[Music] [Music] [Applause] the 1930s saw germany turn from a shattered nation into a military powerhouse it was to wage war on the nations which just 11 years earlier had left germany a broken country and a population bereft of pride in the wake of world war one one man created this transformation adolf hitler hitler was one of the few people in germany who welcomed another war he wasn't scared etl's magnetism was not only something which could convince enormous crowds but was also incredibly powerful like a potent narcotic how did he become the most powerful man in germany who were the nazis and how did they reinvigorate this fractured nation in weimar germany there was a new kind of energy very visible on the streets they wanted perpetual acclamation they wanted constant support from the people terror played a very important part in a dictatorship nothing would be tolerated but undermined the german national revolution thousands were taken in by one man's magnetism which proved to be germany's fatal attraction hitter at this stage uh sees himself not as the messiah but as the john the baptist it's only at his time in lansbury prison that he actually realizes my god i am here [Applause] [Music] to fully understand the doomed love affair of germany and hitler we must first look into the german nation of the late 19th century germany had become the most powerful country the most prosperous country the most advanced country on the european continent it was a rather authoritarian state on the one hand but it also had a national parliament with elections with some limited powers but those powers are most likely growing a highly militarized imperial state under the hereditary monarchy of the horn zoller dynasty having given support to the unification of germany after the franco-prussian war britain had become fearful of this new power its growing industrial and military capability threatened to overshadow britain's diminishing empire after the franco-prussian war germany powered ahead economically overtaking britain as an industrial power by the time of the first world war second only to the united states there was a great deal of catching up to do a great deal of nation building of creating unity of creating vision it was ambitious really to join the other great powers as one of the major european imperial states alongside that both envy and arrogance of the british empire it was envy because it was so world powerful it was 25 percent of the world's surface and 25 percent of the world's people but in in addition very strong sense of superiority many historians would say a dangerously expansionist power with ambitions in europe that were certainly threatening to the continuation of any existing balance of power [Music] it was a massive seething tensions germany was beginning to be a colonial power late in the race it is not in germany however where our story begins but in neighboring austria-hungary we don't know much about hillary's early life he was born in brownell on the river inn on the 20th of april 1889 the son of a minor austrian official his father wasn't a very nice man knocked hitler around a bit because of that hitler's mother took on a very protective role we can gather that much he had a rather unhappy childhood he had four siblings who died before before he was born hitler's childhood leads us to believe it was a fairly ordinary upbringing comparable with his peers at the time a problem for historians is that hitler reinvented quite a bit about his childhood he was um an indifferent student it has to be said it was not that he was not very intelligent he certainly was but he was unable to focus a bit of a learner as he continued to be but always a virus reader he read everything he could get his hands on continued to do that he created in a sense a kind of self-education which was about bizarre bricolage of all kinds of sources of his own authorship in other words what he didn't get was really a coherent education because he didn't pay attention in 1907 a young adolf hitler made his way to vienna to pursue a career as an artist vienna at the time was the city leading europe in new artistic practice and philosophical thought hitler's plan was to apply and enroll at the academy of fine arts he went to vienna when he was about 16 and really knocked around didn't do a lot he never lived as rough as he later claimed he was rejected from art school i think probably rightly looking at his that his artworks uh he knew about art in general terms he knew about neoclassical art he knew the power of art above all the great historic images had enormous moments so although his watercolors didn't advance the nazi course he knew what art could do hitler claimed throughout his life that he was an artist who was torn from his easel by the love of germany his mother was generous to him she provided him with a series of allowances possibly without the knowledge of his father so some biographers of hitler say that he was really a bit of a lay about he frequented cafe society in vienna and met up with a deeply flawed cafe intelligentsia who fed him a lot of the ideas that hitler later said in mein kampf became the granite foundations of my thought everyone assumes that it was strongly influenced by austrian anti-semitism there was a lot of it around before 1914 but actually it's very hard to pin down that he was influenced by it all of the associations with jewish people with whom there are a great many in hitler's early life were not merely positive but benevolent the doctor who treated his mother when she was sick the family doctor who treated all of them he was jewish the dealer who bought and sold the paintings hitler painted in in vienna to keep the wolf from the door again was jewish [Applause] in receipt of the inheritance bequeathed to hitler from his father's estate and finding little fortune as an artist in vienna hitler decided to move to munich in 1913. hitler was very conscious of being ethnically german as a german nationalist hitler believed that he belonged more in germany than in austria austria-hungary remained a great power in the scheme of things dominating a large part of southeastern europe but i was getting into crisis because of the growth of nationalism czech nationalism hungarian south slav and the clash of these national groups in the parliamentary assemblies made the parliament the rice rut and its hungarian equivalent more or less unworkable ungovernable every meeting just erupted into shouting matches between the different national groups either in austria or in hungary and that i think gave hitler a contempt for parliamentary rule he saw it as being ineffective he saw the empire this large ramshackle organization and he thought that an authoritarian director strong leadership even a dictator was the only way to solve these problems it was the assassination of archduke franz ferdinand of austria in sarajevo that would be the catalyst for the start of the first world war within weeks austria-hungary were at war with serbia germany then mobilized invaded luxembourg and belgium and began to march on france this prompted britain to declare war on germany hitler although an austrian citizen living in munich at the time managed to sign up to the german army in the chaos of mobilization in august 1914 his papers were kind of disregarded and and he got into the into the army the austrian authorities were after him he deluded conscription from the austrian army and was living in germany he didn't want to fight for something he didn't believe him and he certainly didn't believe in the habsburgs and in their empire with war erupting all over europe germany would arrive in the position of fighting a war on two fronts to the east against the russians and to the west against britain france and belgium hitler had joined the army in support of the german empire the experience of war would change the trajectory of his life and in turn the lives of millions of others forever [Music] having failed as an artist hitler found himself in munich a city in the modern german empire he signed up to the german army and was sent to the western front here he found germany at war with britain and its allies adolf hitler played but an obscure part a corporal in the german army hitler was fascinated by the prospect of war the first world war turned a nobody into a somebody on the whole most report showed that he was a good soldier well disciplined he was promoted to an nco rank he survived it from start to finish now of course not everybody did he served as a battalion runner close enough to the front line though he didn't spend as much time as a frontline combat infantry soldier as he later claimed but he was in danger he was within firing range of british and french artillery was at the very least if you're a runner you had to get messages up to communications trenches and he was seriously gassed in 1918. people have tried to belittle what he did in the war actually but he won the iron cross second class and then the iron cross first class on the recommendation ironically of a jewish superior officer this idea that he was some kind of of card as rubbish he actually manifested enormous courage but messengers were often regarded by the fighting troops as having a rather cushy time the enigma is why he was never promoted an officer of course maybe apocryphal but i think it's been said that he remained a corporal because he didn't have leadership qualities [Music] hitler does not seem to have been well liked or well respected by his fellow soldiers he was a bit of a loner regardless a bit of an eccentric he himself looked back on the first world war as a time of unity fellow feeling brotherhood and so on and mythologized it in his own mind until he came to want to recreate the spirit of 1914 when all germans united behind the kaiser in the third reich in 1933. russia mobilized its military and defeated austria-hungary but was stopped in prussia by the german forces germany being the far stronger military power forced the bolsheviks to sign the treaty of brest-litovsk the baltic states were given to germany along with the recognized independence of ukraine early in 1918 they had actually assigned the treaty of brexit offs with russia and so they'd acquired an empire in russia the dreaded two-front war now no longer existed from march 1918. so that was taken as a sign that germany was doing really well in the war and it all hung on the western front but with the united states in the war germany wasn't going to win on the western front swiftly the menace of war grew into dread reality as american ships and ships carrying american citizens were torpedoes sent to the bottom by the ruthless campaign of the unseen tigers america entered the war after germany had started attacking all commercial ships heading for britain which had meant the sinking of american ships in the north atlantic on april 6 1917 america declared war on germany with the superior resources the americans brought the german army faced an impossible situation on november 11 1918 the armistice was signed which ended the war the problem was that the political and military establishment had not led germans to expect defeat it's all near the end and their prayers are not telling them just how effective the counter-attack of the allies has been propaganda was still being pumped out saying that they were going to win so in late october when they finally conceded defeat and began to sue for peace this came as a terrible shock it was very very sudden to most germans and then on top of that there were the armistice terms and then even more the peace terms in 1919 which almost all germans regarded with absolute outrage the treaty of versailles was a series of provisions and conditions placed on germany by the allied nations one of these being germany accepting the responsibility for all lost and damaged caused by the war this was known as article 231 which later became known as the war guilt clause the treaty also forced germany to make substantial territorial concessions and pay reparations to the allied countries in addition germany was only allowed a military force of no more than one hundred thousand men the sigh was to them the stab in the back what they'd uh given was an armistice not a surrender the germans had to surrender their combat aircraft they weren't allowed to build any combat ships their army was restricted to a hundred thousand hundred thousand seems quite a lot to me actually this meant all the cooks and bottle washers and pen pushers were counted in the hundred thousand men it wasn't a hundred thousand fighting men they had to pay massive financial reparations for the damage that german troops had caused in the occupation of northern france and southern belgium and they rested on the war guild clause which most of all germans disputed germany had not been guilty for starting the first world war they've been caused by the encirclement of germany by the uh the allies they felt that the allies had deceived them had abandoned all notions of honor by treating them as a conquered people when they didn't think they were the things that had been promised to them specifically by president woodrow wilson and david lord george had not been delivered instead they'd been violated their honor had been degraded very large proportion of them felt a very great deal of resentment against the rest of the world hitler was devastated by that like huge numbers of germans hitler like many others couldn't explain had to find some way of explaining it to himself unlike tens of thousands of others they blamed the home front he blamed socialists marxist jews people who undermine germany from within [Music] the stab in the back theory surfaced in right-wing circles after the end of the war as a way to explain the sudden defeat it was believed that the left-wing republican and jewish populations of germany who had made up the home front had lost the war from within most germans did not believe in the stab in the back legends the independent social democrats and the mainstream social democrats and then the communist party in the early 20s uh were a major part of the german political system about a third of the electorate so this belief in this dab in the back of a jewish conspiracy in 1918-19 was very much a lunatic fringe group on the right the first world war had seen the young hitler in a role which suited him however the sudden loss for germany was too much to take not only for hitler but for the entire population this along with the humiliation of versailles hitler and a dangerous minority of the right wing population looked for a scapegoat the search would see the birth of a new party and bring together some of the most dangerous men germany has ever produced [Music] the shock defeat of germany in world war one left the nation humiliated the signing of the treaty of versailles saddled germany with being responsible for rebuilding the allied nations [Music] added to this germany had seen its own revolution in 1918. however it was not until 1919 that the weimar republic was established with the coming together of a national assembly in weimar a town in central germany [Music] germany had to pay reparations to the victorious allies this was really what accelerated the great inflation it started in 1916 when the german government started printing money to fund the war effort and as we know printing money causes inflation post-war german governments didn't make the slightest effort to arrest inflation they could pin that on the peace treaties and on the allies it got so out of hand in 1923 the allies stepped in the americans stepped in particularly with the doors plan the doors and young plans to schedule germany's reparations payments are evolved and they failed the doors plan was the brainchild of the american banker charles g dawes the plan was to lend the german government the money to pay back the reparations which had not been given to the allied countries [Music] america stabilized the german currency so that the americans could give loans to germany so that germany could pay reparations to britain france and others so that britain france and others could repay loans to the united states during this time of change and uncertainty hitler was keen to continue in the vocation which had given him personal success after the war ended he stayed in the german army which was vastly depleted he didn't want to leave he liked the army whatever inventions he may have resorted to about his own service he felt at home within the secure structures and hierarchies of the army he attended the courses for soldiers at camp ledgefeld these courses were taught some of them by the most famous academics of the era and what they retailed was a dart of sturdy german ethnonationalism and patriotism they're a way of combating the activities of the bolsheviks right-wing political propaganda masquerading as political education hitler proved not only a worthy pupil but he actually became one of them he was recruited to actually do this speech making this kind of incendiary pedagogy himself and proved remarkably good at it it's there that he learns his oratorical techniques he was actually sent by the army to which he still belonged to observe a far-right group called the gerber workers party the german workers party was a group founded in munich in january 1919 by anton drexler a leading member of the occultist thule society the party would meet regularly and discuss ideas of nationalism the binding ideas of the german workers party were entrenched in racism and the hatred of jews it was during this period of observation that hitler became more and more involved with the party's politics he started speaking in its meetings and soon became clear that he was a very gifted speaker and took on board very much these radical anti-semitic ideas in which the war had been lost by some conspiracy he imagined the jews had been been undertaking against germany hitler has been said had a mind a bit like a hoover he just sucked up and absorbed everything he read people like her adolf lance are practicing racist and a teacher of really bastardized darwinism there's a whole kind of mishmash of ideas that he puts together to form a national socialist ideology [Applause] having shown his strength as a public speaker hitler began to take a bigger role in the german workers party he took on more responsibility soon becoming the head of propaganda he starts not as leader that remains and andrew draxler but as their pr man and what he does is produce these amazing inflammatory exciting posters and have these mass meetings which increasingly large numbers of people come to in 1920 hitler decided to rename the german workers party in an attempt to broaden its appeal he called it the national socialist german workers party a year later after an angry dispute which saw him threaten to leave the party hitler was named president now he would start to gather around him a loyal intelligent and brutal inner circle in a situation of great post-war turmoil in bavaria and germany as a whole rampant inflation unemployment street disturbances strikes militant political action by workers and by the left so hitler was certainly looking for a political home and he appears to have found one hillary also gathered around him bit by bit as his reputation as a speaker the radical right increased a group of acolytes a group of disciples who brought their own particular techniques and their own ideas personalities and reputation closest ally at the time was rudolf hess who had been born on april 26 1894 in alexandria egypt like italy he had this extraordinary reaction at the end you know how could we have lost and so on who was there to blame he drifted off into a university life but he was a frustrated radical nationalist and when he met hitler he was absolutely transfixed by him hess saw again international politics and this notion of sort of struggle between different races he was a fanatical admirer of of hitler as you can see it in the films that were taken of him at nuremberg rallies his face just glowing with naive enthusiasm [Music] the most decorated of hitler's men was hermann goering from rosenheim bavaria born january 12 1893 guring was an unusual recruit to the infant's national socialist party at that time in the 20s a very dashing figure with a big military reputation he'd been quite a distinguished air force pilot during the first world war he had succeeded baron von richthoften as head of the von richthofen squadron after the shooting done of the red baron so he was an amazingly glamorous figure and he maintained this astonishing persona of the jolly x fighter pilot which the german people found adorable he was not the kind of person who gravitated easily to these radical political movements but going too hard thought that hitler somehow articulated his own sense of resentment and loss and became a committed follower from that point on one of the party's most sinister figures was heinrich himmler from a roman catholic middle class family born october 7th 1900 in munich himmler's father was a teacher who'd been actually tutor to the bavarian royal family himmler had something rather school mastery about him i think himmler's life was really dominated by the fact that he wanted to fight in the first world war but was too young you always have that sense with himmler that he was frustrated in not being able to fight on germany's behalf he had this very pedagogic kind of scholarly dreamy manner of course we now know what was going on inside him he was a rather eccentric patriot a strong anti-semite and he gravitated towards national socialism because it seemed for him the natural home martin borman became hitler's most trusted disciple the son of a post office worker born june 17 1900 bormann is very much the sinnest machiavellian manipulator of course very soon joined one of the free corps the vigilante groups that grew up in germany early 1920s were sent to prison for murdering somebody when he emerged he again hurt hitler and thought well you know this man articulates the things i feel the resentment i feel the loss um in 1918 that all germans shared and he too became a devoted follower finally arguably the most intelligent of hitler's men joseph goebbels from the rural valley born october 29 1897. goebbels was something of an oddball in the national associates movement he had a university education he got a doctorate he studied german literature in the 19th century he's also a romantic nationalist and writes a novel before even knowing hitler called michael which is absolutely a description of a hitler type figure this idea that hitler had of germany where all germans were united on an equal basis had a very powerful appeal to goebbels and he was looking for a political movement that somehow represented his personal position he became a good recruit for the national associates movement and the supreme ability to organize propaganda in the most ruthless possible way [Music] the common feelings of loss despair frustration and anger from losing the first world war united these men however these were not uncommon sentiments in germany at the time something else activated and fueled their extremism all had experienced some kind of revelation whilst listening to hitler he seemed to be an outsider somebody almost sent to germany to help germany regain its trajectory to great past status to help germany revenge itself on the allies he was fulfilling a kind of pre-figured role which had always existed in uh german history and culture kaiser frederick barbarossa king redbeard the man who would deliver germany from her enemies and specifically now those enemies were gathering thick and furious run them for hitler all the signs were pointing towards a burgeoning national socialist political party he had managed to gather around him a loyal following and some meetings were running into the thousands it was events in italy however which ignited hitler's imagination they would have huge consequences on the fate of hitler the national socialist party and the rest of the german nation [Music] hitler had gathered some of the brightest and most dangerous men from the far right his national socialist meetings often brought in around 2000 participants but hitler's perception of himself and his party was grossly exaggerated he's the kind of man in a dirty raincoat standing on a soapbox in the middle of a town square talking to half a dozen people standing on platforms on street corners and so on in an old-fashioned kind of political activity there were other far more powerful far more publicly visible um right-wing parties in germany at the time well it really was just a an assembly of people who come together who share roughly the same kinds of views events in italy inspired hitler 1922 the bombastic newspaper editor with a gladiator's jaw led his black shirted legions in a march on rome in october 1922 the fascist leader mussolini and his black shirt army marched on rome king victor emmanuel iii was forced to hand control of italy to mussolini at least this is how hitler saw it and almost immediately began to plot his own coup hitler was very influenced in 1983 by the successful coup stage by mussolini hitler conceived the idea of a march on berlin so he began to fantasize in 1953 that the german mistake was so weak the height of the inflation the crisis and so on he took advantage of the disintegration of german politics in 1923 under the process of hyperinflation the french occupation of the roar to seize reparations which weren't being delivered to stage a coup d'etat in munich mussolini was also well aware of the power of propaganda he knew how he wished to be perceived by the rest of europe hitler was one of the victims of mussolini's propaganda king appointed mussolini head of government in a perfectly constitutional way it was not a coup d'etat it was a perfectly constitutional act on the part of the king if a rather weak willed one it was all a bit of a gamble from hitler's point of view on november 8 1923 hitler along with 600 stormtroopers surrounded the berger browkella a large beer hall in munich here the state commissioner of bavaria gustav von kaar was holding a meeting of around three thousand people hitler marched in fired a shot into the air and announced that the revolution had broken out and no one could leave overnight hitler attempted to take power from fond but failed it was decided early in the morning of november 9th that they would march out of the beer hall towards the bavarian ministry of defence on the way they were confronted by the bavarian police hitler hoped that the new german army the post-imperial creation of the reichswear would support them it wasn't backed by the army the industrial elites refused to support it the civil service regarded it with contempt when the munich police opened fire most of them turned tail some of them were hit some wounded a few killed but it was built up into an iconic episode in the history of the movement hitler was arrested put on trial [Music] his trial began on february 26 1924 and ended on the 1st of april other conspirators such as rudolf hess were also arrested and tried in court the whole episode seemed to be a complete failure on the part of hitler and the national socialist party what the bill hall porch does which is marvelous for the nazis is provide them with martyrs and provide them with a myth a legend and a whole new symbol structure for example the blood flag which is the flag carried on that very day and when they fall is after that time the core sacramental edifice of the nazi process so that at nuremberg all of the standards of the storm troopers are touched by the blood flag the martyrs are symbolically reburied in vast marble sarcophagi in the center of munich after the nazis take power and every year there is the famous reenactment of the porch where they march down the streets there is a death watch held throughout germany the night before there are radio link-ups everything is broadcast great films smoldering beers flames the whole work and if it uh quasi religious it is the nazi flag the swastika which hitler purported to have designed himself was taken from an ancient symbol embodying early aryan history the swastika is an ancient buddhist symbol you see it all over india and and china and uh it has always been around it was originally a symbol of the sun but ah it began to be acquired by the german right in the late 19th century as one of their symbols because they felt it stood for the idea of being an aryan it was hitler's changes to the design which marked it out as the nazi symbol the story he tells is that he invited people to submit designs and swastikas came in and none of them he said quite did the job so he said i'll do it myself and that's what he worked on it's a series of simple design formulae which are applied to it the flag is in the colours of red black and white which are the old imperial colours to contrast with the red golden black of the republic what he did very brilliantly and i'm so much reluctant to say this it's fantastic piece of graphic design he took it he rotated it to give it a sense of dynamism he then calculated the widths of the bars very brilliantly he then set it in this circle and it doesn't quite touch the edges which gives it a kind of vibration and dynamism and then this red outer bit so in all the aesthetic there's a massive amount of red to stand for the sexualist part and it just goes poof and by the 1920s it had become the authorized symbol he said it was going to be the nazi symbol and it was the nazi symbol at his trial hitler had taken sole responsibility for the push it is reported that the judges found it hard not to acquit hitler due to their pro-nazi sympathies finally the sentence of five years of confinement was passed [Music] he was also banned from public speaking testament to the fact that his oratory was a key factor in the rise of the national socialist party the enforced silence and confinement gave hitler time for introspection the outlet for his thoughts now came through the pen the german states the bible of the nazis he didn't actually think until the porch it doesn't seem to us that he was the chosen one he was the messiah it's only at his time in lansbury prison that he actually realizes my god i am he and is somehow liberated into becoming what he does in fact become he served less than a year of his sentence he served with rudolf hess amongst others and he used the time to write mein kampf democracy is a man born of filth and fire it's interesting that hitler decided when he was sent off to prison in 1924 that he would take this opportunity to sit back and write a book about his experiences how he'd reach the point it reached why he had the beliefs that he did but it was very important for him to do that i think to to sit back and take stock of you know of how he arrived there the headless title for the original manuscript was my four and a half year struggle against lies paradise and stupidity a final reckoning with those who would destroy the german nation well his publishers recommended to amigo for something that might be a little snappier and catchier for the market so they extrapolated the two words my struggle mine camp [Music] the really interesting part of it is the famous fifth chapter which is a theory of propaganda the rest of it are really a collation of emotional spastics it's not a recipe for a system as uh for example marxis with the communist manifesto and as capital god has made germans a race of supermen almighty god bless our german blood the publisher shifted 300 000 copies and many more for perhaps obvious reasons after after that the big book big the original thing hefty volume you're talking about 600 pages [Music] the writing of minecamp fueled his desire for power and the need to lead germany however hitler knew he would need a different route to domination but without being able to speak publicly it would have to wait stopping him from speaking was going to keep the peace he was regarded as an influential speaker i think we're looking for an explanation for why it took a long time for the party to revive again and for the public to really take it but seriously again it was the ban on his speaking he alone in germany is not allowed to speak so use that as propaganda really to attack the weimar government for censorship in 1927 the ban on hitler's public speaking was relaxed and later lifted completely once more hitler took to the stage something about his performance is something about that which really attracted people you know like modern day pop stars there are people who do appear to have been mesmerized by him [Applause] as soon as he could start speaking you have that run up to the successful parliamentary elections in the night late 1920s when i look at hitler on the stage i think of him as being in a political theater but i don't believe that what he says is great oratory at the time of hitler's silence germany began to see a certain recovery thanks to american investment unemployment was declining and the economy was improving a sense of optimism rippled through the german nation a lot of americans invested so germany looked as if it was prospering by 1928. the national socialists could have been banished to the history books as a marginal far-right political party with their eccentric leader and the failed beer hall push of 1923 however fate dealt them a favorable hand the post-war economic recovery under the weimar republic which was genuine enough while it lasted that had collapsed as a direct result of the wall street crash in new york it was a saying of the time new york sneezed london caught cold and germany nearly died of influenza [Music] the implications of the crash would eventually lead the national socialist party to total power the continuity of the great depression was absolutely critical seven million men became unemployed there seemed to be no lifting and once you got the worker in the door cue you had him as a potential nazi a potential storm trooper what further measures would be imposed on the german population to consolidate the nazis power and what terror would be unleashed before the dramatic toppling of this evil regime [Music] you