[Music] [Music] [Applause] mr gorbachev tear down this wall [Music] in the summer of 1936 the city of berlin had put on its best face as host of the olympic games [Music] berlin was a lovely city it was a joyous it was a happy city at that time it was more attractive as a city for me than were london or paris in a world still plagued by the depression the capital of nazi germany was thriving the nazis used the olympic games of 1936 to try to project a positive image of the new germany to translate the athletes success into the success of national socialism [Applause] during the olympics the uglier side of hitler's national socialism was kept under wraps there was no outward sign of anti-semitism there were no signs that they that were reported later on of course jews and dogs forbidden i never saw that sign during the games but the glittering surface of the international olympic spirit could not completely obscure a darker reality [Applause] marty glickman and sam staller were members of the american relay team [Music] the morning of the day we were supposed to run we were told sam and i that we were not going to run no fit american track and field athlete has ever not competed in the olympic games except sam staller and me the only two jews on the tractor marty glittman is convinced it was politics that kept him out of competition he believes the american olympic committee did not want to embarrass hitler by having jews stand on the winner's podium [Music] almost everything at the olympics seemed to be going hitler's way in event after event german victories appear to support his notion of aryan racial superiority but then came the 100 meters the hopes of the american team rested on the sun of an alabama sharecropper jesse owens [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] i was standing 10 yards behind hitler hitler hearing the name jesse owens angrily pushed back his chair and with a deep growl on his face walked right past me and walked out in that tense summer of 1936 owens went on to win four gold medals the competition was grand and we're very glad to come out on top thank you very much there were other american victories but germany won far more medals than any other nation and with the 11th olympiad hitler had pulled off an international success for the rest of the decade it was not his athletes but his soldiers who challenged the world as hitler with ever greater boldness threatened his neighbors the rest of europe and britain stood by incredulous america safe on the other side of the ocean was still worried about the depression i see one-third of a nation ill-housed ill-planned ill-nourished january 1937 the clouds of the great depression still hovered over franklin roosevelt at his second inauguration i see millions whose daily lives in city and on farm continue under conditions labeled indecent half a century ago the president thought that in order to lift the nation's spirits he had to make the country face the economic crisis head-on together and he used a battery of newly available mass media to do that the government hired photographers to capture the faces of the great depression no other government has ever done this carl maidens just 28 at the time was among those who sat out with their cameras the 35 millimeter camera became the heart of of the new age of photography that is the new age of photojournalism what moved me greatly was their spirit they simply were proud of the fact that they could live in the circumstances and still be solid citizens we photographers were pretty skillful one could not look at those pictures about what was happening in the country and not be affected by them these photographs were all over the new magazines life chief among them i can remember as a kid running home from school on the day that life came to get that copy before my brothers got home and take it to my room so i could look at it first [Music] it was as if the whole world was opening up in those pictures and that magazine changed the way we saw the world [Music] the united states supreme court today handed down its long at a time when people were desperate for news radio more immediate and more trusted the newspapers became america's favorite way to keep up with events maritime labor leaders declared today that the man who've really discovered radio to use it on a massive scale which made history with fdr this he found in order to be able to reach the citizenry he could use regularly and that was the beginning of the fireside chats our capacity is limited only by our ability to work together he made the difference people would be glued to their radios all over the country to find out from this man what's happening what's going on when can we get work what when will things change and just as he understood the power of the still photograph and radio roosevelt also saw the newsreel as a way to pull the nation together boulder dam put into operation giant spurts of waterfalls there was something in there a dam was being built or the a river was being killed bridge is formally opened by where a client was being reopened or some invention was being announced there was something good going on roosevelt made the white house an amplifier of all that the government was trying to do ladies and gentlemen the president of the united states five years of information through the radio and the moving picture have taken the whole nation's school in the nation's business we have learned to think as a nation we have learned to feel ourselves a nation [Applause] in germany too the new mass media were part of the national myth-making machine joseph goebbels as hitler's minister of enlightenment and propaganda controlled the printed press and exploited the power of pictures and sound [Music] the government put loudspeakers in the streets and made cheap radios available to every shop school and home every german was now within the sound of hitler's voice [Music] to have a real radio now that was fantastic every day there were political programs and so and i learned a lot from the radio i thought it was great but for the father thought it was one of the main weapons now of brainwash propaganda films promoted a glorious germanic world of we tomorrow told that we were the top nation owners we were the chosen people we were the head and racers we coded the masteries [Music] and that we were more intelligent and better looking and stronger than all the others and that it was our god-given duty to force our life onto all the others to glorify the master race on film hitler's choice was germany's preeminent filmmaker fritz lang lang sensing the time when one could say no to the fuhrer had passed left for paris the powerful film propaganda post would go to hitler's second choice director lainey griefenstahl her film triumph of the will used the 1934 nazi party congress as a vast backdrop designed to make hitler look like a god military music was played and he marched down the center isle flanked by heaven knows how many gorgeously uniformed creatures and then he would go behind the lectern standing there silent waiting until the tension rose and then he would start better sexter [Music] [Music] tremendous [Applause] in an audience like that you were swept [Music] along [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] never before had mass communication been more effective never before had it been used with more sinister [Music] intentions [Music] [Applause] [Music] power [Music] burned in the streets of german cities flames were fed with books by thomas mann albert einstein helen keller sigmund freud and other authors who were deemed subversive to the german people [Music] democracy in germany was dead hitler's own book my struggle was now the blueprint for germany's future [Music] in the new germany nazi party thugs the paramilitary brown shirts would patrol the streets to root out and arrest anyone who stood in hitler's way thousands of political opponents were sent to hundreds of concentration camps the first was near the german village of dachau everyone knew that you could be sent to such a camp without due process of law we had a verse that was widely recited libra come dear god strike me dumb so that i won't be sent to taha [Music] in the new germany everyone was classified by race in the new germany only those who hitler considered perfect the purest members of the aryan race were welcomed [Music] the main undecided were the jewish people the jews we were being told that the jews they are behind everything which is bad in germany there was a lot of propaganda against the jews there were no longer any normal newspapers most of them were nazi you saw headlines the jews are criminals the jews are vermin they must be killed they must be ousted hitler had declared in mein kampf that jews weakened the german master race well of course we talked about race in school and the superior races the non-superior the degenerate races and the teacher had some calipers to measure the width of your eyes and your nose and so on the head in our classroom we had a poster the head shapes from the sides the aryans of course they they looked good from the sides they looked good from the front they were blonde and they were blue eyed and when i was about 14 years old my hair began to darken and i sometimes was worried that i didn't look like a proper aryan anymore because my my hair was not really blonde anymore and also my nose is a little bit hooked as you might probably see i sometimes then looked in the mirror i had another mirror here and i was frightened that somebody should think that i had some jewish connections two years after they came to power they came out with the nuremberg racial laws which separated the jews from the german people we were not allowed to go swimming with the other children we were not allowed to play with the other children we weren't a lot to to go on excursions with the other children and so on [Music] jews were stripped of their citizenship their businesses boycotted they were forbidden to marry or have sexual relations with aryans any trace of jewish ancestry meant immediate banishment from all civil service jobs i was classified a quarter a mongol of the second degree i was dismissed from the public service all i had achieved through examinations through studying and other efforts to establish myself in life all that had was by a stroke of the pen cut off hitler had made his vision for his people a reality and he planned to force that vision far beyond germany's borders and i remember when i was a guest with my mother at the bash this garden you could see on a clear day you could see salzburg and he pointed out to me you see that there boy that salzburg that is in my homeland of austria and one of these days i'm going to see to it that that will join with germany on march 12 1938 hitler made good on his plan americans heard it first from nbc's max jordan ladies and gentlemen at the austrian frontier town of lintz an endless stream of german soldiers is pouring into austria it was astonishing the takeover of a country broadcast live on radio the cheers are for chancellor adolf hitler returning to his homeland for the first time in almost 25 years carla stepped lived in the austrian capital vienna she was 20 years old and a jew it was my home so when suddenly the germans marched into austria where they were welcomed with open arms the world ended for me [Applause] it was a friday evening crowds began to march down shouting slogans remember one specifically which was judith in agony which translated means jews perish in your own filth and it was clear that something was imminent something was happening [Applause] [Music] [Applause] saturday morning the brown shirts and black shirts already started to go against the jewish population they got jewish men and women out to scrub the sidewalks on their knees being kicked by the population standing around them hitler wasn't even in vienna yet but what took germany five years took austria 24 hours [Music] in the spring of 1938 few americans could avoid the news of hitler in germany shows that once again germany has a real honor that would mean war when will nazi aggression end the democratic nations draw together against warning to the rest of europe hitler orders all germany to mobilize at its full wall street a million and a half growing anxieties over the increasing power of the third reich turned a heavyweight boxing match in june 1938 into an international showdown in one corner of the ring would be hitler's pride and joy max schmeling in the other the american champion joe lewis joe symbolized not only the fight against discrimination but the struggle against fascism at a time when the entire world was talking about hitler and mussolini anti-semitism under the ring max laying around joe lewis led quick with two straight legs to the chin there was tremendous tension i left the jaw i write to the head and the gentleman is watching i was glued to the radio louis measured him right to the body a left hook to the jaw and snailing is down we just exploded shouted wow the count is five six the men are in the ring the fight is over matt schnilling is beaten in one round people shouted out of their windows joe won joe and all up and down the paper champion [Applause] we won it was a victory and we we needed victories very badly at the time when 21 year old milt wolf heard the news about joe lewis wolff was already fighting against hitler in the spanish civil war in that war nazi germany was supporting francisco franco's fascist rebels who were about to overthrow spain's freely elected government i was a kid in brooklyn okay and i was caught up in this whole bit of the war in spain for myself it was a commitment to a struggle against fascism milk wolf joined 2 800 american volunteers in the abraham lincoln brigade in defiance of american neutrality they went to defend democracy in what was widely seen as a dress rehearsal for the greater battle with hitler these were guys who were essentially coming off the street most of them had no military training at all and up to the front they went they were hitting us with artillery and they were strafing us with the german planes and guys were getting killed and wounded for myself the war in spain gave meaning to the word anti-fascism by 1938 democracy was doomed in spain as it had been in italy and austria and germany hitler's ideology and hitler's armies were a danger to freedom everywhere it has now reached the stage where the very foundations of civilization are seriously threatened let no one imagine that america will escape that america may expect mercy that this western hemisphere will not be attacked september the 12th 1938 the entire civilized world as a cbs broadcast bullet was anxiously waiting to hear hitler's next threat it came in an unprecedented live broadcast from the nazi party congress in nuremberg hitler demanded that the sudetenland a region of czechoslovakia inhabited mostly by german-speaking people become a part of germany [Music] the columbia broadcasting system has brought its listeners the address by adolf hitler at this time we present h.b cozenborn good afternoon everybody adolf hitler has spoken and the world has listened the world has listened because it feared that this speech might mean war [Music] the british prime minister neville chamberlain who'd never been on an airplane before flew to germany twice within 10 days to seek a peaceful settlement just to see on the newsreel screen chamberlain coming there with his umbrella it's unthinkable to a german mind hitler with an umbrella you know you laugh and you you think about that we thought they were weak [Music] chamberlain failed hitler refused to withdraw his demands the sudetenland would be his one way or the other war now seemed inevitable [Music] in britain nervous citizens began to build bomb shelters [Music] in france army reserves were called up and then only 24 hours before hitler's promised invasion of czechoslovakia prime minister chamberlain once again flew to germany at a meeting in munich with hitler and italy's benito mussolini chamberlain abandoned the sudetenland to germany in return for what he called peace in our time hitler gave his word that there would be no more territorial claims [Music] chamberlain flew home to a hero's welcome from a britain anxious to avoid another conflict after the devastating slaughter of world war one only 20 years earlier here is the paper which bears his name upon it as well as mine [Music] as symbolic of the desire of our two peoples never to go to war with one another again [Applause] [Music] [Applause] chamberlain got what he thought was peace hitler got the sudetenland to us germans it was a great thing their land is bordering on germany and as the sudeten people were germans so we thought yes well why should they live in czechoslovakia on october the first 1938 hitler welcomed three and a half million czechoslovakians of german blood into the reich hitler's reception was a replay of [Music] austria [Music] [Applause] as hitler was being cheered in the sedation land the nazis campaign against german jews was intensified very much aided by an incident in paris on november the 7th a young jew herschel grinspan distraught over the deportation of his parents walked into the german embassy in paris and shot a minor official ernst von whilst he was fighting death the newspapers carried headlines banner headlines against the jewish people the jews have taken off their mask from their face they have shown now what they want to do to us it was dreadful we said if only this man does not die but of course he died the vonarat's death became hitler's opportunity only a junior diplomat von rat was nonetheless accorded the honors of a fallen hero [Music] the ceremony was intended to inspire revenge for once said joseph goebbels the jews should get the feel of popular anger that anger exploded on the night of november the 10th 1938 kristallnacht i saw the synagogue in flames people came from all over the fire department came they did not make one effort to put out the flames kids were laughing kids were having fun i heard killed the jews killed the jews for 24 hours nazi stormtroopers rampaged through germany and austria destroying synagogues and shops the night of broken glass in german chris [Music] scores of people were killed more than 20 000 arrested it was now clear there was no future for jews in germany for the first time in america it broke through a certain part of the awareness that something horrible was happening in hitler's germany roosevelt himself said he just was incomprehensible to imagine that such a thing could happen in the 20th century and still people felt we've seen what happened when we get involved in europe's wars this is europe's problem on easter sunday 1939 an enormous crowd came together around the reflecting pool in the nation's capital to hear one of the great voices of modern times marion anderson [Music] because she was a negro anderson had been barred from performing at constitution hall by the daughters of the american revolution when president roosevelt heard this he enabled her to sing at the lincoln memorial [Music] and i was among the 75 000 people gathered to hear her sing that day this was a moment maybe even more important to us than what joe lewis had done when he demolished mac schmeling [Music] and we stood there and we listened and tears ran down our faces it was a part of america's statement in hitler's face about what we truly thought about black people [Applause] [Music] affirmed for all of us what the true meaning of america was that powerful symbol of racial justice gave hope to europe's jews hope that despite strict quotas limiting immigration america would provide a haven from the terror of adolf hitler my mother desperately tried to get out of austria [Music] and because of the quota system there were others difficulties and could not gain entrance in united states and one possibility was to get entrance to cuba fred reif's family joined more than 900 jewish refugees onboard the steamship st louis bound for cuba at havana cuban officials refused to let them land [Applause] some suicide started to happen remember one person slit his wrists and jumped overboard in harbor the fear is of course if you can't land in cuba then you have to go back to germany to a concentration camp we all knew that and so the st louis turned north towards the united states for five days the ship sat off the florida coast while the captain appealed for refuge everybody's hopes were up franklin roosevelt was everybody's idol and nothing will happen to us america wouldn't let us down but the united states government did not permit them to land the passenger sent one last urgent plea directly to president roosevelt there was no reply the st louis had no choice but to sail back across the atlantic at the last minute england france holland and belgium agreed to take the stranded refugees but because the war was spreading over the next six years 660 of the more than 900 passengers would perish at the hands of the nazis president roosevelt was sympathetic to the plight of the refugees but with the united states congress in an isolationist frame of mind he felt he could not spend political capital saving a small number of jews when all of europe needed help against hitler roosevelt believed that the only way to stop nazi aggression and keep america insulated from europe's troubles was to arm britain and france it was not a popular idea in a country that was officially neutral in march 1939 six months after the munich agreement which neville chamberlain thought hitler would honor hitler broke his promise not to make any territorial claims and took all of czechoslovakia and still most americans wanted to leave the europeans to deal with their own crisis america was interested in a very different future sound the brass roll the drone to the world of tomorrow in the summer of 1939 new york was home to the world's fair it was called the world of tomorrow here we come young and old visitors got their first look at television how it worked i didn't ask i was just in orb the whole thing general motors confidently offered visitors a future without traffic jams general electric dreams of easy living with a dishwasher all of the dreams of the future were suddenly going to be materialized machines were going to make us better and here he comes ladies and gentlemen walking up to greet you under his own power it was like science fiction for me 12 years old waiting to see the world of tomorrow come hail the dawn of a new day the flags of 60 nations flew over the fair only one major power was absent germany had been invited but hitler had declined he had his own plan for the world of tomorrow on the last day of august visitors were enjoying another festive evening at the fair [Music] as we were approaching the polish pavilion the lights went out and we didn't know whether it was an electrical problem or what because the rest of the fare was still lit all of a sudden a loud speaker went on and they had announced that germany had just marched into poland suddenly the world of tomorrow had lost its bright promise and here is the united front flash from warsaw which says officially that german planes have long railway stations in three polish towns i am speaking to you in the cabinet room attend downing street this country is at war with germany i remember the broadcaster in london saying and i'll never forget that sentence are used tonight the lights are going out all over europe and no one knows when they'll ever come back on while the storm clouds gather far across [Music] the war in europe made americans realize just how blessed they were in a display of patriotism flag sales soared and a song by famous jewish immigrant irving berlin went to the top of the [Music] hickory most americans still wanted europe to fight its own battle but president roosevelt and a growing number of people knew that they had to prepare for the worst as events in europe raged out of control in the spring of 1940 hitler turned his blitzkrieg his lightning war against the countries of western europe i think at that time probably he was at the top point of his power six weeks to beat poland in 18 days to occupy norway and denmark to beat holland in five days and belgium in 17 days i think those who doubted him they then thought that man is just superb he wins everything and then france fell in just six weeks on june the 14th german troops entered paris [Music] even as france collapsed the german plane started to attack britain the last democratic stronghold in europe still the united states held back president roosevelt was able to help america's battered english ally with the program to lend and lease them arms we shall send you in ever increasing numbers ships planes tanks guns that is our purpose and our pledge but as a beleaguered britain became freedom's last holdout in europe full american involvement became increasingly inevitable in december of 1940 the first peacetime draft in american history began america's armed forces were in woeful shape the us army had under 200 000 men fewer than holland or portugal i remember even running around with sticks for rifles and we used old tomato cans from the mess hall they got camel soup cans and they put gravel in them and they'd rattle and then we'd throw them all as far as we could throw them and that's learning how to throw a grenade i was in rotc i was starting to be an officer in the american army and i would look at that german war machine and it put cool chills up and down my back [Music] and i used to say to myself you mean to tell me we've got to go up against those guys it wasn't a very pretty picture by 1941 history's deadliest conflict was underway and the very survival of freedom in the world depended on the outcome that's on the next episode of the century america's time i'm peter jennings thank you for joining us [Music] you