine Providence has willed that I carry through the fulfillment of a Germanic task.
01:39:27When Hitler was in one of his moods,
01:39:29his guards whispered the warning to visitors,
01:39:32for heaven's sake, don't irritate the Führer.
01:39:37In July 1944, several members of his general staff tried to assassinate him
01:39:42with a suitcase bomb planted beneath the conference table.
01:39:46Although several officers were killed, Hitler escaped,
01:39:50but the effects never left him.
01:39:53His left arm now twitched uncontrollably, and he dragged one leg when he walked.
01:40:04Loud noises brought on violent shakes,
01:40:07and paranoia hung over him like a dark cloud.
01:40:11I feel like a prisoner here in these dugouts.
01:40:14My spirit can't escape.
01:40:16Often I go to the card room and pace, I pace, to and fro, to and fro.
01:40:41The End
01:40:50By late 1944, three million German soldiers had been lost
01:40:55in three years of continuous warfare,
01:40:58mowed down by the Allies or lost to the merciless cold of Russia.
01:41:06Hitler's Third Reich had been bled dry.
01:41:11The Cold War
01:41:19Now 30,000 Russian tanks and planes were closing in from the east,
01:41:23and nearly 40 Allied divisions bearing down from the west.
01:41:33Adolf Hitler, barely in touch with reality,
01:41:36continued to issue orders to his divisions and armies that had ceased to exist.
01:41:44Groups of old men and fanatical boys were all that remained of Hitler's all-conquering Wehrmacht.
01:41:56Hitler, bunkered below the ruins of Berlin,
01:41:58jabbered incessantly to anyone who would listen.
01:42:02His mood shifted at random, and his thoughts wandered uncontrollably.
01:42:11I know that above all, the German army, every man and officer of it, supports me.
01:42:18The German people stand behind me to a man.
01:42:22They also provide me with the possibility of continuing the war, however long it may last.
01:42:32Hitler had imagined fantastic weapons that would allow him to turn the tide of war.
01:42:38Some had made it into battle, some did not.
01:42:42If I had a bomber capable of flying at more than 750 km an hour,
01:42:47I'd have supremacy everywhere.
01:42:50What are the preferred targets?
01:42:54A bomb on a power station undoubtedly produces the desired effects.
01:42:59With 200 bombers fulfilling these conditions and continuing to fly for six months,
01:43:04I'll annihilate the enemy.
01:43:09Hitler also dreamed up bizarre plots in a dark fantasy world gone mad.
01:43:15It is possible that Moscow is using Churchill as a puppet.
01:43:21The British hate and despise the Bolsheviks, and one day the break will come.
01:43:26Believe me, Stalin is an arch-blackmailer.
01:43:31The Americans will certainly invade Canada,
01:43:33and they may well have other demands which Britain will not tolerate.
01:43:37They are all doomed to defeat.
01:43:47On March 25, 1945, with his empire, his country and his mind in ruins,
01:43:53Hitler demanded the destruction of Germany itself to deprive the enemy of the spoils of war.
01:44:05Everything which can be used by the enemy now,
01:44:08or in the foreseeable future, will be destroyed.
01:44:16Finally, Hitler had turned his wrath on his own people.
01:44:20It is not necessary to worry about what the German people will need for survival.
01:44:24Let them perish.
01:44:38April 20, 1945, was Adolf Hitler's 56th birthday.
01:44:43Huddled in his massive bunker beneath the ruins of the Chancellery,
01:44:47Hitler and his few remaining supporters gathered in a grim, pathetic celebration.
01:44:53Slumped in a chair, the Fuhrer sat in a dazed stupor,
01:44:57only rousing himself for the occasional outburst or to weep uncontrollably.
01:45:09I was Europe's last hope.
01:45:12She showed herself impervious to my charm and persuasion.
01:45:16To take her, I had to use violence.
01:45:19Now it is all over.
01:45:21The war is lost.
01:45:23I shall shoot myself.
01:45:27Five days later, he did.
01:45:29Hitler's body was burned near that of loyal henchman Dr. Joseph Goebbels,
01:45:34who also killed himself after he and his wife poisoned their own children.
01:45:46April 25, 1945, Berlin, Germany
01:45:56Adolf Hitler claimed that he wished only to reverse the injustices of the First World War
01:46:02and restore Germany to her rightful place in the world.
01:46:07The Third Reich, built to last a thousand years, had lasted barely twelve,
01:46:12leaving Germany a shattered ruin.
01:46:17World War II
01:46:23Worldwide, 40 million men, women and children had been killed,
01:46:286 million helplessly exterminated in Nazi death camps.
01:46:34World War II
01:46:42By weaving a skillful web of lies and deceit,
01:46:46Adolf Hitler had unleashed a hideous tyranny
01:46:49that came perilously close to destroying Western civilization.
01:46:56I shall feel I'm in my proper place
01:46:59if after my death I find myself together with people like me on some sort of Olympus.
01:47:06I shall be in the company of the most enlightened spirits of all times.
01:47:30Adolf Hitler
01:47:34Adolf Hitler
01:47:38Adolf Hitler
01:47:42Adolf Hitler
01:47:46Adolf Hitler