By March 1933 the man who had put Hitler in the dock was handed over to the SA. ibid.
The Nazis boasted to the world they were book burners. Over 40,000 books had been collected by the Berlin SA. ibid.
Wherever books are burned by civil or military governments, women gather outside the headquarters of the secret police and demand to know where their missing children are: viz. Argentina & Algeria. ibid.
Vast crowds now attended all Hitler’s public appearances. ibid.
Adolf Hitler: the leader of a country rich in culture in the heart of Europe. A man incapable of normal human relationships, lacking all compassion, filled with hatred and prejudice. Here, long before the Second World War, Hitler was speaking about his political opponents with brutality. The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler I: Leading Millions into the Abyss, BBC 2012
Hitler’s character never really changed. ibid.
Back in 1924 Hitler received the minimum sentence possible for his part in the putsch by a sympathetic judge. ibid.
Hitler authorised compulsory sterilisation for selective disabled Germans. Later he would authorise the killing of tens of thousands of them. ibid.
Hitler did not approve of discussion nor of detailed policy. ibid.
Beer-hall fights between the Nazis and the Communists became almost commonplace. ibid.
Now Hitler was head of state as well as chancellor. ibid.
2His rise would prove to be a reminder of what can happen in desperate times when you choose to have faith in a leader you think has charisma. ibid.
In the 1930s here in Nuremberg hundreds of thousands of Germans gathered to pay homage to Adolf Hitler. The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler: Leading Millions into the Abyss II, BBC 2012
He wanted to take these people into a war of racial conquest. ibid.
More than 99% of Austrians voted for Hitler: 99.7%. ibid.
Chamberlain made three separate trips to Germany in order to discuss Hitler’s claims on Czechoslovakia. ibid.
Poland was crushed … Poland would suffer proportionately more than any other country in this war. ibid.
These people hadn’t somehow been hypnotised into believing in Hitler, they’d chosen to support him because they loved what he brought them – victory. ibid.
In the 1930s Adolf Hitler made the most ambitious boasts imaginable about what lay ahead. The Dark Charisma of Adolf Hitler III: Leading Millions into the Abyss, BBC 2012
Hitler was all but worshipped by his followers. ibid.
He was considered by many to be almost superhuman. ibid.
On 22nd June 1941 the Germans launched the largest invasion in the history of the world. ibid.
These people were surplus to Nazi requirements. And one calculation was that there were thirty million of them. ibid.
They deliberately tried to starve the population. ibid.
‘In the final stages of starvation your lips get somehow stretched and it’s what they call a hungry grin.’ ibid. victim
‘Nearly numbed by fatigue.’ ibid. German soldier
It was the greatest test yet for Hitler’s leadership and he responded by telling his soldiers simply to hold their nerve and stand fast. ibid.
Hitler’s lack of compassion, lack of pity, hadn’t mattered to most of these German soldiers as long as they were winning easy victories. ibid.
Since the start of the campaign against the Soviet Union, Germany’s new Frederick the Great, Adolf Hitler, had chosen to spend his time here in isolation in a forest in east Prussia. This was his field headquarters known as The Wolf’s Lair. ibid.
Hitler had gained a new enemy – the Americans. ibid.
Hitler authorised the killings of the holocaust, but many others sorted out the detail of how it was to happen. ibid.
After these children had been murdered, Goebbels and his wife committed suicide. ibid.
He still blamed the Jews for everything. ibid.
This was Hitler’s legacy: one of unparalleled destruction. ibid.
Hitler had not hypnotised these people into supporting him. ibid.
You’ll get what you want in the end. You’ll be a painter, an artist, anything you want. Hitler: The Rise of Evil I & II 2003 starring Robert Carlyle & Stockard Channing & Jena Malone & Julianna Margulies & Matthew Modine & Liev Schreiber & Peter O'Toole & Zoe Telford & Terence Harvey et al, director Christian Duguay, mother to young Adolf
They call themselves communists now and they’re everywhere except here at the front. ibid. Adolf at war
We must join together for a greater Germany. ibid. Hitler’s speech
Gentlemen, our time has come. ibid. Hitler to Nazi executive committee
They’re [flowers] dying. Take them away. I don’t like dying things around. ibid. Hitler to guard
You’re going to stay and help me with my book. ibid. Hitler to publisher
My personal security will be handled by the SS. ibid.
‘He’s a monster. You can’t imagine what he asks of me.' ibid. niece
In September 1935 Hitler enacted the Nuremberg Laws, which isolated the Jews and deprived them of their citizenship. ibid. caption
The first use of poison gas to murder Jews took place in Poland on December 8, 1941. ibid.
To be completely honest, face to face with Hitler I was never that enthusiastic about him and his moustache. But he could enthuse me through the power of his speeches. He also convinced me – and everyone else. Emil Klein, Nazi party member 1921-1945
Like thousands of others I threw flowers to Hitler and wept tears of joy. Gertrud Franke, Sudeten German
I immediately disliked him because of his scratchy voice. He shouted out really really simple political ideas. I thought he wasn’t quite normal. Herbert Richter, German Foreign Office 1920s BBC interview
There was God himself: we young people believed all of that. Wilhelm Roese, German schoolboy, BBC 1930s interview
I myself had the feeling that here was a man who did not think about himself and his own advantage but solely about the good of the German people. Jutta Rudiger, BBC interview 1930s
He is a genuinely great man and above all a true and pure one. Heinrich Himmler
In the darkest days of World War II St Peter’s was shrouded in the shadow of the swastika. Meanwhile, Pius XII, who some have called Hitler’s Pope, was actually plotting against him. Pope vs Hitler, National Geographic 2016
The cultural and intellectual leaders of Poland were specifically targeted. In a country with a nearly 90% Catholic population that meant open season on the clergy. ibid.
For years the Vatican had relied on a network of Catholic informers inside the Reich. ibid.
Before the conspirators set out to kill the Fuhrer they would seek the blessing of the Pope. ibid.
13th September 1943 Nazi paratroopers surrounded St Peter’s, laying siege to the Church of Rome. ibid.
That night [20th July 1944] the Fuhrer appeared on the radio to quell the fast-spreading rumours of his demise. ibid.
Adolf Hitler’s girlfriend: he was 23 years older. She was a strictly kept state secret. Their relationship could never be made public. Nazi Underworld s1e3: Hitler’s Women, National Geographic 2011
Maria Reiter was 16: her brother-in-law only just saved her from suicide when Hitler spurned her; Geli Raubal was Hitler’s niece; she was only 23 when she killed herself in Hitler’s apartment; Unity Mitford was the English aristocrat infatuated with Hitler who shot herself when she was 25. ibid.
‘Magda is a little too friendly towards the boss.’ ibid. Goebbels
Unity Mitford became a kind of Nazi Party groupie. ibid.