Dictators don't work alone, and there were men Adolf Hitler depended upon. In their own ways, each of these members of Hitler's inner circle worked toward his goals of German expansion and the genocide of the Jews.
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00:00Dictators don't work alone, and there were men Adolf Hitler depended on. In their own ways,
00:04each of these members of Hitler's inner circle worked toward his goals of German
00:08expansion and the genocide of the Jews.
00:10Albert Speer was an architect by training,
00:12but as a Nazi official, he was in charge of armaments. Speer doubled Germany's
00:16weapons production. To achieve what many described as an armaments miracle,
00:20he used the assembly line manufacturing techniques of American businessman Henry Ford,
00:24who was admired by Adolf Hitler for his anti-Semitic beliefs.
00:27Ford blamed the Jewish people for everything from World War to short skirts,
00:32cheap movies, and jazz music.
00:34But it wasn't all just Ford ingenuity that accomplished it. You see, Speer used the
00:39forced labor of prisoners from Germany's concentration camps in production.
00:43So the armaments miracle was really more of a nightmare.
00:46Though he was close friends with Hitler, Speer lost faith in him as it became clear
00:49Germany would lose the war, when Hitler announced the Nero Decree of 1945,
00:54which mandated the destruction of German infrastructure so it couldn't be used by the
00:57Allies. This was too much for the architect.
01:00"'Albert Speer's modern branding and design
01:02makes National Socialism look coherent and a vision of the future.'"
01:07Not only did Speer refuse to carry out the decree, but in early 1945,
01:11he obtained poison gas from an armaments factory with the intention of assassinating Hitler in
01:15his bunker. As he testified years later in the Nuremberg Trials, quote,
01:19"'technical difficulties' prevented him from carrying out his plan."
01:22Joseph Goebbels became adept in public relations when he joined the Nazi Party.
01:26"'This extraordinarily intelligent man was one of the most evil men in history.'"
01:31He was a writer and wrote for the party newspaper, and was good at stirring up political agitation.
01:36He would send Nazi stormtroopers into neighborhoods where he knew the people
01:39would resist, then publicize the fighting, celebrating the fallen soldiers as martyrs.
01:43These tactics earned Hitler's admiration, causing him to promote Goebbels to the
01:47position of Minister for Propaganda and Public Enlightenment in 1933.
01:51"'Hitler is seen by many Germans as just a small-minded,
01:55thuggish rabble-rouser. Goebbels tries to recast him as modern, dynamic, and optimistic.'"
02:01Goebbels' job was to sway public opinion by controlling what Germans read and didn't read.
02:06While the official Nazi publisher churned out millions of copies of Hitler's memoir,
02:09Mein Kampf, Goebbels created a list of banned books that didn't align with party views.
02:14Speaking at a book-burning at Humboldt University in 1933, he praised the, quote,
02:18"'cleaning of the German spirit' by burning books written by Jews, foreigners, and pacifists."
02:23He used print, radio, and television to extol the German values of self-sacrifice
02:28and racial purity while denigrating Jews.
02:30"'The Nazi Holocaust would not have been possible
02:34but for Goebbels' state control of the media.'"
02:37In a 1935 speech, Goebbels said that Jews were subhuman,
02:41and bent on destroying Western culture. And by 1938, Goebbels was sanctioning
02:45acts of violence against them. By the time industrial genocide was organized by the party,
02:49Goebbels' media strategy had already paved the way for the public to accept it.
02:53Having served as a pilot in World War I, Hermann Goebbels joined the Nazi Party in 1922. With his
02:58military background, he was appointed head of the SA and fought alongside Hitler in his
03:02unsuccessful coup called the Beer Hall Push in 1923. Shot and wounded in the battle,
03:08Goebbels developed a morphine addiction he would deal with most of his life.
03:11Still an avid supporter of Hitler, Goebbels used his high-society connections to help
03:15elect him to parliament. He was rewarded for his efforts. Once Hitler was appointed chancellor,
03:19he appointed Goebbels to the top political position of Reichsminister.
03:22"'The Nazis are giving Goebbels everything he ever dreamed of.
03:25He's got status. He's becoming an important man.'"
03:28He is credited with creating the Gestapo, and Goebbels was later appointed head of the German
03:32Air Force in 1935, and held that position through the end of World War II. Though
03:37Hitler appointed Goebbels his successor as early as 1939,
03:40he stripped Goebbels of his titles when he tried to assume power too early in 1945.
03:44One of Hitler's last acts was to expel Goebbels from the Nazi Party,
03:47which he wrote in his last will and testament.
03:50Heinrich Himmler was still a university student when he began reading propaganda.
03:54Embracing the ideology of racial supremacy,
03:56Himmler became a Nazi Party member soon after his graduation in 1923.
04:00He left his job at a manure factory to work as a secretary for Nazi propagandist Gregor Strasser
04:05— go ahead and insert your own joke there.
04:07Anyway, Himmler caught Hitler's attention and rose to become the head of the SS,
04:11the Nazi Party's political army. Under his leadership,
04:14the SS swelled to over 50,000 members by the time Hitler took power in 1933.
04:19"'He's nothing like most of the members of the SA who were
04:22tough guys, you know, they were street fighters. He's the wimpy kid.'"
04:25Himmler's theories were out there even by Nazi standards,
04:28like that Germans could be traced back genetically to Atlantis.
04:31An efficient bureaucrat, he impressed Hitler with his management of the first
04:34concentration camp at Dachau, which actually began operation in 1933. He eventually assumed
04:39control over all of Germany's camps, which at the height of the war totaled 40 main camps
04:44with hundreds of subcamps. And so Himmler became the architect of the Holocaust.
04:49Reinhard Heydrich was Himmler's protege. He was trained as a violinist,
04:53but developed an interest in the growing National Socialist movement in Germany
04:57towards the end of World War I. He enlisted in the army after high school,
05:00rather than pursue a music career. Heydrich met Himmler in 1931 and soon
05:04became head of the intelligence faction of the SS, known as the SD, and the Gestapo.
05:08He was in charge of investigating and incarcerating all the enemies of the Nazi
05:11Party, including communists, Freemasons, and Jews. On Kristallnacht, the Night of Broken Glass,
05:17which took place overnight between November 9 and 10, 1938, Heydrich ordered the Gestapo
05:21to arrest thousands of Jews and then had them deported to concentration camps.
05:26This was only the beginning of a plan that Heydrich championed called the,
05:29quote, solution to the Jewish question — the annihilation of 11 million Jews across Europe,
05:34which Heydrich promoted at the Wannsee Conference in 1942.
05:37Heydrich might not be a name as remembered as other Nazis,
05:40but he should be on your radar for just how evil he was. Hitler called him the
05:44man with the iron heart. Look, if Hitler thinks you're cruel, you're a really bad guy.
05:50Martin Bormann was Adolf Hitler's private secretary.
05:52He was the faithful manager and fixer for his idol.
05:56He didn't really make headlines. Instead, he worked behind the scenes to make things happen,
06:00and Bormann's signature appeared on key documents that included orders to deport Jews. He also
06:04played a role in the euthanasia program, which sanctioned the execution of adults
06:08and children with disabilities, considered by Nazis to be a burden on the state.
06:12Through mundane tasks, Bormann was able to exercise power over Hitler. For example,
06:16he created the Adolf Hitler Fund for German Business to raise official funding,
06:20and he also handled Hitler's private assets.
06:22It's Martin Bormann, Hitler's enforcer, who's coming out on top.
06:27He gave Hitler a German shepherd named Blondie, who became the dictator's constant companion.
06:31Bormann oversaw the renovations of Hitler's mountain retreat in Obersalzberg and then
06:35moved to a nearby house within view of the estate. By monitoring the comings and goings,
06:39Bormann became Hitler's unofficial gatekeeper. He also kept Hitler's appointment calendar,
06:43which he deftly manipulated to limit Hitler's time spent with other members of the inner circle whom
06:48Bormann considered rivals, including Albert Speer, Joseph Goebbels, and Heinrich Himmler.
06:53Rudolf Hess first heard Hitler speak in 1920 and became a devoted follower. Arrested along
06:58with Hitler in 1923 during the Beer Hall Putsch, he became Hitler's confidant in Landsberg prison.
07:04Hess transcribed as Hitler dictated his memories, grievances, and beliefs,
07:07thereby creating an early draft of Mein Kampf. After Hitler took power, Hess was named deputy
07:12fuhrer, a figurehead position, but his reliance on astrology and interest in telekinesis caused
07:17him to lose respect in Nazi circles.
07:19He was constantly outmaneuvered by rather more clever members of the Nazi party,
07:25like Himmler, like Goebbels, like Goering.
07:28Though devoted to Hitler and Germany, Hess was worried about Hitler's plan to invade the Soviet
07:32Union while still fighting France and Great Britain. He also attempted to negotiate Britain's
07:36surrender on his own, in secret. A pilot, Hess flew a single-engine bomber plane to Scotland
07:41in 1941, aiming for the residence of the Duke of Hamilton, whom he mistakenly believed would
07:46be open to negotiating with the Nazis. Just as an aside, what is often overlooked is how
07:50crazy Hess's plan was. The Duke of Hamilton, a guy named Ian Hamilton, was about 87 years old
07:56at the time and had zero influence to negotiate anything. Anyway, Hess got lost and ran out of
08:01gas. After parachuting out of his plane, he was captured and held prisoner in England,
08:05spending some of that time in the Tower of London.
08:07Questions were asked in Britain as to who knew about Hess's flight beforehand.
08:13Hitler, upon hearing the news of Hess's aborted mission and subsequent capture,
08:16stripped him of his titles and left him to serve his time as a prisoner of war.
08:21In April 1945, as Russian troops marched toward Berlin,
08:24Hitler was hiding in his bunker under the city, surrounded by his closest allies.
08:28It was really game over. It was the very last, very brutal moment of a dying empire.
08:35It was there that Hitler married his longtime mistress, Eva Braun, on April 29.
08:38The two of them died by their own hands one day later in order to evade capture by the Russians.
08:43Reinhard Heydrich was the only member of the inner circle to die before Hitler. A joint
08:47Czech and Slovak operation pulled off an assassination attempt in Prague in 1942,
08:52and he died of his injuries a few months later. Hermann Göring and Heinrich Himmler were under
08:56house arrest, and Rudolf Hess was sitting in the Tower of London as a prisoner of war.
09:00Albert Speer was absent from the bunker but was later captured in the northern German city of
09:04Flensburg by the Americans. Martin Bormann and Josef Goebbels were with Hitler in the
09:08bunker until his death. Bormann stayed long enough to settle Hitler's affairs, then disappeared.
09:13It's generally believed today that the Soviets discovered his body and buried him after he
09:16chewed on a cyanide capsule. Goebbels' story is particularly chilling.
09:20For the deeply fanatical Goebbels and his wife Magda, escape doesn't even enter their minds.
09:26Together, he and his wife Magda poisoned their six children with cyanide before the couple took
09:31their own lives. A post-mortem showed the oldest child put up a fight before chomping
09:35down on the capsule. Following the war, the International Military Tribunal convened in
09:39Nuremberg, Germany, to try Nazi leaders for war crimes, crimes against peace,
09:43and crimes against humanity.
09:45"'Göring's defense was, I'm here because we lost the war. If we'd won the war,
09:50you would be here in the dock."
09:52Göring was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to death at Nuremberg. The court
09:56denied his request to be executed by firing squad, after which he took his own life to avoid a death
10:00by hanging with what is believed to be a smuggled in cyanide capsule.
10:04Martin Bormann was found guilty in absentia, but was never apprehended. His body was finally
10:09positively identified in 1973. Ruolf Hess survived prison in England, only to be transferred to
10:14Nuremberg, where he was sentenced to life in prison. There, after 40 years in captivity,
10:19he also died by his own hand at the age of 93.
10:22This was not without controversy, and there are still some conspiracy theories that say
10:26that Hess was eliminated because he was going to reveal sensitive information
10:29detrimental to the British government. That's almost a whole nother story,
10:33so leave a comment if you want us to break down Hess' time in prison.
10:36Testifying in Nuremberg, Albert Speer claimed to know nothing of Hitler's plans for the Holocaust.
10:40He was sentenced to only 20 years in prison for crimes against humanity,
10:44and afterward retired to England, where he wrote books and made a massive effort to position
10:48himself as, quote, the good Nazi. However, a letter surfaced after his death that proved
10:52his claim was a lie. A 1971 personal letter revealed the ruse.
10:56There is no doubt. I was present as Himmler announced on October 6,
11:001943, that all Jews would be killed. Who would believe me that I suppressed this,
11:04that it would have been easier to have written all of this in my memoirs?