Hitler (2016–2017): Season 1, Episode 6 - The Downfall - full transcript

Summer 1944.

Almost five years after Adolf
Hitler triggered World War Two.

Allied forces pushed the
German army out of Normandy

while the Soviet advance in
the East seemed unstoppable.

Despite this,
the Fuhrer appeared relaxed.

Hitler is presenting
an aura that suggests,

“Everything is just a little setback on
what is a destined providential path.”

The Fuhrer’s belief in victory
was at odds with his top generals.

Many of his senior commanders are
beginning to ask themselves more and more,

“What are we going
to do about Hitler?”

"If you go on fighting the
Germany going to be destroyed."



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 DOWNFALL

In July 1944,
Adolf Hitler was under siege.

The allies were closing in and his
own forces were plotting his demise.

As the endgame approached,
he launched a reign of terror

and retreated into a fantasy world.

But for the moment,
he still believed in certain victory.

7th of July.



Adolf Hitler arrived at
Klessheim Castle in Austria.

To help reassure Germans
that they would win the war,

the Fuhrer’s propaganda team
staged events for him to inspect

what he called Wunderwaffe,
wonder weapons.

A constant refrain of Hitler's in
the late period of the war is that,

“Hold on the wonder
weapons are coming.”

Certainly, by bringing forth the
possibility of wonder weapons,

he is giving his officers, his men, and
his people a reason to stay in the field

until the bitter end.

Nazi scientists had been developing
the next generation of weapons,

including a jet fighter ME-262,

giant U-boats,
and a nearly 200 ton tank.

But the most fearsome was the
vengeance weapon 2, or V2 rocket.

These photographs by Walter Frentz reveal a
test of the world's first ballistic missile.

Development of the V2 was so secret,

Hitler banned Frentz from
making the photographs public.

You probably could say he is falling
into some kind of self-delusion.

None of these secret weapons individually
were going to turn the tide of the war.

Unlike the German people, some members of
the army didn't fall for Hitler's vision.

That opposition is not from the
highest reaches of the officer corps.

It is not Hitler's generals.
It is what we would today call

field grade officers.
Hitler's war has led them all into disaster,

and Hitler's recent decisions have
been particularly catastrophic.

20th of July 1944.

The Wolf's Lair, Hitler's
headquarter on the Eastern Front.

The Fuhrer was on his way to meet
his senior military advisers.

At 12:30 p.m., the meeting began with a
discussion on how best to use the army units

currently based in Germany.

Hitler is just leaning
over this massive oak table

upon which there’s a map
of the military situation.

The whole table just
vaporizes beneath him.

At 12:42 p.m., an explosion killed four
men and destroyed the conference room.

But the target of the
bombing plot escaped alive.

The blast blew a lot of Hitler's clothes
off, such was the magnitude of it.

It seems to be a miracle, at least certainly
in Hitler's eyes, that he's survived.

Just over two hours later, a defiant
Hitler put on a show of invincibility.

He doesn't even cancel his
events for the rest of the day.

Mussolini is on the way to a visit,
Hitler greets him

and takes him on a tour of the building
in which he had almost just been killed.

Since becoming Nazi party leader there had
been over 40 attempts on Hitler's life,

though none had come as close as this.

12 hours after the blast,
the Fuhrer made a radio address

to the nation to prove he was alive.

The impromptu speech was the
first time in over a year

that he had spoken directly
to the German people.

His voice is unmistakable.

Indeed, some of the plotters
listen to the radio broadcasts

and they say to themselves,
“It's all up, we failed.”

The plot to kill Hitler was led by
Army Colonel Klaus von Stauffenberg.

Removing Adolf Hitler as
this borderline insane guy

who was going to run Germany into the ditch
and replace him with more rational statesmen

and military leaders who
will wind down the war

and try to preserve
German power intact.

Stauffenberg had placed a briefcase
bomb within yards of Hitler's feet.

Hitler's death was to be
the signal for an army coup.

By the time Hitler was on air,
Stauffenberg

and three of his coconspirators
had already been executed.

Others would soon meet their fates.

In the meantime,
Hitler made another public appearance,

this time visiting those
wounded in the blast.

There's cotton wool stuffed in
his ears to protect his eardrums

after they've been burst by the blast.

His right arm and hand are an
obvious massive amounts of discomfort.

He has serious balance
problems and in fact urges

that he not be put in front of an
audience at any time in the near future

because he might just keel right over.

As Hitler left the hospital,
an adoring crowd awaits him.

Part of an upsurge in
Pro-Hitler sentiment.

Many ordinary Germans really did feel a great
sense of relief that Hitler had survived.

There are lots of demonstrations
across Germany of support for Hitler,

enthusiasm for Hitler, letters saying,
“Thank God, you've been saved.”

But the adulation did nothing
to heal the emotional scars.

He is very, very scared
by what's happened

and he becomes increasingly paranoid that
something like this will happen again.

He therefore orders that nobody
near him can wear a pistol.

In many ways, Hitler becomes like
one of those mad Roman emperors

who's obsessed with people
trying to poison him.

Hitler forced 15 women,
taken from local villages,

to taste his food before every meal.

After they'd eaten it and survived,
they'd burst into tears with relief

because they were so kind of wound up
that this could be their last mouthful.

Hitler's paranoia knew no bounds.

There have been traitors at every
turn; traitors in his entourage,

traitors in the party, traitors in the
upper reaches of the officer corps,

traitors all over the place.

Many of Hitler's most experienced
generals were replaced with yes-men.

To demonstrate their loyalty, the
Wehrmacht made the Heil Hitler salute

compulsory for all servicemen.

The military was no longer capable
of staging a coup to oust him.

And now Hitler wanted vengeance.

He was ready to launch
a reign of terror.

It was two weeks since Colonel Klaus von
Stauffenberg’s attempt to kill Adolf Hitler.

The Fuhrer was intent on revenge.

Any of Stauffenberg’s coconspirators,
who hadn't yet committed suicide,

was subjected to show-trials in
the so-called People's Court.

Hitler wanted what became known
in Germany as blood vengeance.

Hitler has a vengeful personality,
we've seen that in the past.

Here he can really let his vengeance,

his sense of vengeance go
because here are real plotters,

real threats to the German people,
real threats to the German future.

He orders them all to be hung up with piano
wire, which is the most gruesome death.

What makes it even more gruesome
is that Hitler has it filmed.

According to Albert Speer, Hitler watched
films of the executions night after night.

Meanwhile, Heinrich Himmler's Gestapo
executed anyone, perceived as a threat.

A new kind of criminal justice is
now put into play - Sippenhaft.

The arrest of those who are disloyal to the
regime and the punishment of their families.

It leads to massive
reprisals all across Germany,

as Hitler now pursues his sick
revenge fantasies against anyone

even remotely suspected of
connection to this plot.

7000 Germans are arrested,
4980 killed.

Along with this repressive state
came a heightening of repression

within the armed forces.

Tens of thousands of German
soldiers are put on trial

and shot in this last year of the war,

usually at specious charges
of desertion or cowardice.

For an army whose manpower
reserves had become so limited

this was the last thing it needed.

24th of August 1944, as Hitler ordered
the execution of his own troops,

allied forces liberated Paris.

Within three weeks, US troops
became the first invading force

to set foot on German
soil since the war began.

Most Germans are despairing, they
know the war is almost assuredly lost

and yet the Hitler myth precedes.
There are enough people who believe

that Hitler still might have
one last trick in his bag.

On the 6th of September 1944, the
first V2 rocket was fired at Paris.

But like the rest
of Hitler's wonder weapons,

it failed to stop
the advancing allied forces.

Six weeks later, the Red Army crossed
the German border into East Prussia.

Nazi propaganda seized on
evidence of atrocities.

We have now Goebbels and Hitler pressing
the notion that if you don't fight harder,

if you don't ward off those
Asiatic hordes from the East,

they're going to exact
horrifying revenge.

The Red Army wanted revenge for the Soviets
civilians murdered during Hitler's invasion.

Yet the Fuhrer rejected any
suggestion of a peace deal.

The rumors of the awful things,
in fact, they're did the same things

that German soldiers and security men have
been doing in the East of course for years.

But for the German people is horrifying
that this could happen to us.

And I think for a great many
German men, for example,

that they see that they're one task
now is somehow defend their families

and so on from the red terror.

Hitler was driven by memories of
the so-called stab in the back.

His belief that socialist
politicians betrayed Germany

by surrendering at the
end of World War one.

One of the significance of the
belief of the stab in the back

is a determination that it
will never happen again.

And so that when we move
forward to the Second World War,

defeat destruction with honor
is preferable to surrender.

He will never allow any of
his soldiers to surrender,

and he certainly won't
surrender himself.

When the Fuhrer's inner circle
urged him to rally public support,

Hitler ignored his people's plight.

For ordinary German people is a
problem, who are we fighting for?

I think for a lot of soldiers,
a lot of ordinary workers and so on,

they are increasingly fighting for
Germany now, not fighting for Hitler.

Hitler's public presence faded as his sole
focus became turning the tide of the war,

which he believed
only he could achieve.

If he doesn't do something now,
sooner or later,

he's going to be squeezed between the
vice of the Western allies on the one hand

and Russia on the other. In his view,

the better chance of succeeding
is taking on the Western allies.

He doesn't have a hugely high
regard for American troops.

Using his panzer divisions, Hitler
wanted to attack between American

and British forces in the Ardennes’s
forest and take the Port of Antwerp,

the crucial supply line.

This is Hitler's last
big roll of the dice.

If he can split these armies,
then this will vastly slow down

the allied deployment to Western
Europe, allow him to defend them off

and then turn everything he has against
the Soviet Army moving in from the East.

Hitler's generals knew they didn't
have enough fuel or military hardware

and were woefully underequipped
for such an assault.

They told him even if they did reach Antwerp,
there was no way of holding the port.

He just disregards at all and says,
“Believe me, it's going to work,

we're going to unhinge the enemy in
the West as we unhinged them in 1940.”

Hitler launched his
operation Autumn Mist,

a conflict more famously known
as the Battle of the Bulge.

Initially,
the allies were caught unprepared.

But Germany lost 300 planes and
100.000 men in just 40 days fighting.

Hitler's gamble was a disaster.

As his generals feared,
Germany's forces were unable

to cope with allied air
superiority and troop numbers.

Hitler demanded a showdown
with his military commanders.

Hitler reacts to the failure of
field of the Ardennes offensive

really rather characteristically, of course,
that he blames everybody except himself.

It's the fault of the German
generals and the German troops,

who simply didn't live up
to his high expectations.

“I decorated them and I spoil them with
everything and they've just betrayed me.”

Hitler's failed attack left both ground
and air forces critically weakened.

Germany could no longer fend
off the allies from the West

or the Soviets from the East.

There's a bleep moment of truth.

Hitler realizes that there aren't any more
gambles, there's got nothing else to play.

Hitler responded in typical fashion.

He threatened to kill himself.

Just like in 1923, in the wake
of the failed Munich putsch

and in 1931 on learning of his
beloved niece Geli's death.

But as Colonel Below later recalled,
Hitler changed to another course of action.

“Will not capitulate, never, we can go
down, but we'll take the world with us.”

His propaganda mastermind,
Joseph Goebbels,

the man more responsible than
any other for the Hitler's rise,

begged his Fuhrer to
speak to the people.

Despite Goebbels exhortation’s, “Come on
Mein Fuhrer, go out there, rally people.”

Hitler knows it's there's nothing there.
There's nothing to defend.

Conceding that his dream of a
Thousand Year Reich was over,

Hitler found someone new to blame -
the German people.

He feels they have let him down
and they've let themselves down.

In his own racial fantasies only the
strong survive and if the Germans

are now going down to defeat it is
because they are not worthy to survive.

The once feared German war machine was now
retreating further back into the Fatherland.

As the net closed in, Hitler was now
committed to sacrificing his people

in an act of spite
against the German nation.

On the 31st of January 1945, Stalin's
Red Army reached the Oder River.

They were just 43 miles from Berlin.

In the past seven months,
hundreds of thousands have died

defending Hitler's
Germany from invasion.

They are now having to call
up young boys and old men.

This really the last
throw of the dice.

In a rare moment of honest reflection,
Hitler dictated his thoughts

to his private secretary,
Martin Bormann.

"The situation is serious,
very serious."

"It seems even to be desperate."

What he makes clear is that the
current Germans have let him down,

but there will come a new Germany.
New generations will come.

"Whatever reverses, we may suffer
in the days that lie ahead of us,

but the German people will
draw fresh strength from them

and whatever may happen today,
it will live to know a glorious tomorrow."

Hitler retreated to a bunker complex
beneath the Reich Chancellery.

Hitler could go anywhere he wants,

he can order up a plane you
can fly to over Salzburg,

he can go to
the American’s zone in the hope

that he'll be taken by them.
So remarkably, Hitler stays in Berlin,

stays right in the path of the Red Army
that's coming to get him.

Hitler was clearly decided that he
wants to somehow create the final drama

the way he wants it and the final drama is
that he will be there in the German capital,

in his chancellery, defending the Reich to
the last against the encircling enemies.

The Great Dictator, who once ruled from
an opulent headquarters in the Alps,

now spent most of his day
in a nine by 12 foot room.

From early February he spends
all his time inside the bunker,

and I think in a way his ability
to do that reflects the way

in which his surroundings are
actually not important to him.

That's not what matters.

He's not a man who seeks
great comfort or luxury,

or even anything particularly
pleasant in his surroundings.

It's damp, it smells of diesel,
there are noisy generators,

it’s an unpleasant place to be.

Hitler's only glimpse of daylight
was during his daily walks

in the Reich Chancellery garden
with his faithful dog, Blondie.

His health was failing rapidly.

He looks like an old man.

He's acting like an old man.

He's doddery, he's incoherent,
he rages more and more.

People close to him find it
difficult to know exactly

what he's thinking as he totally
despairing, or does he still have hope?

As German forces collapsed in
both the East and the West,

Hitler withdrew into
a world of fantasy.

Is he planning new strategies to get
Germany out of the problem it's in?

Is he opening negotiations
with the allies?

He's doing none of these things.

He's peering at models of an
architectural rebuilding of Linz.

Hitler's personal cameraman
Walter Frentz captured him

unveiling an intricate model of
his beloved hometown in Austria.

It was a moment Hitler had waited for since
commissioning the project five years ago.

There he is, like a little boy.

His kind of long term childhood passion
reignited, and he's staring at every detail.

His thoughts turned to his jubilant
homecoming during the Anschluss in 1938.

Since then, his armies had looted
monuments from across Europe to adorn Linz.

His old hometown is going to be the
recipient of this great treasure,

so that Linz will
finally outshine Vienna

and really be the city
of the cultural future.

Hitler still talked of
retiring to Linz after the war.

It was a dream that was clearly a delusion
and which was shattered just days later.

Hitler heard news of the Yalta Conference,
where allied leaders Winston Churchill,

Franklin Roosevelt and Joseph Stalin
were meeting to discuss postwar Europe.

The three leaders agreed there
would be no negotiated end,

only unconditional surrender and
war criminals would be put on trial.

Armaments Minister Albert Speer
recalled Hitler's defiant response.

“I have always said there can
be no question of capitulation."

"History does not repeat itself.”

It doesn't really matter if
everyone's dead at the end of it,

but certain words, they've never
surrendered all the support to Hitler.

On the 24th of February 1945,
Hitler's most loyal Nazi bosses,

the Gauleiters,
was summoned to Berlin.

The Gauleiters, who haven't
seen him for about six months,

a pretty shocked at his appearance.
He's in a hell of a state, he looks haggard,

he's kind of dragging his feet along the
floors, he's got bags under his eyes,

even saliva is dribbling
from his mouth.

They come from the four corners of Germany,
expecting to hear some explanation,

some plan for how Hitler is going
to get them out of this mess

and what they hear is
profoundly disillusioning.

Hitler repeats and
rambles and rehashes.

Hitler fondly recalled his
first speech as Chancellor

when he commanded the
attention of the nation.

For hours he relived past
triumphs with barely a mention

of his country's present nightmares.

For the first time since
the early days of the party

these staunch Nazis are no longer
convinced by what he has to say.

Both mentally and physically,
he can no longer inspire them,

and he probably can't save Germany.

It's a bit like turning up the wake,
it's a wake for the funeral of a Third Reich.

The war is lost and not just
lost but catastrophically lost,

and everything they've
struggled for has failed.

In a rare excursion from his bunker,

Hitler visited Army headquarters on the
Eastern Front, now just 40 miles from Berlin.

Months of military setbacks
have taken their toll.

All films of Hitler would
be very carefully monitored

for whether they showed any signs
of his physical deterioration.

In his penultimate appearance
on camera it's very clear to see

that his left arm is shaking.

For at least two years, Hitler had shown an
uncontrollable trembling in his left arm,

a jerking left knee,
and a shuffling gait.

Now, at just 55 years old, the symptoms were
so severe they undermined his authority.

People don't respect him.
Once you hold this shot right here,

we see in the old days
Hitler would be standing,

he would command the room,
people will be looking at him.

And in this particular situation, he's
sitting down and the high difference means

that these people here are
now looking down to Hitler

versus Hitler looking down to them,
which a leader does.

He's a broken man and he
knows the end is near.

On the 7th of March 1945, the woman who
had stood by Hitler for the last 13 years,

Eva Braun, arrived in Berlin.

People are shocked because they know
that Hitler has ordered her not to come.

Hitler wants her to stay safe,
away from Berlin,

but she's decided
that she wants to be with Hitler.

She knows that Hitler is never
going to leave that bunker alive,

and she wants to be there with him.

Hitler received a memo from his
armaments minister, Albert Speer,

saying the German economy
faced imminent collapse,

which would leave them
unable to fight the war.

Four days later,
Hitler summoned Speer to the bunker.

He was determined to destroy
Germany rather than surrender.

Hitler demanded Speer destroy
Germany's infrastructure

by implementing a scorched earth
policy, later known as the Nero Decree,

after the Roman emperor, who was believed
to have burned Rome to the ground.

Finally, hearing that the war is lost,
liberates Hitler

to be the radical he always
perceived himself to be.

In Mein Kampf Hitler states that
Germany will be a world power

or it will be nothing and when he realizes
that the war is lost is as good as his word.

Power plants, factories, roads,
dams, they are all to be destroyed.

They are to leave the
German people with nothing,

even for a true believer like
Speer and he is a true believer,

the Nero order goes too far.

Speer worked to persuade the army and local
party chiefs to ignore Hitler's demands.

He was the first Nazi minister
to openly disobey the Fuhrer,

a clear sign Hitler's
absolute control was waning.

In the bunker,
he's absolutely out of touch.

He can't see what's
happening across his country.

I don't think he even knows
that he's being disobeyed.

The last surviving footage of Hitler.

A man whose rise to power
was made by the media

and who for the past 12 years had
insisted every major event be filmed.

He was meeting a group of Hitler Youth
who were fighting to protect Berlin.

Hitler makes a big thing that the
Hitler Youth are really loyal to him,

and he praises them
for defending Berlin.

There are teams of people going
around and arresting anybody

who tries to escape and
stringing them up on lampposts.

To preserve Hitler's credibility, the
sensor cut this camera angle from the film.

Hitler's hand shook violently
as he concealed it from view.

One minute he snatches at the piece of news
and thinks that might be a positive thing.

At another moment, of course,
he is plunged into despair.

By this stage, Hitler hope that Providence
has got something up its sleeve.

Hitler's hope of divine
intervention was dashed.

Stalin directed the brutal power of
the Red Army towards Germany's capital.

He's asking for updates.
How long till they get here?

How many hours from the
center of Berlin are they?

Four days later,
on Hitler's 56th birthday,

the Soviets were
just 10 miles from Berlin.

For the first time as Fuhrer,
he shunned all celebration.

Throughout his life, Hitler has
made a big thing of his birthday.

But on this final birthday,
he's too depressed.

Those around Hitler were
now contemplating the end.

In the final weeks and
days in the bunker,

people begin talking about the
best method for committing suicide,

whether it's to take a cyanide capsule
or whether it's to shoot yourself

and it's a kind of hideous
environment in which again and again,

people come back to this subject.

Hitler learned the third SS Panzer Corps
hadn't carried out the counteroffensive

he ordered, an act,
he considered betrayal.

For the first time ever, Hitler
publicly admits that he's given up,

the facade has just gone,
it's crumbled completely,

and all you're left with is
this husk who's just admitting

that the battle is lost.
And this surely is the moment

when he decides he's going to
end it all and he says as much.

There are those like the Goebbels

who have every intention of
following the Fuhrer to the death

and are also preparing for suicide

and preparing to kill their six
children but there are many others.

The majority of others who are
thanking Hitler for the cyanide tablet

but thinking,
“How can I get out of here in life?”

And for a lot of people at the very
end, their survival instinct kicks in.

Hitler told his staff he would
stay in Berlin and kill himself.

Then have his body burned.

In reply, he received a surprising
telegram from his deputy Hermann Goering.

He suddenly gets news from Goering,
who's managed to flee to Bavaria, saying,

“Dear Fuhrer, you're locked up in
Berlin, you can't do anything very much."

"So I think I better take over.”

Goering wanted Germany's top job.

For Hitler, that's absolutely unacceptable.
There is only one Fuhrer.

He then discovered SS
Chief Heinrich Himmler

had been attempting to
negotiate with the allies.

He's furious, because Hitler's loyalty
to him is a critical characteristic.

Once somebody breaks
the bond than for Hitler

that's the worst thing somebody can do.

Unable to reach Himmler, Hitler ordered the
execution of his top aide, Hermann Fegelein.

Guilty by association.

Less than a year before
Hitler hosted Fegelein’s wedding

to Eva Braun's sister, Gretl.

Despite Eva’s pleas and the fact
that Gretl was about to give birth

to Fegelein’s child Hitler
characteristically showed no mercy.

He had Fegelein shot for desertion.

He is always capable of
absolute ruthlessness

and he will always carry
out his own wishes,

and he will not submit to
the desires of other people.

On the 23rd of April 1945, Stalin's
vengeful troops stormed into Berlin.

Their target was Hitler's bunker.

Towards the very end, when Albert Speer visits
him just a few days before the very end,

he's really shocked to see that even
right down in the Fuhrer bunker,

there are people who are
visibly drunk, people smoking;

things that Hitler
absolutely disapproves of.

The discipline is going
and chaos has broken out.

For Adolf Hitler the
game was nearly over.

There was only one card
left for him to play.

Adolf Hitler was trapped in a
bunker below the Reich Chancellery

as Soviet troops
wreaked havoc in Berlin.

Here he learned that his old
friend Mussolini had been murdered

and his body strung up alongside
his mistress in a Milan square.

Hitler is desperately anxious that
it's not going to happen to him.

Absolutely confirms his decision
that he will take his own life.

Hitler turned his thoughts to Eva Braun,
the most loyal person in his life.

He had always resisted
her desire to marry,

claiming it would distract
him from his life's work.

Now he had decided on suicide.
There was no reason to deny her wish.

Hitler recognizes this
incredible loyalty and devotion

that Eva Braun has given him
and he agrees to marry her.

The simple ceremony took place
in Hitler's conference room

in the bunker
just past midnight.

They swapped rings which have been stolen
from prisoners in the Gestapo jail,

and they sign their
wedding certificate.

Eva Braun seems to be flustered,
she signs Eva B

and then crosses that B
and puts Hitler.

That night, Hitler and his secretary,
Traudl Junge,

withdrew to his study where he
dictated his final will and testament.

He instructed that once he was dead,
Admiral Karl Dönitz should become president.

Then he reaffirmed the obsessive
belief, he first expressed in Mein Kamp

over 20 years before.

This is what Hitler says
at the end in the bunker,

“Above all I pledge the leadership
of the nation and its followers

to the scrupulous observation
of the racial laws

and to an implacable opposition to the
universal poisoner of all peoples,

international Jewry.”
These are Hitler's last words.

For Hitler the war was started by the
Jews and lost by his army Generals.

He accepted no
responsibility for himself.

Soviet forces were now just
a third of a mile from the bunker.

At 3:00 p.m.,
Hitler asked his valet for his gun.

He's always had the idea that it’s
success or death, there's no middle way.

Suicide is a fitting gesture
for a hero such as himself.

His wife, Eva, had chosen to
take cyanide and die with.

On the first of May 1945, German Radio
announced the death of Adolf Hitler.

To preserve the myth of his heroism, the
broadcast said he died fighting the Soviets.

A wave of suicides
followed the announcement.

Nazism is a death cult.
It's an ideology that stresses loyalty

and selfless devotion to an ideal
and to a leader and of course,

what better way for humans
to demonstrate

that kind of loyalty than
to take their own lives?

With their messiah now gone the cult
of Hitler quickly disintegrated.

For many Germans, the magic spell is over.
The bond is cut, Hitler is dead.

They're released, in a sense,
from their commitment.

As images of the Fuhrer
were publicly burned,

his followers scrambled to erase their
association with Hitler and the Nazis.

On the 6th of May 1945,

the remnants of the Nazi regime
sent General Alfred Jodl

to sign Germany's
unconditional surrender.

Across the world, 60 million men,
women and children lay dead;

7,5 million of Hitler's own people.

Victims of battle, of death camps,

of one man's warped vision.

Hitler had this incredible magnetism,
he had this ability

to speak to Germans
deep in their soul.

Such was the power of Hitler's
legacy that only in 2015

was reprinting allowed of his
poisonous manifesto, Mein Kampf.

We're told not to see the
world in black and white,

always recognize that there are
various shades and gradations.

But in Hitler's case, it's difficult
to see him as anything else

but the embodiment of evil.