Author/Presenter: Laurence Rees.
The programme considers how it was possible for a man such as Adolf Hitler to come to power in a
supposedly cultured country such as post First World War Germany. It gives a number of long term and
short term factors to explain the Nazi phenomenon
The theme of the programme focuses on the paradoxical nature of Germany under Nazi rule - a society
obsessed by order and yet characterised by administrative inefficiency. It opens with daunting images of
Nazi crowds and the comment that the Nazis were obsessed with images of order which they attempted
to illustrate and promote in their careful propaganda and yet, the programme claims, it was 'an illusion of
order'
The programme starts, with Hitler in his retreat in southern Bavaria, watching feature films about the
British Empire - supposedly, these offered proof of the superiority of the Aryan Race! In 1941 he said
'Let's learn from the English - what India was to the English, let Russian territories be to us'. The
programme then asks the question - How did Hitler end up fighting the wrong war? - a war
against both the English and the Russians.
This programme focuses on the experience of Poland during the Second World War, a country that
suffered more than any other under Nazi occupation and where one in five people died. In particular, the
Poles suffered the most brutal acts of ethnic cleansing
The programme starts with a view of a railway line, followed by the view of a field. Between July 1942 -
August 1943 this area became a 'killing factory'. This is TREBLINKA, one of six extermination camps
set up in Poland by the Germans to tackle the Jewish Question'
The programme starts with the observation that because Italy was 'the birthplace of fascism', an alliance
between Rome and Berlin in the 1930's therefore seemed natural and not unexpected. The two countries
fought together in the first years of the Second World War, but on 19 July 1943, the 'unthinkable
happened' Rome was bombed.
Above summaries from http://www.greenhead.ac.uk/beacon/history/resources.htm
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