Hitler's People
How could Hitler count on the German public even in the face of unspeakable suffering and impending doom? Evocative and previously unseen private archive footage, much of it in colour, shows life in Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards.
Conformity
Nazi Germany 10 years before the 1944 assassination attempt: it’s the era just after the seizure of power, when enforced conformity becomes part of all aspects of life. Within the space of a single year, the usurper Hitler manages to bring not only the state and its institutions under his power as ‘Führer and Reich Chancellor’, but he also controls key organizations like the trade unions and the military. This shift in power doesn’t happen by force. For many, being close to the party is an opportunity. It kick-starts some breath-taking careers as officials, lawyers, doctors, technicians, artists and entrepreneurs. Stories taken from the everyday lives of ordinary people enable a fresh understanding of the Reich’s power structures and mechanisms of repression: from the block warden to the sceptic, the party-careerist to the denunciator – they all offer different insights into life under the Nazi regime and shed light on how and why the German public obediently followed its Führer. The ‘Third Reich’ is unthinkable without its instigator Hitler. But it’s the structures he puts in place that keep him in power. He surrounds himself with helpers prepared to put themselves entirely at his service, who court his favour, and outdo each other in unquestioning obedience. These minions are central to his success – willing enforcers who do what the tyrant orders, unquestioning and completely loyal. They in turn find accomplices form all sections of society who – following many years of economic and political uncertainty – seek advantages by joining the Nazi Party. It’s a network of terror that spreads right through society into all aspects of daily life – a kind of all-encompassing indoctrination that becomes the norm.
Total War
By the time of the Allied landings in Normandy, everything has changed: it marks the beginning of the end for Nazi Germany. Defeat is now just a matter of time, and this realisation marks a difference in the conduct of war: a radicalisation takes hold - it’s now a matter of ‘all or nothing’. It means showing no mercy towards your enemy, and it means having no scruples about sacrificing your own soldiers or your own civilian population. Hitler now demands ‘fanatical resistance’, even in completely hopeless situations. His views are black and white: there is only victory or doom. Self-sacrifice for the fatherland is proclaimed as the highest honour. Meanwhile, cities burn, lives are destroyed and trains continue to arrive at extermination camps. Yet despite all this, a large part of the German public is appalled by the 1944 plot to kill Hitler. Is this blind obedience, delusion, ignorance or coercion? Renowned historians like Ian Kershaw and Richard Overy and leading psychoanalysts help to offer explanations for questions that still pose conundrums: how did Hitler and the German public keep up a relationship of inter-dependency for so long? How did honest citizens become accessories? Why was there so little public resistance even in the face of devastating military defeats, inconceivable suffering by the civilian population, and in the knowledge of unparalleled crimes against humanity carried out in the name of the German people by their failing regime? Many young people in particular tragically continue to believe in ultimate victory right up to the end. Their indoctrination is complete. Some are prepared to join the party or even the military SS in the last few months of the war, even though the situation is undeniably hopeless. Others fight right to the end, scared of what might follow a defeat.
