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Hidden in a forest in what is now
the eastern part of Poland,

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near the border with Russia,

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lie the remains of a concrete town.

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For three crucial years during World War Two,

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this was home to one of the most
infamous figures in world history...

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...a man who said he and the nation he led

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would create an empire

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which would outlast any other.

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(<i>ADOLF HITLER)... dieses deutsche Volk</i>
<i>emporfuhren durch eigene Arbeit,</i>

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<i>durch eigenen Fleiss, eigene</i>
<i>Entschlossenheit, eigenen Trotz,</i>

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<i>eigene Beharrlichkeit,</i>
<i>dann werden wir wieder emporsteigen,</i>

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<i>genau wie die Vater einst auch</i>
<i>Deutschland nicht geschenkt erhielten,</i>

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<i>sondern selbst sich schaffen mussten.</i>

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<i>... eigenen Trotz, eigene Beharrlichkeit...</i>

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(BACKGROUND MUSIC:
GERMAN MARCHING SONG)

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Here at the Wolf's Lair,

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his headquarters in the forest
of Rastenburg in German East Prussia,

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Adolf Hitler took decisions which shaped
the course of World War Two.

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The result was a level
of destruction and suffering

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unprecedented in the history of war.

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55 million people died in World War Two.

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The Germans took five million
Russian prisoners of war alone.

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Only two million survived.

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And during the war, Hitler authorised
a policy unique in all history -

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the mechanised extermination
of an entire people.

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All this was possible
because the Nazis ruled Germany.

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How could it be that a cultured nation
at the heart of Europe allowed such a man

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and the Nazi Party he led to come to power?

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Leading Nazis explained their success easily.

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It was inevitable
given the "superhuman" qualities

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of their leader, Adolf Hitler.

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But the true reasons for the Nazis' rise
to power are not that simple

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and are much more alarming.

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Nazism, which was to create
the Second World War,

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was born out of the First.

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On November 11th, 1918,

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to the surprise of German front-line troops,
the war suddenly stopped.

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The myth grew among
many surrendered German soldiers

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that they had been stabbed in the back,

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that the front-line troops and two million
war dead had been betrayed

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by Marxists and Jews
who had fomented dissent back at home.

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As these surviving troops returned
to the newly democratic Germany,

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they took their bitterness with them.

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It would grow and flourish into Nazism

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in the south of Germany... in Bavaria.

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(BAVARIAN FOLK SONG)

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Bavaria is a picture-book land famous
for its Lederhosen and beer halls.

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But at the end of World War One
in this traditional heartland of Germany,

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conditions existed
which would create a revolution.

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After the war, the Allies continued
to blockade Germany,

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and the returning troops marching through Munich

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were shocked to discover
how much their families were still suffering.

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Millions of Germans were hungry

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and thousands more were dying
of tuberculosis and influenza.

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Politics were polarised.

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Conservatives and socialists
each became radical in the face of crisis.

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With the whole of Germany
in turmoil in the spring of 1919,

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the unrest in Munich
led to a left-wing takeover of the city -

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the Raterepublik.

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This culminated in April 1919
in the Munich Soviet Republic,

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an attempt to create
a Soviet-style government of the city

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only 18 months after the victory
of the Bolsheviks in the Soviet Union.

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Government troops were sent in
to quash the rebellion

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and there was open fighting
on the streets of Munich.

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(GUNFIRE AND EXPLOSIONS)

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More than 500 people were killed.

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The soldiers were supported by the Freikorps -

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right-wing mercenaries
paid for by the government.

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Sometimes the Freikorps shot members
of the Raterepublik out of hand.

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Other Freikorps members,
like Fridolin von Spaun, approved

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of the brutal measures used to suppress
Communist revolutionaries in Germany.

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Eugene Levine's father was
the Communist leader of the Raterepublik.

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He was executed in June 1919.

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<i>I understand from my mother</i>

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that he had been very brave

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the way he met his death.

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And, in fact,

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he called out...

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"Long live the world revolution!"

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<i>And I realised</i>

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<i>that an honourable person</i>

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<i>would die sooner or later,</i>

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<i>either on the barricades</i>
<i>or put up against a wall and shot.</i>

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Eugene Levine's father was Jewish.

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And the anti-Semitic prejudice
of those on the right was further fuelled

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by the fact that of the leadership
of the Raterepublik, most were Jewish.

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To the Freikorps who celebrated
after the suppression of the Raterepublik,

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the Jews were convenient scapegoats,

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held to blame for all the country's ills.

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And the Freikorps had the support
of right-wing officers in the regular army,

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like Captain Ernst Rohm,
a man with a simple philosophy.

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<i>"Since I'm an immature and wicked man,</i>

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<i>"war and unrest appeal to me more</i>
<i>than good bourgeois order.</i>

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<i>"Brutality is respected,</i>

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<i>"the people need wholesome fear.</i>

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<i>"They want to fear something.</i>

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<i>"They want someone to frighten them</i>
<i>and make them shudderingly submissive. "</i>

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In Munich, Rohm was heavily involved
in the violent politics of the extreme right,

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and in 1919 he joined
the small German Workers' Party.

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Here he met a 30-year-old veteran
of World War One, Corporal Adolf Hitler,

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a man who shared with Rohm
a deep hatred of Communists and Jews.

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Hitler had also joined
the German Workers' Party in 1919.

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His membership card said he was Member 555.

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But in reality he was Member 55

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because the party started
numbering people from 500

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so it looked like they had more members.

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Hitler was like thousands
of ex-soldiers in Munich -

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drifting without a regular job -
but he had one natural talent.

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He could channel his hatred and anger

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at the way the war had ended
into powerful speeches.

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Hitler spoke repeatedly
about what he claimed was the iniquity

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of the Versailles Peace Treaty
signed at the end of World War One.

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Under the Treaty, Germany lost
large amounts of her own territory

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and was forced to pay reparations to the victors.

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In the early 1920s,
inflation spiralled out of control.

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In Bavaria, by 1921,

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Hitler had become leader
of the small German Workers' Party,

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renamed the National Socialist German
Workers' Party, or the Nazis for short.

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It was still one of many
different right-wing parties in Munich,

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and they still all said the same -

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Versailles was a crime
and the Jews were behind it.

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But Hitler's dynamism, together with
the uncompromising tone of his speeches,

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began to attract other prominent
Bavarians to the fledgling Nazi Party.

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In 1922, a World War One flying ace
joined the Nazis,

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the holder of the "Pour Le Merite" award
for gallantry

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and commander of the Richthofen Squadron -
Hermann Goring.

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<i>"I joined the Party</i>
<i>because it was revolutionary,</i>

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<i>"not because of any ideological nonsense."</i>

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The Nazi Party began to spread
its appeal into the Bavarian countryside.

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One agricultural student,
who was to become a chicken farmer,

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found in the Nazis
an expression of his own obsession

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with the mystic relationship
between German blood and German soil.

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<i>"The yeoman of his own acre is the backbone</i>

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<i>"of the German people's strength and character.</i>

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<i>"Cowards are born in towns,</i>
<i>heroes in the country. "</i>

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The words of another Bavarian, Heinrich Himmler,

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chicken farmer and later commander of the SS.

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In January 1923, Hitler and the Nazis
exploited the discontent

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caused by the French occupation of the Ruhr.

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French troops came
to enforce reparation payments.

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They alienated the Germans.

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In Munich in 1923,

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in the atmosphere of crisis
caused by the occupation of the Ruhr,

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Hitler and the Nazis acted.

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Hitler stood on the stage
of the Burgerbrau Keller on November 8th,

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interrupting a right-wing political meeting.

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He called for a national revolution
to start in Bavaria

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and overthrow the left-wing government in Berlin.

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The next day, the Nazis,
with other right-wing parties,

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marched through Munich to gain support.

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They were stopped by the police
at the war memorial at the Feldherrnhalle.

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The Nazis hoped the army and police,

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many of whom supported right-wing parties,
would join a march on Berlin.

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The police didn't support them.

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Shots were fired and the marchers were routed.

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Hitler fled from the scene.

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Four policemen and 16 Nazis lost their lives.

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Hitler was tried along with the other
leaders of the putsch in early 1924.

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The trial was a media sensation,
with entrance to the court by ticket only.

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The Nazis hadn't just killed four
policemen outside the Feldherrnhalle.

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They had also organised a bank robbery.

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A defiant Hitler told the court...

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<i>"You may pronounce us guilty</i>
<i>a thousand times,</i>

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<i>"but the goddess who presides over</i>
<i>the eternal court of history will, with a smile,</i>

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<i>"tear in pieces the charge of the public</i>
<i>prosecutor and the verdict of this court,</i>

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<i>"for she acquits us."</i>

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Hitler became famous
for his apparently brave stand,

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but it was a con trick,

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for he knew as he spoke that the judge
would be lenient towards him.

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Hidden from the public was the truth

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about Hitler's previous appearance
in a Bavarian court.

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More than two years before,
at the Lowenbrau Keller,

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Nazi thugs egged on by Hitler
disrupted a left-wing meeting,

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dragged the speaker off the stage
and beat him up.

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Almost all the documents about the trial
which followed were seized by the Nazis

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when they came to power and later burnt.

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00:19:12,417 --> 00:19:16,717
But one or two from this earlier trial
survived hidden in the archive

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and they tell truths the Nazis wanted to hide.

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Hitler was given the minimum sentence possible -
three months in prison.

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But the sympathy of the judge didn't stop there.

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He wrote to the Appeal Court in support of Hitler

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and asked them to reduce his sentence.

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00:19:41,713 --> 00:19:44,841
As a result,
Hitler served only one month in prison

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and a period on probation.

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00:19:48,287 --> 00:19:52,519
The judge in Hitler's first trial
was called Georg Neithardt,

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the same judge whom the authorities
allowed to preside over the putsch trial.

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It must have been obvious to Hitler
that the court would be lenient towards him.

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And they were.

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00:20:05,804 --> 00:20:08,773
Hitler had attempted revolution, incited murder,

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00:20:08,941 --> 00:20:11,501
and his followers had robbed a bank.

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00:20:11,677 --> 00:20:15,408
He served nine months in Landsberg prison.

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00:20:16,582 --> 00:20:18,880
But even so, by 1924,

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it seemed that Hitler and the Nazis
had become an irrelevance.

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00:20:24,923 --> 00:20:27,790
(GERMAN CABARET MUSIC)

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00:20:42,441 --> 00:20:45,808
In the mid-1920s,
the German economy recovered

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00:20:45,978 --> 00:20:48,947
as inflation was reduced to single figures.

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00:21:00,759 --> 00:21:05,492
The Weimar government
borrowed money from the Americans

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00:21:05,664 --> 00:21:10,465
which it then used to pay the French
and British their reparations.

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00:21:10,636 --> 00:21:14,402
The good times were financed
by short-term credit.

200
00:21:36,695 --> 00:21:40,654
There were Germans who disapproved
of the "Weimar decadence".

201
00:21:45,604 --> 00:21:49,404
They joined non-political groups
like the Wandervogel,

202
00:21:49,574 --> 00:21:53,374
who called for a return
to an older, simpler way of life.

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00:22:21,640 --> 00:22:24,609
One small political party sought to capitalise

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00:22:24,776 --> 00:22:27,540
on this longing for old-fashioned values.

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00:23:06,618 --> 00:23:10,577
In the mid-1920s,
the Nazi Party was small but radical.

206
00:23:13,158 --> 00:23:17,117
Their party programme promised
that if the Nazis came to power,

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00:23:17,462 --> 00:23:21,023
German Jews would be stripped
of German citizenship

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00:23:21,366 --> 00:23:23,766
and even expelled from the country.

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00:23:24,436 --> 00:23:26,996
(QUESTION IN GERMAN)

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00:24:19,658 --> 00:24:24,459
The fantasy of a world Jewish conspiracy
was openly preached by the Nazis

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00:24:24,629 --> 00:24:26,995
and believed.

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00:24:27,165 --> 00:24:29,690
Along with anti-Semitism went the belief

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00:24:29,868 --> 00:24:33,827
that violence was an indispensable part
of the political process.

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00:24:34,005 --> 00:24:38,567
The party had its own paramilitary wing,
the brown-shirted Storm Troopers,

215
00:24:38,743 --> 00:24:41,143
whose job was to protect Nazi meetings,

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00:24:41,480 --> 00:24:44,972
intimidate the followers of other parties
and drum up support.

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00:25:24,022 --> 00:25:28,152
Towering over the small party
was the personality of the man

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00:25:28,493 --> 00:25:30,723
now called the Fuhrer - Adolf Hitler.

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00:25:30,896 --> 00:25:33,865
The way the Nazi Party
was evolving around Hitler

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00:25:34,032 --> 00:25:38,594
was the way it would be structured
when the Nazis ruled much of Europe -

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00:25:38,770 --> 00:25:41,000
and the structure was strange.

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00:25:41,172 --> 00:25:46,200
Though these images of Nazi Party offices
in the 1920s seem ordered,

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the administration of the party was chaotic.

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00:25:50,549 --> 00:25:52,915
Hitler hated committee meetings

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00:25:53,084 --> 00:25:55,644
and disliked arbitrating between rivals.

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00:25:55,820 --> 00:25:58,789
The Fuhrer was disorganised and often late.

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00:25:59,558 --> 00:26:03,119
One prominent Nazi, Gottfried Feder,
complained to Hitler...

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00:26:04,896 --> 00:26:09,856
<i>"I regard your time management as very</i>
<i>damaging for the entire movement. "</i>

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00:26:11,603 --> 00:26:13,969
Yet the party still functioned.

230
00:26:14,139 --> 00:26:18,007
Hitler was a passionate believer
in the law of natural selection -

231
00:26:18,176 --> 00:26:20,644
the rule of the jungle.

232
00:26:20,812 --> 00:26:23,280
<i>"Men dispossess one another</i>

233
00:26:23,615 --> 00:26:26,584
<i>"and one perceives that, at the end of it all,</i>

234
00:26:26,751 --> 00:26:29,151
<i>"it is always the stronger who triumphs.</i>

235
00:26:29,321 --> 00:26:31,846
<i>"The stronger asserts his will.</i>

236
00:26:32,591 --> 00:26:35,116
<i>"It's the law of nature."</i>

237
00:26:36,027 --> 00:26:39,986
Hitler's obsession with this idea
of the survival of the fittest

238
00:26:40,165 --> 00:26:43,965
meant that when a party member
wrote to him in 1925

239
00:26:44,135 --> 00:26:47,969
and asked to be appointed
leader of his local branch,

240
00:26:48,139 --> 00:26:53,099
the letter was answered by Max Amann,
one of Hitler's closest confidants.

241
00:26:55,280 --> 00:26:59,842
<i>"Herr Hitler takes the view that it is not</i>
<i>the job of the party leadership</i>

242
00:27:00,018 --> 00:27:02,316
<i>"to appoint party leaders.</i>

243
00:27:02,654 --> 00:27:07,353
<i>"You state that almost all</i>
<i>the local members have confidence in you,</i>

244
00:27:07,692 --> 00:27:11,321
<i>"so why don't you take over</i>
<i>leadership of the branch?"</i>

245
00:27:12,697 --> 00:27:14,756
(CHEERING)

246
00:27:18,770 --> 00:27:22,570
But now, seven years
after Hitler had become leader,

247
00:27:22,741 --> 00:27:26,370
the Nazi Party was failing dismally
in the great struggle.

248
00:27:26,711 --> 00:27:30,340
Despite the obvious enthusiasm
of the party faithful,

249
00:27:30,682 --> 00:27:34,049
the Nazis could not get themselves
elected to power.

250
00:27:35,053 --> 00:27:37,180
In the 1928 election,

251
00:27:37,355 --> 00:27:39,880
the Nazis got just 2.6% of the vote.

252
00:27:40,058 --> 00:27:43,858
The vast majority
of the German electorate, over 97%,

253
00:27:44,029 --> 00:27:46,395
rejected them and their leader.

254
00:28:41,086 --> 00:28:45,819
This secret government report,
compiled just before the 1928 election, says

255
00:28:45,990 --> 00:28:52,020
that the Nazi Party has "no noticeable influence
on the great masses of the population".

256
00:28:52,997 --> 00:28:55,363
The Nazis were a tiny fringe party,

257
00:28:55,700 --> 00:28:57,827
almost a joke.

258
00:28:58,002 --> 00:29:00,971
Yet just four yearsand eight months later,

259
00:29:01,139 --> 00:29:03,664
Hitler was Chancellor of Germany.

260
00:29:04,175 --> 00:29:07,144
For the Nazis were helped by circumstance.

261
00:29:10,982 --> 00:29:12,950
Germany suffered.

262
00:29:13,118 --> 00:29:17,487
A sudden drop in world agricultural prices
brought poverty to the countryside

263
00:29:17,822 --> 00:29:21,952
and then the Wall Street Crash
heralded a world economic slump.

264
00:29:32,470 --> 00:29:35,030
The Americans called in their loans.

265
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:39,301
German unemployment rose
to five and a half million in 1931.

266
00:30:54,619 --> 00:30:57,179
Unemployed lived rough inside the cities

267
00:30:57,355 --> 00:31:02,418
as Germany became economically
the worst hit nation in the world.

268
00:31:19,010 --> 00:31:23,606
And then, just when it seemed things
couldn't get any worse, they did.

269
00:31:32,090 --> 00:31:35,059
The five major banks crashed in 1931.

270
00:31:35,526 --> 00:31:39,053
More than 20,000 German businesses folded.

271
00:31:39,230 --> 00:31:41,596
Now the middle class was suffering.

272
00:31:55,446 --> 00:31:59,041
In the economic crisis, the Nazis' vote increased.

273
00:31:59,217 --> 00:32:01,583
They still said the same -

274
00:32:01,920 --> 00:32:05,321
Versailles was a crime,
Jews should be denied citizenship

275
00:32:05,490 --> 00:32:08,015
and Germany must be reborn.

276
00:32:08,192 --> 00:32:13,459
Their message hadn't changed,
but now more Germans were ready to hear it.

277
00:32:13,631 --> 00:32:15,599
In this economic crisis,

278
00:32:15,934 --> 00:32:19,495
people who had never seen
or heard Hitler still voted Nazi.

279
00:32:20,672 --> 00:32:24,233
(RECORDING OF HITLER SPEECH)

280
00:32:28,947 --> 00:32:32,906
In a remote town
in German East Prussia like Neidenburg,

281
00:32:33,084 --> 00:32:36,281
in 1928, the Nazis got 2.3% of the vote.

282
00:32:37,322 --> 00:32:40,917
In 1930, their vote leapt up to 25.8%,

283
00:32:41,359 --> 00:32:47,093
yet Hitler didn't visit here and there was
no Nazi Party organisation in the town.

284
00:32:48,066 --> 00:32:51,035
It wasn't just the Nazis who began to do well.

285
00:32:51,202 --> 00:32:54,171
The Communists started to pick up votes too.

286
00:32:54,339 --> 00:32:57,968
Something sinister was happening
to this new democracy.

287
00:32:58,142 --> 00:33:02,169
It seemed to be splitting apart
as voters rushed to the extremes.

288
00:33:03,514 --> 00:33:07,473
Alois Pfaller had joined
the Communist Party in the late 1920s

289
00:33:07,652 --> 00:33:11,179
and now started taking on the Nazis
in the streets.

290
00:34:03,374 --> 00:34:05,706
(SONG)

291
00:34:35,139 --> 00:34:37,607
(NEW SONG)

292
00:35:29,794 --> 00:35:35,198
Hitler said that he was the strong man
who could solve the economic crisis

293
00:35:35,399 --> 00:35:40,701
at the head of a dynamic party
that promised to rebuild the country

294
00:35:40,872 --> 00:35:42,840
around national unity.

295
00:35:43,174 --> 00:35:45,540
And Hitler campaigned in a fresh way.

296
00:35:45,710 --> 00:35:49,669
In his 1932 "Hitler over Germany"
presidential election campaign,

297
00:35:49,847 --> 00:35:53,806
he travelled by aeroplane
to 20 cities in seven days.

298
00:36:00,391 --> 00:36:04,191
Though he was to lose the election
to President Hindenburg,

299
00:36:04,362 --> 00:36:08,765
Hitler had established himself
as a credible alternative leader of Germany.

300
00:36:43,834 --> 00:36:47,793
The Nazi Party proposed little
in the way of detailed policies,

301
00:36:47,972 --> 00:36:50,497
but it offered order, discipline

302
00:36:50,675 --> 00:36:53,200
and the personality of Adolf Hitler.

303
00:36:53,377 --> 00:36:57,177
Fridolin von Spaun met him in the early 1930s.

304
00:38:31,575 --> 00:38:33,941
By 1932, the majority of Germans,

305
00:38:34,278 --> 00:38:39,375
in voting for Communists and Nazis,
were voting for parties openly committed

306
00:38:39,550 --> 00:38:41,518
to overthrowing German democracy.

307
00:38:42,086 --> 00:38:46,546
Democracy had arrived in Germany
at the end of World War One.

308
00:38:46,724 --> 00:38:50,251
Now the majority of Germans
wanted to be rid of it.

309
00:38:50,428 --> 00:38:57,027
Hitler made it clear that a vote
for the Nazis was a vote for dictatorship.

310
00:40:07,638 --> 00:40:10,038
As a result of the elections of July 1932,

311
00:40:10,374 --> 00:40:15,471
the Nazis became the biggest party
in Germany, with 37% of the vote.

312
00:40:15,679 --> 00:40:19,706
Now only one man stood
between Hitler and the Chancellorship -

313
00:40:19,917 --> 00:40:25,082
President Hindenburg, the man Hitler
challenged for the Presidency and lost.

314
00:40:25,423 --> 00:40:29,052
Hindenburg met Hitler on August 13th, 1932.

315
00:40:29,393 --> 00:40:31,759
Hitler demanded to be Chancellor.

316
00:40:31,929 --> 00:40:36,628
Hindenburg refused and his State Secretary
recorded the reasons why.

317
00:40:37,201 --> 00:40:42,639
<i>"He could not bring himself</i>
<i>to give government power to a single party</i>

318
00:40:42,807 --> 00:40:46,766
<i>"which did not represent</i>
<i>the majority of the electorate</i>

319
00:40:46,944 --> 00:40:51,506
<i>"and which, furthermore,</i>
<i>was intolerant, lacking in discipline</i>

320
00:40:51,715 --> 00:40:54,513
<i>"and frequently even appeared violent."</i>

321
00:40:54,685 --> 00:40:59,088
But then different pressure groups
began to lobby President Hindenburg.

322
00:41:00,157 --> 00:41:02,125
A group of businessmen,

323
00:41:02,460 --> 00:41:06,419
including the former President
of the Reichsbank, Hjalmar Schacht,

324
00:41:06,597 --> 00:41:10,556
wrote to Hindenburg,
saying Hitler must get the Chancellorship

325
00:41:10,734 --> 00:41:12,827
for the good of Germany.

326
00:42:02,086 --> 00:42:06,614
New pressures came as the results
of an army war game arrived.

327
00:42:06,790 --> 00:42:10,749
The author of the report said
that in the event of civil unrest,

328
00:42:10,928 --> 00:42:14,728
the army couldn't control the Nazis
and the Communists.

329
00:42:14,899 --> 00:42:18,858
<i>"It's been shown that the forces</i>
<i>of law and order of the Reich</i>

330
00:42:19,036 --> 00:42:21,527
<i>"and of the German states</i>

331
00:42:21,739 --> 00:42:24,708
<i>"would in no way be strong enough</i>
<i>to protect the country</i>

332
00:42:24,875 --> 00:42:29,005
<i>"against National Socialists</i>
<i>and Communists and protect the borders. "</i>

333
00:42:30,948 --> 00:42:35,476
But if there were pressures
on Hindenburg as 1932 came to a close,

334
00:42:35,653 --> 00:42:38,053
there were also pressures on the Nazis.

335
00:42:38,222 --> 00:42:43,182
The crowds waiting outside the Nazis'
headquarters in Munich in December

336
00:42:43,527 --> 00:42:46,496
weren't aware of the problems the party faced.

337
00:42:46,664 --> 00:42:51,624
The party was going bankrupt because
of the cost of fighting so many elections.

338
00:42:51,802 --> 00:42:56,205
One of the key figures in the party,
Gregor Strasser, had just resigned,

339
00:42:56,540 --> 00:43:00,909
and the Nazi vote had dropped to 33%
in the November 1932 election.

340
00:43:01,645 --> 00:43:04,045
It looked like their support had peaked.

341
00:43:06,850 --> 00:43:11,810
But powerful figures on the traditional right
felt they had to negotiate with Hitler.

342
00:43:11,989 --> 00:43:16,517
They too wanted to eliminate
democracy and destroy the Communists,

343
00:43:16,694 --> 00:43:21,063
and without Hitler and the Nazis
they had no access to mass support.

344
00:43:21,231 --> 00:43:25,759
A former Chancellor, the aristocratic
von Papen, came up with a deal.

345
00:43:25,936 --> 00:43:30,305
Hitler could be Chancellor
if he, von Papen, was Vice-Chancellor

346
00:43:30,641 --> 00:43:35,305
and only two other Nazis were in the Cabinet,
surrounded by conservatives.

347
00:43:35,646 --> 00:43:38,012
The theory was Hitler would be "tamed".

348
00:43:38,215 --> 00:43:40,183
(CHEERING)

349
00:43:44,588 --> 00:43:48,547
As a result, Hindenburg offered
Adolf Hitler the Chancellorship

350
00:43:48,726 --> 00:43:51,024
on January 30th, 1933.

351
00:43:51,195 --> 00:43:54,130
Von Papen crowed, "We've hired him,"

352
00:43:54,331 --> 00:43:57,300
and the new Cabinet posed for the cameras.

353
00:44:02,873 --> 00:44:05,239
The Nazis later tried to rewrite history

354
00:44:05,409 --> 00:44:09,971
to say that Hitler became Chancellor
simply because it was his destiny,

355
00:44:10,147 --> 00:44:14,106
but Hitler had been helped into power
by economic circumstance

356
00:44:14,284 --> 00:44:17,811
and the support and miscalculation of others.

357
00:44:24,361 --> 00:44:27,057
<i>It all happened so fast in those days.</i>

358
00:44:27,831 --> 00:44:30,732
<i>After one had seen it come gradually,</i>

359
00:44:30,901 --> 00:44:33,062
the Communist Party line -

360
00:44:33,237 --> 00:44:35,762
to which I still officially belonged -

361
00:44:35,939 --> 00:44:39,306
was that it doesn't matter if Hitler gets to power.

362
00:44:39,643 --> 00:44:44,239
He'll soon have proved himself incompetent
and then it's our turn.

363
00:44:45,282 --> 00:44:47,910
<i>For some extraordinary reason,</i>

364
00:44:48,085 --> 00:44:52,044
<i>they didn't realise that he would change</i>
<i>the law once in power,</i>

365
00:44:52,222 --> 00:44:54,622
<i>which he did very smartly.</i>

366
00:45:19,950 --> 00:45:22,316
On January 30th, 1933,

367
00:45:22,486 --> 00:45:25,455
the same day
Hitler was appointed Chancellor,

368
00:45:25,789 --> 00:45:29,657
the Nazis held a torchlight
celebration parade in Berlin.

369
00:45:29,827 --> 00:45:31,954
The revolution had begun.

370
00:45:53,150 --> 00:45:55,380
(DRUMS BEAT, SINGING)

371
00:46:29,520 --> 00:46:32,080
There were a few Storm Troopers

372
00:46:32,256 --> 00:46:34,724
who had Jewish girlfriends.

373
00:46:34,892 --> 00:46:37,861
And therefore a lot of German Jews thought,

374
00:46:38,028 --> 00:46:40,428
"Oh, well, it's not going to be so bad.

375
00:46:42,833 --> 00:46:46,200
"They have Jewish girlfriends.
They can't hate us all."

376
00:46:47,004 --> 00:46:49,165
<i>Oh, it's heartbreakingl</i>

377
00:47:21,471 --> 00:47:24,998
Immediately after Hitler's appointment
as Chancellor,

378
00:47:25,175 --> 00:47:28,975
one of Hindenburg's closest comrades
from World War One,

379
00:47:29,146 --> 00:47:31,512
General Ludendorff, wrote to him...

380
00:47:31,849 --> 00:47:34,909
<i>"I prophesy to you solemnly</i>

381
00:47:35,085 --> 00:47:37,451
<i>"that this accursed man</i>

382
00:47:37,621 --> 00:47:40,317
<i>"will take our Reich into the abyss."</i>