|
Videos aus dem Dritten Reich | Third Reich Videos
|
Press ‘F11’ to view the videos in full
screen
|
|

|
Triumph des Willens – Triumph of the Will
Triumph
des Willens / Triumph
of the Will / Triumph
of the Will (higher quality)
Triumph of the Will is a propaganda film made by Leni
Riefenstahl. It chronicles the 1934 Nazi Party Congress in Nuremberg. The
film contains excerpts from speeches given by various Nazi leaders at the
Congress, including portions of speeches by Adolf Hitler, interspersed with
footage of massed party members. Hitler commissioned the film and served as
an unofficial executive producer; his name appears in the opening titles.
The overriding theme of the film is the return of Germany as a great power,
with Hitler as the True German Leader who will bring glory to the nation. (more…)
|
|

|
Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht – Day of Freedom:
Our Armed Forces
Tag
der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht
Day of Freedom: Our
Armed Forces is the third documentary directed by Leni Riefenstahl. It
recounts the Seventh Party Rally of the Nazi Party at Nuremberg and focuses
on the German army.
Tag der Freiheit was
considered lost at the end of World War II, but an incomplete print of the
film was discovered in the 1970s—the extant footage reveals Riefenstahl
mainly reprising the approach she used in Triumph of the Will, though
certain more expressionistic sequences clearly presage the more audacious
style she would adopt for Olympia. (more…)
|
|

|
Festliche Nürnberg – Nuremberg Festival
Festliche
Nürnberg
Festliches Nürnberg
is a short 1937 propaganda film chronicling the Nazi Party rallies in
Nuremberg in 1936 and 1937. The film was directed by Hans Weidemann
The film runs for
only 21 minutes, containing footage of the 8th and 9th Nuremberg Rallies.
Particularly notable scenes of both the rally and the film are images of
Albert Speer’s lighting techniques during the 9th Nuremberg rally on
September 10 1937, in which he positioned 134 spotlights circling the
Zeppelin field on which the rally was taking place. The beams of these
spotlights converged at 20,000 feet, creating what became known as the
“Cathedral of Light”. (more…)
|
|

|
S. A. Mann Brand – The S. A. Man
S.
A. Mann Brand
S.A. Mann Brand is a
German film made at the start of Nazi Germany. It was released in mid-June
1933 and depicted events as recent as March of that year. (more…)
|
|
S. A. Mann Brand is set during the period
shortly before the rise to power of the Nazis in Germany in 1933. The Brand and Baum families live in a
Munich tenement. Father Brand, a Social Democrat, scorns his son Fritz for
joining the Nazi shock troops. Anni Bauman is, like her parents, a member
of the Communist Party. Nevertheless, she is attracted to Fritz Brand, and
when she is given an assignment to trap him, she lets him in on the party’s
schemes. As the Nazis are raiding a Communist cache, Fritz is wounded in
crossfire. On his hospital bed, father and son come back together, and Anni
opens up to Fritz. Following his discharge, the shock troops march through
the residential quarter, and in the midst of it a colleague of Brand Lohner
is shot by a Communist. The film ends with the electoral victory of the
Nazis and the arrest of the Communists.
|
|

|
Der Sieg des Glaubens – The Victory of Faith
Der
Sieg des Glaubens
The Victory of Faith
(1933) is the first documentary film directed by Leni Riefenstahl. It
documents the Fifth NSDAP Nuremberg Congress shortly after the party came
to power
The film includes
Ernst Röhm, head of the SA and, at the time, the second most powerful man
within the Nazi Party. Less than a year later, Röhm attempted, along with
other top SA members, a military coup against the elected government of
Hitler. The film Triumph des
Willens was produced to replace this one and follows a similar script.
A British copy was
found after 60 years, and is the only known surviving print.
(more…)
|
|

|
Olympia
Olympia:
Fest der Völker / Fest
der Schönheit / Olympia:
Festival of Peoples / Festival
of Beauty
Olympia is a 1938
film by Leni Riefenstahl documenting the 1936 Summer Olympics, held in the
Olympic Stadium in Berlin. The movie was produced in two parts: Olympia 1.
Teil - Fest der Völker (Festival of Peoples) and Olympia 2. Teil - Fest der
Schönheit (Festival of Beauty). Commissioned by the International Olympic
Committee, it was the first documentary film on the Olympic Games ever
made. Many advanced motion picture techniques, which later became industry
standards but which were groundbreaking at the time, were employed,
including unusual camera angles, smash cuts, extreme close-ups, setting the
railway tracks on the stadium to shoot the crowd and the like. The
techniques employed are almost universally admired, but the film is
controversial due to its political content. Nevertheless, the film appears
on many lists of the greatest films of all-time. (more…)
|
|

|
Hitlerjunge Quex: Ein Film vom Opfergeist der
deutschen Jugend – Hitler Youth Quex: A film about the sacrificial spirit
of German youth
Hitlerjunge
Quex
Hitler Youth Quex is
a 1933 film directed by Hans Steinhoff. Based on the story of Herbert
Norkus, it was written by Bobby E. Lüthge and K.A. Schenzinger (who also
wrote the novel, Hitlerjunge Quex, on which it is based).
It is named after
the protagonist, a Hitler Youth nicknamed “Quex,” i.e. quicksilver for his
speed as a messenger, who is portrayed as being killed by German Communists
while giving out Nazi propaganda. (more…)
|
|
Hitler Youth Quex was about the sacrificial
spirit of the German youth. A German youth faces a conflict of ideals
between his Communist father and his growing allegiance to the Hitler Youth
movement which eventually leads to his own death. Like the two other German
feature films screened in 1933 which portrayed party martyrs, SA-Mann Brand
and Hans Westmar, Hitler Youth Quex unfolds as a family drama, set against
the chaotic political and economic crisis of the late Weimar years. Heini
Völker, a printer’s apprentice, joins a communist youth group at the
prompting of his father, an unemployed worker and war veteran, a choleric
drinker who torments his mournful wife. During a weekend outing Heini
quickly grows disenchanted with his unruly communist comrades and flees
their alcoholic and sexual revelry. Retreating into the woods, he spies an
idealized group of Hitler Youths and looks upon their night time ceremony
with fascination, an interest undiminished even after the Nazis discover
him and send him away. Heini returns to Berlin effusing about the order and
discipline of the Hitler Youth, singing their anthem to his mother, and
causing his father to scold and beat him. Despite this outburst and the
promptings of the communist leader, Stoppel, Heini seeks out the young
Nazis Fritz and Ulla. He refuses to participate in a communist raid on the
new Hitler Youth dormitory, but cannot fully convince the Nazis of his good
faith until he warns them that Stoppel and his group plan to bomb the new
hostel. Mother Völker, confronted by an enraged Stoppel after the communist
plot backfires, fears for her son, but does not know how to protect him. In
desperation, she turns on the gas to put an end to both herself and the
sleeping boy. After awakening in a hospital, Heini finds himself surrounded
by a group of Hitler Youths who express their gratitude and present him
with a uniform and a mirror. As a result of his mother’s death and his
father’s submission to the special plea of Hitler Youth Brigade Leader
Cass, Heini moves into a Nazi dormitory. Active and energetic (so much so
that his alacrity gains him the nickname “Quex,” i.e. quicksilver), Heini
works all night to print leaflets for the upcoming election and insists on
distributing them in his old neighborhood, Beuselkitz. Members of Stoppel’s
group, headed by the vicious Wilde, learn of Heini’s presence and chase him
through the streets, cornering him in a fairground where Wilde bludgeons
him with the knife once coveted by Heini. When his Nazi cohorts reach him,
it is too late. With his last breath Heini gestures upward and utters the
words, “Our flag flutters before us, it leads . . .” as the image segues
into a close-up of a party banner over which marching figures parade in
geometric configurations.
|
|

|
Um
das Menschenrecht – To Human Rights
Um das Menschenrecht
(1934)
|
|

|
Bismarck
Bismarck
(1940)
(more…)
|
|
‘Bismarck’ recounts the life story of Otto von
Bismarck, the prime minister of Prussia who achieved military victory over
Austria, humiliated the French government, and proclaimed Kaiser Wilhelm
the First as the Emperor of Germany. Bismarck addresses the Landtag:
speaking directly into the camera, actor Paul Hartmann (as Bismarck) tells
us: “The great questions of the present will not be solved by speeches and
parliaments, but by iron and blood.”
Although not at all loved by the Queen and
Cabinet, Bismarck is appointed by King Wilhelm I as a cabinet member on the
advice of his War Minister Roon. Very quickly, Bismarck wins over the trust
of the king, while the Cabinet rejects his advice and position more and
more. Of all Bismarck’s opponents, the professor of medicine and pacifist
delegate Rudolf Virchow is his most critical. Finally, Bismarck disolves
the Prussian Landtag and begins the reform of the Prussian army with the
help of Roon. Bismarck enters Prussia into an alliance with Austria against
Denmark. Soon, a war breaks about between Prussia and Denmark, in which
Prussia’s army emerges as victorious, no less in thanks to the strategy of
Minister Moltke. Despite Bismarck’s successes in Prussia’s political scene,
intrique and attacks against him take place from all sides of the
governmental ministries and from the side of the Crown Prince Friedrich.
This film carefully sets up parallels between
Bismarck and Hitler. As soon as Bismarck becomes prime minister, the next
scene shows him building up the army that will create a German empire. (Hitler
did much the same as soon as he became chancellor.) Figures in Bismarck’s
life are presented as equivalents of figures in Hitler’s career. Although
Bismarck installed Wilhelm as emperor, this movie shows Bismarck
challenging the Kaiser’s authority and urging him to form a military
non-aggression pact with Russia to strengthen Prussia’s eastern flank.
Wilhelm is depicted as a man who has outlived his usefulness, who should
step aside for a stronger and greater leader: in other words, he’s the
equivalent of Paul von Hindenburg, the president of the Weimar Republic who
was displaced by Hitler.
|
|

|
Kolberg
Kolberg
Kolberg is a 1945
German propaganda film directed by Veit Harlan and Wolfgang Liebeneiner. It
opened on January 30, 1945 simultaneously in Berlin and to the crew of the
naval base at La Rochelle. It was also screened in the Reich chancellery
after the broadcast of Hitler’s last radio address on January 30. The film
is in color.
The film was
intended to boost the morale of the Germans in the last phase of World War
II. It was based on the autobiography of Joachim Nettelbeck, mayor of
Kolberg. It told the story of the successful defence of the sieged fortress
town of Kolberg against French troops between April and July 1807. (more…)
|
|
One of the Third Reich’s most ambitious
spectaculars, three years in the making, mobilized Germany’s most talented
artists and thousands of extras to re-create the true story of a Prussian
town’s rebellion against Napoleon’s army of occupation. Laced with
anti-Christian symbolism and National Socialist ideology, the film is a
mirror of Hitler Germany’s own war for survival. In its characterization of
Kolberg’s besieged citizenry, the epic allegorically reflects the spirit of
fanatical resolve to fight on, that Nazi propaganda was attempting to
instill in the German population during the final years of World War II.
|
|

|
Der Große König – The Great King
Der
Große König
The Great King is a
1942 drama film directed by Veit Harlan and starring Otto Gebühr. (more…)
|
|
Filmed at the height of Nazi Germany’s triumph,
in late 1940 and early 1941, The Great King was Germany’s most ambitious
film to date. Both Goebbels and Hitler were fascinated by Frederick the
Great, and had frequently invoked him in their propaganda as a
proto-National Socialist hero, in terms calculated to enhance Hitler’s own
prestige and authority. The Great King extended this myth-making onto the
plane of grand movie spectacle. Amidst vividly realized battle scenes,
Frederick is shown rallying his armies back from crushing defeat, leading
Prussia’s way to brilliant triumph in the Seven Years War. His generals
counsel capitulation, and his subjects succumb to despair. But Frederick
soldiers on; his strength of will is Prussia’s safeguard and salvation. The
film’s concluding montage underscores this message, showing an omniscient
Frederick, his gigantic eyes looming over homeland and people, in an
unmistakable reference to Germany’s own Führer. Yet what seems most
striking about The Great King today are its frank depictions of popular
war-weariness and complaint, served up by the everyday Prussians – miller’s
daughters and foot soldiers – who foreground the film’s storyline. Otto
Gebühr, who had long specialized in Frederick roles on screen and stage,
plays the lead; director Harlan’s wife, the inimitable Kristina Söderbaum,
the miller’s daughter. Directed by Veit Harlan; music by Hans-Otto
Borgmann; featuring Otto Gebühr, Kristina Söderbaum, and Gustav Frölich.
|
|

|
Germany at War
Germany
at War / 2
Volume 1 includes:
German Paratroopers
drop in Rotterdam
Invasion of
Netherlands
Invasion of Norway
Fighting in Belgium
Invasion of
Luxembourg
Surrender of
Maastricht
Dunkirk
Run time 60 min.
Volume 2 includes:
Military Exercises
Combat in Norway
Sea Action in
Norwegian waters
Narvik Campaign
Combat & Air
Action in Belgium & France
Run time 60 min. (more…)
|
|

|
Stukas
Stukas
(1941)
The Ju87B “Stuka”
dive-bomber was a much feared weapon in the German armoury against Crete and
the Allied Naval forces. The
variant used against Crete was the Ju87B of which pre-production examples
flew in late 1938, but it was in volume production by 1941. With its thick “gull wing” and screaming
near vertical dive it was feared by the Navy who saw how effective these
aircraft could be against large naval vessels, when free of any defending
air force fighter patrols.
|
|
Third Reich-era classic. Young, vigor and
aggressive German pilots battle their French arch-enemy during the Nazi
campaign in the West, May-June 1940. Real aerial footage; close-ups on J-87
and other German hardware of the period; life cycle of a Stuka pilot on the
frontlines; “Death for the Fatherland is so sweet” motto; French tanker
from hell trying to humiliate captured pilots, and other assorted
propaganda perks; Carl Raddatz as an archetypical Luftwaffe officer, role
model for J-87 aces like Ulrich Rudel and others.
Goebbels noted in his diary after the “Stukas”
preview: “New Ritter film, ‘Stukas.’ Quite good, with some wonderful air
footage, but a typical Ritter production. He cannot lead people. Rather too
noisy.”
|
|

|
Die Deutsche Wochenschau – The German Newsreel
Die
Deutsche Wochenschau 1940 / 1943
Two compilations
|
|

|
Eva Braun’s private film rolls
Eva
Braun’s private film rolls / 2
of 8
Hitler’s mistress
from 1932 and his wife during the last few hours of his life.
|
|

|
Fallschirmjäger:
Unternehmen Kreta – Paratroop Company Crete
Fallschirmjäger
- Unternehmen Kreta
1943 German mid-war
film about the capture of Crete by the Fallschirmjäger.
(more…)
|
|

|
Geburtstagsparaden für Adolf Hitler – Birthday
Parades for Adolf Hitler
Geburtstagsparaden
für Adolf Hitler
1933, 1936, 1939,
1942 and 1945
|
|

|
Gestern und Heute – Yesterday and Today
Gestern
und Heute
Yesterday and Today
contrasts Germany’s pre-Hitler democracy with the years of his rule.
|
|

|
Goebbels family home movies
Goebbels
family home movies
During 1942 the
children appeared 34 times in the weekly newsreels, going about their
lives, helping their mother, playing in the garden or singing to their
father on his 45th birthday, that October, when Goebbels was presented with
a film of his children playing as a gift from the German Newsreel Company.
|
|

|
Heimkehr ins Reich – Homecoming to the Reich
Heimkehr
ins Reich
German troops in
Austria, 12.3.38. Hitler in Vienna 15/16.3.38. Occupation of the
Sudetenland 1.10.38. German soldiers entering Czechoslovakia. Hitler in
Prague, 15.3.39.
Silent
|
|

|
Im Wald von Katyn – In the Forest of Katyn
Im
Wald von Katyn
A record of the uncovering
by German soldiers of mass graves at Katyn and Vinetsa. The corpses of
Polish soldiers at Katyn and of Russians at Vinetsa are examined under the
supervision of German officers. Bishop Grigori of the Russian Orthodox
Church is seen delivering a speech at a memorial service. (1943) (more…)
|
|

|
Der ewige
Jude – The Eternal Jew
Der ewige Jude
The Eternal Jew is a
1940 antisemitic German Nazi propaganda film. Its title in German is the
German term for the character of the “Wandering Jew” in medieval folklore.
At the insistence of Nazi Germany’s Minister of Propaganda, Joseph
Goebbels, the film was directed by Fritz Hippler. The screenplay is
credited to Eberhard Taubert. The film consists of feature and documentary
footage combined with materials filmed shortly after the Nazi occupation of
Poland. At this time Poland’s Jewish population was about three million,
roughly ten percent of the total population. Actor Harry Giese (1903–1991)
narrated. (more…)
|
|

|
Die
Rothschilds: Aktien auf Waterloo – The Rothschilds’ Shares in Waterloo
Die Rothschilds: Aktien auf
Waterloo
This is an
historical account of the Rothschild family’s rise to fortune, set mostly in
Great Britain during the Napoleonic wars. It’s a story of how Nathan
Rothschild used the battle of Waterloo as a way to harness power and become
one of the richest people in history.
The Rothschilds was
the first of three stridently antisemitic movies made in 1940 by the Nazis.
Beyond its indictment of “Jewish” intrigue and avarice, The Rothschilds
aimed to show the “Judafication” of British society at Rothschild hands.
|
|

|
Jud Süß – The Jew Süß
Jud
Süß
Jud Süß is a 1940 film
by Veit Harlan under the supervision of Joseph Goebbels and was intended as
an illustration of Nazi racial ideology. The film draws loosely from the
novel by Wilhelm Hauff. Süß, played by Ferdinand Marian, is different from
the original character because he in is fact Jewish by birth. The movie
also played on common prejudiced stereotypes of Jews having hooked noses
and being materialistic, immoral, cunning, untrustworthy and physically
unattractive. (more…)
|
|

|
Der Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt - The Führer
Gives the Jews a City
Der
Führer schenkt den Juden eine Stadt
Kurt Gerron, a
Jewish actor/director, made a short film about the Theresienstadt camp. The
footage that Gerron shot was intended to be edited into a film called
either Theresienstadt. Ein Dokumentarfilm aus dem jüdischen Siedlungsgebiet
(Terezin: A Documentary Film of the Jewish Resettlement) or Der Führer
schenkt den Juden eine Stadt (The Führer Gives the Jews a City) but the
progress of the war in that period (late 1944 to early 1945) made that
impossible, so the scenes were used independently. Only about 20 minutes of
the film survives.
|
|

|
Junker der Waffen-SS
Junker
der Waffen-SS
From bayonet
fighting to blasting bunkers, glacier climbing to sniper fire, here is the
tough training that molded the leaders of Hitler’s armies. This original
Nazi film, with action-packed sequences and a brilliant musical score,
depicts life at German schools for young men of the Waffen SS (Combat SS).
Junker was a
paramilitary Nazi rank that was used by the Schutzstaffel between the years
of 1933 and 1945. The rank was a special position held by those aspiring
for officer commissions in the armed wing of the SS, first known as the
SS-Verfügungstruppe and later as the Waffen-SS. (more…)
|
|

|
Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler im Einsatz – Leibstandarte
SS Adolf Hitler in Action
Leibstandarte
SS Adolf Hitler im Einsatz
On the warpath with
Hitler’s bodyguard regiment in the fierce battles of Rotterdam and Dunkirk,
and the invasions of France, Yugoslavia, and Greece. SS front-line
cameramen capture the spirit of the early victorious campaigns as
experienced by this regiment. Scenes of camp life, ceremonies and combat convey
a graphic impression of the comradeship, pride, and elan of this legendary
formation. (1941) (more…)
|
|

|
Kampf um Norwegen: Feldzug 1940 - Battle for Norway:
1940 campaign
Kampf
um Norwegen - Feldzug 1940
Battle for Norway -
1940 campaign is a 80 minute-long Nazi propaganda film directed by Martin
Rikli and Dr. Werner Buhre by orders from the Oberkommando der Wehrmacht.
Released in 1940, the movie follows the Invasion of Denmark and Norway in
the spring 1940.
The film was never
shown in Germany, and nobody knows why. The movie was for a long time
considered lost in its entirety. The Bundesarchiv in Berlin held only a few
clips from the film. But then a complete nitrate copy of the film surfaced
on an Internet auction in 2005. (more…)
|
|

|
Ohm Krüger
Ohm
Krüger
Stephanus Johannes
Paulus Kruger (10 October 1825 – 14 July 1904), better known as Paul Kruger
and affectionately known as Oom Paul (Afrikaans: “Uncle Paul”) was State
President of the South African Republic (Transvaal). He gained
international renown as the face of Boer resistance against the British
during the South African or Second Boer War (1899-1902).
Ohm Krüger was one
of the Third Reich’s most lavish propaganda film productions with an
all-star cast and leading actors in even secondary roles. It is the longest
single feature film made between 1933-1945 and had a cast of thousands.
It drove home the
facts that the British did indeed invent the concentration camp, that over
20,000 innocent and unarmed women and children died in those camps in the
19th century, that Kitchener disregarded international convention and used
women and children as hostages.
The film was a huge
hit across Europe, was released with French subtitles and in many other
languages, and won the Venice Film Prize. (more…)
|
|

|
Sprung In Den Feind – Leap Against the Enemy
Sprung
In Den Feind
This is a German
propaganda movie made in 1942. It shows the invasion of Holland in 1940
because the English could use it to take the Ruhrgebied. The job of the
Fallschirmjägers here was to take the bridge of Moerdijk, and so the
Panzers could roll into Vesting Holland (fort Holland). (more…)
|
|

|
Wort
Und Tat – Words and Deeds
Wort
Und Tat
Words and Deeds is a
10 minute-long Nazi propaganda film directed by Fritz Hippler. It was
released in 1938. The film is notable for the extensive use of montage to
get its message across.
The film begins with
a montage of clips from the Weimar period, showing a series of clips of
Labor and Communist rallies, interspersed with scenes of scantily clad
cabaret girls, and then shots of the posters of the different Weimar era
political parties. This illustrates the “chaos” and “decadence” of the
Weimar period. This sequence ends with former chancellor Heinrich Brüning
making a speech against National Socialism. The film then goes into a
series of sequences showing how Nazi rule has improved various aspects of
German life. (more…)
|
|

|
Final
edition of Die Deutsche Wochenschau 22 March 1945
(more…)
|
TV Documentaries
|

|
The Occult History of the Third
Reich
1.
Adolf Hitler
2.
The SS – Blood and Soil
3.
The Swastika
4.
Himmler the Mystic
This 1991 History Channel documentary series explains
the influences of alternative belief systems (occult, paganism, mysticism,
etc.) on the Nazi ideology and Hitler's personal philosophy. It also
documents the history and development of ideas and symbols and of the
eugenics movement.
In the early 20th century, the young Adolf Hitler was
just one of many German-speaking people attracted by a new Germanic
mythology that combined ancient legends and esoteric cosmologies with
cutting-edge theories of genetic science. In the hands of the Nazis, the
result was a new ideology that saw racial purity as the key to human
destiny. (more…)
|
|

|
Darwin’s Dangerous Idea
1. Body and Soul
2. Born Equal?
3. Life and Death
(BBC 2009)
|
|
Darwin’s
Dangerous Idea - Andrew Marr:
1 - Body and
Soul
In the first
episode of the three-part series, Andrew Marr explores how Darwin’s theory
of evolution by natural selection has taken on a life of its own far beyond
the world of science.
He argues
that Darwin’s theory has transformed our understanding of what it means to
be human. Over the last 150 years, Darwin’s ideas have challenged the need
for a creator, undermined religious authority, and provided new ways of looking
at the origins of human morality.
Marr’s
journey begins following Darwin’s footsteps in Tierra del Fuego at the
southernmost tip of South America where Darwin first encountered an
‘uncivilised’ native tribe. This began to raise questions in his mind about
the origins of the human race. The answers to these questions would emerge
over the next 30 years, culminating in the publication of On The Origin of
Species in 1859.
Marr then
traces the development of Darwin’s idea in the years since then and finds a
range of influences that Darwin could never have imagined: from the
existential philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche to the battlefields of the
First World War; from the Freudian psychoanalyst’s couch to the Vatican;
and from the genetic logic of kindness to an Islamic creationist’s claim
that Darwin is to blame for modern terrorism. Darwin’s dangerous idea is as
influential and challenging today as it was 150 years ago.
2 - Born
Equal?
Andrew Marr
discovers something surprising about his own evolutionary history as this
epic series continues with an exploration of Darwin’s impact on politics
and society.
Under the
banner of Survival of the Fittest, Darwin’s theory of natural selection has
been used to justify imperial expansion and the oppression of indigenous
peoples; to inform the science of eugenics - the selective breeding of
humans which was implemented in the United States in the early 20th
century; and to provide a veneer of scientific respectability to Nazi plans
to create an Aryan master race. It was also used quite explicitly to
explain the twisted logic of the final solution.
But Andrew
Marr also finds a kind of redemption for Darwin’s theory of evolution.
After the Second World War, it was a founding idea behind the democratic,
anti-racist values of the United Nations. More recently, it has also been
used to help eliminate a fatal genetic disease from the Orthodox Jewish
community in Brooklyn. Marr goes on to consider the difficult social and
political choices presented by predictive DNA testing - the final frontier
of Darwin’s Dangerous Idea.
3 - Life and
Death
In the final
episode of this ground-breaking series about Charles Darwin’s legacy,
Andrew Marr discovers how Darwin’s ideas are helping us to save ourselves
and all life on earth from extinction. Marr argues that Charles Darwin is
the father of ecology. The modern environmental movement was built upon his
insight that all life on earth is linked by a delicate web of connections.
He also discovers that Darwin’s dangerous idea is inspiring scientists to
create a ‘flotilla of Darwinian Noah’s Arks’ to help save life on earth
from disaster.
Exploring the
impact of industrialisation, intensive farming and our growing hunger for
meat, Marr tells the story of our slow awakening to the full implications
of Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection and our own
destructive powers as a species. After showing how Darwin developed his
ideas by digging up fossils, exploring coral reefs and studying the habits
of the humble earthworm, Marr explains how Darwin’s dangerous idea was
launched into the space age. He discovers the mysterious movements of the
‘mouse society’, snorkels over a coral reef and visits a ‘boiling cauldron
of evolution’ - the tropical rainforest - which is now threatened by the
shadow of mass extinction.
Over the last
150 years, the combination of Darwin’s ideas with politics has often had
disastrous social consequences. In this programme, Andrew Marr argues that
our failure to combine politics with Darwin’s insights into the delicate
connections between all life on earth could be accelerating the countdown
to our own extinction.
|
|

|
The Nazis: A Warning From
History
1.
Helped into Power
2.
Chaos and Consent
3.
The Wrong War
4.
The Wild East
6.
Fighting to the End
The Nazis: A Warning
from History, is a BBC documentary film series that examines Adolf Hitler
and the Nazis’ rise to power, their zenith, their decline and fall, and the
consequences of their triumph. It was shown in six episodes--Helped into
Power, Chaos and Consent, The Wrong War, The Wild East, The Road to
Treblinka, and Fighting to the End. The historical adviser is Prof. Sir Ian
Kershaw, who also appears in the “Chaos and Consent” episode. (more…)
Holocaust Denial Videos
|
|

|
Hitler’s Children
1.
Seduction
2.
Dedication
3.
Education
4.
War
5.
Sacrifice
A documentary
series by Guido Knopp for the German TV station ZDF, here in English. (more…)
|

|