A New Germany: 1933-1939
- Episode aired Sep 14, 1973
- 52m
The rebirth of Germany and growth in power of the Nazi Party leading up to the outbreak of war.The rebirth of Germany and growth in power of the Nazi Party leading up to the outbreak of war.The rebirth of Germany and growth in power of the Nazi Party leading up to the outbreak of war.
Photos
- Self - Law Student
- (as Konrad Morgen)
- Self
- (archive footage)
- (as Lord Halifax)
- Self - Hitler's Mistress
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - Neville's Father
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - P.M. of the U.K. 1937-40
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - Prime Minister of France 1938-40
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - Propaganda Minister
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - C-in-C, Luftwaffe
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Self - Deputy Führer
- (archive footage)
- (uncredited)
- Director
- Writer
- All cast & crew
- Production, box office & more at IMDbPro
Storyline
Did you know
- GoofsNarrator says, "...Germany 1936... they build the first motorway in the world..." The first motorway in the world was build 12 years earlier in Italy (the Milano/Laghi) and opened on 21 September 1924.
- Quotes
[first lines]
Narrator: Down this road on a summer day in 1944, the soldiers came. Nobody lives here now. They stayed only a few hours. When they had gone, the community, which had lived for a thousand years, was dead. This is Oradour-sur-Glane, in France. The day the soldiers came, the people were gathered together. The men were taken to garages and barns, the women and children were led down this road, and they were driven into this church. Here, they heard the firing as their men were shot. Then they were killed too. A few weeks later, many of those who had done the killing were themselves dead, in battle. They never rebuilt Oradour. Its ruins are a memorial. Its martyrdom stands for thousands upon thousands of other martyrdoms in Poland, in Russia, in Burma, China, in a World at War...
Opening with contemporary color footage of the destroyed French village Oradour-sur-Glane, whose inhabitants were all massacred by the Germans in June 1944, "A New Germany (1933-1939)" delivers a brief, conventional overview of Adolf Hitler and the fascist Nazi Party taking power in a democratic election while underscoring the limitations inherent in summarizing complex issues and dynamics in a one-hour format.
Because of the episode's time restrictions, it is admittedly unfair to fault "A New Germany" for its omissions even though they are integral to the understanding of how the Nazis rose to power.
These include the infamous "stab in the back" theory the German military claimed led to its defeat in the First World War as home-front subversives, particularly Jews and communists, weakened Germany's resolve; an actual but failed postwar communist revolution that alarmed German business and industry, which soon found a savior of sorts in the rabidly anti-communist Nazi Party; the Weimar Republic's postwar struggles including hyperinflation; the failed 1923 "Beer Hall Putsch" by Hitler and the Nazis in Munich, which led to Hitler penning "Mein Kampf," his manifesto for global domination; both the often-touted crushing war reparations imposed on Germany for the First World War and the often-overlooked American aid packages, the 1924 Dawes Plan and the 1930 Young Plan, that mitigated those reparations; and both the growing popular appeal of the Nazis' ultranationalism and the Nazis' increasing perfidy and brutality as they sought to come to power through the electoral process.
The culmination of that last point was the notorious February 1933 "Reichstag fire," blamed on the communists but ostensibly enacted by the Nazis in a "false flag" operation that enabled the Nazis to declare martial law, which is mentioned in passing as "A New Germany" begins. Scripted by Neal Ascherson, the episode does explore two key and disturbing events, Hitler's summer 1934 purge of the "Brownshirts," the Sturmabteilung (SA) stormtroopers under Ernst Röhm who helped him come to power, known as "The Night of the Long Knives," and the Nazis' November 1938 "Kristallnacht" pogrom against German Jews, which, in addition to solidifying the Aryanization of Germany, is often seen as the first step toward the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question," better known as the Holocaust.
What does come across vividly is the Nazis' increasing management of virtually every aspect of German life, increasing repression, yes, but also providing cohesion, security, and amenities in a world gripped in the Great Depression; this yielded a growing German obeisance to the "führerprinzip" (leadership principle) that surrounded Hitler, who is seen to emote passionately while generating enormous charisma.
Although adequate light is shed on Nazi Germany's rearmament of its military, often in violation of the terms of the Versailles Treaty that ended the First World War, more time could have been spent exploring the March 1938 "Anschluss," or annexation, of Austria--Hitler himself was an Austrian--and the eventual phased invasion of Czechoslovakia in late 1938 and early 1939, which was in essence the dress rehearsal for the September 1939 invasion of Poland that officially began World War Two; moreover, sorely missing is an exploration of how and why other European powers, primarily Britain and France, elected to appease Hitler.
Fortunately, the episode's visual element, skillfully edited by Alan Afriat, remains evocative and is the most powerful element of "A New Germany." Consisting primarily of black-and-white film footage, it also includes color footage of Hitler at his Berghof vacation home in Berchtesgaden, taken by his mistress Eva Braun, which provides a fascinating, disconcerting intimacy that almost humanizes a man (nearly) universally regarded as an inhuman monster.
Interspersed with the archival media are interview snippets of several German witnesses to their country's path to war. Offering various perspectives, these are curious adjuncts to the narrative. Brief segments that provide either eyewitness accounts or retrospective observations, they are given by men and women whose relative anonymity and vague, mundane identifiers ("Nazi businessman," "printer's son") make meaningful context difficult.
Moreover, those identifiers disguise at least a couple of fascinating individuals. For example, "law student" Konrad Morgen was a judge in the Schutzstaffel (SS), the infamous paramilitary arm of the Nazi Party, who prosecuted SS offenders in the concentration camps while "housewife" Emmi Bonhoeffer was married to Klaus Bonhoeffer; he and his brother Dietrich were anti-Nazi activists who were both executed for their alleged involvement in the July 20, 1944, assassination attempt on Hitler.
While "A New Germany" remains a cook's tour of the rise of the Nazi war machine, it does provide an adequate summary introduction to the rest of this essential documentary series.
REVIEWER'S NOTE: What makes a review "helpful"? Every reader of course decides that for themselves. For me, a review is helpful if it explains why the reviewer liked or disliked the work or why they thought it was good or not good. Whether I agree with the reviewer's conclusion is irrelevant. "Helpful" reviews tell me how and why the reviewer came to their conclusion, not what that conclusion may be. Differences of opinion are inevitable. I don't need "confirmation bias" for my own conclusions. Do you?
- darryl-tahirali
- Jul 1, 2023
Details
- Runtime52 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.33 : 1