Nazi Megastructures "Season - 4" (5/6) : Hitler's Propaganda Machine
For educational purposes
During the brutal Battle of Berlin in 1945, 100,000 German civilians fight to the death and 6,000 commit suicide. How did the Nazis motivate ordinary civilians to fight even when defeat was inevitable ?
The answer is propaganda, and in Dr Josef Goebbels, Adolf Hitler found a genius of mind-manipulation.
This episode reveals the evidence left behind by the Nazi propaganda machine, monuments to the sinister but brilliant brain-washing of an entire nation.
During the brutal Battle of Berlin in 1945, 100,000 German civilians fight to the death and 6,000 commit suicide. How did the Nazis motivate ordinary civilians to fight even when defeat was inevitable ?
The answer is propaganda, and in Dr Josef Goebbels, Adolf Hitler found a genius of mind-manipulation.
This episode reveals the evidence left behind by the Nazi propaganda machine, monuments to the sinister but brilliant brain-washing of an entire nation.
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LearningTranscript
00:00It's the greatest lie ever told.
00:05A nation is entranced and deceived into believing it
00:08through the power of persuasion.
00:11It's an absolutely central weapon of war
00:14and the Nazis are the masters of propaganda.
00:17Germans are brainwashed into believing they are the master race
00:21and the Jews and other races inferior and they need to be crushed.
00:26This is it. This is where Hitler really moulded the Nazi empire together.
00:32Using the power of rhetoric, radio and cinema
00:37Hitler and Goebbels brainwashed the minds of millions
00:41leading them into the darkest chapter of their history
00:45and to catastrophic defeat.
00:49This is the story of a megastructure that underpinned the entire Third Reich.
00:55I get it. Secret Berlin.
00:59Hitler's propaganda machine.
01:04The biggest construction project of World War II
01:07ordered by Hitler to secure world domination.
01:12Now they survive as dark reminders of the Führer's fanatical military ambition.
01:19These are the secrets of the Nazi megastructures.
01:28Spring 1945.
01:31As Soviet forces advance on Berlin
01:34Nazi defeat and an end to the Second World War seem inevitable.
01:38Yet German civilians, ordinary men, women and children
01:42prepare for a brutal fight to the death.
01:50Keep going.
01:51Outnumbered and outgunned on all fronts
01:54German soldiers like 23-year-old Bruno Manz will not give up
01:58despite the insurmountable odds.
02:13In the final battle for Berlin
02:15100,000 civilians will lose their lives
02:186,000 will commit suicide.
02:23The nation is now a ferocious civilian army
02:26viewing surrender as a fate worse than death.
02:31Everywhere Germans have been brainwashed to fight to the death
02:35thanks to a keystone of the Nazi regime.
02:41Propaganda.
02:44Sieg Heil!
02:47Twelve years earlier Bruno Manz is an impressionable 11-year-old
02:50attending Nazi rallies with his parents.
02:56He's one of millions captivated by Hitler's extraordinary public persona.
03:04He ruled over the crowd like a mass hypnotist
03:08and from that moment on my mind was imprisoned by him.
03:13We will stand together for this Germany.
03:22Conflict archaeologist Tony Pollard is in Nuremberg
03:26exploring the birthplace of Nazi mind control.
03:32This is a place I've always wanted to visit
03:35but equally have always been very nervous about
03:38because what we have here is the centre of the Nazi propaganda machine
03:44and I'm about to set eyes on it for the first time.
03:49Oh, good grief.
04:02It still very much looks like all of those propaganda movies
04:07that we've all seen.
04:10With this field here just packed with thousands of Nazis.
04:21This is it. This is where it all happened.
04:23This is where Hitler really moulded the Nazi empire together
04:29and stood just up there.
04:38The story of Nazi propaganda begins in 1920
04:42when Adolf Hitler is made chief of propaganda for the German Workers' Party
04:47which he will transform into the Nazi Party.
04:51He shows an aptitude for self-promotion
04:54and in 1923 as Nazi leader he's arrested
04:58after an attempt to seize power in Munich by force.
05:03His trial for the Munich Beer Hall Putsch
05:06gains him exactly what he craves
05:09national notoriety.
05:11Whilst Hitler's in jail
05:13the man who'll become his right hand in the creation of the Nazi propaganda machine
05:18rises through the party ranks.
05:24Having attained a PhD in German literature
05:27Dr Josef Goebbels is an intelligent man
05:30a working journalist and aspiring author.
05:35Walking with a limp because of a foot deformity caused by childhood polio
05:39Goebbels cuts a distinctive figure
05:42and like Hitler demonstrates a flair for propaganda.
05:47In his extensively kept diaries
05:49Goebbels recalls his early impressions of meeting Hitler.
06:01Mein Führer!
06:03Herr Dr Goebbels!
06:05He shakes my hand like an old friend
06:08and those big blue eyes like stars.
06:12Please, sit down.
06:21How was your journey?
06:23Pleasant, I hope.
06:25A little tiresome because of the snow.
06:29I was very pleased with your speech at the meeting in Bamberg.
06:33It made an impression on me
06:35and it really helped me.
06:37You could have an important role to play in this movement.
06:40Danke, Herr Hitler.
06:42He is glad to see me.
06:44I am in heaven.
06:46Hitler shrewdly appoints Goebbels head of propaganda in the Nazi party.
06:52Hitler understands that he's able to mesmerise an entire crowd.
06:56Goebbels realises that he's able to mesmerise an entire nation
07:00through the use of propaganda.
07:02So really Goebbels and Hitler are working as a team.
07:05They're a kind of marriage of minds
07:07and they realise that one can't really operate without the other.
07:11Over the next decade, Goebbels masterminds Hitler's public appearances.
07:19Many at the vast purpose-built Nazi rally grounds in Nuremberg.
07:24Designed by architect Albert Speer in 1934,
07:28this is one of the biggest concentrations of Nazi buildings
07:32anywhere in the Third Reich.
07:36The feel of this place is very familiar.
07:39The architecture is modelled on the Pergamon Temple from ancient Greece
07:43where they worshipped Zeus.
07:46Zeus being a god, Hitler being seen in the same way,
07:50and it's all of that sort of cultural and historical legacy
07:54that Hitler is stealing to put to his own purposes.
08:00At its peak in 1938,
08:02the Nuremberg rally attracts almost three-quarters of a million devotees,
08:07idolising Hitler with something approaching religious fervour.
08:13Most of the activity at the Nuremberg rallies took place outside,
08:17but there are interior spaces
08:19and I'm told that behind this massive set of metal doors
08:23there's something quite spectacular.
08:31Oh, look at that.
08:37It's just like walking into a Greek temple.
08:43Marble walls
08:46and a really high ceiling with mosaic decoration with gold.
08:53But it's not any mosaic.
08:55It's interlocking swastikas
08:58from one end of this great hall to the other.
09:02And what we've got here is...
09:06..the Nazi philosophy really being turned into a pseudo-religion.
09:12This is their sacred space.
09:19And look at this.
09:23This huge cauldron. I think the technical term is crater.
09:27And this would have been outside
09:30and there would have been a pair of these.
09:33And you can imagine the spectacle being added to
09:36by the fire that was lit in here on days special to the Nazis
09:41commemorating the dead that gave their lives
09:44for greater Germany and the Nazi cause.
09:48This space is unique.
09:51It's probably the only intact interior space
09:54designed by the architect Albert Speer.
09:57The rest of them were destroyed in the war, modified later or demolished,
10:01but this is locked in here.
10:04It's like a tomb.
10:07But no matter how many speeches Hitler makes,
10:11they can only be heard by the captive audience.
10:18His extraordinary performances need to be communicated to the entire nation.
10:23And Dr Joseph Goebbels knows exactly how to make that happen.
10:32In 1930s Germany...
10:36Adolf Hitler claims he's the saviour who will lead the country out
10:40from the shadow of World War I defeat.
10:44Dr Joseph Goebbels, his brilliant head of propaganda,
10:47identifies the device that will help Hitler win over the nation.
10:54One of the Nuremberg rallies, Hitler can talk to thousands of Germans,
10:58but through radio you can speak to the entire nation.
11:03Goebbels' masterstroke is to launch a cheap, state-produced radio,
11:07massively boosting public radio ownership.
11:12As Hitler comes to power in 1933,
11:15the Volksempfänger, or people's receiver,
11:18becomes the conduit by which the Nazis' warped doctrine reaches German households.
11:24Over the next six years, radio ownership almost quadruples.
11:29On the eve of war, there are more radios in Germany and per household
11:33than anywhere else in the entire world, including the United States.
11:38Having a propaganda tool in German households is only useful
11:41if Goebbels can unlock its power.
11:45To do so, he bans other voices in the media.
11:49In 1935, 1,600 publications are closed down.
11:53In 1938, 10,000 more are outlawed.
11:59Radio becomes the mouthpiece for Nazi propaganda,
12:03skilfully blended into everyday schedules
12:06to make the Nazi message seem acceptable.
12:10He completely takes over all private radio stations.
12:13It all comes under his control.
12:15What Goebbels understands is that you can't just have Hitler's speeches
12:19blaring out 24-7. There has to be other stuff.
12:22And part of the drip, drip, drip effect of the message that he's trying to get across
12:27is interspersing that with other material,
12:30so music, comedy, other stuff.
12:33That is what makes it so effective. It's that crucial mixture.
12:38The repeated messages of propaganda are simple, patriotic
12:42and deliberately divisive.
12:44Identifying enemies to despise promotes a sense of unity
12:48and racial superiority.
12:51Goebbels' great mantra is repeat, repeat, repeat.
12:54It's not one message.
12:56It's Hitler is our saviour, Hitler is a genius,
13:00we are right, Jews are bad.
13:03These are messages that are just repeated over and over,
13:07and the whole nation is effectively brainwashed.
13:15At home in Dortmund, Bruno Manz and his father are avid listeners.
13:21They absorb Hitler's claims of global Jewish and communist conspiracies
13:25standing in the way of German prosperity.
13:30In 1933, Bruno is one of two million children nationwide
13:35signed up for the Hitler Youth.
13:39Part of the relentlessness of this propaganda is by
13:42indoctrinating people at a very early age.
13:45If you saw them young, you can get them to believe pretty much anything you want.
13:51By law, the Hitler Youth soon becomes the only youth organisation
13:56permitted to exist.
14:01In addition, around 40 national political institutes of education
14:05are created throughout Germany.
14:07Schools for future Nazi leaders.
14:12Historian Peter Lieb is exploring the abandoned remains
14:16of the only purpose-built school near Leipzig.
14:20When the Nazis came to power in 1933,
14:23they didn't believe to stay in power just for a decade or so.
14:26They believed to create a thousand-year Reich,
14:29and this Reich needed future generations of elites
14:33to rule Germany and the annexed territories in the east.
14:37Here stands Derelict, a monument of Nazi elitism.
14:46This, like most of the institutes for the Nazi elite,
14:49is a boarding school just for boys, aged 10 to 18.
14:54Oh, look at this!
14:57Just imagine ten-year-old boys walking down these corridors.
15:03But three schools are designated just for girls.
15:07While the boys are drilled for war,
15:10the girls are taught to support their menfolk, run the household,
15:14and, if possible, bear blue-eyed, blonde-haired children
15:18to secure the future of the anticipated 1,000-year Nazi empire.
15:25In order to attend this school,
15:27the young boys had to undergo a one-week selection process.
15:36You had to be Aryan, white as snow, and be the fittest of the fittest.
15:42Even glasses excluded you from coming to this place.
15:46Obedience and courage were paramount.
15:50The young boys had to run alone through the dark forest.
15:53Just imagine how scary this is for a ten-year-old.
15:57Also, non-swimmers had to jump from a three-metre board into the deep water,
16:02being dragged out by the swimmers.
16:04If you were a swimmer, you had to jump from a third floor into a blanket.
16:09It's not unheard of for over half the students
16:12to fail the tough eight-year schooling.
16:16But for those who make it through, rich pickings await.
16:22Successful graduates can expect prestigious careers.
16:25Even so, 80% opt to become officers in the army.
16:33Wow, projectors!
16:35They would have shown propaganda films to these impressionable kids.
16:40At the time of this school, in the late 1930s,
16:43films were the most modern form of media.
16:46Films were crucial to Nazi propaganda.
16:51Goebbels is an avid moviegoer.
16:55He's inspired by the power of an unlikely film genre,
16:59the partisan cinema of Communist Russia.
17:03We can learn a lot from these Bolsheviks,
17:06particularly the ways in which they use propaganda.
17:11He realises it's an art form the Nazis can manipulate
17:15to further their agenda.
17:18With radio, you can just hear it,
17:20but with film, it's a much more immersive experience, it's a visual treat.
17:23And Goebbels recognises that this comparatively new medium
17:27is one that can be used for propaganda.
17:31Goebbels appoints himself patron of the German cinema.
17:36In 1934, actress and aspiring filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl
17:40is commissioned to film the Nuremberg Rally.
17:46She produces Triumph of the Will,
17:49a feature-length documentary regarded as one of the greatest
17:52propaganda films in history.
17:54It glorifies the Nazi Party
17:56and depicts Hitler as the classical hero
17:59who will lead Germany to greatness.
18:02It's a huge hit domestically
18:05and even wins awards in international film festivals.
18:11But it's not just documentaries that Goebbels promotes.
18:15He wants to make sure that his propaganda reaches as wide an audience as possible.
18:19So, almost 90% of film scripts approved by Goebbels
18:22are dramas, comedy and light entertainment.
18:26Between 1933 and 1942,
18:29the number of cinema-goers increases 400%,
18:32all watching movies carefully selected for their Nazi message.
18:40Bruno Manz is one of millions whose bombings
18:43have been the subject of a series of reports
18:47Bruno Manz is one of millions who's bombarded by propaganda
18:50to believe in the Nazi cause.
18:55It was not one single speech or movie that overwhelmed him.
18:58It was a never-ending trail of lies, half-truths,
19:02clichés and misrepresentations.
19:04They affected me day in, day out,
19:07in Hitler Youth, at school, in the newspapers,
19:10at the movie theatres, everywhere.
19:12Bruno will graduate seamlessly from the Hitler Youth
19:15to the army, brainwashed by propaganda
19:18to do anything for Hitler and his fascist cause.
19:22He's not alone.
19:25As the Second World War breaks out,
19:27almost 5 million German soldiers are primed to fight
19:31for the Nazi cause.
19:341st of September, 1939.
19:37As Nazi troops invade Poland,
19:40it's with the warped conviction that world domination
19:43is both inevitable and justified.
19:47Fuelled by the self-belief provided through propaganda,
19:51their advance across Western Europe is seemingly unstoppable.
19:55By June, 1940, the Nazis have taken by force
19:58Denmark, Norway, Belgium,
20:01the Netherlands, Luxembourg and France.
20:07But after defeat in the Battle of Britain,
20:12Hitler turns his attentions east,
20:15launching Operation Barbarossa.
20:18It's the first of its kind.
20:20Hitler turns his attentions east,
20:23launching Operation Barbarossa,
20:25the invasion of the Soviet Union.
20:31So confident is Hitler of success,
20:34he wants to push on with a project of extraordinary ambition.
20:38Hitler has great plans to completely refashion Berlin
20:42as a new capital, Germania.
20:44As the Reich is growing, so their empire is getting bigger,
20:48and it's important for them to have this centre point,
20:51this focus, this capital.
20:53Berlin's not it, it's got to be Germania
20:56in the same way that Rome is the centre of the Roman Empire.
21:02With chief architect Albert Speer,
21:05Hitler draws up plans to totally transform Berlin
21:08into a capital city of monumental renown.
21:12Speer, these plans will show the world our intentions.
21:20Our capital will instill a sense of unity
21:23in the entire German radical core,
21:27no matter how far away they are.
21:31Showing no signs now of the Nazis' grand ambition,
21:35this park in downtown Berlin is the location
21:38chosen by Hitler for the centrepiece of Germania.
21:44The domed Grand Hall is planned to be
21:47the biggest enclosed space in the world.
21:50The three-mile-long Avenue of Splendours,
21:52designed by Hitler himself, is to be traffic-free,
21:55all cars and trains diverted underground
21:58with two new rail termini at each end.
22:02The avenue is marked by the Volkshalle at one end
22:05and, at the other, a testament to Germany's military might,
22:09the magnificent Arch of Triumph.
22:15But Speer soon identifies a problem with the project
22:18that may put an end to Hitler's dreams of Germania
22:21before construction even begins.
22:25This bizarre building today tells the story
22:28of the Führer's thwarted ambition.
22:32This is perhaps not much to look at,
22:35but nonetheless it is an important
22:38and very vivid indication of the scale
22:41of this enormous rebuilding project.
22:44The problem with Berlin is there's no rock here,
22:47it's just sand and clay.
22:49And so big was the planned Arch of Triumph
22:52that they didn't know whether it could take the weight of it.
22:56So what you've got here is 12,000 tonnes of concrete
23:01built into the Berlin soil,
23:04from which they would take measurements
23:07and see what kind of levels of slippage and sinkage actually occurred.
23:11If this structure can stay firm in its position,
23:15then they're all clear to build the huge,
23:18even bigger Arch of Triumph.
23:22This massive concrete Schwebelastungskörper,
23:25or heavy load-bearing structure,
23:28is built for one single purpose.
23:31It's quite unnerving being in here because I know
23:34there's 45 feet of solid concrete above me.
23:37It's a giant, full-scale measuring tool.
23:42I can start to understand why this is narrow at this point,
23:46because on this plinth here you'd have a theodolite.
23:49Theodolite is the instrument that surveyors use
23:52for measuring the folds in the land,
23:54and you use it to measure the movement every single day
23:57and see whether there's any subsidence.
24:01Measurements show that the building sinks by seven inches
24:04over two-and-a-half years, jeopardising the engineering credibility
24:08of the project from the outset.
24:12However, Hitler's enthusiasm for Germania never wanes.
24:16James is exploring the area around the former zoo,
24:19the Berlin Tiergarten,
24:21for more evidence of this engineering white elephant.
24:25There were going to be huge, great boulevards,
24:28100 yards wide, four miles long.
24:31The scale and scope of it was unlike anything
24:35that had ever been witnessed before.
24:38There's so little of those plans that survive,
24:41but right beneath where I'm standing right now,
24:44here in the Tiergarten,
24:46is the remnants of the early part
24:49of that gargantuan construction project.
24:53The extraordinary folly that lies deep beneath the Berlin soil
24:57is largely unknown to its citizens.
25:00Construction began in 1938, but was put on hold in 1941.
25:04Then it was boarded up,
25:06its very existence forgotten by authorities
25:09until its rediscovery in 1969.
25:12Oh, my goodness!
25:17It's just extraordinary.
25:20Secret Berlin, and it's amazing to think that...
25:26..this is all the remains of Hitler's grandiose plans for Germania.
25:33This abandoned, unlit subterranean cavern
25:36is a section of the highly ambitious road tunnel
25:39designed to divert traffic under the Avenue of Splendours.
25:46You can almost, I think, imagine the Mercedes and Hawks
25:50hurtling down through here,
25:52this sort of underpass under the Volkshalle.
25:56Sections of this subterranean superhighway network
25:59are almost 50 feet wide.
26:01At its longest, it stretches 720 feet.
26:05You know, it's easy to dismiss Germania as just a pipe dream,
26:09and yet where we're standing now
26:11is proof that the construction of it had got under way.
26:15This was planned to become reality.
26:21In 1943, construction of Germania is put on hold
26:25until victory over Soviet Russia.
26:29But there, something unexpected is happening.
26:33Believing his own propaganda, Hitler has overstretched his forces.
26:38Now, despite the Nazis' unshakable self-belief,
26:42they're in real danger of bloody defeat on the Eastern Front.
26:47To avoid this, Goebbels must come up
26:50with his most ingenious propaganda performance yet,
26:53one that will strengthen the resolve of every German in the Third Reich.
27:03Now fighting on three fronts,
27:06against Great Britain, the USA and the Soviet Union,
27:10Nazi Germany is in danger of losing the war.
27:14But in a propaganda masterstroke,
27:16for the first time, Goebbels acknowledges the country's plight.
27:21He paints defeat at the hands of Soviet Bolsheviks
27:24a fate worse than death,
27:27and delivers the ultimate call to arms
27:29from which there can be no surrender.
27:32It's known as the Total War Speech.
27:35Goebbels' speech at the Sport Palace in Berlin in February 1943
27:39is really, really important because it marks a massive sea change.
27:42For the first time, he hints to the German people
27:46that they might not win,
27:48and the only way they can avert this terrible crisis
27:51is if every person in Germany puts their heart into the war effort.
27:58I ask you, are you resolved to follow the Führer
28:02through thick and thin to victory?
28:05And are you willing to accept the heaviest personal burdens?
28:17The speech is a masterpiece of propaganda.
28:20Goebbels prepares by standing in front of a mirror
28:23rehearsing different phrases and gestures.
28:28The audience is largely made up of carefully selected party functionaries
28:32primed to applaud at prearranged points.
28:36There are even actors planted in the audience
28:39to demonstrate apparently spontaneous gestures of appreciation.
28:44As a backup, pre-recorded applause is at the ready.
28:50The speech has the desired effect on the battlefront.
28:54Be quiet, everyone. Dr Goebbels.
28:58Posted a few miles from the Russian border,
29:00junior officer Bruno Manz is one of millions listening avidly.
29:07I am asking you, do you want total war?
29:16It's not just the troops who are stirred by this rallying cry.
29:21At home, all war production is nationalised.
29:25German women are called up to work in munitions plants.
29:31And megafactories are built to cope with this massive hike in production.
29:41Conflict archaeologist Tony Pollard is exploring the vast remains
29:45of the Dunamit Nobel factory,
29:47where productivity goes into overdrive following Goebbels' call to total war.
29:54When we imagine the Nazi war machine,
29:56we think of the guns, the tanks, the ships, the planes.
30:00But all of those weapons require explosives
30:04in the shells, the bombs, the torpedoes.
30:07And that explosive needs to be made somewhere.
30:10And I'm here in Poland about to encounter
30:13what was probably the biggest explosives factory
30:16in the entire Third Reich.
30:20This forgotten megastructure occupies an area of 7.5 square miles.
30:25Completely self-sufficient, it boasts facilities for its own fire brigade,
30:3021-mile rail network, and these two vast structures,
30:36the factory's own dedicated coal-fuelled power stations.
30:41Whoa!
30:45Wow!
30:48No other word for it.
30:50Look at the size of this place.
30:53When Goebbels calls for total war,
30:56explosive output here more than triples.
31:00The scale of this. Imagine the activity.
31:04This must have been like a scene from hell,
31:07with these furnaces and coal and dust and noise.
31:11It's an unbelievable place.
31:14But the increase in productivity
31:16has grim consequences for the workers.
31:19One of the most important products here was RDX,
31:22which is an explosive about twice as powerful as TNT.
31:26Now, a vitally important explosive
31:28RDX, which is an explosive about twice as powerful as TNT.
31:32Now, a vital ingredient to RDX is methanol.
31:35And methanol is a really dangerous, unstable fluid,
31:39so it needs very special storage facilities.
31:41And that's what we're finding here in this forest.
31:44Look at that. This is one of these silos.
31:46And it looks just like something out of a science-fiction movie.
31:49Never seen the like before, and I'm desperate to take a closer look.
31:59Oh, my.
32:03Grief.
32:05That must have taken millions of litres of methanol.
32:08And there was a steel tank inside, which is now gone.
32:13And the function is clear.
32:15It's not just storage, it's protection,
32:17cos that stuff could blow at any time.
32:20And if it did, the idea was that the blast
32:22would be directed harmlessly upwards.
32:24Very lightweight wooden roof, which would have given way instantly.
32:27But the thing is that here, explosions were a reality.
32:35There was one incident where 80 people were killed
32:37just in an instant as something went up.
32:39So it was a very, very real risk.
32:44It is a reflection of how horrendous
32:47the conditions were here for the workers.
32:51Motivated by Goebbels' morale-boosting words,
32:54officials step up efforts to transfer workers
32:57from non-essential war work to armaments manufacture.
33:01The armaments industry increases productivity by 300%.
33:07But on the battlefields of Europe,
33:09the Nazis are starting to lose ground to the advancing Allied forces.
33:15But the wheels of Goebbels' propaganda machine keep turning.
33:19And now the Nazis mastermind their most audacious lie yet.
33:28Building on their successful use of cinema
33:30as a brainwashing tool on their own people,
33:33the Nazis now conceive a movie for the international stage.
33:39Tony Pollard is in former concentration camp Theresienstadt in the Czech Republic,
33:44the scene of the Nazi deception that fools the world.
33:50Theresienstadt begins life as a sleepy barracks town
33:54built inside an 18th-century fortress.
33:57But in 1941, the Gestapo take over.
34:00The local population is moved out and Jews are moved in.
34:05The Nazis soon realise there are more middle-class,
34:08culturally literate Jews interned here than anywhere else in the Third Reich.
34:14They use them as pawns in a propaganda ruse
34:17to deceive visiting Red Cross officials that conditions in the camp are exemplary.
34:23Inspired by the success of the deception,
34:26they then make a documentary intended to dupe an international audience.
34:34This area here is now still very reminiscent
34:40of the time it was used as a prop, really, for the propaganda film.
34:46And at that time, either side of this drainage cut were gardens,
34:51and there are scenes of people tending these gardens,
34:55and they're getting across this message that these people are there of their own free will,
35:00and it looks fantastic.
35:03But the reality is that all of that was a lie,
35:07and these people are living in awful conditions,
35:11and by the end of the war, 35,000 people died here.
35:17During filming, the Nazis relax the typically austere anti-Semitic regime
35:22and tidy up the camp, feed the inmates better food
35:27and give the Jewish children sweets in return for their collaboration.
35:32They offer acting and directing roles to some of the Jewish adults,
35:36and in return, they promise their lives will be spared.
35:41But once the cameras are gone, the camp descends into a state of despair and decay.
35:53The boiler room, and this chamber here has hooks inside it,
35:59and clothing would be put in there and steamed at high temperature.
36:04It's for delousing, because infestation was a real problem
36:07when you had so many people living together in unhygienic conditions.
36:13Most of the 35,000 deaths here are from sanitation diseases such as typhus and dysentery.
36:21A further 88,000 inmates are deported to death camps like Auschwitz for execution,
36:26including the actors and director of the propaganda film,
36:30despite the Nazis' promises.
36:38But the Holocaust is a secret far too big
36:41even for the devious department of propaganda to keep quiet.
36:45And ultimately, rumours filter through as far as the front lines,
36:50to Nazi-indoctrinated troops like Bruno Manz.
36:54The Theresienstadt, that's where they kill the Jews.
36:58What?
37:01What do you mean?
37:04It's the truth.
37:08This was the truth that stared me in the face and demanded an answer,
37:12but I could not utter a word.
37:15Bruno is hearing the facts for the first time.
37:18Inconsistencies that clash with everything he's been brainwashed into believing is right.
37:24But his indoctrination is so strong,
37:27he will continue fighting ferociously for the Nazi cause.
37:33As will the millions of brainwashed citizens at home,
37:37who now prepare for the invasion of Germany itself by Allied forces,
37:42as the Third Reich finally faces its downfall.
37:49Winter, 1944.
37:51As Germany is pounded on all fronts, defeat is surely imminent.
37:58But in a bid to boost the belief of the German people,
38:01Goebbels makes a huge gamble, based on the success of his earlier propaganda films.
38:07Despite the country's dwindling resources,
38:10he commissions what will become the most expensive movie of the entire war.
38:16Centred on a small Prussian city in Nazi-occupied Poland.
38:21Kolberg.
38:24The story focuses on a siege on the city by Napoleonic forces in 1807,
38:29when its mainly Germanic citizens heroically hold out for over three months.
38:36Goebbels now wants the story of Kolberg's resistance
38:39to inspire Germans everywhere to fight back ferociously, whatever the odds.
38:45At this stage of the Second World War, the film is a huge overindulgence.
38:51Kolberg surely has to go down as one of the most ridiculous extravagant movies ever made.
38:56It's got a cast of 187,000 extras,
39:00nearly all of whom are soldiers that you'd have thought would have been better used at the front.
39:06But nothing can shake Goebbels' belief in the power of cinema, as he records in his diary.
39:12In terms of the morale of the nation, the film is the equivalent of winning a battle.
39:18The terrible irony is that the movie, when it came out in early 1945, was an absolute flop.
39:24And for the city itself of Kolberg,
39:26it suffered one of the bloodiest, most catastrophic sieges in the whole entire Second World War.
39:34Despite this, Hitler and Goebbels have German troops and civilians convinced
39:39that there's no option but to fight on.
39:45Even as the Red Army nears Germany's eastern border,
39:50Goebbels draws on reports of Soviet atrocities on German civilians
39:54to deliver a series of final war cries to the nation,
39:59motivating them through hatred and fear of the advancing Soviet troops.
40:05Our soldiers will go into battle with a devotion like a congregation going to a religious service.
40:13When our men shoulder their arms and climb into their tanks,
40:17there will be before their eyes the sight of their violated women and their murdered children.
40:25Goebbels never let up and continued to urge Germans to fight for every yard,
40:31for every step, to fight to the death and never give up.
40:36The alternative being overrun by the Slavic hordes of Russia is just too terrible to bear.
40:44And so what he's using is the threat of terror to galvanise and whip up the people.
40:53Keep going.
40:55In a brutal war of attrition on the Russian border,
40:58Bruno Manz readily absorbs Goebbels' anti-Soviet propaganda.
41:04The thought that they might defeat us and occupy our homeland terrified me.
41:09Even more horrifying was the possibility of falling into Russian captivity.
41:17Suddenly, the Russian artillery opened up.
41:24They fired from all barrels and almost without pause.
41:32It was the heaviest artillery fire I have encountered.
41:37I stumbled on two men lying on the ground who were wrestling face to face.
41:44A huge Russian was on top of a bloodied German soldier, trying to stab him with a knife.
41:51I stepped forward
41:56and put the muzzle of my submachine gun tightly to his head
42:01and pulled the trigger.
42:07Bruno has been exposed to a lifetime of propaganda,
42:11telling him his Soviet foe is sub-human,
42:14a lesser mortal who does not deserve to live.
42:21Likewise in Berlin, the influence of Goebbels' propaganda does not weaken,
42:26even as the Red Army reaches striking distance of the capital.
42:31With the city cut off from its own army,
42:33Goebbels incites old men, women and children to fight to the death
42:37against the despised Soviet foe
42:40in the final defence of the Third Reich's once impregnable capital.
42:45And of course, the only thing that happened was a massacre of Germans and Russians alike.
42:54In the brutal final battle of Berlin, 100,000 civilians lose their lives.
43:01Believing in propaganda that capture by the Soviets is a fate worse than death,
43:066,000 commit suicide.
43:11While Berlin burns, Hitler takes refuge in his bunker.
43:16Goebbels remains loyal to the bitter end.
43:21The day after Hitler's suicide, Goebbels takes a deadly dose of morphine and cyanide,
43:27along with his wife and six children.
43:32Bruno Manns survives the war.
43:36Decades later, he writes his memoirs,
43:38describing his indoctrination into Nazism
43:41and his eventual renunciation of its beliefs.
43:44He dies in 2015, his conscience finally exorcised of Goebbels' mind control.