Did you know that Hugo Boss designed the uniforms for the SS and the Hitler Youth? That was just one of the facts that I learned by watching Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler, which charts Hitler’s life from his birth on 20 April 1889 to his suicide on 30 April 1945.
Apocalypse: The Rise of Hitler, like Hitler’s Hidden City, which featured in my A Year In The Life Of Berlin post, is an excellent documentary from National Geographic.
Part 1: Becoming Hitler
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3hEG-5_9nK4?rel=0]
Part 2: The Führer
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqPc93Pvs0U?rel=0]
This should be a must-see for everyone. And William Shirer´s “Berlin Diary” ought to be an obligatory reading for us all. Thank you for sharing this one here.
I hadn’t heard of that book before so I’ll definitely try to get hold of a copy. I knew very little of that history before I first visited Berlin and I still feel I have a lot to learn.
Shirer was an American press and radio correspondent in Europe and then almost exclusively in Berlin and as such had access to the “inner circle of power”. His diary is not only an example fantastic writing but also shows you clearly that it was mostly through negligence to act and not through acting as such that Europe and the Germans themselves allowed Hitler to get what he wanted to get.
Some pretty big surprises there, too. A great book by all means!
amazing documentary
An interesting documentary but it fails to examine the reason of Hitler’s rise to power.. By all means it should be used as an educational tool. The documentary shows only the symptoms not the causes of the malaise of the Weimar Republic. The mood of the times was such, that a person like Hitler found a fertile ground for his criminal ideas.
WW I was a silly war caused by a capitalist system not working in democratic countries. The ending of that war was the real reason for the situation that gave rise to a person like Hitler.
The President of the USA, Woodrow Wilson, had proposed a fourteen points program to end the war. But when the Germans arrived for the Paris Peace Conference they were offered the Treaty of Versailles.
.”The differences between the Fourteen Points and the final Treaty of Versailles fuelled great anger in Germany. German outrage over reparations and the War Guilt Clause is viewed as a likely contributing factor to the rise of national socialism”
The Americans were so disgusted with George and Clemenceau that they left Paris. But they learnt their lesson and after WW II took matters in their own hands and found a much better solution..