[ Beethoven's "Moonlight Sonata" playing] ♪♪ ♪♪ -It's January 1933, and Germany has a new chancellor.

He refuses to engage in the boring day-to-day detail of running a country.

He has no interest in the opinions of experts and refuses to read briefings.

♪♪ Instead, he tasks his team with a simple assignment...

Destroy democracy and make him a dictator.

♪♪ Destroying democracy will take just six months.

[ Ominous music playing ] ♪♪ To piece together how it happened, historians and experts have examined this period, each from a different individual perspective.

-You cajole, you influence, you manipulate.

-They'll take us inside the minds of those that fought fascism.

-They realized that these people are after your heads.

They want to annihilate you from existence altogether.

-And the Nazis themselves.

-Himmler genuinely believed that he would create a racially pure Germany where the Aryan race would reign supreme.

♪♪ -The moments when history hung in the balance and the world's worst atrocities could have been prevented.

-Mass murder was no problem.

But it was important to be socially acceptable.

[ Mozart's Requiem Mass playing ] ♪♪ -Do people care about the truth?

♪♪ ♪♪ [ Typewriter clacking ] -At the start of 1933, Hitler is the chancellor of Germany, the equivalent of prime minister.

But he still has a parliament beneath him that could block him.

♪♪ A head of state who could fire him.

And a legal system that could prosecute the Nazis if they break the law.

So Hitler now wants those below him to dismantle the German state, pitting senior Nazis against each other.

♪♪ ♪♪ -He allowed his subordinates to fight it out amongst themselves, even encouraged it, because he believed in the Darwinian principle, what he understood as the Darwinian principle of survival of the fittest.

Hitler's regime was a mass of competing individuals and competing centers of power which Hitler deliberately kept competing with one another.

He believed that if he appointed three people to do the same job, the most ruthless, the most Nazi, the most able one would come to the top.

♪♪ -Hermann Goering has ambitions to be a big wheel, second perhaps to Hitler.

He needs to be noticed.

People often ask me, you've written a biography of Goering, did you kind of fall in love with your subject?

You know, people who write biographies generally do.

And I always say, no, I never fell love my subject.

He's so different from the other leading Nazis in that he is jovial, amusing, flamboyant, likes the good life, he'll have a good joke, he has a drink, he's in the pictures often in popular magazines.

[ Gun clicks ] But on the other hand, he is callous, brutal, ambitious.

This is a man who, you know, at the end, signs the order in July 1941 for the Final Solution to the Jewish Question.

♪♪ [ Gunshot echoes ] ♪♪ -The Nazis' first move appears Democratic: Hitler calls a general election to try to get more seats in parliament.

Goering sees an opportunity to impress Hitler by delivering victory.

But to do that, he'll need to take on the Social Democrats and the communists.

The communist leader is Ernst Thalmann.

♪♪ -Ernst Thalmann is definitely a charismatic guy, and he's a leader of the German Communist Party, which was the largest Communist Party outside of Soviet Russia, and he is red as hell.

He speaks to a deep sense of resentment and anger amongst the German working classes.

-Goering hates Marxism and everything it represents.

He's a German patriot.

He's very committed to Germany with a capital "G," and he thinks the left will destroy Germany.

It will do to Germany what the Bolsheviks did to to Russia.

♪♪ -While the Communists are preparing to fight an election, Goering has other ideas.

He wants to arrest them and lock them up.

But to arrest the democratically elected opposition, Goering will need a very good reason.

So he plays on public fears, casting the Communists as enemies of the people.

♪♪ Then he raids the Communist Party HQ looking for evidence of a violent uprising.

-Well, of course, they find plenty of Marx's literature, it's about the revolution, that's what Marxism is, it's about having a revolution, but there isn't any hard and fast evidence of a communist coup or revolutionary plan.

And we don't find the smoking gun.

-Even though he'd put in all this work to demonizing communists, presenting them as an existential threat, he can't say he's found evidence that an armed uprising is imminent.

He's got to say the armed uprising has started and that's why the Reichstag fire comes in.

♪♪ -Goering is working late in his office, when suddenly people rush in and tell him the Reichstag's on fire.

♪♪ ♪♪ Goering gets up and rushes to the building, in fact, he tries to to enter the building until he's restrained.

Here's the Reichstag where he holds office, if you like, is going up in flames.

-A photographer captures Hitler and Goering after they rushed to the scene.

Goering knows this is exactly the opportunity he needs.

♪♪ -"Communists, they've done this, I told you they were going to do it."

If you wanted proof of the threat posed by communism, here it is, the flames in front of you.

Hitler finally endorses completely what it is that Goering is doing -- we're going to wipe out these vermin.

Communists have had it.

♪♪ ♪♪ For Goering, it's moment of real political excitement, he makes the most of it.

He is the one who's going to act boldly, decisively, he's going to be Hitler's fixer.

-Goering has the green light to round up the Nazis' political opponents.

To provide the muscle, he teams up with the Nazis' paramilitary wing, the storm troopers... Commanded by the brawling, brutal adventurer Ernst Rohm.

-Ernst Rohm was a trained officer.

Very stern and very rough.

Rohm was a ruthless fighter against democracy.

"We have to get rid of this kind of political system to fight these" what they called "inner enemies" -- communists, Social Democrats.

♪♪ -It was quick, immediate.

The scale of this operation is insane.

Four thousand communists arrested in one night and it was traumatic.

Suddenly the communists realized these people are after your heads and they don't just want to squeeze you out of the electoral terrain, they want to annihilate you from existence altogether.

-For Goering, the violence he unleashes doesn't seem to worry him very much.

There's that famous Goering comment, you know, "you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs."

You don't have a normal moral compass.

You can't do this to people.

He has an inverted moral compass: what the communists are doing is is wicked, and what they're doing is restoring order and protecting Germany, and that's moral.

-Social networks, political networks, networks of publishing were evaporated overnight.

Bear in mind, this is all still happening during an election campaign.

♪♪ -The next day, the arrests continue.

Hitler moves to make them appear legal.

He goes to the head of state, President Hindenburg, convincing him to sign the Reichstag Fire Decree.

♪♪ It gives the Nazis emergency powers... ♪♪ ...to arrest and imprison without charge, to restrict civil liberties, ban free speech and the right to protest.

Within weeks, over 25,000 arrests are made.

Many are beaten and tortured.

-Ernst Thalmann escapes, but one of his comrades is captured and is tortured, and his hiding place is given up.

♪♪ Your leadership is being arrested, your active campaigners, your activists are all being taken up by the state.

Where do you go?

♪♪ -In a climate of fear, just under 44 percent of Germans vote Nazi.

Less than three weeks later, the Nazis pushed the Enabling Act through parliament -- a law that suspends democracy, allowing Hitler to govern without needing approval from parliament.

♪♪ [ Singing in German ] ♪♪ All this is signed off by President Hindenburg.

-I suspect Hindenburg, he's feeling he's getting backed into a corner.

The Reichstag burns, Hitler is able to persuade not only Hindenburg, but a large portion of the German population that this is the first sign of communist insurrection.

I mean, it was, if you like, almost the birth certificate of the Nazi regime with all its horrors.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -With the Reichstag suspended, the first laws are passed to restrict the freedoms of Jews.

A Jewish baker is found dead, a swastika carved into his chest.

♪♪ ♪♪ Goering gets his reward -- more power and more prestige.

He's Prussian minister of the interior, Germany's most powerful state; he's given control of the air force and becomes master of the German forests.

He'll get new uniforms, a country estate, and a pet lion.

[ Goering speaking German ] ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ But whilst Goering has managed to lock up the Nazis' political rivals...

The next step of Germany's moral descent is taken by someone further down the pecking order.

In a regional office in Munich is the relatively unknown Heinrich Himmler.

♪♪ ♪♪ -In early 1933, Himmler wants to cultivate links with Hitler to get known by Hitler more and more.

Himmler wants power.

But in early 1933, it doesn't look likely at all that Himmler will ever rise to the top of the Nazi party.

Himmler looked completely boring, unmannerly.

♪♪ Uncharismatic, dull, pedantic, bespectacled nerd.

This photograph is really emblematic of Himmler's personality as a really insecure man who feels that he doesn't have much of a soldierly, masculine face, so he needs to cover his chin.

Himmler's view of Goering was initially quite negative because he thought that Goering was old guard, that Goering was baroque, that Goering was the direct rival.

-For Goering, you know, Himmler isn't somebody who's yet going to be aware as a potential rival or as a threat.

He becomes a very big figure, of course, later on in the dictatorship.

-Himmler is head of the SS, a paramilitary group of fanatical Nazis who see themselves as Hitler's most loyal soldiers.

♪♪ -The black-shirted, jackbooted SS is very much a product of Himmler's ideas.

♪♪ Aryan supremacy, hatred of parliamentary democracy, the dispensation of violence against anyone standing in the way of the Nazis; extreme anti-Semitism.

He was a micromanager -- SS members had to seek Himmler's permission if they wanted to marry.

His ambition is to make the SS the central institution in Nazi Germany in charge of political repression.

♪♪ More conservative Nazis believed that the best way to control political opponents was by using the law to lock them up.

Himmler thought that even more radical measures were required.

♪♪ -Himmler now follows Goering's lead, and he uses new laws to start arresting Nazi opponents.

-The instrument Himmler used was called euphemistically "protective police custody."

Protective police custody meant that prisoners could be locked up in the hundreds of thousands over the course of 1933, without having the chance to speak to a judge, without having the chance to speak to a lawyer.

Himmler used protective police custody quite indiscriminately to extend his power, to extend the power of the SS.

♪♪ -Then Himmler needs somewhere to put all these prisoners, and he's found a solution to that, too.

♪♪ [ Muffled German ] -Himmler gives a press conference.

[ Muffled German ] In his dull voice, the topic of this press conference is the opening of camp where political prisoners can be re-educated.

He says that this camp has a capacity of about 5,000.

He claims that rabble rousers who are subverting the power of the state would be housed there, especially communists, social Democrats, trade unionists.

He says that law and order will reign supreme within this camp.

The camp's in the small town of Dachau.

♪♪ -Himmler and the SS are quickly taking control of Bavaria's justice system.

♪♪ ♪♪ But right at the bottom of that system is someone who is about to fight back.

♪♪ -Josef Hartinger was a 39-year-old deputy prosecutor, part of this generation that was going to make a strong Democratic Germany.

People talk about Oskar Schindler, he saved a thousand lives, and if there'd been a thousand people like Schindler, there never would have been a Holocaust.

Well, had there been a hundred people like Josef Hartinger, not only would there not been a Holocaust, there may not have been a Third Reich.

♪♪ [ Telephone ringing ] ♪♪ Hartinger is sitting at his desk shortly after 9:00 in the morning, his phone rings, there's a call from the concentration camp in Dachau that four detainees have been shot trying to escape.

♪♪ ♪♪ -Under Germany's criminal code, it's Hartinger's job as deputy state prosecutor to investigate the deaths.

♪♪ So he sets off to Dachau with medical examiner Moritz Flamm.

-Hartinger knows there's a detention center there.

The fact that someone tried to escape -- certainly a possibility, but he's not going to assume anything.

"Let's see what it looks like when when we get there."

♪♪ ♪♪ There's a big wall there with an iron gate in front of it.

He sees several storm troopers, these brown uniforms with black SS kepis on and firearms.

What he doesn't see is actually more important.

♪♪ He doesn't see any Bavarian police.

They wear these green uniforms.

And the SS had been assigned as auxiliaries to the Bavarian police -- saw SS men there, but no police.

♪♪ The camp itself is a former munitions facility, overgrown, boarded-up buildings, fairly desolate.

♪♪ And he sees these prisoners being marched around in groups.

♪♪ They drive up to the commandant's headquarters and the camp commandant is there, Wackerle, he's a poster boy SS man, blond haired, blue eyed, black uniform, shiny boots.

And here you have Josef Hartinger, this slightly paunchy, middle aged, balding guy.

♪♪ -The commandant leads Hartinger and Flamm to where the prisoners died.

He explains that the four men were on a work detail, but they tried to escape, running for the trees.

♪♪ They were shot from a distance after ignoring the guard's commands to stop.

♪♪ ♪♪ -He's taken to a shed where the bodies have simply been thrown on the ground like slaughtered animals.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ And Hartinger looks at this and just says... "This is not the way you treat a human being."

♪♪ What kind of people are these that would do this to someone?

♪♪ ♪♪ Hartinger and Flamm, as they're going back, are kind of reviewing everything that was there -- the treatment of these three bodies, of these dead young people... Wackerle himself... And then as Hartinger said, and most troubling of all, he said, how is it that all four of these men were Jews?

♪♪ And he says, there is something very wrong here.

And we're going to fix it.

We will set this right.

♪♪ -Hartinger vows to bring murder charges against the Dachau SS... ♪♪ But this means going up against Himmler just as his power is growing -- because, for Himmler, Dachau is only the beginning, and he's slowly bringing every state in Germany under SS control.

-Himmler takes up a considerable amount of his time to travel to schmooze.

He knew how to flatter them.

He would talk in a soft voice, he would appear polite.

He offers them an honorary rank in the SS, which gave them the right to wear a smart SS uniform.

Many Nazi and state leaders at that time are extremely vain, so they are more than pleased when someone like Himmler makes them an honorary member of what is turning out to be the elite corps National Socialist State.

He would place people into his debt by giving them expensive gifts... ♪♪ ♪♪ To win people over for his cause, he believed that he had to be a decent human being, being decent meant, for example, to kiss the hand of a woman.

But being decent could also mean mass murder of millions of Jews.

Himmler is extremely methodical... calculating... and patient.

♪♪ Himmler is amassing a police empire controlled by the SS, turning the SS into one of the most powerful institutions in the Nazi state.

♪♪ ♪♪ -At Dachau, Hartinger is doing some detective work.

Examining the bodies, he discovers the prisoners were shot in the back of the head.

It's clear the men have been systematically murdered because they are Jews.

♪♪ Dr. Flamm looks at Wackerle, and he says, your guards are very good shots with their pistols.

-And Hartinger expands his inquiries, investigating reported suicides and other failed escape attempts at Dachau.

-Hartinger and Flamm are driving back out to Dachau, collecting evidence, taking depositions in a very careful, methodical way, forensic details, name, age, profession, the SS man responsible.

Hartinger said, "I could see the hatred in the SS officer's eyes."

One of the detainees allegedly had committed suicide by hanging himself.

♪♪ But when Flamm does the autopsy, it turns out that the man, in fact, had been beaten to death and then his corpse was hanged.

♪♪ Another one, the SS guard had shot allegedly from eight to 10 meters.

But when Flamm conducts the autopsy, it turns out he had been shot point blank.

This is late May -- he finally has two cases that can demonstrate that these people were murdered.

♪♪ -Hartinger has the evidence to implicate the commandant of Dachau in the murders... Charges that could ruin Himmler's plans.

-But it's more than trying to bring a single SS man to justice.

He knows Wackerle is ordering these killings, but Wackerle is ultimately a deputy of Heinrich Himmler, and I think Hartinger is out to indict the entire system.

-Himmler's fear is that investigations by the legal system, by state prosecutors, will reveal the horrific truth about Dachau, that Dachau is not a camp where political prisoners are being detained, are being re-educated -- that Dachau is a place of murder, that Dachau is a place of savage brutality and murderous violence.

This is Himmler's fear.

-Now Hartinger takes the file to his boss.

♪♪ -"I finally have everything we need, the indictments are ready to sign."

And his boss looks at him and says, "I'm not signing."

♪♪ "I'm not signing anything."

And Hartinger's just stunned.

♪♪ -Hartinger's boss, the senior prosecutor... ...is under Himmler's spell.

-Hartinger at that moment is left with a choice: he's got a wife and a 5-year-old daughter.

He has his whole career ahead of him by simply doing what his boss says.

This is over.

Step back from it.

He knows what's right and he knows what's wrong, and that's what actually matters to him, and he goes back to his office.

♪♪ And he starts writing.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ It's an astonishing act, and at that moment, Hartinger is truly alone in the world.

-Hartinger's file is taken to the investigating judge.

♪♪ But it goes up the chain to the governor of Bavaria.

♪♪ But at the same time, Hartinger's boss tip off Himmler about what's going on.

♪♪ -Himmler is presented with evidence that Josef Hartinger has filed investigations against Dachau's SS guards.

If news of the murders at Dachau break, Himmler is facing a huge problem.

The SS does not have the right under German law to kill political opponents.

So Himmler needs to find a strategy to ensure that these legal investigations do not go anywhere.

Himmler has to react rather swiftly.

He must try even harder to give the concentration camps under SS control an even stronger legal veneer.

-As Hartinger's file heads up the chain of command, Himmler tries to fix the problem.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Films like this one make people believe that concentration camps are humanely run... ♪♪ Whilst in secret, the SS finds more elaborate ways to cover up new murders.

♪♪ And Dachau's commandant, Wackerle, is fired.

♪♪ Hartinger's file goes all the way to Berlin.

♪♪ Those at the top of the justice system can see that what's happening at Dachau is illegal.

-The astonishing thing is Hartinger expects that he could be killed, and he isn't; more astonishing is that the killings stop in Dachau for the entire month of June, for the entire month of July.

So Hartinger at that point assumes that he actually has scored a victory, he's won this, it was this this fight between him and the commandant, you know, between the power of the Nazis and the power of the law, and ultimately Hartinger won that battle.

-Thanks to Hartinger, German law has a chance to shut down Dachau.

♪♪ Himmler has one more lever to pull.

♪♪ -Himmler knows exactly which button to push with Hitler.

Himmler cleverly exploits Hitler's dislike for the judiciary, disregard for legal norms and values, legal constraints on Nazi power.

-Himmler also knows that Hitler lives in fear of assassination, even convinced his kitchen staff is trying to poison him.

Sensing an opportunity to impress Hitler, Himmler provides him with hand-picked SS men to act as a personal bodyguard, showing Hitler there is now one man and one organization above all others that he can trust without question.

-Himmler's main characteristic was his unconditional loyalty to Hitler.

Remember, he's a very young man, he's only in his early 30s when the Nazis come to power.

And Hitler used to refer to Heinrich Himmler as the loyal Heinrich -- [ Speaking German ] He ran the SS as an organization that was well structured and well set up, and this got the approval of Hitler.

He was very much inclined to give Himmler what he wanted.

-Himmler managed to persuade Hitler to make sure that no SS member would end up behind prison bars for torturing and killing prisoners at Dachau and to block the legal investigations.

♪♪ -Hartinger, his plan has been compromised, all the evidence that he has collected, the forensic report, eyewitness testimony, the deposition... All of this evidence is in the hands of the Nazis.

♪♪ And Hartinger's lost all of it.

It ends up in Munich, they don't know what to do with it, so the head Nazi there literally just opens his desk drawer, puts the files in there, closes it and locks it.

And that was that.

-At Dachau, the killing of Jewish prisoners starts up again -- except now, no one complains.

German law is becoming meaningless.

-By managing the crisis created by the Dachau murders, Himmler proves himself to be an extremely skillful operator.

He proves himself to be a brilliant Nazi, as perverse as this may sound, and Hitler is almost certainly impressed by this.

Now, Himmler and the SS feel emboldened to use utmost violence to kill concentration camp prisoners.

Himmler and the SS knew that what they are doing is not legal under the prevailing German criminal code, but the ultimate source of the law for Himmler and the SS, what is right, what is wrong, is Hitler.

♪♪ -The Nazis are transforming German life.

Women are encouraged to abandon their careers and become mothers and housewives.

Newspapers can no longer criticize the government.

♪♪ A new ministry for propaganda sells Hitler's vision to the public.

♪♪ Meanwhile, Himmler is now at top table.

♪♪ And not everyone appreciates his rise.

-For Goering, Himmler suddenly becomes a figure that has to be taken seriously, and so he's got to be pretty wary of Himmler.

Goering's grip might well be under threat.

♪♪ -But Goering is making some moves of his own, designed to ensure that no one can move against him without him knowing.

♪♪ ♪♪ Goering has created the Research Bureau, a top secret surveillance organization that uses new phone tapping technology.

It starts with only a few men, but it will go on to employ thousands.

♪♪ Goering signs off on every wire tap and reads the transcripts.

-He gets a kind of pleasure from it, he's amused by it, he's amused by what people say about him, of course, and quite entertained.

But at the same time, of course, he's a reasonably revengeful politician.

He doesn't forget the kind of things people say about him.

There is one famous occasion where he calls in a number of heads of big business and says, you know, I want you to do this.

And they say, no, no, we don't want to do this.

And he says, well, he says, you got to, because I got tape recordings here of your meetings.

And these tape recordings are very incriminating.

So you either do what I tell you or you're in trouble.

-One politician who badmouths the Nazis is found dead.

To act on the information gathered by the research bureau, a new branch of the secret police is created -- the Gestapo.

The Gestapo use a new measure: preventative arrest... To disappear Jewish people, gay people, intellectuals, and anyone suspected of anti Nazi feeling.

♪♪ Himmler feels that the Gestapo should be brought under his control -- part of his plan to take over all German police.

But getting his hands on Goering's secret police won't be easy.

-Himmler sees Goering as a rival to Himmler's master plan to put all German police forces across all states under his control.

-Himmler very much thinks that Goering is stepping onto SS territory, onto Himmler's own territory, by setting up the Gestapo.

♪♪ It is very difficult for Himmler to simply say to Goering, I want to take over the Gestapo, because Goering is not known as someone who gives up power easily.

♪♪ ♪♪ Imagine a scene where Himmler trying to schmooze Goering into giving him control over the Gestapo.

-For Goering, control of the police force in Prussia and the Gestapo is very important.

Goering doesn't really have any other roles that are particularly significant.

And so he's very keen that you be able to retain this position.

-Goering clearly communicates to Himmler that Himmler should mind his own business.

♪♪ -Goering doesn't compromise.

-So Himmler starts developing some personal animosities against Goering.

They do not agree at all.

-Goering is going to be a very difficult person to dislodge.

♪♪ ♪♪ -And so Hitler's inner circle are at each other's throats whilst also trying to impress him.

This internal conflict within the Nazi party will soon reach a bloody conclusion.

But for Hitler, whilst his aims are being achieved, this rivalry will seem insignificant.

♪♪ And with his team dismantling the system for him, he can just sit back and watch.

♪♪ -Hitler spends increasing amounts of time in his summer retreat in the Alps at Berchtesgaden.

He retreats there sometimes for weeks or even months on end.

He spends a lot of time far into the night watching old movies, does not get up particularly early in the morning, and of course, he has a relationship with Eva Braun, who he keeps absolutely secret from the rest of the world.

-In just six months from becoming chancellor, Hitler has destroyed the political opposition, opened Dachau, subverted the legal system, created the Gestapo, and begun to pollute the minds of the German people with the Nazis' racist doctrine of anti-Semitism.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ -And there are lessons for us to learn from that crisis -- how easily you can move to a stage of totalitarian dictatorship.

-Democracy is fragile because in order for it to be truly democratic in a purist sense, it leaves itself open to being taken over by fundamentally anti-democratic forces.

-Democracies require, first of all, popular support and belief.

And institutions such as a free press, independent judiciary, and democratic elections.

The echoes that we find in our own time of the Nazi seizure of power on a number of different areas, emergency powers, for example, an emergency decree, state of emergency that allowed them to put their own plans into action without any serious opposition.

-The rise of the Nazis was not inevitable.

There were many warning signs.

Democracy was a relatively new form of political rule in the 1920s and 1930s.

People simply didn't know that the institutions of democracy, that democracy as such, was extremely frail, that democracy constantly needed defending.

And this is a story that is still worth retelling, and a story that institutions, the institutions of democracy, should not be taken for granted, that democracy needs vigorous defense against forces of the populist far right.

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