The Hidden Side of World War II: Last Secrets of Nazis

There are 150,000 people. Brought here through the sheer will of a single man. Together, under a single banner. United by the same salute. Ready to follow him, even into war, into madness. Their guide, their Führer. Few names resonate as strongly in contemporary history as that of Adolf Hitler. Few men remain associated with such a feeling of horror and hatred in our collective memory. It is our wish and will that this state and this empire will exist in the coming millennia. We can be happy to know that this future belongs to us without any rest. I say... Heil Hitler! His nationalistic and fanatic speeches galvanized an entire people. Plunging them into the deadliest conflict of the 20th century. The Second World War. Five years of war. More than 60 million dead. The entire world was transformed. And the cataclysm marked generations. 70 years after his death, the history of the Nazi leader still contains gray areas. How did a man who came from nowhere reach the pinnacle of power and commit the most atrocious war crimes and the worst crimes against humanity ever committed? This is the story we're about to tell. How is it possible to imagine that this young baby-faced boy will one day be responsible for such utter horror? Initially, he was meant to have an unremarkable life. The most anonymous existence possible. The boy who would later be called the Fuhrer was born in the rural province of Linz, Austria in April of 1889. He had an uneventful adolescence. As a young boy, he was no different from any of his young friends. Neither top of his class nor an actual dunce. Adolf Hitler may have been uninterested in school, but he did have a passion. He spent all his free time in his bedroom drawing. It was his only pastime. Indeed, drawing soon became far more than a mere childhood hobby. He had a lot of pencils, his whole family. No one had any pictorial culture. He was ecstatic in front of his drawings or his watercolours. And at that time, he conceived at a very young age, around 11 or 12, a vocation as a painter. This artistic calling did not meet with universal approval at home because his father, Alois, had already planned his son's future. Adolf would, like him, become a civil servant. But when he was just 13, his father died suddenly of a heart attack. Adolf then realised that nothing stood in the way of his chosen path. He would become an artist. The year was 1907. Hitler was just 18 years old. He left home and his province of Linz in northern Austria. His goal? The capital, Vienna, 200 kilometres away. At the time, the city was a major European cultural capital, a rival of Paris and an essential place for artists and intellectuals at the turn of the century. Convinced of his talent, Hitler believed that he could finally make it as an artist. And the best way was via the Academy of Fine Arts. To gain admission to this institution, students had to take an extremely selective exam. But Adolf Hitler wasn't worried. For him, there wasn't a shadow of a doubt, the entrance exam would be nothing more than a formality. Signed, Adolf Hitler. Here are the canvases he painted at the time. While they demonstrate a certain talent, careful work, they're not particularly original. In any case, that was the opinion of the Academy of Fine Arts. The professors considered his work inadequate and he failed. When the jury's verdict came in, Hitler felt as if he'd been stabbed in the back. In his book, Mein Kampf, written years later, he described this day as one of the worst moments of his life. I was so convinced of my success that the announcement of my failure came like a bolt from the blue. Adolf Hitler did not accept this failure, especially as he was convinced that if he failed, it was not because of a lack of talent, but because the jury was wrong. This failure ushered in the darkest years in Hitler's life. He went into a tailspin, a downward spiral. This is a little-known episode in his history, and yet it was during this period that his visceral hatred for others would take root and grow. Although he was refused by the Academy of Fine Arts, Adolf Hitler decided to stay in Vienna. He spent his days hidden away in his attic room in this building in the city centre. The young man gradually used up all his savings. Soon he was penniless, without enough money to even pay his rent. He was forced to take refuge in shelters, and sometimes lived on the street, even sleeping on public benches some nights. Hitler was 20 years old and a vagrant. To earn a little money, he painted landscapes that he sold to tourists. This period of homelessness would last several years. Years during which Hitler was intensely bitter, as he was convinced that if he had fallen this low, it could not have been his fault. Someone or something else had to be responsible. And Hitler had identified those enemies who wanted to hurt him, those he blamed for his failure. They were ready-made scapegoats at the time. In the 1920s in Austria, some of the press was blaming all the problems in society on a single category of the population. The Jews. The anti-Semitism was open and unambiguous, as illustrated in Deutsches Dogblatt, the German people's newspaper, with one of the largest print runs in Vienna. In this article, the daily newspaper discusses the economic degradations for which the Jews are responsible. They are compared to a disease that was rotting the Austrian society. The Jewish element is a harmful foreign body that must be removed so that the state and the people remain in good health. Another article launched an appeal to anti-Semitic German readers. In the middle of elections in Vienna, the Jews were portrayed as the adversary to beat. The German electorate must not follow the electoral slogan of Jewry. Hitler regularly read this anti-Semitic press and turned to even more radical reading. One of his favorites was a small far-right publication, Ostala, which was overtly explicit in its hatred of Jews, here crudely caricaturized and threatened by a German knight. Ideas that resonated with the young Adolf Hitler. This press provided him with the reasons for his downfall. Hitler was 24 at the time, and his life was a failure. But an outside event would change everything, an event that would transform his destiny. The political situation in the West had changed. The First World War broke out during the summer of 1914. The Austro-Hungarian Empire and Germany against France, England and Russia. Hitler was Austrian, but joined on the side of the Germans because it was the German people he wanted to defend. And in this conflict of unspeakable violence, he would find a new meaning for his life. In this photograph, he is standing, nearly unrecognizable, next to his bunkmates, a long mustache across his gaunt face. Within the army, the young man discovered a supportive environment. This was nearly a revelation for him. At the beginning of the First World War, he is a man, a young man without a family. Over weeks and months, he finds a new place to fit in. For the first time since the death of his mother, young Hitler again has a home. Soldier Hitler was a courier, responsible for delivering messages between the command posts behind the front. And the boy, who had only ever been a mediocre student and a failed painter, became a model soldier, zealous and obedient. For the first time in his life, Adolf Hitler even earned recognition. The army decorated him with the Iron Cross, a high military award. This would be one of the proudest achievements of his life. And when he became Führer years later, he would always wear it. The young man had finally found his place in the army. The only problem was that on November the 11th, 1918, Germany signed the armistice. The war was over. For Adolf Hitler, this was a tragedy, as it meant starting from scratch all over again, a return to his previous life, penniless, with no family and no home. The young man would receive valuable support from a man who took him under his wing. This man was Karl Mayer. You've probably never heard his name or seen his face, but he would play a crucial role in the German army. He was the one who enabled the young man to lay the foundations for what would soon become the Nazi ideology. Karl Mayer was an important man in the army. He was head of his regiment's intelligence services. At the end of the war, he was facing a rising threat among his troops. Far-left militants were among the soldiers returning from the front, and Mayer feared that their ideas would spread. The army leadership was worried that these people would be taking back into civilian life left-wing ideas, left-wing mentalities. Mayer wanted to prevent these extremist movements from contaminating the army at all costs. And for this, he needed reliable, loyal men who would keep watch over the Black Sheep. He therefore recruited Adolf Hitler, who was willing to do anything to remain in the army. The young soldier had other qualities that Mayer viewed as extremely useful. He was a virulent patriot, and had an unmatched gift of the gab. Hitler was a man of great eloquence, and his verbal incontinence was almost permanent. He would arouse the public as soon as he had the chance. He gave speeches. That's when Mayer and the others realized that he had a very different ability than the others, in taking the floor and speaking to the people. Hitler had everything to become a good protagonist, but he lacked education and culture. So, Meyer sent him to the University of Munich to take classes. It was here that Hitler learned how to structure his thought processes. He took classes in history and politics. He found some of these lectures particularly interesting because in these amphitheaters at the time, some of the economics classes were based on a radical anti-Semitism. Capitalism. Hatred for Jews became the defining element of Hitler's entire philosophy. He would express it violently and crudely in a 1919 letter. Here is this letter. Four pages, handwritten by Hitler himself and sent to a soldier, Adolf Genlich, in response to a request about the Jewish question. This is what Hitler wrote. He stated that the Jews are a foreign race, which he compared to a radical tuberculosis of the nations. Further on, he stated that he supported an anti-Semitism based on reason that must lead to systematic legal combating and elimination of the privileges of the Jews. The letter then contains a barely veiled threat. The ultimate objective must be the irrevocable removal of the Jews. The letter then contains a barely veiled threat. The ultimate objective must be the irrevocable removal of the Jews. Hitler was just 30 years old, and this was his first political act, a text that laid the foundations for his absolute anti-Semitism. He may still have been a mere non-commissioned officer sharing his ideas in military circles, but Hitler would not waste any time spreading his ideology far beyond the confines of the army. Everything would shift during a secret mission. The date was September the 12th, 1919, the place, Munich. Hitler was sitting at a table in a bar downtown, but he was not any ordinary customer. The military intelligence services had tasked him with spying on a far right-wing group that had set up its headquarters here. This was the DAP, an ultra-radical German workers' party with some 50 members. Adolf Hitler's mission required him to remain incognito, but the event did not unfold as planned. A sentence was uttered that infuriated him. While the party members were debating, one of them promoted the idea of an independent Bavaria that would secede from Germany. For Hitler, stung by these words, this was unthinkable, and he couldn't sit still. He got up on the table, he spoke, and he gave an absolutely fanatical speech to denounce Bavarian separatism. Hitler defended the greater Germany for which he had fought. And he was so fervent, demonstrated such conviction, that the entire audience was captivated. He realizes that he's got something, a talent, which he hadn't really discovered before. And of course, all at once, I can speak, means that people are now listening to what I've got to say. And suddenly, it's like paradise for him. He is surrounded by people who think he's great, who accept him, and who listen to him. That evening of September the 12th, 1999, marked a turning point in Adolf Hitler's life. This is, in a way, really the second or the moment that Hitler's political career starts. Adolf Hitler had found his path. He would be a politician. He joined the DAP as its 55th member. The young activist did not intend to stop there. His ambition was to climb to the very top. Two years later, an evening in February, 1921, in Munich, the Circus Krone, one of the city's largest entertainment venues, was packed. 6,000 people had come to listen to Adolf Hitler. In just a few months, the little informer from the bar had become the star spokesman for the party. His name alone filled venues. Supporters and the merely curious were drawn to his oratory talents and his pro-labor speeches. He expressed the suffering of the German people, he expressed rage, he expressed anger, he expressed pain. And that, too, is something that speaks to the public of the time. He was able to create authentic collective enthusiasm, including with people who had come with the idea of shaking it. Adolf Hitler's speeches were like nothing ever seen before at the time. In the 1920s, this is how politicians spoke to their public. A haranguing, academic tone, a quavering voice. And now, a speech by Adolf Hitler. We have never seen people in Germany at the time speak in this way. We want to live in Germany as long as we can! Hitler spoke in a harsh, broken way. Our German people, our fatherland! Short sentences which were very hard-hitting, very crude often in terms of the sentiments, full of hatred, full of aggression. The movement of both of them must be saved! What shocks us and seems ridiculous to us, this tone of a chief adjutant, has a meaning and value at the time. Hitler realised that he could become far more than the orator for a small political group in Bavaria. He could galvanise crowds. He could play a leading political role. As an essential member of the DAP, he took on the leadership of the small party and began his immense mission. To one day become a national leader, and, why not, leader of all Germany. To climb to the heights of power in the 1920s, Hitler set up an ultra-modern communication strategy. In addition to his talents as a speaker and his extreme ideas, he also deployed a tool that few politicians of his time were using, the power of images, starting with his own appearance. Here, at the end of the war in 1918, he was still sporting a wide moustache, a holdover from the 19th century. Several months later, he changed his appearance, trimming his moustache to a small brush. It was a modern look for the era. And to ensure that no one forgot his face, to make a strong impression in the 1920s, Hitler worked with a specialist. His name was Heinrich Hoffmann. He was a professional photographer, as well as a committed Nazi. One of the very first members of Hitler's small party, he offered to become his official photographer, and Hitler accepted. Hitler learned how to use photography as a communications tool in the Munich studio of Heinrich Hoffmann, at 50 Schellingstrasse. He worked on his gestures and postures in front of the camera to better capture attention, better convince his public. He did this in a way that would make it easier He developed dramatic gestures to hammer home his ideas, theatrical stances to give him an immediately recognizable style. He was not only a politician, he was an actor, intensely invested in his role. Hitler played the boxer when he wanted to look defiant. He brandished his fist when he wanted to threaten his enemies. He tried everything, but he used to do it in front of the glass. Now he can see the picture better. He perfected his way of acting. And this way of acting is part of the influence he exerted. His goal was also to stand out from the other politicians of his time. This is how one of the presidents of the German Republic, Field Marshal Hindenburg, spoke in public. He read his speech without ever taking his eyes off the written page, without any gestures or the slightest expression of emotion. Hitler, however, was exactly the opposite. Clenched fists to express his anger. His finger pointing downward to signify the enemy to be destroyed. He underscored each idea with outrageous gestures, as if he were possessed by his speech. This was all so effective that Hoffman would later transform certain photographs into equally expressive propaganda posters. Appearance, diction, posture. Hitler left nothing to chance. And he also applied this approach, which is now called political marketing, to his party. Hitler thought the DAP logo was dull compared to those of his rivals. All the major parties at the time had sharp-looking logos. Three arrows for the socialists. The black, white and red of the German flag for the National Right Wing. The hammer and sickle for the communists. Hitler also wanted a symbol that would grab people's attention and be better than his rivals. So, he got to work. One night in 1920, in a bar he used as his headquarters, he gathered together the DAP leaders. Everyone had to contribute ideas for the party's future logo. Several symbols were studied. An eight-branched star. Another with six branches. A sort of rounded cross. And several others. Ideas were flowing. And it was an important meeting. Indeed, at the bottom of the document was a handwritten statement. The sacred drawing of the Germans. One of these drawings should stir us to action. It was signed Adolf Hitler. Among the various drawings, Hitler set his sights on this one. Called the swastika. To understand why, we have to explore the mentality of the German far right that had marked him so strongly. It was a world steeped in Germanic mythology, of Dante's battle for the survival of a race. The Aryan race that was apparently threatened by other civilizations. A slew of ultra-nationalistic literature attributed an emblem to this people. A swastika. The symbol of the presumed superiority of the Nordic white race. It is about returning to the origins of Germany. To the origins of the Nordic civilization. For Hitler, this design symbolized the superiority of the Germans over all other people. Particularly the Jews. This cross represents the Aryan spirit. Not the Jewish spirit. It is the sign of our battle against the worldwide plague. Hitler wanted to make this emblem as strong as possible to attract members of other parties. He first aimed for the Communist Party, which was extremely popular among workers. He therefore adopted the red color from their flag. But he also had his eye on his rivals on the far right. So he appropriated the white of the German imperial banner. And thus was created the Nazi Party trademark. In the same vein, Hitler renamed his tiny party in a move to cast a wider net. The small German Workers' Party became the National Socialist Party, shortened to Nazi. Hitler tries everything he can to persuade his fellow members of the German Workers' Party that somehow the German Workers' Party doesn't quite work. Something is lacking. But rather, he thinks what really excites people is bringing the idea of the nationalism and of socialism together. Just one year after stepping into politics, Hitler had created an image that was universally recognizable. And his party, with its swastikas, was easily identifiable. All that remained was to become better known by all Germans. To do so, Hitler demonstrated a keen sense of theatrics. He created his personal militia. Tough men who were responsible for attracting attention to his party on the political stage and for impressing the masses. He created a uniform, brown shirts for them. In reality, he merely copied another politician who had already done all this, the Italian fascist leader Mussolini, who took power in Rome with his black-shirted troops. Even the name of his militia was intended to impress. He called them the SA, a German abbreviation for Assault Division. With the SA, Hitler's meetings were transformed into displays of power. He had this paramilitary force march in perfect step, with a discipline that left a strong impression. The production was so impressive that, although he was only the head of a small party, he appeared to be a leading politician. He even managed to make headlines in German newspapers by using a simple method which worked nearly every time. Violence. He used every possible pretext. The more spectacular the violence, the more the press wrote about the Nazis. The Nuremberg Daily Journal reported that men wearing swastikas attacked three Jewish people in cars. Another time, the press expressed concern about the terror of the swastika. In Munich, 17 young people were thrown out of a cafe and beaten with clubs and sticks. The SA went so far as to commit attacks like this grenade tossed in the town of Mannheim, a small town in Bavaria. Publicity was Hitler's oxygen. You could guarantee from the beginning that when Hitler spoke, there would be fireworks, verbal fireworks, and sometimes then there would be these brawls and fights and so on. In whatever way, it made sure that he got into the newspapers. Not a single week went by without news of the Nazis, and Hitler's ultra-nationalistic stance had spread throughout all of Germany. By 1923, his membership had expanded tenfold. His party had 55,000 members. Hitler felt stronger than ever, so he decided to use his 800 SA to organize a putsch and march on the capital, Berlin. On November the 8th, around 7 p.m., with several hundred armed men, he took hostage members of the government meeting in a large Munich auditorium. He wanted to seize power by force. And suddenly, Hitler erupted, followed by his SA, and Hitler fired a revolver at the ceiling. Hitler rushed to the tribune, and there he announced that the national revolution had begun. Hitler demanded that the ministers at the meeting join him to set up a dictatorship and march on Berlin. But his putschists had overestimated their power. The army and police opposing them were better organized and better armed. Battles raged in the streets for two days, but the Nazis were no match. The putsch attempt was crushed. Hitler was arrested, charged with high treason, and sentenced. His rise seemed to have been cut short, but in appearance only. He remained convinced that he would soon be leading Germany. He already had a new strategy in mind. In April 1924, in the Landsberg prison, the clicking of a typewriter could be heard coming from a cell on the upper level. Adolf Hitler had his cellmate type up dozens of pages. He had begun a project that infused him with new energy. He would write a book, summing up his political philosophy, and would call it Mein Kampf, or My Struggle. Though behind bars, Hitler never gave up his quest for power. He merely shifted his strategy, as his failed coup d'etat had given him pause for thought. At this point, he wanted to become a leader legally, through the voting process. He wanted to be able to vote, and he wanted to win elections. A large book, a political essay numbering over 600 pages, but a monstrous essay, in which he expanded his ultra-nationalistic ideology, the racist theories that he had been putting together since the 1920s. He particularly stressed the alleged superiority of the Aryans over the Jews, blaming the latter for all of Germany's misfortunes. He compared the Jewish religion to a venereal disease, to syphilis. The effect of his existence resembles also that of parasites. Where he appears, the host people die out sooner or later. Hitler also promised a domineering Germany. His model was the great Germanic Empire, the one that, prior to the First World War, covered a large part of Europe. Our aim? To guarantee the German nation the territory to which it is entitled on this earth. And this territory was immense. As Hitler wanted all the countries that had people of German origin. Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Poland. And in the name of the superiority of the Aryan race, he even set his sights on Russia. His political philosophy was ready. His book would serve as the basis for the upcoming election campaigns. Once he was released, Hitler would resume his conquest of Germany. This time, he would be unstoppable. On December 20th, 1924, Hitler walked out of prison. To win power through the ballot box, he wanted to campaign throughout the entire country, convince everyone to vote for him. But to do so, he needed a lot of money, and his party was broke. Hitler absolutely had to find money, a lot of money. And there was only one way he could do so. Acquire support from the wealthiest Germans. At the start of the 1930s, there were a few people extremely rich businessmen in Germany, notably the tycoons of the steel industry. Coal and steel factory owners. The problem was that for these captains of industry, Hitler remained an extremist, a man who was clearly not reassuring for business. November 2nd, 1927. In the Tierstrasse, in Munich. Hitler lived here at number 41. On this day, he had a meeting with one of his first and most loyal supporters, Hermann Goering. Goering was a highly decorated star of the First World War, a highly popular fighter pilot in Germany, and also a committed Nazi. But above all, Goering was extremely well connected. Drawing on his fame, he was able to go into business after the war, and often socialized with leading German businessmen. Hitler therefore sent him to acquire their support. Goering had prepared solid arguments to squeeze money from these men. He promised fabulous contracts with Hitler's future government, representing millions of marks for their factories and orders at full capacity. He drew on Hitler's Mein Kampf. Hadn't he written in black and white that to construct the Greater Germanic Reich, the priority would be to rearm the country? We want to recover our weapons, he wrote. And Goering knew how to be insistent. Tempted by the prospect of large contracts, certain businessmen, some of the wealthiest, let themselves be persuaded. Fritz Thyssen, for example, the steel industrialist, fell for Goering's charm, even though he had repeatedly turned Hitler down up to that point. Thyssen would play a decisive role in the rise of the Nazi Party. He opened his checkbook generously, at a time when Hitler needed it most. We found a document that places him in September 1945 during an examination conducted by the Americans. Thyssen acknowledged that he had financially supported the Nazis by contributing to the purchase of the Party's headquarters in 1927, the Brown House. Gone the days in the back rooms of bars, Hitler finally had an imposing building, a comfortable private mansion with light-filled rooms. And upstairs? His private office. Thyssen had been generous indeed. I have to make payments on it myself. Perhaps 200,000 to 280,000 marks, he said. Thyssen did not stop there. He admitted paying 20,000 marks per year to the Nazis, starting in 1932, to cover operating expenses. I gave him a pretty nice sum, something like 20,000 marks. This became an annual contribution. Thanks to Goering, Adolf Hitler had a comfortable budget and could finance the most megalomaniac election ever seen in Germany. He organised immense gatherings in the small town of Nuremberg. He also undertook a tour throughout all of Germany and travelled only by airplane. This gave him a major advantage because he could hold up to three meetings per day while his rivals could only manage one. He was the first politician to use this, which gave his personality a sort of aura of ubiquity. It seems a bit magical to be present everywhere in Germany at the same time. The Nazi leader even printed propaganda posters with a bombastic slogan, Hitler dominates Germany. His meetings had a growing impact. More and more people attended. The rise of the Nazi party seemed to be irresistible. And the context was increasingly favourable for this. In 1929, the Great Depression struck Germany. It was an unprecedented economic crisis. Unemployment reached record levels. Inflation skyrocketed. The country was on the brink of disaster. For an increasing number of Germans, Hitler began to offer hope, an alternative to the traditional old parties which had not been able to revive the country. A slogan at the heart of his meetings would reach the hearts of German voters. Germany, wake up. There is a whole staging of the resurrection of Germany. That's what it should symbolise. Each time it's one of the campaign slogans of the early 1930s. It's Germany, wake up. With this strategy, the Nazi party's scores went through the roof, election after election. While he ended up with 3% of the votes in the late 1920s, in a few years he had earned 18%. Then more than 33% of the vote. It had become the leading party in Germany. On January 30th, 1933, Hitler achieved his goal. He was named head of government. In ten years, the little Bavarian rattle-rouser had become the most powerful man in Germany.