How the Nazis Lost the War (2021) - full transcript
Told through the lens of the bumbling generals and paranoid Fuhrer who had hit the big time by tragic accident. Hitler's war machine was feared and ruthless - at least for a time. It cut a swathe through Europe and North Africa and threatened to overrun Russia. From 1939 into the early 1940s Hitler's dream of a Third Reich and dominance over all of Europe was a distinct possibility. But then cracks appeared. The war machine became vulnerable. The history of WWII is usually told through the eyes of the victors - but How the Nazis Lost the War is told through the lens of the bumbling generals and paranoid Fuhrer who had hit the big time by tragic accident. For the first time, How the Nazis Lost the War tells the decline of Hitler's empire from the inside out - showing how a dysfunctional, bloated, poorly led gang of thugs managed to fool Germany, then take Europe by surprise.
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
These are some of
the most infamous men
of the Nazi regime.
The Führer, Adolf Hitler.
Hitler was utterly ruthless.
Anything that stood in his way
he could justify to himself
that it was worth getting rid of.
The Fighter Ace, Hermann Goering.
A bon vivant,
he liked women, he liked wine,
he liked drugs.
The Spin Doctor, Joseph Goebbels.
The ultimate sycophant, just tells
Hitler always what he wants to hear
and makes Hitler feel
great about himself.
Head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler.
He enjoyed the trappings of power.
He enjoyed his
relationship with Hitler,
and he would do whatever it took
to ensure that that continued.
The Gatekeeper, Martin Bormann.
He was a ruthless man.
He had blood on his hands.
He was the sort of man that
Hitler needed to do his dirty work.
Each name
conjures its own special nightmare.
But could they work together
to bring the grand
Nazi vision to fruition?
Or would their toxic
and dangerous self-interest
cause dysfunction and ruin?
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
Sieg Heil! Sieg Heil!
The Nazi leadership was ambitious,
it was ruthless, it was cutthroat.
It was absolutely backstabbing.
And you couldn't trust anyone
as much as look at them.
What is the pathway to promotion?
How do you assume a
leadership role in the Third Reich?
It's by telling Hitler to no small
extent what he wants to hear.
Without question,
it is inherently dysfunctional.
Hitler's leadership
was often contradictory
and self-serving.
Intentionally handing out
confusing and overlapping duties
to his underlings.
Keeping them busy
fighting among themselves,
rather than plotting against him,
was part of his ploy.
Well, Hitler's management style was
notoriously shambolic.
I mean, here was a guy
who went to bed early,
or else stayed up all night
watching movies,
invariably slept past noon,
had a notoriously
short attention span,
didn't listen to briefings,
didn't read stuff,
always operated on his gut
and, uh, thought
his gut was superior
to the professional views of others
who were really reading
intelligence reports
and doing real analysis of problems.
So it tended to be he would
try to reinforce his prejudices.
If he wanted to do something,
he would find reasons to do it
or find people
who would tell him it was doable,
and he would ignore
or purge critics.
And the toxic attitude
poisoned any chance
of a proper functioning elite.
"Stay on the good
side of Hitler or else"
was an excellent policy.
Failure meant a
swift fall from favor.
And in Nazi Germany,
this could be very
bad for your health.
One of the tactics
that Hitler used is,
not only in Germany
but within his own government,
is dividing and ruling,
setting one sector of society
up against another,
one department up against another,
one individual up against another.
Always making sure that
neither faction really knew
where they stood.
If individuals are jostling
for position, they are perhaps
not creating any
opposition to Hitler.
But the upsides were very alluring.
To make it into his inner circle
brought with it security,
immense power,
and often wealth.
To get there was not
so much a matter of abilities,
more a need
to demonstrate slavish devotion,
and a ruthless drive
to make it through the ranks.
One man who excelled in the traits
that went to making
a successful Nazi
was Hermann Goering.
Goering was a bon vivant, you know.
He liked women, he liked wine,
he liked drugs, he liked partying,
he liked ceremony,
he liked decorative uniforms,
uh, and he loved
art and real estate.
Goering was flamboyant, vain,
and downright weird.
He built a palace
in a hunting reserve,
dressed in period clothes,
and tried to have extinct animals
reengineered back to life
so he could hunt them like in the
good old days of German mythology.
Being hopelessly hooked on morphine,
which he originally
started taking for injuries
suffered in the Beer
Hall Putsch of 1923,
may explain some of this behavior.
Goering had the talent
to rub people up the wrong way
throughout his life.
He was arrogant,
he was vain, he was bombastic.
And if you didn't know
him too personally,
people were often sort of drawn
into his personality
and they found him charming.
But once you actually realized
that you had to work with him,
you knew you were
dealing with, you know,
a morphine addict
who was inconsistent,
who had mood swings.
Goering was deserving
of his top spot,
but equally, he condemned himself
to his fall from grace.
Despite often looking like one,
Goering was no clown.
When he put his mind to it,
he was as efficiently evil
as the next Nazi,
and he caught Hitler's eye.
Goering had been a commander
of the Flying Circus Squadron
in World War I,
under the famous
Baron von Richthofen,
the Red Baron,
and had proved his skill
with 22 kills to his name.
Goering had all the star power
and the swagger
of being a fighter ace
in the First World War.
Hitler really latched onto that.
He needed that sort
of sense of gravitas
and almost flamboyance
to make the National
Socialist Movement stand out.
It was a wedding of convenience
for the two,
you know, Hitler had the star power
and Goering had
this sort of sense of
needing to restore Germany
to its greatness,
particularly as he had
seen the German Air Force
be utterly smashed to pieces
and demoralized
after the First World War.
And he had sworn to restore
German aviation to the skies.
So Hitler was the
man to do it with him.
Goering rose quickly
through the ranks.
In 1923,
Hitler placed him in charge
of the Sturmabteilung, or SA,
which Goering quickly
shaped into a large
and powerful organization
of agitators and thugs.
Operating way outside the law,
they were essentially
Hitler's bully boys,
targeting any opposition
to the Nazi agenda.
Goering's arrogance
made him hugely unpopular
with the men under his command.
But it emboldened
the burgeoning Nazi Party
to attempt to seize power by force.
By 1923,
the party had grown confident enough
to attempt a brazen coup.
The National Socialists
made a stand under Hitler
at a beer hall in Munich
with a plan to overthrow
the federal government.
But the plan failed.
Sixteen party members were killed.
And Goering was badly wounded.
Goering suffered with that wound
for the rest of his life.
It created this morphine addiction
that made him balloon in weight.
And ultimately,
it did change his personality,
you know, even though he had been
seen as a bit of a difficult man,
and an arrogant man,
he was a smart man.
And the morphine sort of
blunted that intelligence.
The plot may have
failed catastrophically,
but for one old friend of Hitler's,
it had its advantages.
Ernst Rohm, who had been front
and center during the failed putsch,
displaced the incapacitated Goering
as head of the SA.
Under his command,
Rohm saw the numbers swell
to almost three million strong.
But trouble was brewing.
The signature backstabbing
and double-crossing
that was to define
the Nazi inner circle
was about to show its ugly face.
In July 1932,
the Nazis won the election,
due in no small way
to the intimidation by the SA.
Hitler was now chancellor,
and Goering was named
as president of the Reichstag
and his right-hand man.
All seemed to be
going well for the Nazis,
but the factions and
power centers within
were beginning to attack each other.
An early trigger
for the internal wars
was the rise of the SA.
Many worried it had become too big,
and the leader, Ernst Rohm,
was publicly moving away
from Hitler's ideology.
Hitler was always concerned
that there might be factions
within the Nazi Party
that could challenge
his own leadership.
And we see him really
trying to consolidate his power base
and removing those enemies
that could potentially
pose a challenge
to his leadership and his supremacy.
Rohm and the SA
were a powerful potential force
that he would find
very difficult to control.
To keep the SA in check,
Hitler created the
SS Security Service,
and then expanded the Gestapo,
the infamous secret state police,
placing them both
under Heinrich Himmler.
This new version of
organized thuggery
could now counteract
the power of the SA
and their leader, Ernst Rohm.
Nazi leaders Hermann Goering,
Deputy Nazi Chief Rudolf Hess,
Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels,
and SS Leader Heinrich Himmler
began to coalesce
around a deadly plan,
to rid themselves of
Ernst Rohm for good.
In 1934,
the cabal began
their campaign against Rohm.
They planted rumors
and fake evidence
that Rohm was planning
an overthrow of the regime.
Swirling talk of homosexuality
was also given plenty of air.
Neither Rohm nor the SA
ever planned to seize
power in Germany.
But the truth never got in the way
of a good Nazi conspiracy.
Despite Rohm being one
of his oldest friends,
Hitler seized the opportunity
and charged Himmler and the SS
with carrying out a massive
and deadly purge
of the SA officials,
including Rohm.
It was to be swift and merciless.
It would become known
as the Night of the Long Knives.
Hitler was utterly ruthless.
Anything that stood in his way
he could justify to himself
that it was worth getting rid of.
So if Rohm and the SA
had to be exterminated,
then why not do it?
On June the 28th, 1934,
the knives were sharpened
for a bloody and brutal evening,
as the regime prepared
to turn viciously on itself.
Hitler ordered Rohm
and the SA leaders
to gather at a Bavarian spa
where SS units surprised,
disarmed, and arrested them.
After being taken to prison,
most were shot on
the spot without trial.
SA supporters took
to the streets in protest,
while an enraged
Hitler ordered a swathe
of mass arrests and killings.
Thousands were arrested.
The next day, on orders from Hitler,
Rohm was shot in his cell.
His last words were "Heil Hitler."
After the Night of the Long Knives
and the death of Rohm, we see Hitler
make a very bold statement
that he was no longer
willing to put up with those
that threatened his power base.
He became a dictator,
he became a tyrant,
because of course,
he had to stamp on that opposition
that might otherwise
oust him from power.
The Nazis had shown they
were prepared to murder their own
to achieve their goals.
From now on, nothing
was out of bounds.
Nothing too extreme.
Lawlessness and brutality
was now a weapon of the regime.
Fear had taken root
in his circle of leaders.
No one ever felt safe again.
This was a ruthlessness
that he not only
exposed the party to,
but also the nation to, the idea
that there was
only one leader for Germany.
He was building himself an edifice
from which he couldn't be toppled.
Hitler's next target was the army.
Two top commanders
who felt the cold
grip of Nazi infighting
where War Minister
Werner von Blomberg
and Fritsch, the head
of the Wehrmacht.
Hitler had sat down in 1937
with his military leaders,
chief among them, Bloomberg,
the Minister of War,
and Fritsch, the Commander-in-Chief
of the Wehrmacht,
and he kind of outlined
his aggressive plans
for German expansion,
uh, principally in Eastern Europe,
then even the Soviet Union.
These guys were really alarmed,
and they began to push back
inside the German military saying,
you know, "Hitler might be off
his rocker," you know what I mean,
these are pretty ambitious plans
and Hitler gets wind of these
rumblings inside the German Army,
and he decides,
"I got to get rid of these guys.
I need to put in placemen
who will be loyal to me
and will carry out my orders
without hesitation."
And so he kind of trumps up
a couple of scandals.
The first scandal
involved von Blomberg.
In January 1938,
he married 26-year-old
typist Erna Gruhn.
With Hermann Goering as best man,
and Hitler himself as the witness.
But the course of true love
never did run smooth,
particularly in Nazi Germany.
Some pornographic images
of Blomberg's new wife surfaced,
together with evidence
that she had once been a prostitute.
Blomberg's days
as Minister of War were numbered,
and Hitler had the
perfect replacement.
A man with craven ambition,
who could be relied upon
to do his bidding,
Hermann Goering.
It's very clear
that Hitler wanted to ensure
that he placed at the
head of the military
individuals that he
could manipulate.
Hitler ordered Blomberg
to annul the marriage
in order to avoid scandal
and preserve the
integrity of the army.
When he refused,
Goering threatened
to publicly expose
Blomberg's wife's sordid past.
Finally, Blomberg gave up
and resigned all posts.
Flush with their success
at destroying Blomberg,
Hitler and Goering
now turn their attention
to Commander-in-Chief of the
Wehrmacht, Werner von Fritsch.
The next fall is Fritsch, you know, the
Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht,
uh, then Hitler concocts
this wholly outrageous story
that Fritsch is a
closeted homosexual,
and he's bringing dishonor on the
Prussian and German officer corps.
And so Fritsch who, you know,
demands a military court of honor
says this is not true
is forced in turn
to resign his post,
and Hitler then moves in as
Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht.
With both Blomberg
and Fritsch gone,
Goering was able
to cement his position
as the man who could
get things done for Hitler.
His star was on the rise
with his Luftwaffe
dominating the blitzkrieg attacks
on Poland and France.
Goering was rewarded by Hitler
and appointed his successor
as Führer of all Germany.
Goering was now the highest
ranking soldier in Germany,
answering only to
Hitler, which of course
made the rest of the
Nazi Party leadership
insanely jealous.
Early on in the war,
the successes in Poland
and in the French campaign,
this gives Goering a kind of
elite status among the inner circle.
Hitler is purposefully manipulating
his inner circle.
And as loyal as these men are,
and they are not just loyal,
they are real sycophants.
I mean, it is adulation to Hitler,
partly because they understand
that the more Hitler gives them,
the greater their prestige.
So they're always
seeking Hitler's favor.
And this is the reason why
Goering lasts so long
within the Nazi regime,
is for what he provided
within that inner sanctum,
what he provided Hitler with
in terms of confidence and advice.
It was his trust.
It was his loyalty.
And that is what Hitler demanded,
perhaps above all else.
It would prove
a precarious position
with Goering having
to constantly look over his shoulder
for the knives of his rivals.
They would not hesitate
to bring him down
at the first sign of weakness.
Increasingly throughout the war,
Hitler was concerned
at Goering's military capability,
which meant that there was
a significant question mark
surrounding Goering
as the war progressed.
That started during Dunkirk,
when the evacuation took place,
despite the attentions
of the Luftwaffe.
The Luftwaffe couldn't produce
the sort of strategic victories
that Goering
suggested that it could.
As the war goes on
and his star begins to decline,
partly because of
his obvious failures,
Goering defaults back
into his morphine addiction,
becomes ever more problematic, and
he kind of falls away from the scene.
But if Goering
was Hitler's closest confidant
in the military leadership,
his most trusted party man
was undoubtedly Minister
for Propaganda and Enlightenment
Joseph Goebbels.
Adolf Hitler's fanatic
little Propaganda Minister
Paul Joseph Goebbels.
The most Nazi of all the Nazis.
He was fanatical,
loyal to his Führer, and power-mad.
Goebbels had immense power
because Hitler's image
depended upon
Goebbels manipulation of information
and the development of Hitler
as an heroic figure.
All of the leading Nazis, whether
we're talking about, you know,
Goebbels, Bormann, Himmler, Goering,
they all figure out early on
that Hitler's a weak man,
and that Hitler's
easily manipulated.
Goebbels, because he's a...
The ultimate sycophant,
just tells Hitler always
what he wants to hear
and makes fit... Hitler
feel great about by himself,
and he's always at Hitler's side
and he's always spouting Nazi
propaganda, he's a key player.
Propaganda Minister
Goebbels told them
Germany didn't want a war at all.
Goebbels had proved
his mastery of the media
and the Nazi marketing
as he rose through
the ranks of the Nazi Party.
He adapted recent developments
in advertising
with use of catchy slogans,
eye-catching posters,
and cryptic headlines,
to further the Nazi
Party cause in image.
He penetrated the very fabric
of German society,
taking the voice of the Nazis
directly into lounge rooms
by making radios cheap
and readily available.
They were even handed out free
on his birthday.
Like Hitler, he
practiced his speeches
in front of the mirror,
perfecting his body language
to convey power,
with highly choreographed
hand gestures
and vocal infections.
He always knew how
to make an entrance
to give the most emotional impact.
He used the old trick
of keeping the audience waiting,
then hitting them with everything.
With his striking eyes
and attractive voice,
Goebbels was the undisputed
Nazi pin-up boy
and a prolific womanizer,
despite a clubbed foot
which had prevented him from
enlisting as a fighting soldier.
With the outbreak of war,
Goebbels began using
his propaganda machine
to shape messages
and control information
about what was happening
on the fighting fronts.
His word spread as gospel
throughout Germany.
In 1943, Goebbels was appointed
Minister for Total War,
after pressuring Hitler
to adopt the policy
which included measures like
closing non-essential businesses,
conscripting women
into the labor force,
and enlisting more
men into the Wehrmacht.
The whole idea of a...
Of a total war idea,
it's a wonderful propaganda message.
It shows the ability of Goebbels
to seize a moment
to say it is now very clear
that the war is being lost,
that we've suffered a great setback,
and we need to respond to this.
We need to respond to this
by seizing the moment
and allowing people to believe,
"Oh, we do have excess capacity,
oh, the war is now seriously
gonna be fought by Germany.
Now, we're going to take the
other hand out from behind our back
and fight this war."
As with every new maneuver
and promotion within
the Nazi hierarchy,
someone was going to end up
feeling overlooked and threatened.
This time, it was Goering.
Goebbels was pushing for changes
in armaments
production and industry,
which put him directly
in conflict with Goering.
After his failures
at the Battle of Britain
and inability to reduce losses
on the Eastern Front,
his precious Luftwaffe
was about to be given
a vote of no confidence
as armaments for his aircraft
were reduced.
Goering was starting
to feel disrespected
and marginalized.
When total war becomes a reality
in 1944 lead by Goebbels,
we see that Goering
is beside himself
with rage that he isn't given
the responsibility
that he had expected,
that he had demanded,
that he had put a great deal
of thought into,
and felt that those
that were responsible for it
didn't have the experience
to produce a total war economy.
And he was probably right.
Central to the Nazi vision
of a total war economy
was a fearful and utterly
subservient population.
Together, with hundreds
of thousands of slave laborers,
this would be the job of the feared
Reich state security police force,
the SS,
led by another of Hitler's trusted
inner circle,
Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler was one of Hitler's
most trusted allies.
He was given probably
more ability to go his own way
than other peers.
Being in control
of the national administration
was a huge responsibility
and provided him with
a huge power base.
Also, having responsibility
for the SS if you like,
the party's own
political military force.
Himmler's SS death squads
were to become universally
feared throughout Europe,
and were responsible
for the deaths of millions
of Poles and Slavs in the East.
Nazi commanders were well advised to
keep on the right side of Himmler.
Falling out with him,
as some commanders did,
meant a swift removal
from power or worse.
His power derived
from the trust of the Führer.
He was very loyal to Hitler,
and Hitler was very loyal to him.
There's no doubt that the nature
of his responsibility
for internal security
meant that he could
use that power base
to turn upon his enemies
very, very quickly,
and very quickly remove them,
and he did that on many occasions.
And so there's no doubt
that the inner sanctum
around Hitler were wary of Himmler,
because he himself
was incredibly ruthless.
He was given free rein
to carry out his diabolical mission,
orchestrating and administrating
the extermination of the Jews,
and anyone who was not
of so-called pure Aryan blood.
Himmler was responsible
for the creation and management
of the death camps
during World War II,
at the behest of his political
mentor and sponsor,
Adolf Hitler.
Himmler begins, you know,
studying the progress
of the Aryan race,
and its contrast with other races.
Impelled in part by Hitler
because of his own
sort of ambiguous past,
but also by Himmler
who begins to, you know,
encumber Nazi Germany
with a particular evil
that finds its fullest expression
in the Holocaust,
the Final Solution.
Himmler it seems was untouchable
in the Führer's eyes.
Even after the attempted
assassination of Hitler
by senior army commanders in 1944,
the infamous von Stauffenberg plot,
he went unpunished
for his failure to detect
and diffuse the plot in advance.
It was a massive embarrassment
for Himmler.
To soothe his shame,
he promptly rounded up
and executed thousands of suspects
as his way of demonstrating
his loyalty to Hitler
and restoring the
reputation of the SS.
Though he was in
thrall of his Führer,
Himmler, like other
ambitious Nazi officials,
had aspirations to succeed
Hitler as Germany's leader.
One man he suspected
of standing in his way
was Albert Speer,
the original architect
of the great Berlin buildings
and monuments
to the glory of the Reich.
Speer so impressed Hitler
with his architectural visions
of a new Berlin,
that he appointed
him to the critical post
of Minister for
Armaments and Munitions.
Now, some people say
he was a part of the inner circle,
but he was an architect,
who Hitler enjoyed
having conversations
about new design.
He wasn't a powerbroker,
but therein lies the decision.
He's a new player.
Hitler doesn't allow any one man
to assume too much power,
and he's absolutely loyal to Hitler.
Therefore, he becomes the perfect person
in this system to assume that position.
We see a tremendous dysfunction
in Hitler's inner circle
because the people
who are running things
are not necessarily appointed
because of their competence.
Speer appealed to Hitler's vanity,
that Hitler thought he and Speer
were fellow architects
and artists and creative geniuses.
And, uh, so he loves
spending time with Speer
and looking over plans for a
new Reich Chancellery or the...
A new imperial capital of Berlin.
Hitler was so admiring of Speer
that Himmler considered him
an especially dangerous rival,
both in the
administration of the Reich
and as a potential
successor to Hitler.
As a means of getting Speer onside,
Himmler offered him
the prestigious rank
of SS Obergruppenführer,
but Speer was having none of it.
The last thing he needed was to be
under Himmler's watchful eye.
He knew it would be hard to say no
when Himmler wanted a say
in armaments production.
He begins to rework
the German armaments industry.
He's now competing for resources,
and the underlings
of the Third Reich
are all seeking to both protect
their own empires
and make Speer look bad.
Speer then looks to Goebbels,
Goebbels has got his own competition
with Himmler,
and they become natural allies.
But that means
that the central focus
of the inner circle
are not necessarily focused
on the best outcome for the war,
but on protecting private interests.
After the war,
Speer was spared execution
and spent 20 years in prison.
During which time, he wrote
accounts of his experience
in Hitler's inner circle.
According to Speer, the powerful men
under Hitler, including
Joseph Goebbels,
Hermann Goering,
and Heinrich Himmler,
were from earlier
on jostling for favor
and watching each other
like a pack of childish pretenders
to the throne.
But perhaps, the greatest threat
to all of them
was Hitler's personal secretary,
Martin Bormann.
From the start, he made
himself seen insignificant
while imperceptibly building
his influence,
until he was arguably
the second most powerful man
of the Nazi Reich,
referred to by some
as the secret leader.
I see Bormann as the doorman
that would only allow entry
into the inner sanctum
of the Nazi Party
if you could add value,
if you were loyal,
if you were to be trusted.
He was a ruthless man.
He had blood on his hands.
He was the sort of man that Hitler
needed to do his dirty work.
And as a result of that,
he was a trusted confidant.
The first sign of Bormann's
ruthlessness and brutality
came immediately after World War I,
when he worked closely
with a nationalistic paramilitary
group, the Freikorps,
whose tactics could
get very nasty indeed.
Bormann enjoyed getting involved
in the more robust
activities of the Freikorps.
In 1928, he joined
the National Socialists
and was welcomed in to the SS
by Himmler himself.
Bormann creatively managed
Hitler's finances
with various schemes,
such as extracting royalties
from Hitler's book
and his image on postage stamps,
as well as setting up
the impressive sounding,
but actually very shady
Adolf Hitler Endowment Fund
of German Industry,
which was really
a thinly veiled extortion operation
on behalf of Hitler
to collect more money
from German industrialists.
No wonder Hitler loved him.
He took charge of
all Hitler's paperwork,
appointments, and personal finances.
By now, Hitler's trust in Bormann
and his worldview
was so overwhelming,
in one meeting, he's
said to have yelled,
"To win this war, I need Bormann."
Bormann was now the final word
before Hitler
in pretty much everything to do
with keeping the country running.
If you wanted to get to Hitler,
you had to get
through Bormann first.
Bormann is the head of
the Reich Chancellery,
and essentially what that gives him
is the ability to control
access to Hitler.
He also is a repository
of a lot of knowledge.
The various state
leaders around Germany,
they talked to him,
and this gives him
an indirect power with Hitler.
He selectively can take a lot
of information that is coming
across his desk and use it
to manipulate the message to Hitler.
And this is a real problem
for any of the other, uh, rivals.
Very few of them have in that
sense a direct access to Hitler.
So Bormann becomes
very much a gatekeeper.
And he proved to be a master
of intricate political maneuvering.
He was able to effectively nullify
any power plays by the big names.
He ruthlessly and skillfully
sabotaged the agendas of all of them
when he sensed any kind
of threat to his power.
The inner sanctum themselves
were always fighting
for time with Hitler.
Martin Bormann seemed to be able
to get Hitler on his own,
talk into his ear,
and influence him perhaps more
than any other member
of the close team
that developed around Hitler.
And as a result of that,
he was seen as someone
who was dangerous.
In February 1943,
the German defeat at Stalingrad
triggered a crisis in the regime.
True to form, Bormann
exploited the military disaster,
with his moves sparking
a massive power struggle
within the inner circle.
Bormann had a proposal
to which Hitler agreed.
The creation of a
three-man committee
with representatives from the state,
the army, and the party,
which would harness
the country's productivity
for the benefit of the war effort.
The Committee of Three
was an attempt by the Germans
in the middle of World War II
to really make more efficient
the German use of
resources and production
for this multi-front war effort.
And the idea was you'd have
a representative of industry,
a representative of the Nazi Party,
and a representative
of the German military,
who would all sit around a table
and decide
what plans had to get funded
and where resources would go.
The Committee of Three members
were Hans Lammers,
influential chief of
the Reich Chancellery
who worked alongside Bormann,
Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel
from the armed forces,
and of course, Martin Bormann.
Hitler seemed to like the idea
of the committee,
as none of the members
posed any threat
to his leadership nor would
they disagree with him.
The committee was to propose the
best independent course of action
regardless of the views
of the respective ministries,
with Hitler to make
the final decisions,
which did not suite
some people at all.
The Committee of Three were
immediately brought under attack
by sort of the Nazi hierarchy,
people like Goering,
people like Himmler,
people like Goebbels,
people like Speer, who all resented
their intruding
onto their little turfs.
And so the Committee of Three,
which was meant to rationalize
the German response to World War II,
ended up being a complete fizzle.
Despite the Committee of Three,
administrative chaos
continued to dog the
German war effort.
Ultimate responsibility
for this dysfunctionality
lay with Hitler
and his control freakish behavior,
as Goebbels well knew,
referring to it in his diary
as a crisis of leadership.
But Goebbels was too much
under Hitler's spell
ever to challenge his power.
As the war turned steadily
against Germany,
as desperation and doubt
seeped into the atmosphere,
those in the inner circle began
to viciously turn on each other.
Blame went in circles,
and the air around Hitler's table
became more toxic
and unproductive than ever.
And the mighty would begin
their inevitable falls from grace.
Goering is increasingly
marginalized by Himmler
because he sees
all of Goering's vulnerabilities,
lack of a work ethic,
his buffoonish behavior,
his drug addiction,
and he basically
increasingly sidelines Goering
in Hitler's eyes by
the end of the war.
There's no question
that the inner circle
becomes almost unworkable,
and I think it's illustrative of
the dysfunction in the inner circle
that someone who has suffered
as many defeats,
uh, both on the battlefield
and personally as Goering,
that he stays in that role,
that he's never replaced.
And that's just, well, it's absurd.
Even though he was marginalized
in the final months of the war,
Goering would have
one last shot at the top.
When it was reported to Goering
that Hitler had
essentially lost his mind
and was planning suicide,
he decided to try to assert
his claim to the leadership
based on the agreement
Hitler had signed
naming him as his successor.
Goering sent
a very carefully worded telegram,
requesting to take command
of the Reich forces
as per the agreement.
But it was intercepted by Bormann,
who took full advantage
of Hitler's paranoia
to brand Goering a traitor.
Hitler replied to Goering,
with much help from Bormann,
threatening him with
treason and execution
unless he resigned all posts.
Well, at the end of
the war, you know,
Goering always thought he had
been anointed by Hitler
as, you know, Deputy
Führer, you know.
So he thought that he had the chops
to take over the job,
and he made the mistake
of, you know, volunteering
to take over because,
"I know you're in Berlin,
I know you're in
the bunker, Führer,"
and, oh, that really angered Hitler.
Hitler... that was the final straw
for Hitler.
He'd already been souring on Goering
and then, when Goering
tried to sort of move
and take over the Führer's office
while Hitler was,
you know, hunkering in the bunker
waiting to blow his brains out,
he said no and Hitler takes
the job away from Goering
and gives it to
Donitz in a fit of spite.
Goering resigned
and started heading westwards
with his family to surrender
to the Americans,
which was a good move.
Bormann had ordered
his execution anyway if Berlin fell.
Next to make a rash grab for power
was Heinrich Himmler.
Himmler was second only to Goebbels
in loyalty to the Führer,
but he threw what remained away
when, in May 1945,
he attempted to broker
a peace deal with the Allies,
behind Hitler's back.
Well, you begin to see
just how many cracks there are
only at the very end,
when it's become clear
that in spite of all the promises,
even among the men who were supposedly
the most loyal, Goering and Himmler,
that they would seek
to open negotiations with the Allies
once it becomes clear that there's
going to be a post-Hitler Germany.
For Hitler, it is
the final betrayal,
and I guess in some ways
it also shows how these men...
At the end of the day,
they're ultimately self-interested.
The Allies
refused his generous terms
and for Himmler, the game was up.
As a final insult
to the Holocaust mastermind,
Heinrich Himmler
was officially branded a traitor
and, along with Goering,
stripped of all Nazi rank and power.
Not that it mattered.
Germany was moments away
from losing the war,
and Himmler was days away
from committing suicide
after being captured by the Allies.
Only Goebbels
remained steadfast in his loyalty.
And with the suicide of Hitler
and the fall of Germany imminent,
he became chancellor.
He served less than a day
before he and his wife
poisoned their six children
and themselves.
Martin Bormann had proven ruthless
and conniving right to the end
and having had the satisfaction
of defrocking his
great nemesis Goering,
tried to make a run for it.
Although mystery long remained
over his whereabouts,
he was later confirmed killed
by Soviet artillery
as he made his last
desperate bid for freedom.
The walls were literally
coming down around them,
and they were still exacting revenge
and intent on settling scores
with one another
until the bitter end.
Right from the beginning,
the seeds were sewn
for the destruction
of the Reich from within.
Self-glorification
and personal power
for these craven sociopaths
had proved more important
than actually winning the war.