1 00:01:30,000 --> 00:01:54,640 The story began here in the Austrian town of Braunau with a child born in this house, 2 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:55,640 Adolf Hitler. 3 00:01:56,040 --> 00:02:01,400 At his peak, the most popular ruler in Europe, the child born here in Braunau, 4 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:07,760 belonged to that handful of human beings who have clearly and decisively changed the... 5 00:02:07,760 --> 00:02:13,639 the 20th century. Linz, Austria, the site of the only memorial to the Hitler family, 6 00:02:13,639 --> 00:02:21,800 the grave of Hitler's parents. Nothing about his parents or Adolf's early life gave any 7 00:02:21,800 --> 00:02:33,160 hint of the extraordinary career that was to come. His father Alois was a stern... 8 00:02:33,160 --> 00:02:39,160 customs official who beat his son. His mother Clara tried to protect him. When she died, 9 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:43,880 young Adolf was broken by grief. He kept her portrait with him for the rest of his life. 10 00:02:43,879 --> 00:02:53,400 The infant Adolf was baptized and brought up as a Catholic. At the age of six, 11 00:02:53,400 --> 00:02:57,879 he entered the monastery school at Lombard. Soon he was top of his class. 12 00:02:57,879 --> 00:03:05,560 Hitler was a chorister at the Great Abbey Church of Lombard. I used, he said, 13 00:03:05,560 --> 00:03:09,439 to intoxicate myself with the solemn splendor of the services. 14 00:03:09,439 --> 00:03:20,960 Every day when he sang in the choir, he saw the memorial to an earlier abbot. Above it... 15 00:03:20,960 --> 00:03:26,719 emblem which a quarter of a century later Hitler was to adopt for the Nazi party, th... 16 00:03:26,719 --> 00:03:38,520 In his teens, Hitler became a moody adolescent. At secondary school in Linz, h... 17 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:44,280 in most of his work. His ambition was to go to Vienna and become an artist or architect. 18 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:54,120 Once there, he produced architectural drawings and watercolors like these. 19 00:03:54,759 --> 00:04:00,280 Competent, but not good enough to win the place he longed for at the Viennese Academ... 20 00:04:13,000 --> 00:04:18,840 Little by little, all Hitler's early ambitions in Vienna turned sour. After the... 21 00:04:18,839 --> 00:04:25,479 turned down twice by the Academy of Fine Arts, he became a drifter. Hitler later... 22 00:04:25,479 --> 00:04:32,120 in Vienna, the most miserable time of my life. Three of those miserable years were... 23 00:04:32,120 --> 00:04:41,479 in a Viennese back street at this hostel for homeless men. In this depressing hostel, 24 00:04:41,479 --> 00:04:46,439 the future feerer passed much of the day sitting with other inmates, churning out... 25 00:04:46,439 --> 00:04:52,839 watercolors which earned him a modest income. When he drifted from Vienna to Germany in... 26 00:04:52,839 --> 00:04:56,680 he was still dreaming of becoming a great artist or famous architect. 27 00:05:01,560 --> 00:05:07,959 Munich, the first of August 1914. A cheering crowd welcomes the outbreak of the First... 28 00:05:07,959 --> 00:05:25,479 On the right is a photographer, and among the crowd he's photographing is the 25-year-ol... 29 00:05:25,480 --> 00:05:43,240 If you look at the tenacity of his service, I mean he's a fanatic, and he petitioned Kin... 30 00:05:43,960 --> 00:05:50,280 to enlist in what's referred to as the King's Own Regiment. That's an elite Bavarian unit. 31 00:05:51,159 --> 00:05:59,559 He was accepted but put in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry, and World War I is a major 32 00:05:59,559 --> 00:06:05,399 influence on Hitler's life. Now he served his basic training without complaining, 33 00:06:05,399 --> 00:06:11,479 but he was always willing to offer his fellow comrades help. He spoke about the evil of... 34 00:06:11,479 --> 00:06:19,079 and alcohol to his fellow soldiers. They liked him because of his drawings that he ... 35 00:06:19,079 --> 00:06:25,159 would do sketches for them. Remember he sketched and did a variety of things in hi... 36 00:06:25,159 --> 00:06:32,439 trying to get into the art school. So he really got along with his fellow soldiers.... 37 00:06:32,439 --> 00:06:40,439 during the trench duties in between 1914 and 1918, he will have a dog. Somebody's going... 38 00:06:40,439 --> 00:06:47,560 him. During World War I, Adolf Hitler repeatedly, repeatedly volunteered for... 39 00:06:48,519 --> 00:06:58,199 His first combat was October the 29th, 1914. Hitler's unit lost 3,000 of its 3,600 men 40 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:07,000 after making five assaults on the enemy position. Now Hitler had one of his sleeve... 41 00:07:07,000 --> 00:07:12,680 He walked out of a tent where he'd been talking with some men, and a couple of... 42 00:07:12,759 --> 00:07:19,319 shell hits it and blows at the kingdom come. And for his fighting in this unit, he was... 43 00:07:19,319 --> 00:07:25,879 Iron Cross second class for bravery, bravery under fire, and he was promoted to corporal. 44 00:07:25,879 --> 00:07:33,319 This is a well-deserved award. Later he became a runner, which meant he moved... 45 00:07:33,319 --> 00:07:40,280 to the front, and it's a very high mortality job. And he liked it. He always liked that... 46 00:07:42,920 --> 00:07:49,079 Then in December of 1914, when you have the famous Christmas truce on December the 25th, 47 00:07:49,079 --> 00:07:56,600 Hitler wouldn't leave his trench. And his comment was, such a thing should not happe... 48 00:07:56,600 --> 00:08:02,120 And then he told his buddies, yet participated, that they were wrong to get... 49 00:08:03,079 --> 00:08:07,000 no fun when the war goes on. Those are your enemies. 50 00:08:07,000 --> 00:08:14,360 Now between 1914 and 1916, in the final stages of the battle of the Somme, Adolf... 51 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:19,480 wounded in the leg by a shell fragment. This sent him back to Germany to recover. 52 00:08:21,240 --> 00:08:29,480 And he's there for about five months. Hitler could have stayed back in Germany on light... 53 00:08:29,480 --> 00:08:34,039 because of his wound, but demanded to be sent back to the front. So this is the 54 00:08:34,120 --> 00:08:39,000 demanded to be sent back to the front. So this is, there's no shirker. You got to gi... 55 00:08:40,039 --> 00:08:45,639 guy some due here for not being a chicken. A lot of people, you know, look for a way to... 56 00:08:45,639 --> 00:08:52,439 there. Then you have Hitler back again on trench duty. And then he shows up again... 57 00:08:52,439 --> 00:08:57,959 of course, German offensives. Now during the Ludendorff offensives, he was armed with a... 58 00:08:58,519 --> 00:09:05,320 and he captured five French soldiers. And for that he received the Iron Cross first class. 59 00:09:05,320 --> 00:09:11,000 And you didn't get those at any time in the war for free. You can't dismiss his... 60 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:18,360 wins the Iron Cross second class in 1914, first class in 1918. And then in mid Octob... 61 00:09:18,360 --> 00:09:25,000 another battlefield decoration, but he's never promoted because he had a captain.... 62 00:09:25,000 --> 00:09:31,799 Wiedemann said he lacked the capacity for leadership. You just can't make the... 63 00:09:32,840 --> 00:09:39,320 As the war turned against Germany, he believed that the pacifists and the shirke... 64 00:09:39,320 --> 00:09:46,440 people trying to get out of duty, were losing the war. And the thing that enraged him ev... 65 00:09:46,440 --> 00:09:54,200 what is referred to as defeatism in the ranks. They're actually non-commissioned... 66 00:09:54,200 --> 00:10:01,960 it was stupid to keep fighting. He beat one up. So we have a corporal beating up a... 67 00:10:01,960 --> 00:10:09,960 officer and didn't get the trouble for it. He's a fanatic. The end of the war, Hitler... 68 00:10:09,960 --> 00:10:17,480 by the British forces advancing near Ypres in mid October 1918. It bloated his face up, 69 00:10:17,639 --> 00:10:22,600 particularly his eyelids, constantly watering eyes, had a hoarse voice. 70 00:10:25,399 --> 00:10:31,480 He then had this terrible pain. He referred to it, quote, piercing pain in my eye socket. 71 00:10:32,759 --> 00:10:39,399 He hated leaving the front to go to the hospital. He considered it the happiest... 72 00:10:40,039 --> 00:10:45,800 being there, being something, being with people. You know, he had friends and he ha... 73 00:10:45,799 --> 00:10:50,759 while he was in the war. He was not a loner. He had the respect of his fellow soldiers. 74 00:10:50,759 --> 00:10:58,359 He had purpose. By early November, Hitler's spirits had come back and it was very common 75 00:10:59,079 --> 00:11:04,039 for people who had been gassed to plunge into depression because they're concerned about... 76 00:11:04,039 --> 00:11:08,839 blind the rest of their lives. On November the 9th, this is two days before the... 77 00:11:09,479 --> 00:11:15,159 a local pastor came to the hospital and told the patients that on November the 8th that... 78 00:11:15,159 --> 00:11:21,559 had abdicated and Germany was now a republic and he told them that the war was lost. 79 00:11:24,199 --> 00:11:30,439 Defeat was followed by a humiliating peace at Versailles. The injustice of Versailles 80 00:11:30,439 --> 00:11:36,120 rankled with most Germans for the next 20 years. Unable to accept that the German ar... 81 00:11:36,120 --> 00:11:40,679 the war, Hitler convinced himself that the soldiers had been stabbed in the back by 82 00:11:40,679 --> 00:11:47,159 communist revolutionaries and parliamentary politicians. The stab in the back, he... 83 00:11:47,159 --> 00:11:54,120 was part of a great Jewish conspiracy. Suddenly Hitler discovered the greatest... 84 00:11:54,120 --> 00:11:55,639 the gift of public speaking. 85 00:12:02,359 --> 00:12:05,479 He joined a small group of fanatical nationalists in Munich. 86 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:09,320 They became the National Socialist German Workers Party, 87 00:12:09,320 --> 00:12:14,440 or Nazis. In 1921 Hitler became their leader. 88 00:12:35,480 --> 00:12:56,600 The first film of the apprentice Fuhrer campaigning shows him as still a rather... 89 00:12:56,600 --> 00:13:02,920 not yet certain of his role as German as Messiah. In 1923 Hitler felt strong enough... 90 00:13:02,919 --> 00:13:09,559 seize power in Munich. Emil Klein, the only stormtrooper still alive who marched with... 91 00:13:09,559 --> 00:13:16,679 now retraces their steps. Everything went well until the marchers found armed police 92 00:13:16,679 --> 00:13:18,839 blocking their exit from a narrow street. 93 00:13:25,879 --> 00:13:31,639 We were still singing as we marched on the street and suddenly we heard shots being... 94 00:13:31,639 --> 00:13:39,399 ahead of us. The procession stopped. We were speechless and couldn't explain what had... 95 00:13:40,279 --> 00:13:45,159 until word came from the front of the march saying that Hitler was dead. 96 00:13:49,159 --> 00:13:56,120 I saw men with tears in their eyes and I myself was very moved too and had great... 97 00:13:56,120 --> 00:14:01,639 myself under control. Though Hitler in fact survived the hail of bullets, he was arrested 98 00:14:01,639 --> 00:14:06,519 and locked in a cell at Landsberg prison. At first he was so depressed he refused to eat. 99 00:14:07,080 --> 00:14:12,600 Then his confidence returned as he discovered that the failed uprising had made him a lo... 100 00:14:13,320 --> 00:14:19,399 At the trial Hitler rounded on his accusers. He told the judges who gave him a prison... 101 00:14:19,399 --> 00:14:22,600 history will tear to tatters the verdict of this court. 102 00:14:28,360 --> 00:14:31,639 You have been accused of high treason and called an enemy of the state. 103 00:14:32,439 --> 00:14:38,840 If I am guilty of anything, then I am guilty of fighting to defend the right sector. 104 00:14:39,560 --> 00:14:45,800 Now Hitler, the court finds you guilty of treason. 105 00:14:47,800 --> 00:14:56,759 You are hereby sentenced to fine 200 gold marks in five years in Landsberg prison. 106 00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:06,600 You will, you will be eligible for parole in nine months.