The World At War - Episode 1d - A New Germany 1933--1939

The World At War - Episode 1 The series had 26 episodes. Producer Jeremy Isaacs asked a historian to list fifteen key campaigns of the war and devoted one episode to each. The remaining eleven episodes were devoted to other issues such as home life in Britain and Germany, the experience of occupation in The Netherlands, and the Nazis' use of genocide. This episode: A New Germany 1933--1939 Wikipedia Entry: A New Germany is the first episode of the 1973 Thames Television documentary series The World at War. It covers Germany from 1933 to 1939 and includes interviews with Hugh Greene and Ewald von Kleist. It starts in the French market town of Oradour-sur-Glane and explains the systematic extermination of the entire population and destruction of properties by the SS. The episode goes on to explain that it stands among hundreds, even thousands of other ruins in other countries. This is to establish the mood of the series. It begins with the Nazi rise to power through promises of food, water, jobs, money and prosperity to a country full of unemployment and disdain for how they were treated in the Treaty of Versailles. The episode goes through lots of footage of Hitler including walking of Hitler to the ceremonial opening of parliament and speeches by Hitler calling for the general public to work with every ounce of strength they had and Germany would repay them through money, housing, food and the purge of anything "anti-German". A New Germany goes on to show the burning of books that were Jewish or "anti-German". The persecution of the Jews is shown in part but only shows the vandalism and harassment of Jewish businesses. The beginning of the cleansing of the German race had begun. It shows the new Nazi marriage ceremonies where members of the SS were only allowed to marry the correct race and even if they were already married to an "inferior race" they would remarry. It goes through the neutralizing of the SA through the murder of their leaders, and their replacement by the SS. The systematic takeover of land stripped of Germany in the Treaty of Versailles is shown to make the other nations think Germany is just standing up for itself. It goes on to explain how this view changed as Hitler took Austria, and Czechoslovakia. The propaganda displayed to the German public is shown to make this all look like Germany is just taking care of itself but still some Germans interviewed say they knew it was much worse when Czechoslovakia was taken. The episode ends with Hitler's 50th birthday and Hitler's signing of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.