The World at War Episode 16 - Inside the Reich - Germany (1940 - 1944)
Transcript
00:00Berlin, in the summer of 1940, welcomed victory beyond belief.
00:20The soldiers of the Third Reich came home after only a year of war.
00:28They had conquered France, Central and Northern Europe had fallen too.
00:33These crowds were delirious with exultation and relief.
00:39They turned to their Fuhrer in a frenzy of gratitude.
00:50They had not fancied war, they had feared defeat.
00:58Now they thought the war was over and they rejoiced.
01:58The men came home, they were brown and fit, and only a few of them had died.
02:13I just went shopping when somebody told me, don't you hear the noise?
02:19I saw this part of the army coming by just near, so I bought a bowl of cherries and ran
02:27there.
02:31We all were so glad.
02:33We heard so much of the First World War with those dreadful battles and those many dead.
02:40I felt a sort of national pride.
02:44We ended the war so quick.
02:50In cities untouched by war, the German people had hardly begun to give up the ways of peace.
02:55There was rationing, even shortages, but to make up for it, the regime preached enjoyment,
03:01luxury.
03:02While the British had declared frivolous things immoral, the Nazis tried to show that luxury
03:19still flourished.
03:22The Nazis were their propaganda, and those who ran the war effort came to believe their
03:25own promises.
03:27Only a few saw further.
03:29Just about August, it was ordered that a lot of production was stopped or minimized or
03:37things like that.
03:39And there was a kind of euphoria that the war was, so to say, over.
03:45I didn't believe in that at all.
03:47I thought I knew the British, and I had the opinion that they would see this thing through
03:55and that the United States would join the war.
03:58And therefore, every effort should be made to prepare for a long blockade.
04:09Hitler had no plans ready for a long struggle, no preparations for the total mobilization
04:14of all productive capacity.
04:17German industry had been geared to a blitzkrieg war.
04:20The regime still let the factories turn out peacetime goods.
04:27The workers, subjugated but not fully converted, watched the comings and goings of the Nazi
04:32princes without enthusiasm.
04:41Wanting to be loved, the Nazis gave and gave.
04:45By 1940, Propaganda Minister Dr. Goebbels was Father Christmas.
04:50He gave to children, gave to mothers.
05:02Ladies with larger broods were invited to the film premiere of Mother Love, the regime's
05:07hymn to family and folk community.
05:22On their breasts, they wore the Nazi Mother Cross.
05:29The pram was the tank of the home front.
05:32The government hoped for a breakthrough on the birth rate.
05:36Happy babies, happy future mothers, and very specially, happy music, soused the nation.
05:44The big smile, glued across the face of the people still often dubious and nervous, was
05:52stretched even wider.
06:11They must learn to enjoy the happy teamwork of Hitler's folk community.
06:26Radio was the instrument which the Nazis made their own from the beginning.
06:31Their foreign language broadcasts, technically marvellous but grotesquely unconvincing, reached
06:36greedily out to minds abroad.
06:40Today's official German war communique reads as follows.
06:44But listening to foreign radio was forbidden.
06:48Many, like the Propaganda comics, Tran and Heller, argued the toss between getting a
06:53glimpse of the outside world and the risk of a jail sentence.
07:39If we listened to foreign radio, which we always did, we turned it very low and we used
07:53to sit right up close against it.
07:55And I remember one particular moment when my son, who was a little schoolboy, told me
08:05that he had a very funny story to tell me, that his friend's mother also listened to
08:10the radio with her ear right up against it, the same as we did.
08:15And I suddenly realised that I could have her imprisoned, she could have me imprisoned,
08:19because these two children had been talking about it.
08:26As well as geography and the rest, Nazi schools were obliged to add a special subject.
08:31Children were taught, with pictures and measurements, the dimensions of a healthy Aryan race.
08:38Official films prepared the Germans for the consequences of keeping the race pure.
08:42The mentally incurable, condemned as the bad seed, went to experimental gas chambers.
08:49The German people know very little about the extent of this misery.
08:55They do not know the oppressive spirit of those houses, in which thousands of lullabies
09:02have to be artificially nurtured and nurtured, which are deeper than any animal.
09:10But we have given these people the opportunity to multiply and double their suffering in their children.
09:19Anyone who has seen such beings will no longer be able to claim that the prevention of such beings' emergence is inhumane.
09:32But now, for once, the Germans learned what was going on and protested.
09:37Bishop Garland of Münster attacked euthanasia from the pulpit.
09:41For a time, the programme was stopped.
09:45A controlled press avoided such misgivings.
09:49Some newspapers were mere party sheets of hate and lies.
09:53Some slipped criticism between the lines.
09:56None of them satisfied a people which was still highly educated.
10:01It was terribly frustrating never to be allowed to say your opinion openly.
10:08I myself was quite happy when I was called up early 1940 to the army.
10:15And that suddenly left behind all the oppression I had every day.
10:22Being a soldier, you don't read newspapers.
10:26You don't listen to the radio.
10:28You're not always under the stress of the propaganda which was pointed at you every hour.
10:40The European war became world war in June 1941.
10:44The Nazi leaders had secretly resolved that the conquest of Russia must come.
10:48Reichsminister Dr Goebbels leaves the proclamation of the Führer.
10:52For many, the attack of the Soviet Union brought fear and bewilderment.
11:06Of course, I had heard of certain preparations,
11:12but it was all, well, hushed up.
11:17And till the last moment, I didn't think that the war would come about.
11:27For a long war, Germany would need to have the South Russian oil fields for her own.
11:33Russia had delivered a million tons of oil the previous year under the Nazi-Soviet pact,
11:38now flung away.
11:40As a matter of fact, we had the greatest trade agreements with them that we ever had,
11:45and they delivered promptly, and from an economic point of view,
11:50everything seemed to be in order.
11:54I personally had, through my men,
12:01negotiations with them of putting up a synthetic fiber mill in Russia,
12:07and the treaty was signed on the 15th of June 1941.
12:13And the first 10 million marks in gold should be shipped on July 1st of 1941.
12:28The Germans drove eastwards over disintegrating Russian armies.
12:36Victory looked like a matter of weeks, another blitzkrieg.
12:40Morale at home revived.
12:53Göring inspected what was now the German colony of the Ukraine,
12:57intended to be a surf region of agriculture.
13:00Nazi experts on the Slavs hoped that this simple folk with simple customs
13:05would enjoy this prospect.
13:08Six months later, in the blinding snow before Moscow, the Germans were stopped.
13:20They lacked winter clothing, and the government appealed for furs and warm coats.
13:26On the last days of the meeting,
13:28the volunteers were forced to deliver their donations.
13:36No amount of rehearsed enthusiasm would conceal
13:39that this was the Reich's first military reverse.
13:51The Minister of Munitions and head of the war effort, Fritz Todt,
13:55flew to inspect the construction work on the Eastern Front.
13:59One of the men who should have been on the plane was Hitler's court architect,
14:03the producer of the Nuremberg rallies, Albert Speer.
14:07I heard in the headquarters that Todt's plane crashed.
14:12He was dead, and half an hour afterwards I was asked to come to Hitler.
14:17And to my great surprise, he told me,
14:21you shall be his successor in all his offices.
14:25Todt got the funeral of a National Socialist hero.
14:45By now, nearly a quarter of a million Germans had been killed on the battlefronts,
14:50but Todt was the first of Hitler's close comrades to meet death in the war.
14:54Hitler was shaken.
14:56The war had reached him personally.
15:10Speer had already seen the chaotic, disconnected way
15:13that Nazi war industry were.
15:16Transport, munitions, all had to be brought under a single control.
15:24One of its first targets was the labor supply.
15:29Nazi Germany had never mobilized its full workforce.
15:34They tried to get the women in the war production machinery,
15:38but it was opposed by Saugel, who was in charge of all the labor.
15:43The thing came to Göring, and Göring flatly denied, too.
15:47Then it came to the decision of Hitler, and Hitler also said,
15:51No, the women must be preserved.
15:53They have other tasks.
15:55They are for the family.
15:57They have to bear children,
15:59and it would spoil their health and their morale
16:03if they are working in the factories.
16:07But Ukrainian women were being imported as maids,
16:11foreign conscripts for slave labor.
16:14Under Speer, a great irony was fulfilled,
16:17but it was becoming exactly what the Nazis said it would not become.
16:21They had promised a return to the land,
16:24an end to great capitalism.
16:26Instead, the armaments drive
16:28was strengthening the vast industrial monopolies
16:31and swelling the cities with German and foreign labor.
16:35In two and a half years,
16:37Speer multiplied armament production nearly four times.
16:4180% of industry came under his control.
16:44He brushed aside bureaucracies
16:46and worked through his own experts.
16:49He had ideas,
16:51and he put all his energy behind these ideas
16:57and put them through with very much success.
17:01He didn't know how things had been done in the past
17:05because he hadn't anything to do with it,
17:08so he didn't know what was impossible and what was possible,
17:12and he succeeded sometimes in doing that impossible too.
17:17It is astounding for everybody
17:20who didn't live in our authoritarian system
17:23to hear that it was difficult to get through with orders,
17:28but it was difficult
17:30because Germany was divided in many districts,
17:34in 32 districts,
17:36and the head of every district was a Gaul leader.
17:39He was a strong political man
17:41and had absolute power in his district.
17:44He was only subordinated to Hitler himself.
17:48So when my orders didn't please one of the Gaul leaders,
17:52possibly they weren't carried out.
17:57Tank production showed how even Speer failed to get all of his way.
18:02He could not slice through the competing hierarchies
18:05which were Hitler's chosen style of government.
18:08Too many types of tanks,
18:10too few tanks in all,
18:12too many calibers of gun
18:14and different sizes of ammunition.
18:16Hitler thought he was far superior to such problems,
18:19and what for others would have been discussions of weeks and weeks,
18:23for him was a decision of just a fraction of a minute.
18:27Of course, there was a change too.
18:29One can never say that a man is always the same person,
18:32and Hitler changed a lot from 1942 to 1943.
18:35In 1943, he was more and more convinced
18:38that he doesn't need no more advice of anybody,
18:41and he made the decisions by himself, without listening.
18:47Hitler spent more and more time at the Wolf's Lair,
18:50his melancholy remote encampment at Rastenburg
18:53in the East Prussian forest.
18:55Those around him were obsequious.
18:58The better advisors lost touch.
19:01Hitler's personal SS adjutant
19:03was Richard Schulze-Cossens.
19:07Nearly all ministers were stationed at Berlin,
19:11and some of them had contact officers in the headquarters.
19:17Only Ribbentrop, Himmler,
19:19and sometimes Goering
19:21had their own headquarters
19:23not so far from our headquarters.
19:26Speer was very often in the headquarters,
19:29because his ministry was very important for the war.
19:33Only Bormann was always in the headquarters.
19:37There was only direct contact to Hitler.
19:41Bormann, as his secretary, was the most powerful man,
19:45more powerful, I think, than Hitler,
19:48because when the power was divided,
19:51all those men who were in power
19:54had to go via him to Hitler,
19:57except me.
19:59I had direct access to Hitler.
20:02There wasn't much cooperation.
20:05The cooperation was in the lower levels
20:08of the smaller technocrats.
20:10We didn't have anything like a cabinet.
20:13Ministers met, if at all, very seldom,
20:16and didn't talk about very important matters,
20:20so was my impression.
20:22Every ministry worked for itself,
20:25and sometimes they got orders from Hitler,
20:29but very, very seldom.
20:33Foreign visitors like Mannerheim,
20:35the Finnish leader,
20:37could see that Hitler was living in a world of illusion.
20:41He still trusted the reassurances
20:43of Goering, head of the Luftwaffe.
20:45Goering, a few months later,
20:47claimed that his aircraft
20:49could supply the Eastern Front,
20:51even when a whole army was cut off at Stalingrad.
20:55Here is Stalingrad.
20:57Here is the front of the Bulgars.
21:01Attention, the U-boat fleet at the Atlantic.
21:04Christmas, 1942.
21:08Attention, Catania.
21:10Here is the Mediterranean front and Africa.
21:13The men at Stalingrad had come through
21:15on the radio link-up loud and clear,
21:18but the brave words were faked
21:20in a Berlin studio.
21:25Heil Hitler!
21:29Heil Hitler!
21:34For the last time,
21:36the cathedral stood undamaged
21:38as the Christmas fair took place in Berlin.
21:41But Stalingrad was still cut off,
21:43and deep down, the nation sensed what was to happen.
21:473rd February.
21:49The Wehrmacht High Command announces
21:52The battle of Stalingrad is over.
21:56The battle of Stalingrad has come to an end.
22:00For once the radio spoke the truth,
22:03and with some dignity.
22:0591,000 survivors surrendered.
22:08Only a few thousand ever saw Germany again.
22:13I was not long in the headquarter,
22:16but I felt very significant
22:19the atmosphere on this day.
22:21All people were depressed,
22:24and Hitler himself was very serious,
22:29and he stared on his troop
22:33without saying any word,
22:36and he was very depressed.
22:51The world realized,
22:53and the Germans realized,
22:55that this was the turning point.
22:57This was the tragedy
22:59which could not be hidden.
23:07And Stalingrad did not come alone.
23:10A week before the city fell,
23:12the Germans learned
23:14that the Allies would demand
23:16unconditional surrender.
23:21There was then to be no mercy
23:23for the Germans.
23:25Nazi and non-Nazi
23:27both lost some illusions
23:29and drew a little closer together.
23:31The escape hatches had been bolted.
23:33This was to be a total war
23:35fought to the finish.
23:38The general feeling was,
23:40well, we can do nothing.
23:42It doesn't matter what we do.
23:44We'd better stick it out.
23:46Ausharren was the word
23:48I remember on everyone's lips.
23:50There's no alternative.
23:52We've got to fight to the bitter end.
23:54And this Goebbels used
23:56to the uttermost
23:58in his propaganda.
24:06Two weeks after Stalingrad,
24:08Goebbels brought a picked Nazi audience
24:10to a last mass frenzy.
24:20It was his own supreme moment.
24:22It was the proclaiming of total war
24:24and the invoking
24:26of the nation's hidden power.
24:38We want to die!
24:40We want to die!
24:42We want to die!
24:44We want to die!
24:46We want to die!
24:48Now, folks,
24:50rise up
24:52and storm break loose.
24:54Now, folks,
24:56rise up
24:58and storm break loose.
25:00Now, folk, rise up
25:02and storm break loose.
25:04They were the words of 1812
25:06of the national uprising
25:08against Napoleon.
25:10They were empty now.
25:18In 1943,
25:20it was better
25:22listening to music
25:24than to news.
25:36It was total war
25:38and retreat
25:40on all fronts.
25:42Total war meant
25:44that even German women
25:46must work.
25:52It brought its own sour humour.
25:54There was a slogan,
25:56do enjoy war,
25:58peace will be dreadful.
26:02There was a new sort of equality
26:04among the boys drafted
26:06to the mines and factories.
26:08The Hitler youth was mobilised
26:10into production and eventually
26:12into battle.
26:14The people crumbled
26:16as they had crumbled
26:18in the London Blitz.
26:20People wanted to huddle together
26:22to sing and forget.
26:24By the morning,
26:26they might be dead.
26:37By day,
26:39the American bomber fleets
26:41ranged over the Reich.
26:43In the shelters,
26:45the people waited for dawn
26:47and wondered if their cities
26:49would still be there.
26:51When we heard the first bombs,
26:53we were shocked.
26:55We saw all the sky
26:57lighted up from the fire.
26:59It was an enormous
27:01and dreadful sight.
27:03We were very angry
27:05when we saw
27:07that so many residential areas
27:09were destroyed.
27:11There were so few men left
27:13that everybody who had
27:15the strength was firefighting.
27:27One by one,
27:29the German cities were incinerated
27:31by firestorms.
27:33Ten days' raids on Hamburg
27:35left 40,000 dead.
27:41Goebbels noted
27:43the people in the West
27:45are gradually beginning
27:47to lose courage.
27:49Hell like that
27:51is hard to bear.
27:55I think that the bombing
27:57hadn't the effect
27:59one would have thought.
28:01It had the effect
28:03of bringing people together.
28:05If you were all
28:07under the same bombs,
28:09you were.
28:16To avoid seeing the ruins,
28:18Hitler's rare visits to Berlin
28:20were made by night.
28:22And yet, banners were ordered
28:24for his birthday.
28:26They read,
28:28Our walls have broken,
28:30but not our house.
28:32Hitler lost more and more
28:34his sense of reality.
28:36He never had
28:38the will.
28:40He must see with his own eyes
28:42what the war was.
28:46We had no information
28:48from outside,
28:50and so
28:52I had the feeling
28:54to live in a monastery,
28:56in a concentration camp.
29:00One of the generals once said,
29:02I feel like a concentration camp.
29:04We are included
29:06and
29:08we all use
29:10the same phrases.
29:12We are all thinking the same.
29:14We are all hearing the same.
29:16We are all leaded
29:18in our thoughts
29:20and our feelings
29:22by Hitler.
29:24We all were playing
29:26each his role
29:28and he was the only one
29:30who knew the script.
29:32He made us all
29:34play and speak our text.
29:36Nobody else knew
29:38how it would end.
29:44Neither Hitler, nor Göring,
29:46nor Himmler
29:48were seen in public,
29:50only Goebbels.
29:52Whenever there was a
29:54very heavy bombing,
29:56Goebbels stood there
29:58on the marketplace
30:00and held his speeches
30:02and said,
30:04I personally
30:06had respect
30:08because there was
30:10a sort of inspiring.
30:12You were sort of
30:14in a trance.
30:26A strained, exhausted nation
30:28could still lose itself
30:30to Hitler.
30:34The orchestra still gave
30:36what was great and true
30:38in the tradition of German art.
30:42In the galleries, there was only
30:44the empty cremation of Nazi painting,
30:46Nazi sculpture.
30:56True Aryan models
30:58had scowled their features
31:00carefully designed to portray
31:02the victorious Nordic race.
31:10Race was the empire
31:12of Himmler and the SS.
31:14But now the SS
31:16was itself an empire.
31:18Himmler, the ex-chicken farmer,
31:20ruled the death camps
31:22and the concentration camps.
31:24The SS had its own schools
31:26and courts.
31:28It administered huge tracts
31:30of the occupied East.
31:32It was the instrument
31:34of German dominion over Europe.
31:36It was even an army.
31:38The generals had little control
31:40over the hundreds of thousands
31:42of elite troops
31:44in the Waffen-SS divisions.
31:46Into the SS training schools
31:48there were drawn Aryan-looking
31:50volunteers from the occupied
31:52countries, for the SS state
31:54I considered for active service
31:56in the Waffen-SS because
31:58I regarded the fight
32:00against Bolshevism
32:02as the most important task
32:04in Europe.
32:06New was the point
32:08of European education
32:10because
32:12we were of the opinion
32:14that only an imaginary
32:16contrast
32:18existed between
32:20nations
32:22who were from
32:24the same origin.
32:30For those of different race origin
32:32there was no place.
32:34For the Jews there was deportation
32:36to eastern ghettos
32:38and then the gas chambers
32:40of the SS.
32:42The official word was resettlement.
32:44Most Germans preferred to believe
32:46that it meant no more than that.
32:48Hitler often mentioned
32:50his hating the Jews
32:52and he gave many examples
32:54already in an early time
32:56when I was with him
32:58and I should have been warned
33:00that he is
33:02serious about it because
33:04he proved to be serious about other things
33:06he predicted too.
33:12One night, it must have been
33:14around midnight, the doorbell rang.
33:16I opened it and
33:18in front of me there stood a Jewish couple.
33:20This was how I
33:22began to help persecuted Jews.
33:24All of a sudden I
33:26entered into an invisible
33:28circle of people who smuggled
33:30Jews about.
33:32As soon as one hiding place had been detected
33:34they were quickly passed on.
33:36They'd always move about at
33:38night. That's how
33:40I came to belong to a group who had
33:42to put up Jews when they were passed
33:44on like this.
33:46I never found out who it was
33:48who'd sent them to me in the first place.
33:50Decent people, I'm sure.
33:52The problems
33:54started with the feeding of the Jewish
33:56people. They neither had
33:58food rationing cards nor
34:00did they have any money.
34:02So we, in our turn,
34:04we made use of friends who exchanged
34:06their cigarette ration cards for the
34:08odd potato or some bread.
34:16One day
34:18a friend of ours who used to collect food
34:20cards for these Jews
34:22came to me and
34:24she
34:26came with another woman
34:28with dyed blonde hair.
34:30I can see her sitting
34:32there now twisting her
34:34wedding ring and
34:36telling me that it wouldn't be
34:38for long that she would
34:40help me in the house and
34:42her husband need never go out.
34:44He could live
34:46in the cellar or wherever.
34:48But Christopher Bielenberg's husband
34:50was away and he was involved in a plot
34:52to overthrow Hitler.
34:54She consulted her trusted neighbour and friend
34:56Carl Lungbein, another
34:58conspirator. Lungbein told her
35:00compassionately but firmly
35:02that the risks to herself and her
35:04family and to the conspiracy were
35:06too great.
35:08I was astonished, overcome
35:10really, at the response
35:12that I got from my neighbour
35:14who told me that under no circumstances
35:16whatsoever could I house
35:18these people. That
35:20housing of Jews meant concentration
35:22camp not only for myself but for my
35:24husband, possibly also for my children.
35:28I can remember going through and out
35:30into the road
35:32and
35:34out of the darkness
35:36came a voice. I knew there was somebody there.
35:38Came a voice saying
35:40Frau Bielenberg
35:44Haben Sie einen Schluss gefasst?
35:46Which means, have you decided?
35:50And
35:52I simply couldn't say no.
35:54I just said, well
35:56I can't for longer
35:58than two days.
36:02And
36:04I let
36:06him into the cellar.
36:09They stayed
36:11for two days
36:13and
36:15after
36:17on the second day
36:19or rather in the evening, they must have
36:21left because in the morning
36:23she was gone
36:25the cellar was empty
36:27the bed, the bed I put
36:29up all tidily arranged
36:31and they had gone.
36:35I knew later
36:37that they were caught
36:39buying a ticket at a railway
36:41station and were
36:43transported to Auschwitz
36:45and why
36:47I say this is the most painful and
36:49terrible story for me
36:51to have to tell is because
36:53after they left
36:55I realised that
36:57Hitler had turned me
36:59into a murderer.
37:03One day
37:05in 1944
37:07Gauleiter Hanke came in my
37:09office and told me
37:11that he was
37:13visiting a concentration camp
37:15in Upper Silesia
37:17and warned me never to go
37:19in a concentration camp there
37:21because horrible things
37:23would happen.
37:25This together with other hints
37:27I got
37:29should have
37:31made
37:33my decision to go to Hitler
37:35immediately or to Himmler
37:37and to ask them what is going
37:39on and to
37:41take my own steps
37:43but I didn't do it
37:45and not doing it
37:47was so I think nowadays
37:49the biggest fault
37:51in my life.
37:53We felt that people should
37:55know what was going on
37:57and
37:59maybe typical is this little
38:01experience which I had one day
38:03standing in the line for
38:05vegetables or something like that
38:07I told my neighbours
38:09standing around me that
38:11now they start to kill
38:13the Jews in the
38:15concentration camps and
38:17it is not true that they only are brought
38:19there and can live there as they
38:21live here as it was told them.
38:23They are killed and they even
38:25make soap out of them.
38:27I know that
38:29and they said
38:31Frau Bonhoeffer if you don't stop
38:33telling such horror stories
38:35you will end in a concentration camp too
38:37and nobody of us can help you
38:39it is not true what you tell
38:41and you shouldn't believe these things
38:43you have them from the foreign broadcast
38:45or so and they tell these things
38:47to make enemies against Germany
38:49I say no, that is not from broadcast
38:51I know that directly
38:53from first hand, you can be sure
38:55it is that way
38:57and coming home I told
38:59that my husband in the evening
39:01and he was not at all
39:03applauding to me, in the very
39:05contrary, he said
39:07my dear, sorry to say
39:09but you are absolutely
39:11idiotic what you are doing
39:13please understand
39:15a dictatorship
39:17is like a snake
39:19if you put
39:21your foot on its tail
39:23as you do it
39:25it will just bite you
39:27and nobody will be helped
39:29you have to strike
39:31the head
39:33only the commanders
39:35of the army could strike effectively
39:37at the head
39:39others had struck bravely at the tail
39:41and perished
39:43in Munich, a few students from the Schull
39:45brother and sister had protested with leaflets
39:47and been slaughtered
39:49in Berlin, a communist spy team
39:51led by Harro Schulze-Boysen
39:53had been crushed
39:55communists, socialists
39:57Christians, anonymous men and women
39:59defied the dictator in tiny groups
40:01150,000 Germans
40:03suffered prison or worse
40:05for political resistance
40:07the plot against the snake's head
40:09was a federation of plots
40:11there were conservatives like Gödelheer
40:13aristocrats like Moltke
40:15churchmen like Bonhoeffer
40:17diplomats like Trott
40:19faced with defeat
40:21staff officers joined in
40:23all were slow to accept
40:25that a strike at the head
40:27demanded the physical murder of Hitler
40:29but in 1944
40:31there appeared a man for action
40:33Colonel Count Klaus von Stauffenberg
40:37all the difference was brought
40:39in or caused when Stauffenberg
40:41came to Berlin
40:43he had lost his left eye
40:45his left hand
40:47three fingers of his left hand
40:49and his right hand altogether
40:51originally he was only
40:53the planner of the Gute Etat
40:55but he had to report
40:57to Hitler's headquarters
40:59and to attend conferences there
41:01this enabled him to get really near to Hitler
41:03and then to make an attempt
41:05which he did on July 2044
41:09suddenly
41:11there was a very
41:13alarming bang
41:15we heard voices
41:17crying for a doctor
41:19and we saw some generals
41:21with blood-stained uniforms
41:25then came one of the adjutants
41:27and said there was a bomb explosion
41:29but the Fuhrer is not hurt
41:31he's still alive
41:33we went
41:35toward Hitler's bunker
41:37and we met him
41:39maybe it was an hour
41:41after this explosion
41:43he looked
41:45he looked funny
41:47because his hair
41:49stood up like
41:51like a brush
41:53and his
41:55trushes were slit
41:57in small stripes
41:59he said you see
42:01the fate has
42:03saved me for my mission
42:05I am to do
42:07what I must do
42:11the war ministry in Berlin
42:13the plotting generals believed
42:15that Hitler was dead
42:17when I came to the headquarters
42:19Stauffenberg was busy
42:21with telephoning the various
42:23army commands
42:25and Hafen informed me
42:27of what had happened
42:29how they had thrown the bomb
42:31and then he said Hitler is dead
42:33and we really did believe it
42:35because Stauffenberg then came in
42:37we had a short talk with him
42:39he was much too busy to give details
42:41we'll see what can be done
42:44the man the plotters ordered to occupy the city
42:46was Major Otto Rehmer
42:48a fanatical soldier programmed to obey
42:50any superior order
42:52at first he obeyed the plotters
42:54then Goebbels got hold of him
43:04Goebbels was really very pleased to see me
43:06he was beaming
43:08he said Rehmer
43:10what do you know about all this
43:12what's going on here
43:14what orders have you got
43:16I said minister I have come to you
43:18so that you can clarify the situation
43:22Goebbels replied
43:24they're trying to pull the wool over your eyes
43:26Hitler's alive
43:28I've just spoken to him
43:30I was so astonished that I said
43:32please let me speak to the Fuhrer
43:34and this was done
43:37on the other end of the line
43:39Herr Rehmer
43:41you see I am alive
43:43I am Adolf Hitler
43:45you recognize my voice
43:47now do you believe I'm alive
43:49Ich lebe also
43:51Ich bin Adolf Hitler
43:53hören Sie meine Stimme
43:55glauben Sie dass ich lebe
44:01now Rehmer was reprogrammed
44:03he marched back to the war ministry
44:05and arrested everyone he found
44:07the war ministry collapsed
44:09the wavering army returned to its oath
44:14many of the plotters
44:16after prison and torture
44:18were to face a ghastly sham trial
44:20conducted by Roland Freisler
44:22the star judge of Nazi Germany
44:25their families were seized
44:27and their children sent to orphanages
44:30the luckier conspirators
44:32among them Stauffenberg
44:34had been shot out of hand
44:36some attempted to explain
44:38their motives in court
44:40Count von Schwerin was an officer
44:42who had served in Poland
45:06...
45:08...
45:10...
45:12...
45:14...
45:16...
45:18...
45:24the condemned were hanged
45:26slowly
45:28on meathooks
45:30a film of their agony was made
45:32and shown later to Hitler
45:34the plot left Hitler a frightened
45:36damaged man
45:38the repression after the 20th of July
45:40broke the power of the aristocracy
45:42and of the Prussian tradition forever
45:45but there was no ruling caste
45:46to take their place
45:50to Hitler
45:52all generals now seemed suspect
45:55only Goebbels, Bormann and Himmler
45:57could get close to him
46:04slowly
46:06but steadily
46:08he became weak
46:10the doctors went in and out
46:12and he became
46:14totally apathetic
46:16non-interested in everything
46:18and it was a very critical
46:20situation
46:22on the west front
46:24and on the east front too
46:28and some days
46:30it was like Hitler didn't exist
46:34he was deteriorating
46:36certainly in his health
46:38but I wouldn't go so far
46:40to say that he was no more
46:42responsible of what he was doing
46:46in some way he was
46:48I have the experience of a
46:50prisoner of 20 years
46:52in some way he was behaving like a prisoner
46:54through the devastation
46:56the Germans somehow kept going
47:02down ruined streets
47:04the workers made their way
47:06to ruined factories
47:08where a few machines
47:10could still be made to turn
47:25life retreated
47:27to the cellars
47:29people learnt
47:31that eight bombs fell in a row
47:33and then you were safe
47:35they learnt to live
47:37a day at a time
47:39music
47:53it was really dreadful
47:55to endure it
47:57we were so tired
47:59you were always
48:01in a hurry
48:03all the railways were destroyed
48:05and the lorries had no petrol
48:07we had Russians
48:09from the beginning
48:11step by step
48:13it was worse and worse
48:17Germany itself
48:19was near the end of its tether
48:21seven million foreign
48:23forced labourers were not enough
48:25everything, oil, metal, food
48:27was running out
48:29everything from clothes to planes
48:31was patched and made to serve again
48:33men too
48:38the war cripples were recycled
48:40for the factories
48:42the brain-damaged soldiers
48:44were taught to speak again
48:46now we want to
48:48smoke this
48:50what is that sound?
48:52a
48:54let's smoke the a
48:56then it means
48:59a
49:01now I will show you
49:03in this book
49:05what do we want to smoke?
49:08ha
49:10ha
49:12say it again
49:14ha ha ha
49:16now the enemy was approaching
49:18the very frontiers of the Reich
49:20the Volkssturm
49:22the home guard of the elderly
49:24the underaged and the unfit
49:26was sworn in
49:28Volkssturm soldiers of Berlin
49:30raise your right hand
49:32to the army
49:34follow me
49:36I swear by God
49:38this holy oath
49:40I swear by God
49:42this holy oath
49:44that I will be the Führer
49:46of the great German Reich
49:48that I will be the Führer
49:50of the great German Reich
49:52Adolf Hitler
49:54Adolf Hitler
49:56unconditionally loyal
49:58and obedient
50:00unconditionally loyal
50:03Men of the Volkssturm of Berlin
50:06you have just
50:08they listened
50:10with closed faces
50:12to oratory from Goebbels
50:14about fighting to the bitter end
50:16who is ready
50:18and who has
50:20determined men
50:22who have the firm
50:24and unwavering
50:26will
50:28never
50:30never
50:32bow down
50:34to the enemies of the Reich
50:36and capitulate
50:38boldly
50:40boldly
50:42music
50:57The Volkssturm trudged out
50:59through that same Brandenburg gate
51:01which had seen the soldiers march back
51:03from Paris four years before
51:05music
51:12They went towards the Russians
51:14keeping their thoughts to themselves
51:16music
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