Hitler (2016–2017): Season 1, Episode 3 - The Führer - full transcript

January 1935,
five months after securing power.

Germany's Führer spent most
of his time at the Berghof,

his Alpine headquarters,
hidden in the Bavarian mountains.

An avid fan of Hollywood, Adolf Hitler relaxed
by spending his evenings watching westerns.

He's fascinated with the battles on the
frontier between the American settlers

who come in and then push westward
to drive out the Indians.

Which he sees as a process of the
unfolding of racial superiority,

this indicates that the white race
is superior to the Native Americans.

He wants to escape, naturally,
into this dream world.

Dreams of conquest,
a celluloid fantasy for some,

but for Hitler, a terrifying reality.



Hitler, who was the man
behind the monster?

There were just so many parts
of this story that didn't add up.

Teenage loner turns national hero.

He was the Messiah
for the German people.

How was he able to achieve it?

All of it was an act.
All of it was a show.

This is the definitive guide to
the most hated man in history.

HITLER, THE RISE AND FALL
THE FUHRER

Adolf Hitler saw himself as a savior,

who could lead Germany
from World War One defeat

to a global superpower.

Between 1935 and 1939,
he began his European land grab,

and his dream of vengeance against
the Jews became a horrifying reality.

By February 1935, Adolf
Hitler was riding high,



his rapid rise to Supreme
Dictator of Germany was complete.

Millions of German citizens
saw him as a messianic leader.

His image is appearing everywhere,
it's on postcards, posters;

he's become a demigod.

Natsification becomes a cultural process

that infects every element of Germans lives.

Hitler encourages its propaganda minister
to take charge of aspects of life

that you would never even imagine,
so you see children's books

taking up his hatred of racial minorities.

Hitler's personality type is
undoubtedly that of a narcissist.

He needs to be loved;
he needs to have this adulation.

But there was a bigger purpose
than just feeding Hitler's ego.

Gaining public support was
the first step in his plan

to restore Germany to greatness.

Hitler's priority was to undo the
Treaty of Versailles, the peace treaty,

Germany was forced to sign by
the allies after the First World War.

The Treaty of Versailles was the
worst of times for the Germans.

They lose territory, their military
is reduced to 100.000 men,

a nonexistent air force,
no heavy artillery,

and they're forced to pay a schedule
reparations that will extend into the 1980s.

The first step has got to
be to reestablish Germany,

where it was before the Versailles’
settlement, build up German armed power,

restore the German economy.
And once you've done those things,

you can then start to think about where
your strategy is going to move next.

Hitler's first clear violation
of the Treaty of Versailles

came on the 10th of March 1935.

Hermann Goering announced the creation
of a German Airforce, the Luftwaffe.

A week later, Hitler invited
ambassadors from France, Britain,

Italy and Poland to a
weekend-meeting in Berlin.

Hitler makes announcements on a Saturday,
it's clear he knows

this is a time that the Western
democracies will be unable

to take any rapid action against them.

Their offices are unmanned,
their ambassadors are away.

It's a perfect way to confuse
and disarm opposition.

Hitler told the ambassadors he planned
to expand the German Army

from 100.000, the number specified
by the Treaty of Versailles,

to half a million men.

Hitler tells them a fitter
complete, this is a done deal,

now he just declares it openly.

He very much plays on the guilt feeling
that Germany has been given a bad deal

and you humiliated Germany too much.

Room is still wheeling, these diplomats
are still scratching their heads

and Hitler seizes this moment
and starts telling them

that actually the whole idea of rearmament
is preparation for peace and not for war.

He's tricking them.

For Hitler this is a great coup,
it's a moment to make a great deal of.

The public were jubilant that Hitler's success

in freeing Germany from
the Treaty of Versailles,

but that joy was tempered
by fears of another war.

So Hitler put his
propaganda machine to work.

17th of March 1935,
Heroes Memorial Day.

A year earlier, Hitler had transformed
a somber commemoration of the war dead

into a patriotic celebration.

The old crown prince,
who was part of the previous regime,

is there to kind of greet him
and to pass on that authority.

After all, World War One was the old regime,

so using this event to stage his
connection to the old regime

and to the military gives
him legitimacy in a moment

in which that legitimacy is really crucial.

The idea is, of course,
to appeal to the average German,

we lost the war,
but now we're becoming a great power again.

By the end of the celebration,
the message was clear:

The German eagle had risen again.

Here's somebody who promised
almost impossible in 1933,

restoring German honor, and two
years later, here he is delivering it.

The next step for Hitler was
to make Germany whole again.

Under the Treaty of Versailles,
German forces were forbidden

from entering an area of Western Germany,
called the Rhineland.

It bordered Belgium and France.

Hitler was determined to
remilitarize it for the Fatherland.

Hitler feels very nervous about it,
and, of course,

all his advisers are tentative;
some afraid, some against it.

On the 7th of March 1936,
Hitler launched his first military operation,

moving troops into the Rhineland.

They have orders to retreat if there's
any sign of French opposition,

and yet the French do not move.

France and Britain
kept their distance.

It's about stamping Germany's
authority in the center of Europe

and making the old foes
pay for what they've done.

As hard as making Germany normal again, this
is part of giving back Germans some pride.

This is a part of making Germans less
angry about the result of World War One.

Every success, of course,
confirms him that he is absolutely right,

and the idea of Providence
is in all his speeches.

He thinks that he has been sent to
make Germany a great power again.

Hitler says, “I go with the certainty
of a sleepwalker

along a path determined
for me by Providence.”

Now this is classic
Hitler messianic talk.

He trying to show the world that he is
a man who is, has a destiny, he’s a fate.

He's like Jesus or any
other religious leader.

Germans saw their Fuhrer as a hero,
who tore up the Treaty of Versailles

and restored national pride.

But for Hitler,
it was just the beginning.

By the summer of 1936, Adolf Hitler
was toasting his own success.

Reclaiming the Rhineland
was just the latest triumph

since his rise to chancellor
three years earlier.

These included building the Autobahn,
the world's first motorway network.

Hosting the Olympics with Germany,
topping the leaderboard with 89 medals.

And a major redesign of the
Berghof from a modest Alpine lodge

into a headquarters fit for a world leader.

Hitler needs to change the Berghof for
both practical and political reasons.

He needs space for servants;
he needs space for diplomatic visits.

All of these things are necessary at
the Berghof, so it has to be expanded.

On the other hand,
if here he's really thinking strategically,

he really wants to start staging himself

as someone who is really
a presence in the world.

It is a most stunning location
and if you go there today,

you will see the same view that Hitler
enjoyed from the terrace of his Berghof,

this lovely sweep of countryside and
impressive mountains and meadows.

As the project began, neighbors quickly
learned not to interfere with Hitler's plans.

There's a photographer who complains

because his photographic studio is
being destroyed to make way for it.

And because he complains, he gets sent to
Dachau concentration camp for two years.

But there was more to the redesign
of the Berghof than creating an HQ.

Still stung by his rejection
from the Viennese Academy of Arts

nearly 30 years previously, Hitler long
to be revered as an artistic visionary.

He really is constantly transforming
this artistic desire into other elements

and channeling that into other
parts of his policy in his life.

Hitler hired top interior
designer Gerdy Troost.

Troost became exceptionally
influential in Hitler's inner circle.

New research has revealed the extent
of her influence on key decisions

as the Berghof underwent a revamp.

Gerdy Troost is Hitler's most
important cultural advisor.

She really becomes Hitler's sort
of right-hand woman, if you will.

She is someone that is helping and enabling
the spaces of the Berghof to come together.

She works closely with
Hitler as a style counselor,

who is with him leaning over tables,
leafing through fabrics,

talking in intimate detail
about color schemes.

She is the person responsible
for his tableware.

What kind of curtains you would have?

Hitler rarely listened to advisers,
but he did listen to Troost.

Sometimes she agrees with him,
sometimes she doesn't agree with him.

And he tolerates that from her.

Perhaps because it's really
about a kind of cultural debate

and that he admires her as an artist.

She talked him out of decorating
the Berghof with Nazi paraphernalia.

Instead, she introduced the more
down-to-Earth look of the German middle class

with an added twist.

The main living space of the
Berghof is clearly massive,

and in this sense, it has
the proportions that are quite distinct

from any other typical Bavarian farmhouse,
you might see.

It's clearly meant to impress you and
it's really a perfect place for Hitler

to stage his own personality as someone who's
the grand master of this particular domain.

And the great hall that he builds
with this incredible window,

it can be rolled down to expose open
air view of the mountains below.

These set up like a kind of
medieval or feudal court.

Henry VIII comes to mind.
It's a place where politics happens

and pleasure happens and military
decisions are made and it's all about him.

And its magnificence is a
demonstration of his power.

The final bill for the Bagehot
transformation was five million pounds,

a third of a billion pounds today.

The complex included an army
barrack for Hitler's bodyguards

and luxury homes for his high command.

It would continue to expand with a teahouse
for indulging his passion for cakes.

And an intricate system of tunnels
and bunkers for safety and escape.

August 1936 at the Berghof,

Hitler drew up his ambitious
four-year plan.

It's almost the only thing of any
significance to Hitler writes himself

during the course of the dictatorship.

He says the economy and the armed forces
have prepared him four-years for war,

it’s the point at which he decides,
but it's now time

to turn Germany into
a kind of superpower.

Hitler launched a charm
offensive on foreign leaders

to give his four-year
plan a positive spin.

Hitler's first target was former
Prime Minister David Lloyd George,

a man from equally humble origins.

The Fuhrer’s aim was to deceive him
into thinking his four-year plan

would bring stability and peace to Europe.

Lloyd George was the prominent
leader of British Empire in 1919,

the Treaty of Versailles and here
he is now coming to see Hitler.

This is a very important
symbolic moment for Hitler,

which he’s very happy to exploit.

Hitler softened up Lloyd
George before they even met.

He really rolls out the red carpet,

gives him a chauffeur driven Mercedes
down a newly built Autobahn.

This is a particularly fascinating bit of
footage, because it's Hitler in his home.

But he's acting out the whole
situation as if it were a play,

and his role is to be the country
gentleman, the aristocrat.

But he's not comfortable with the role.
He's closed off his body language

with that arm cross and
he does a little gesture.

If you look down here, see how he's
holding on the knuckles are like this.

This is unique to Hitler.
He does this under tense moments.

But Lloyd George was blind
to the warning signs.

Hitler spent three hours with
him over tea and strudel,

pitching his four year plan
as a blueprint for peace.

And Lloyd George is totally hoodwinked,
and when he goes back to Britain,

he says that Hitler really is the
George Washington of Germany.

He sells them in these huge terms.
It's a complete pack of lies

and Lloyd George is completely bought it.

Having conned Lloyd George
Hitler now had to sell

his four-year-plan
to the German people.

He chose the Nazi Party's annual rally
at Nuremberg to announce his plan.

The crowds were spellbound
by Hitler's idea of a greater Germany,

but the speech skillfully avoided
any mention of the violence

and bloodshed that lay ahead.

Hitler has no problem lying because he
figures he will motivate them this way

and get them into the final struggle
and thus ultimately prevail.

He's nevertheless aware the fact
that he has these two destinies,

he says to Albert Speer, one of his most
intimate friends, such as they are,

that if I win succeed,
I'll be the greatest man in history,

but if I fail,
I'll be condemned and despised forever.

30th of January 1937.

Less than five months
after the Nuremberg rally,

Adolf Hitler withdrew Germany's
signature from the Treaty of Versailles.

To him, it was a worthles
piece of paper.

The withdrawal of the German signature
has very little objective meaning.

He's already slashed virtually
every clause of the treaty,

but it has enormous symbolic and emotional
significance to the German people.

It was only the first step
in Hitler's foreign policy.

He insisted that the German people
needed Lebensraum, more living space,

to realize their destiny.

The plan called for occupying land
he believed belonged to Germany.

In November, Hitler spelled
out his intentions - war.

The generals enjoy rearmament; they enjoy
bigger units and shiny new equipment,

but they're not particularly
enthusiastic about another war

with the British and French.

Hitler comes away from the meeting,
uncertain now about

whether the army really is on board,
he doesn't quite know what to do.

Among those opposed to Hitler's plans

was head of the Armed Forces,
Field Marshal Werner von Blomberg.

This is the point at which
Goering becomes very handy.

Hermann Goering, commander of the
Luftwaffe, wanted Blomberg's job.

Digging for dirt, he discovered
Blomberg was hiding a secret.

He really feasts on it,
and he gives this file to Hitler.

Field Marshall Blomberg married a woman
who has, shall we say, a bit of a past.

When she was 18, she posed for a
series of nude pornographic pictures

which found their way into
the hands of the police.

Goring informed Hitler that
Blomberg's wife was a prostitute

and that a Jewish photographer
took the photographs.

When Hitler finds out about frau Blomberg's
past, he's absolutely incandescent.

This is not the type of woman
that Hitler likes consorting with.

It is very embarrassing to Hitler because he
and Goering had been witnesses at the wedding.

Blomberg's wife was a potential
PR disaster for the Nazi Party.

On his route to power,
Hitler has very much tried to prove

that the Nazis are a deeply
sort of moral party,

and they're trying to lead Germany
towards a path of moral rectitude.

And so if the idea that this incredibly senior
figure's wife is a registered prostitute,

he knows could be absolutely
crippling for him.

They still want to be seen
as respectable politicians

and inside the officer corps
you can't just marry down.

I mean, you can't marry a prostitute.
That's a scandal.

It’s clear that something has got to be
done about this - von Bloomberg has to go.

Hitler confronted Blomberg,
who offered to resign.

The Fuhrer accepted,
sending him into exile with a payoff.

Hitler was never to call
on his services again.

He is now simply in Hitler’s
eyes a man from the past.

But the very same day, allegations emerged
involving another senior army officer.

The Commander-in-Chief of the Army,
General Werner von Fritsch,

is accused of a gay liaison
in a public restroom.

Hitler was aware how the Nazi leadership

and the German public would
react if the rumor got out.

Fritsch calls the accusations
a rotten, stinking lie.

Hitler is obviously completely terrified
of there being a double scandal.

He can't have this, this is a PR
disaster for any politician, frankly.

Von Fritsch’s allegations are completely
false, but Hitler doesn't know that

and so Hitler says, “You've got to go too,
this produces an extraordinary drama."

There's a hiatus now.
Who's going to run the army?

Who's going to run the armed forces?

Hitler is actually indecisive, and it shows

that he doesn't always control events,
he actually reacts to events.

Hitler came to a decision.

A nationwide radio broadcast announced

the vacancy for Commander-in-Chief of
the Armed Forces, left by Blomberg,

had been filled by the Fuhrer himself.

Goering's hopes of the top job were dashed,
but he was promoted to Field Marshal.

This is sending out a very clear
signal to the army in particular

that Hitler is now in ultimate control.
- He's the ultimate megalomaniac.

There's a hell of a lot of power
concentrated in him, just as one man.

By early 1938, the state, the military

and the people were all under
Adolf Hitler's command.

As he plotted Germany's future,
Hitler looks to the past for inspiration

to legendary heroes like
Napoleon and Bismarck.

It is a certain kind of history. It is tales
of the great heroes of the German past,

the heroic kings and emperors and conquerors.

Since childhood, Hitler had idolized
Frederick the Great, King of Prussia.

Frederick the Great is a great
hero of Hitler in many ways.

He thinks he's the embodiment
of this great hero of the past.

One of Hitler's most treasured possessions
is a portrait of Frederick the Great

and he takes this portrait
with him everywhere.

Even when he goes on the plane,
the portrait has its own seat.

It almost becomes
a person in its own right.

Propaganda chief
Joseph Goebbels sold the idea

that Hitler was Frederick the
Great's natural successor.

As a warrior king, he picked up the
sword and carved himself an empire.

Hitler intended to do the same.

First, he planned to give Germany more living
space in the land of his birth - Austria.

For Hitler, Germans and Austrians
shared the same Aryan blood.

Yet they were divided by a
meaningless line on a map.

He thinks, it's absolutely bizarre
that Austria and Germany are not one

that is his great belief and it
is part of his plan all along

to unite Germany and Austria.

12th of February 1938, Austrian
leader Chancellor Kurt von Schuschnigg

arrived at the Berghof
for a private meeting.

On the table was Austria's independence.
- Schuschnigg makes a polite comment

about the lovely view of the
fantastic spot the Berghof is.

But Hitler was not in
the mood for small talk.

His priority was forming a closer
union between the two countries.

Hitler instantly snapped to him,
“Look, yes, it is a lovely view,

but you haven't come all the way up here
for us just to talk about the weather."

"Come on, get inside.”

Hitler and his ministers
demanded Nazi officials

be given key government posts in Austria.

Hitler has this animalistic side.

He can smell fear and he knows
how to play with weak people

and how to bully them and
scare them and humiliate them.

You can see that this is a starting point
of something that remains characteristic

throughout Hitler's career, which is an
awareness of a kind of theatricality,

a kind of Wagnerian dimension
that everything is a performance,

that this is, if you like,
the unfolding of a drama.

Under the pressure, Schuschnigg yielded
and agreed to appoint Seyss-Inquart,

an Austrian Nazi sympathizer,
Minister of the Interior.

In an attempt to block
growing German influence,

Schuschnigg put the issue of Austrian
independence to a public vote.

Hitler cannot allow
that vote to happen.

He's concerned that there
might not be majority support

or even if there is majority
support among the Austrian people,

there will be a hefty minority against it.

A public vote could have destroyed Hitler's
chances of legitimately annexing Austria.

As an act of intimidation, he ordered
German troops to mobilize for an invasion.

But the Fuhrer got cold feet
and ordered Hermann Goering

to bully Schuschnigg into submission.

With no European allies supporting
him against the Germans,

Schuschnigg canceled the public vote
and later resigned as chancellor.

Seyss-Inquart plugged the gap.

He believes in force,
its only force and its only standing up

and bullying people into
something that can succeed.

But Hitler's commanders
were not keen on invasion.

They are much more careful.
They think that one shouldn't rush into it.

One has to do it step by step,
but Hitler is the absolute driving force.

Hitler spells it out: “Listen,
it worked in the Rhineland,

and it's going to work now. It's that simple.”

12th of March 1938, under Hitler's
orders, German forces rolled into Austria.

They faced no resistance.

What follows is one of the most
amazing moments in Hitler's career.

On the heels of the German Army,
which is met by a large with flowers

and garlands from a joyful
Austrian population,

comes out of Hitler himself,
riding in his motorcade.

Riding through the towns of his youth.

The Austrian invasion looked more like
a parade honoring the great Fuhrer.

So this again, lends to Hitler's view of
himself as being this messianic figure

that can do no wrong,
instills him with yet more confidence.

On his return to Berlin,
Hitler was hailed as the conquering hero,

with Austria now under his control.

He was happy to let the public
vote on their independence,

and the result was a landslide in
favor of forming a union with Germany.

This is a great relief for
the German population,

so he has this great celebration in Berlin.

There's a national holiday,
everybody is celebrating this great success

Hitler has pulled off again.

Two weeks later, Hitler was still savoring
victory and eager to plot his next invasion.

Hitler does have an addictive
personality and, of course,

once you give one parcel of land to Hitler,
he'll want another one, and another one.

Hitler's troops had already marched
into Austria and the Rhineland.

Next up was Czechoslovakia, a country

that contained over three million
German-speaking inhabitants.

The state of Czechoslovakia, which
is formed after the Versailles Treaty,

is something he detests.

In spring 1938,
eager to test his new Armed Forces,

Hitler ordered preparations for
the invasion of Czechoslovakia.

But Prime Minister Neville
Chamberlain sent an emissary

to tell Hitler that Britain and
France would oppose an invasion.

There is sudden, as Chamberlain saying,
for better or worse if you do that,

there's going to be war.

Hitler is so astonished by the
revelation that he asks the interpreter

to repeat what has been said
in cases misunderstood it.

Hitler attended a crisis meeting in
Munich with Italy's Benito Mussolini,

French Prime Minister Édouard
Daladier and Chamberlain.

At the 13-hour meeting,
the allies, desperate for peace,

offered Hitler the Sudetenland.

Chamberlain raises this point,
about will the Czechs be compensated

for their farm animals?
Hitler explodes and says to Chamberlain,

“There's no time
for these trivialities.”

Under pressure from
both the major powers

and his own advisers,
Hitler accepted the Sudetenland.

War was averted.

Much to his annoyance, Hitler was
forced to work with Britain and France.

Hitler believes it's a sign of the
decadence of the Western democracies,

their willingness to do almost anything
to avoid another war with Germany.

In fact, he describes them as worms.
You've got this sense from him

that he's dealing with people
that simply don't have the same willpower,

the same determination
to grab what they want and fight for it.

With Hitler denied the war he wanted,
he lied about his future plans.

Chamberlain returns to Munich and
when he lands back in England,

he gets off the plane waving
a famous piece of paper

that guarantees quote
“Peace in our time”.

Here is the paper which bears.
His name upon it as well as mine.

But for Hitler,
it's a much more cynical exercise.

He goes: “That scrap of paper
is of no significance whatsoever.”

Chamberlain's eagerness for peace
at any price made Hitler bolder.

Every single time Hitler pulls
off a foreign policy coup

and the foreign powers do not react,

among the German people,
there is a sense of restored pride.

They're happy to see Germany once
again respected on the world scene.

It reinforced Hitler's belief in his
mission to expand the German realm.

After invading the Sudetenland
or getting the Sudetenland,

Hitler's just partying and feasting
on cakes, and he loves cakes.

He loves to relax as at a good tea party,
so this is very typical of him.

But there was a problem
eating away at Hitler.

He was being celebrated as the
architect of a piece he didn't want.

He knows that when
he looks back at history,

all the greatest military
leaders in a forge,

their greatest victories in battle
with the blood of their own men.

He wants to make that kind of sense
of the new mythology of Germany,

built on the blood and
sacrifice of its young men.

And that's what Hitler wants.

So Hitler, the German public's relief, but
the Munich Agreement felt like a betrayal.

The country didn't
want the war he craved.

He had retooled the factories
and rebuilt the army,

but to fulfill his destiny,
Hitler had to incite the people to war.

Autumn 1938, Hitler had long
wanted to cut out what he believed

was a cancer preying on German society.

There's no doubt 1938 marks an increase
in the active antisemitism of the regime.

The Austrian Nazis begin a
program of active antisemitism,

kicking Jews out of businesses
and so on, murdering Jews.

7th of November,
the German embassy in Paris.

A Polish Jew shot a Nazi official.

He died two days
later from his wounds.

Hitler is told by Goebbels, his
propaganda minister, about the murder.

This absolutely incenses Hitler.

He sees Jews as being an
infection of German racial stock.

They drift around; they infiltrate
themselves into other countries

and they topple them from the inside.

He understands the world through a kind of
history of the struggle of good versus evil,

which means the struggle
between Arian and Jew.

Despite his anger against the Jews,

Hitler wasn't sure how
to react to the murder.

Goebbels, who is really
virulent antisemitic,

lobby's Hitler very,
very hard to get something done.

Some revenge must take place.

Goebbels' idea is to make
this into a nationwide,

spontaneous demonstration
against the Jews.

Hitler says yes. Let the Jews feel
the full force of the German people.

9th of November 1938,
Nazis murdered 100 Jews.

They beat and raped many
more and for the first time,

Hitler's regime sent Jews to
concentration camps on a massive scale,

based purely on their ethnicity.

The event was called Kristallnacht
or the Night of Broken Glass

because of the windows
of Jewish homes, businesses,

and synagogues shattered
during the assault.

For Hitler, his dream of vengeance against
the Jews was finally being realized.

Meanwhile,
the Fuhrer ensured he had an alibi.

He attends a swearing-in ceremony for
a group of men who are joining the SS.

Hitler is, in many ways a Teflon Fuhrer,

Hitler is able to do atrocious,

abominable things,
but keep apparently clean hands.

But it was not just
about targeting Jews.

Antisemitism became a tool to
radicalize the entire population.

Hitler is trying to make Germans
harder, tougher and more vicious.

If you can make Germans hate
Jews and humiliate Jews,

then you can carry them on
to the next step.

The Germans are willing to go along
with the persecution of the Jews,

but they just don't want to see it.

The morning after Kristallnacht.

Hitler and Goebbels met
at the Osteria Bavaria,

the Fuhrer’s favorite restaurant in Munich.

They mulled over the success
of the night's savagery,

but something stuck in Hitler's throat.

Hitler is annoyed about the damage
that's been caused to various buildings

throughout Germany during
the course of the night.

And they discuss who's going
to pay for this damage.

And of course, the answer is the Jews.

In Hitler's mind,
Germany has been colonized by the Jews,

and that Kristallnacht marks
the beginning of a process

of returning it to its rightful owners.

As Hitler's men herded Jews
into concentration camps,

Kristallnacht provoked an outcry
in the international press.

It’s largely condemned across
the world as an act of barbarism.

This is a point when Hitler realizes
that you can't put this out there

because there's going to be
a great deal of fallout.

It's the point at which
antisemitism is cranked up,

but it's cranked up and
shielded from public scrutiny.

Incredibly, it worked.

Much of the press was still
enamored with the image of Hitler

crafted by his own propaganda machine.

Including British magazine
Homes and Gardens,

which ran an article portraying
Hitler as a great statesman,

living peacefully
in the Bavarian countryside.

The idea that an article in Homes
and Gardens about Hitler's house

comes out at the same time as
the pogrom against the Jews,

the so-called Kristallnacht,
is almost unimaginable to us.

The effect of all of this is to make
Hitler essentially sort of tame,

a guy you can work with.

Two months after Kristallnacht,

Hitler celebrated the sixth anniversary
of the Nazis coming to power,

an opportunity to take his hatred
of the Jews to the next level.

What Hitler wants to do is give the German
people an almost spiritual experience,

and that's why he has the parades in the dark,
because there's mystique to it.

There's focus on what Hitler's doing.

He has the lights and what that does
is it kind of intoxicates the people.

It’s similar to what we
see with the Ku Klux Klan,

because when they held their meetings,
they had fire;

they had uniforms; they had flags.

They had same the mythology that we
see that Hitler is propagating here.

The Fuhrer orchestrated a nighttime
rally to exploit public feeling.

The horrors of Kristallnacht were transformed
into an expression of national unity.

Hitler chose this moment to go
public with his poisonous ideology.

For the first time, he used the word
"destruction" in connection with the Jews.

This is the point really which Hitler
has linked together the idea of war

and the idea of revenge against the Jews.

Hitler's mission was to drive
the Jews out of Germany.

With a nation now at his command
everything was in place

to carry out one of the
greatest crimes in history.