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Rick Steves traces fascism's history in the turbulent aftermath of World War I and the rise of charismatic leaders who manipulated the masses. Rick chronicles the measures used to enforce their ideologies and consequences of genocide.
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00:00Fascism. We hear this word a lot lately, but just what is it?
00:04The word comes from the Latin word for this, a fascist.
00:07The idea? Well, you can break one stick easily,
00:10but when you bundle them together, they become very strong.
00:14And when a dictator convinces an entire nation
00:16to march together in lockstep, they feel strong, too.
00:20And in fascism, an axe symbolizes that it's unity with discipline,
00:25brutal if necessary.
00:27I'm Rick Steves, and in this special program,
00:29we'll learn from the hard lessons of fascism
00:32in 20th century Europe.
00:34Thanks for joining us.
00:59With some thoughtful travel, we'll see how entire nations
01:10were first mesmerized and then led astray by their fascist leaders.
01:14Our journey will take us back nearly a century to learn how,
01:17in Europe, fascism rose and then fell,
01:20taking millions of people with it.
01:22We'll trace fascism's roots during the turbulent aftermath of World War I
01:27as masses of angry people rose up,
01:29the rise of charismatic leaders who manipulated that anger,
01:33the totalitarian societies they built,
01:36and the brutal measures they used to enforce their ideology.
01:40We'll see the horrific consequences, genocide and total war.
01:45Along the way, we'll talk with Europeans whose families lived through those times.
01:51We have to be vigilant.
01:53And visit sites related to fascism.
01:58In 1918, World War I ended, leaving 10 million dead and Europe in ruins.
02:04The chaotic aftermath of the war created fertile ground for the seeds of fascism.
02:10Nowhere was that more true than in defeated and devastated Germany.
02:16Imagine Germany after 1918.
02:19For four long years, they'd fought gravely,
02:22lost over two million men, and then surrendered.
02:26Veterans limped home to a country in shambles.
02:31Their emperor had been toppled, replaced by a weak democracy.
02:35Their nation was humiliated, with especially harsh terms of surrender,
02:40including an allied demand for Germany to pay costly war reparations.
02:45Cynical Germans were convinced their own leaders had sold them out
02:50and surrendered too early.
02:52They called it the stab in the back.
02:55The economy was horrible.
02:57People needed jobs.
02:59Terrible inflation wiped out savings.
03:02It took literally a wheelbarrow of nearly worthless currency
03:05to buy a loaf of bread.
03:08Germans had no faith in their government to get society back on track.
03:17In this vacuum of power, a fringe movement claiming to be the champion of the oppressed emerged.
03:22They dressed in intimidating brown-shirt uniforms, roamed the streets in gangs,
03:27and wanted to restore Germany's national pride.
03:30They called themselves the National Socialists, or Nazis.
03:34Their leader, Adolf Hitler.
03:37Those early Nazis found a natural base here in Munich.
03:41While a pleasant and idyllic city today, this capital of Bavaria was known for its conservative and nationalistic passions.
03:52Nazi street gangs violently attacked unwanted outsiders, Jews, and communists.
04:00In 1923, in a beer hall like this, the original Nazi leadership gathered their followers.
04:10They were impatient and eager to take power.
04:13Hitler waved his pistol in the air and called for the revolution to begin.
04:18Hitler led the ragtag revolutionaries in the beer hall into the streets of Munich,
04:27planning to overthrow the government.
04:32But that attempted revolt, called the Beer Hall Putsch, failed.
04:36After a bloody confrontation, the police crushed it here at Odeensplatz.
04:40Hitler was arrested and sent to jail,
04:42and it seemed that Germany's fascist movement was finished before it got off the ground.
04:47Unable to overthrow the government by force,
04:51Hitler resolved to take it by political means.
04:55While in prison, he wrote Mein Kampf, or My Struggle,
04:59which preaches his message of uniting all ethnic Germans
05:03and giving them more space to live.
05:06The book remains potent to this day,
05:09particularly for Germans like Andreas Clemens.
05:13Could Germans just buy this?
05:15Until recently, it was illegal to buy or sell it in Germany.
05:19So if I was to read Mein Kampf, what's the writing like?
05:22Well, you can see that Hitler had problems with grammar.
05:25Part of it is gibberish. It's very hard to get through.
05:27The book is one of the most published books in history,
05:29and every German household had that book.
05:31And they probably tried to read it, but they gave up 10, 20 pages in.
05:35And this, I would imagine, lays out the main points of the fascist future.
05:40What are those points?
05:41He's saying that democracy doesn't work, that it's a flawed system
05:45that can be manipulated by outside forces for their own gain.
05:49He's blaming communists for it.
05:51Ultimately, at the end of everything, it's the Jewish world conspiracy.
05:54So Jews are behind everything that is wrong with the world.
05:57That he has a solution for that.
05:59And the solution is fascism or national socialism.
06:02And that he can make Germany strong.
06:05He can unite the country.
06:06He can unite the master race and get us back to a rightful status.
06:11Hitler may have been locked up in prison,
06:13but he was tapping into ideas that had already been percolating
06:16in places around Europe.
06:18One of those was the country where the fascist ideology
06:21would first come to power, Italy.
06:23In the center of Rome, capital of Italy,
06:26stands the Victor Emmanuel Monument.
06:29With its altar of the fatherland,
06:32it was designed to celebrate the greatness of Italy.
06:35And facing this monument on Piazza Venezia,
06:38nationalists would gather to honor their nation.
06:42In the 1920s and 30s, tens of thousands of Italians
06:46would fill this square to hear rousing speeches
06:49delivered from that balcony.
06:51The speaker proclaimed the greatness of Italy
06:54and promised them a glorious future.
06:57And the people followed.
07:03Once a rabble-rousing journalist,
07:05this charismatic speaker became their leader, Il Duce.
07:09The man was Benito Mussolini.
07:16Mussolini's rise, like that of Hitler,
07:18had its roots in World War I.
07:211918 is the end of World War I.
07:24There was a lot of discontent in Italy after World War I.
07:27The country was in a pure chaos.
07:30Very high unemployment, a lot of strikes,
07:33and was almost in a verge of a communist revolt.
07:38There was great disappointment.
07:39Even the fact that Italy was on the winning side,
07:41it felt that it did not get enough out of the pastries.
07:44They talked about the mutilated victory
07:46that is the equivalent of a German stab in the back.
07:48And so there's that, and all these veterans coming back,
07:51having fought in the trenches for what?
07:53All of the soldiers coming back from the battlefields
07:56were not really welcome back.
07:58So there were a lot of street fights.
08:00And basically, the soldiers came together
08:03in this party called Fasci di Combattimento.
08:07And they had a leader, which was Benito Mussolini.
08:16Mussolini capitalized on a deep-seated frustration among Italians.
08:20Italy was still a young nation, having only united in 1871.
08:24The surge of nationalism that came with unification
08:27left Italians hungry for greatness but feeling disappointed.
08:31Its parliamentary democracy was weak and ineffectual,
08:34and the economy was terrible.
08:37And, as with Germany,
08:38the Italians had just suffered through World War I,
08:41and people were angry about the way it was fought
08:43and the way it was finished.
08:45Mussolini seized this moment to launch a new movement,
08:49the Fascist Party.
08:51While fascists won only a handful of seats,
08:54they were a potent political force,
08:57and a paramilitary one.
09:00Fascism was not just an ideology,
09:03but a campaign of physical intimidation.
09:07Gangs of armed, black-clad war veterans called Squadristi,
09:11nicknamed the Blackshirts,
09:13wielded violence against their political opponents.
09:16Fascism starts as violence.
09:18I mean, how did fascism start?
09:20These were gangs of, in most cases, veterans of the war
09:24who went around the streets beating workers up,
09:27beating up the socialists.
09:28This is how it started.
09:29The Communist Party was a threat during the end of World War I,
09:35and, actually, the Fascist Party was formed
09:38because of the clashes.
09:40The Blackshirts broke strikes,
09:42expelled socialist mayors,
09:44and gave their base the promise of action.
09:49In 1922, some 30,000 fascists descended on the nation's capital
09:54in a show of force, the so-called March on Rome.
10:00Without firing a shot,
10:02Mussolini was handed the reins of power.
10:04Suddenly, Italy was under fascist rule
10:07with a bold, if politically inexperienced, new leader.
10:11Piazza Venezia became the stage
10:13for a new, amped-up kind of nationalism.
10:17Mussolini loved big rallies,
10:19and from his balcony, offering big promises
10:22and simple solutions to complex problems,
10:25he whipped his followers into a mass frenzy.
10:28They interrupted his speeches
10:40with chants of,
10:41Duce, Duce, Duce, leader.
10:51What I understand now is that it was like a collective dream.
10:54It was like hypnosis.
10:56Standing in the crowd with thousands of people,
10:58all focused on one man
11:00who was terrific at using his body,
11:03his facial expressions and language
11:05to reach their hearts.
11:13They were going ballistic,
11:16even for a hand gesture
11:18or a facial expression of Mussolini.
11:20Mussolini was an actor
11:23and when he eventually showed up in that window
11:26and he stood in his typical posture
11:30with his imposing chain,
11:32for the Italians it was the personification
11:35of a greater Italy.
11:37He promised an Italy that would be great,
11:41that would be modern,
11:43that would be finally unified,
11:45where there would be work for everybody.
11:48For his first 15 years,
11:50Mussolini ruled with dictatorial power
11:52and impressive success.
11:55He pumped up the economy,
11:57created jobs
11:58and invested in infrastructure.
12:00Construire, construire, construire.
12:02Build, build and build.
12:04In the beginning, I think,
12:05Mussolini was able to garner so much favor
12:08because it really did seem
12:10that he was making this a modern country.
12:12A lot of building,
12:13a lot of modern infrastructure,
12:15jobs, homes.
12:16So on the surface, at least,
12:18it did seem that he was actually getting things done.
12:20So Italians are happy at the moment
12:22because they come from the pure chaos of 1918-1919
12:26to having jobs
12:28and having a society that apparently works.
12:32He energized Rome with grand projects
12:35like this Olympic Stadium,
12:37which is still in use today.
12:39Francesca grew up hearing stories of Mussolini.
12:46She shares some local insight.
12:49This is an impressive stadium.
12:51Mussolini built this stadium
12:53to promote Rome for the Olympic Games,
12:55but also to promote sports and physical prowess
12:58as key elements of fascist ideology.
13:01These statues represent athletes,
13:03but they also represent a new fascist man,
13:06a man who is physically strong, proud, disciplined,
13:10but who is also willing to support the fascist dogma,
13:13believe, obey, fight.
13:16Believe, obey, fight.
13:18So these mosaics are inspired by ancient Rome,
13:21and they proclaim the greatness of the leader
13:23and the achievements of the fascist regime,
13:25military events, Roman salutes.
13:28Oh, yeah.
13:29And for emphasis, things are repeated.
13:30Duce, Duce, Duce, Duce.
13:32Look at that.
13:33Ten Duce's.
13:35In fascism, belligerence is celebrated.
13:38Look at this.
13:39Molti nemici, molto honore.
13:42Many enemies, much honor.
13:45Mussolini's ego is immense.
13:50In fact, one of the motto was,
13:53Mussolini ha sempre ragione.
13:55Mussolini is always right.
13:57He certainly had a vision of himself
14:00as a man of genius with a capital G,
14:02a man who had a superior vision of society and the world.
14:06He truly believed he was a new Roman emperor.
14:10He wanted to somehow recreate this new Roman Empire.
14:15And he couldn't stand that Italy was not important anymore in Europe.
14:22Mussolini championed the revival of the glory of ancient Rome.
14:27He created this grand boulevard of the imperial forum
14:31for stately and military processions between the Colosseum
14:34and his office in Piazza Venezia.
14:37He lined it with imposing statues of emperors.
14:41Absolute rulers enjoy each other's company.
14:51Mussolini built a futuristic city at the edge of Rome called EUR.
14:56This planned city is the architectural embodiment of fascism.
15:02The uniformed buildings and the rigid grid-planned streets
15:06celebrate order and conformity
15:08while echoing a powerful past
15:10and promising a glorious future.
15:14The centerpiece is called
15:16the Palace of Italian Civilization.
15:20So the Palace of Italian Civilization
15:22was intended as a celebration of the Italian people
15:25and their many talents.
15:26But there's something about it,
15:28this monolithic starkness it has,
15:30that also seems to remind us that fascist ideology
15:33requires individuals to give everything up for the state.
15:39With a populace tired of dysfunctional government,
15:42Mussolini rose to power with the promise of action.
15:45And throughout Italy, imposing architecture,
15:48like this train station in Milan,
15:50seemed designed to remind all
15:52that the state is more important than the individual.
15:56The state gets things done.
15:58And, of course, with the leadership of Il Duce,
16:01that trains will run on time.
16:05This famous sentence,
16:06trains were on time,
16:08so an appearance of success at what cost?
16:11At the cost of personal freedom.
16:13People didn't have a choice
16:15to accept Mussolini as their leader.
16:18It was against the law
16:20to talk against the fascist party.
16:23Not even journalists were independent
16:25to write exactly what they want to.
16:27There was this famous fascist motto,
16:29everything for this state,
16:31everything within the state,
16:32nothing against the state.
16:34While Mussolini was forging
16:36the first fascist state in Italy,
16:38back here in Germany,
16:39Hitler was taking notes.
16:40Once out of prison,
16:41he played on many of the same themes as Mussolini,
16:44rousing a disillusioned workforce,
16:46reviving a struggling economy,
16:48and fixing what was considered a weak government.
16:51At first, the boom times of the roaring 20s
16:53blunted his populist message.
16:55But then, the Great Depression hit in 1929.
16:59The working masses were angry again,
17:01and Hitler's promises gained traction.
17:03Fascism was now taking root in Germany.
17:06So Hitler promised jobs, jobs, jobs to everybody.
17:21And, of course, people needed jobs.
17:25That was exactly what they wanted to hear.
17:28Hitler promised the people everything,
17:30everything they wanted.
17:31He promised them a bright future.
17:34He promised them work.
17:36He promised them Lebensraum, living space.
17:40Hitler was a powerful, mesmerizing speaker.
17:44People were taken by Hitler's speech,
17:50not so much by the beauty of his arguments,
17:53but by his sheer fanaticism, by his anger,
17:56by his rage, and his repetitive rhetoric.
18:00And people, eyewitness accounts,
18:02describe it as a barbaric, primitive effect.
18:05What he was telling people was a disaster.
18:09But the performance he delivered
18:11was a big, artistic show.
18:13He repeated a lie endlessly,
18:15and he didn't make it a small lie.
18:17He made it a big lie,
18:19and he kept hammering it into their heads.
18:22He also dumped it down as much as possible.
18:24His simplistic promises were made to order
18:27for his political base.
18:29More prosperity and expanded borders
18:34for more room in which to live,
18:36or Lebensraum.
18:39Fascism is perceived as a strong movement
18:43with simple answers for complicated problems.
18:46Giving simple answers and simple solutions,
18:48that's exactly what people wanted to hear,
18:51because that gave them the hope
18:54that it will change soon,
18:56not in ten years, but now.
18:59He blamed Germany's problems on scapegoats,
19:01like Jews and communists.
19:04Fears that the communist revolution in Russia
19:07would spread to Germany.
19:09People were singing,
19:10Deutschland, Deutschland, uber alles.
19:13Germany, Germany above all, above all the world.
19:16And they trusted Hitler to take them there.
19:21In 1932, the Nazi party won only about a third
19:25of the seats in parliament.
19:26But Hitler managed to take power.
19:28He put together a ruling coalition,
19:30partnering with conventional conservative politicians
19:33who figured they could control him.
19:35After struggling to find an alternative,
19:37German President von Hindenburg
19:39reluctantly appointed Hitler chancellor in January 1933.
19:44It was the only way he could form a government
19:47with a parliamentary majority.
19:49Suddenly, Adolf Hitler was heading a new German government.
19:54Then, just a few weeks into Hitler's rule,
19:58under mysterious circumstances,
20:00there was a fire in Germany's parliament building,
20:03or Reichstag.
20:11A disaster like this,
20:13which many historians believe
20:14was actually the work of Hitler's people,
20:16is an answer to an aspiring dictator's prayer.
20:19With this national security emergency,
20:22Hitler now had his excuse to crush the communists,
20:25silence moderates,
20:27and create laws giving him sweeping new powers.
20:30Suddenly, in Germany, there was no middle ground.
20:33You were either with Hitler or against him.
20:36Hitler followed a playbook
20:38that has inspired autocrats left and right ever since.
20:42Hitler proceeded to consolidate his power
20:45in the most ruthless ways.
20:47He locked up the few courageous politicians
20:49who voted against him
20:50and established his total control
20:52of the German government.
20:54This poignant memorial
20:56remembers those who tried to resist Hitler's power grab.
21:00The German equivalent of congressmen and senators,
21:03they were quickly silenced.
21:05You can see the dates they were arrested,
21:07sent to concentration camps, and executed.
21:10I think the rise of Hitler
21:12was done with a mix of two things.
21:14One is fascination, and the other is terror.
21:17So basically, give people something
21:19that they can believe in by false promises.
21:22The other thing is whoever does not fit in
21:25will get beaten up or put in prison or killed.
21:29A lot of the Third Reich was actually based on violence,
21:32or at least the implied threat of violence.
21:34There was a private army Hitler had.
21:36He had terror on the streets.
21:38He had a big protection of his political movement.
21:41And of course, people knew about concentration camps
21:44in Germany for political enemies,
21:46and they were supposed to know
21:47so they would keep their mouths shut.
21:50Hitler had hijacked Germany's democracy.
21:53He was given extraordinary powers
21:55to temporarily suspend democratic procedures
21:58in order to get things done.
22:00A dictator now in charge of a mighty industrial nation,
22:04Hitler and his team began to lay out his plan
22:07for Germany and the world.
22:12Inheriting a German economy suffering from the Great Depression,
22:15including an unemployment rate of nearly 30%,
22:18Hitler quickly turned to improving the economy.
22:22He accelerated the previous government's policy
22:24of large public works and infrastructure projects
22:27financed with deficit spending.
22:29As a result, employment increased dramatically
22:32from 1933 to 1936.
22:36The Autobahn is probably the best-known example,
22:40the highway construction program of Adolf Hitler
22:43that gave a lot of jobs to people.
22:45The Autobahn was actually invented before the Nazis,
22:48one or two years before that,
22:50but the Nazis accelerated the construction of the Autobahn
22:52to bring Germany to a more modern age.
22:56We didn't have the money.
22:58It was all financed on credits on a future war.
23:03Of course, these Autobahn were empty,
23:05because until the war started,
23:07hardly anybody could afford the cars.
23:12Despite this new focus on jobs and the German worker,
23:15the Nazis had no use for labor unions.
23:18Well, fascism basically hates everything communist,
23:21or Bolshevik, as they call it.
23:23So they would not like trade unions.
23:26They were not within the frame of the fascist movement.
23:29And so what the Nazis did,
23:31one year into their government,
23:33they declared May Day a holiday for the first time.
23:36The unions celebrated.
23:38The next day, when they were hung over, more or less,
23:41they smashed the unions.
23:43They replaced the now-abolished unions
23:45with the Nazi party-controlled German labor front,
23:48which all workers had to join.
23:50Hitler spent large amounts of state money
23:53on a comprehensive state welfare program
23:55called the National Socialist People's Welfare.
23:58Despite having the term socialist in the party name,
24:01Hitler was a friend of industry.
24:04He privatized many industries,
24:06and the corporations that had supported his candidacy,
24:09continued to back him.
24:10Corporations would support the Nazi government of Germany
24:13because it was good for their profits.
24:15I think, you know, bigger corporations,
24:17the steel industry, for example, in Germany as a big one,
24:20they were afraid of communism for sure,
24:22but they also actually supported Hitler
24:24because it was easier for them to kind of make their business
24:28within a stable government.
24:30One German industry that boomed was the auto industry,
24:33and one of the world's most famous cars
24:36was born during the Nazi era.
24:38The VW was the idea that it's an affordable car for everybody
24:42that then would fill these autobahnen.
24:45With all this economic activity and employment,
24:48Hitler re-energized Germany.
24:50Much of Germany was swept up in Hitler's charismatic vision,
25:09and the country had a common purpose.
25:13Everywhere he went, crowds adored him.
25:16Women swooned when his car drove by.
25:23In clubs called the Hitler Youth,
25:25boys and girls pledged their allegiance to him.
25:29A little boy in 1935, when he looked at Hitler,
25:32he would see a godlike person.
25:34He was somebody who would elevate the German people,
25:37who would elevate the people of this boy
25:40to become the perfect master race running the planet.
25:43Hitler became known by a new title,
25:46which meant he was their leader, their Führer.
25:49He coined himself the phrase the Führer, the leader,
25:52as also establishing himself as a bit of a new god for Germany.
25:57So he was not part of democracy anymore.
25:59He was a godlike figure.
26:00A fascist system needs a Führer.
26:03It's the big hero. It's a saint.
26:06It's the one and only people believe in.
26:09He has the vision for everybody,
26:11and the others will follow him.
26:13I'm a level one.
26:15Fascists believed in a fascist system.
26:19You can unite everybody that believes in the system,
26:23and it will be a strong, a powerful system
26:27that can achieve complicated goals.
26:29The idea about fascism is to have a big community
26:33that all operates exactly the same way,
26:36and to have a common opinion that covers all.
26:39There was one phrase that was called
26:41Ein Volk, Ein Reich, Ein Führer.
26:44One people, one empire, one leader. Full stop.
26:48There was a dark side to all this Nazi conformity.
26:52Individuality was lost.
26:54Individualism doesn't even exist in fascism.
26:57It doesn't exist in any aspect.
27:00It doesn't exist in art.
27:01It doesn't exist in lectures at university.
27:04It doesn't exist in newspapers and press.
27:08Individuality was something that was deemed
27:10unfit for a German, basically.
27:13So what mattered was the Volksgemeinschaft,
27:16the society, the common denominator of the German people.
27:22All people who tried to make it any different
27:25in their private life, in their professions,
27:28in their way to express their opinions,
27:32they all had to be stopped.
27:35For the Nazis, the city that most embodied
27:37their sense of national unity was Nuremberg.
27:41Nuremberg, so steeped in German history,
27:43was nicknamed the most German of German cities.
27:47That's one reason it was a favorite of Hitler's
27:49soldiers to showcase his nationalistic pomp and pageantry
27:52to inspire all of Germany to get on board.
28:00There were three German reichs, or empires.
28:03The first was medieval.
28:04It was called the Holy Roman Empire.
28:06In fact, the emperor's castle still towers above Nuremberg.
28:09The second reich was 19th century,
28:11the creation of the modern German state by Prussia
28:14under the leadership of Bismarck.
28:16And it was here in Nuremberg that Hitler declared
28:19the Third Reich, a powerful German empire
28:22to last a thousand years.
28:24When Hitler took power,
28:25he made Nuremberg's Zeppelin Field
28:27the site of his enormous Nazi party rallies.
28:31Today, the stark remains of this massive gathering place
28:34are thought-provoking.
28:36German tour guide Thomas Schmechtig
28:38is joining me for some insight.
28:41For several years, increasingly elaborate celebrations
28:45of Nazi culture, ideology, and power
28:48took place right here.
28:50Fascist dictators understood the propaganda power
28:53of big rallies,
28:55where they can manufacture the adoration of their people,
28:58bask in it, and then broadcast it
29:00to the rest of the population.
29:02As Hitler said, turning the little man
29:05into part of a great dragon.
29:11Imagine Hitler stepping out of that door,
29:14overlooking the masses,
29:15200,000 people being lined up.
29:17He used propaganda to create a new community.
29:20In fact, we even have a word for it.
29:22It's called Volksgemeinschaft.
29:24Inspirational images from Lenny Riefenstahl's propaganda movie
29:27Triumph of the Will were filmed at the 1934 Nuremberg rallies,
29:31and then shown in theaters and school rooms
29:34throughout the country the goal
29:36to bring a visual celebration
29:38of the power of the Nazi state
29:40to all 70 million Germans.
29:43Nuremberg shows the enormous power
29:45of fascism's secret weapon, propaganda.
29:50The media in Nazi Germany
29:52were controlled by the government,
29:54by the Ministry for Propaganda and Enlightenment
29:57in Berlin, headed by Josef Goebbels.
30:00So everything that was distributed to the people
30:03through the media was controlled from Berlin.
30:06Goebbels used every means available to him.
30:09Along with the new and powerful media of movies,
30:12he used traditional formats, such as newspapers,
30:16posters, and even postcards.
30:20And perhaps the most far-reaching
30:22was the new medium of radio.
30:25Hitler was one of the earlier politicians
30:27to really make use of a mass media
30:30that was just coming on, which was the radio.
30:32So every German had in a household
30:35the Volksempfänger, people's radio.
30:38So his speeches would get into
30:40every German's living room, basically.
30:44Within something like six years,
30:46the number of radios in Germany
30:48went from 4 million to 17 million.
30:51So they could really reach almost every household.
30:54And people listen to the radio differently
30:55than they do today.
30:57If there was an important radio report,
30:59it wouldn't just be two people doing housework
31:02or one person doing housework next to it.
31:04You would have the entire family there.
31:06Maybe the neighbours, if they couldn't yet afford a radio.
31:08So those were special events
31:10that appealed to the family community,
31:14that would appeal to the neighbours.
31:16So you would reach a lot of people
31:19through only one medium.
31:21Looming over a now peaceful lake in Nurnberg
31:23is another remnant of the dictator's megalomania,
31:26his huge yet unfinished Nazi congress hall.
31:30Hitler, who believed he would create
31:32a new civilization based upon fascist values,
31:35modeled this building after the ancient Roman Colosseum,
31:39but even more colossal.
31:41Imagine 50,000 leading Nazis in here,
31:44one-third higher, covered by a roof,
31:46a window inside the ceiling.
31:48Sunshine would have fallen down to the podium.
31:51Once a year, one speech of Adolf Hitler.
31:54Another stage set for this propaganda show
31:57was Hitler's mountain-capping eagle's nest.
32:00This alpine getaway just south of Munich in Berchtesgarten
32:04was used to soften Hitler's image
32:06against a majestic, almost theatrical backdrop.
32:10His visits were lovingly filmed
32:14to show him as the embodiment
32:16of all that was good about Germany.
32:18Healthy, vigorous, respectable,
32:21everyone's favorite uncle.
32:24Set in the scenic foothills of the Alps,
32:27it was built in 1938
32:29as a mountain retreat for Hitler and his guests.
32:32A stone tunnel, crafted with fascist precision,
32:35leads to Hitler's plush elevator,
32:37which still whisks visitors to the top.
32:40Because it was in this corner of Bavaria
32:42that Hitler claimed to be inspired
32:44and laid out his dark vision,
32:46some call Berchtesgarten the cradle of the Third Reich.
32:52By the mid-1930s, fascism was well-established
32:55in two of Europe's leading nations,
32:57Germany and Italy.
32:58Germany was booming and building up its massive military,
33:01blatantly breaking the Treaty of Versailles,
33:03which ended World War I.
33:05The ideology of fascism was spreading,
33:07and the rest of the world was viewing it with alarm.
33:10Expansionism was a key tenant of fascism.
33:13Germany first annexed neighboring Austria,
33:16then the German-speaking region of Czechoslovakia,
33:18the Sudetenland,
33:20followed shortly after that by the rest of the country.
33:22Italy under Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and Albania.
33:26In 1939, Hitler and Mussolini signed a treaty
33:30creating what they called the Pact of Steel.
33:33Further west, Spain and Portugal
33:35were also flirting with fascism.
33:39Spain, like other nations of the time,
33:41was making the awkward transition
33:43from 19th-century monarchy to 20th-century democracy.
33:47By the 1930s, it was governed by a modern but fragile democracy.
33:51By 1936, the Spanish people had become extremely polarized
33:56as the old guard of royalty, military, and industry pushed back.
34:00Representing this reactionary faction,
34:03a military strongman, General Francisco Franco,
34:06invaded Spain from Spanish Morocco.
34:10Using colonial troops and borrowed Italian planes,
34:14he attempted a coup d'etat.
34:16Like Mussolini and Hitler,
34:19Franco vowed a return to order
34:21and to restore Spanish power and national pride.
34:25But the democratically elected government fought back,
34:28and the nation descended into a bloody civil war.
34:33Conservatives under Franco
34:35fought the liberal democratic government.
34:38It was a brutal war between classes and ideologies,
34:42dividing both villages and families.
34:45In three years of fighting,
34:47hundreds of thousands of Spaniards died.
34:50Franco used predictable strongman tactics,
34:53including intimidation by police and the military.
34:57Hitler and Mussolini, who mistakenly believed Franco
35:00would join their fascist alliance,
35:02threw gas on the fire.
35:06One of the most tragic episodes of this tragic war
35:09was in Guernica, a workaday town
35:12in the Basque region of northern Spain.
35:15It was here that the world first witnessed
35:17the terrible power of the fascist state,
35:20a prelude to World War II.
35:22Guernica was the capital
35:24of an independent-minded Basque community
35:26that stood up to Franco.
35:28Aviación! Aviación!
35:30To break their spirit,
35:31Franco enlisted the help of Germany's air force,
35:34and the defiant town was decimated
35:37in the world's first saturation aerial bombardment.
35:41The Spanish artist Pablo Picasso heard the shocking news
35:59and immediately set to work sketching the destruction
36:02as he imagined it.
36:04In a matter of weeks,
36:05he wove these bomb-shattered shards
36:07into a large mural called Guernica.
36:10In Picasso's masterpiece,
36:12a woman looks to the sky.
36:15Horses scream.
36:17A soldier falls, body shattered, sword broken.
36:22A wounded woman flees a burning house.
36:26A bow, symbol of Spain, ponders it all,
36:29watching over a mother and her dead baby,
36:32a modern Pietà.
36:34Picasso's painting put a human face
36:37on the horror of war
36:38and threw a stark light
36:40on the brutality of Franco and Hitler.
36:42To this day,
36:43Guernica remains the iconic depiction
36:46of fascist crimes against humanity.
36:51Hitler may have stoked Germany's economy
36:53and put people back to work,
36:55but it was becoming clear
36:56that whatever benefits fascism
36:58might bring to its political base,
37:00it had a darker side,
37:02and it came at a huge cost.
37:04Despite its veneer of respectability
37:06and its popularity among ordinary people,
37:08the thriving fascist state
37:10relied on increasingly brutal repression.
37:13Hitler continued his ruthless creation
37:16of a totalitarian fascist state.
37:18The free press was silenced,
37:20as were intellectuals and universities.
37:23The Nazis' approach to intellectuals
37:25was to dismiss them.
37:26They played no role.
37:27A good way to describe it
37:29is if you compare Nazis and communists.
37:31A communist needs an enormous bookshelf.
37:34He needs to start with Marx and Engels.
37:36He goes through Lenin.
37:37He has dozens of books
37:39up until the present day.
37:41A Nazi's bookshelf has Mein Kampf,
37:43and that is basically it.
37:44The Nazi approach to art was the same.
37:47Only one style was acceptable.
37:49The Nazis or Hitler's approach to art was quite simple.
37:53Their idea of art was to be as naturalistic as possible.
37:57Basically, blond, blue-eyed people doing fieldwork.
38:00When you look at these pictures,
38:02you see the perfect German family according to the Nazis.
38:06Everybody is tall, blond, blue-eyed, beautiful,
38:10great shape, and this is the idealized version
38:14of the German people.
38:15Anything else that would question society
38:17or bring society forward,
38:19which art is quite well able to do,
38:22would just be deemed unnatural or un-German, un-Deutsch.
38:28What they did not like was complicated modern art,
38:30what they called degenerate art.
38:32That is something that they either destroyed,
38:35sold off to make some money,
38:37or kept under wraps.
38:39In May 1933, Hitler was chancellor
38:43for just a couple of months.
38:45We had the burning of books in Berlin,
38:47in München, everywhere.
38:49Books that caused people to question the Nazi agenda
38:52were forbidden and publicly burned
38:54with delight by Hitler's supporters.
38:57The books of left-wingers, psychologists,
39:00for some reason the Nazis hated psychology.
39:02Books by Jewish writers, of course,
39:04they would be publicly banned in big ceremonies.
39:08If you have some books, titles of those books
39:12that were burned the night before,
39:14and you invite some people,
39:16they can argue against you
39:17because you have those books in your private library.
39:20And even your roommate has an argument against you.
39:23You do not trust in anybody any longer
39:26after the burning of books.
39:28One famous German writer and author said,
39:32once you're burning books,
39:34very soon you're going to burn people.
39:37Artifacts and posters illustrate the Nazi notion
39:40of a master race.
39:42Anyone who didn't fit into their model
39:44could be viewed as an enemy of the state
39:47and sent to concentration camps.
39:50The Nazis required those they imprisoned
39:52to wear badges that identified their status.
39:55Political traitor, law-breaker, foreigner, homosexual,
39:59and a catch-all, asocial, anyone who would not conform.
40:04A special batch, the Yellow Star of David,
40:07went to Hitler's lowest of the low, the Jews.
40:11The Nazis believed that the German people
40:13were the master race, the toughest, the strongest,
40:16the bravest, the smartest.
40:18They said, we should be running the planet,
40:20we just can't do it because this conspiracy,
40:22the Jewish world conspiracy is in the way.
40:24And without them, if we deal with that conspiracy,
40:27then we will achieve our rightful status again.
40:33The Nazis started putting their anti-Semitic ideas
40:36into action as early as April of 1933,
40:39when they organized a boycott of Jewish businesses.
40:43He specifically blamed one group, the Jewish people,
40:47for ruining things for everybody else.
40:51For him, it was clear his scapegoat was the Jews.
40:55They were the source of all evil in Germany and in the world,
40:58and he wanted to kind of get rid of that evil,
41:01and that's what he worked for.
41:03Then, in November of 1938,
41:05the Nazis led a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany.
41:08During Kristallnacht,
41:10or the Night of the Broken Glass, as it was called,
41:13Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked.
41:167,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed,
41:21and over 1,000 synagogues were burned,
41:25and 30,000 Jews were arrested and put in concentration camps.
41:31This was a turning point
41:33from earlier economic, political, and social persecution
41:36to physical beatings, incarceration, and even murder.
41:40It was the beginning of Hitler's final solution.
41:45Today, Berlin's topography of terror exhibit
41:48stands on the rubble of what was once
41:50the most feared address in Berlin,
41:53the headquarters of the Gestapo secret police
41:56and the elite SS force.
42:00It was from here that government employees managed the Nazi state,
42:04and dispassionately coordinated its most ruthless activities.
42:09The efficient and heartless bureaucracy
42:11behind Hitler's crimes gave rise to the expression,
42:14the banality of evil.
42:20Fascism continued to spread,
42:22and its militarism threatened peace in Europe.
42:25While the whole world had gotten a preview
42:27of the horrors of modern warfare in Spain,
42:29that was just the beginning.
42:31In 1939, Germany invaded Poland,
42:38and World War II began.
42:40The military might of Germany seemed unstoppable.
42:43Employing their fast, lightning-war technique
42:46called Blitzkrieg,
42:48Hitler's mighty tanks and high-tech air force,
42:50the Luftwaffe, swept across Europe.
42:56France fell quickly,
42:57and suddenly Hitler was playing tourist at the Eiffel Tower.
43:00Soon, nearly all of the continent
43:03was under direct or indirect fascist rule.
43:06With their final victory seemingly inevitable,
43:09the Nazis tightened the screws within their own society.
43:15The evils of fascism were incremental.
43:17As its small evils became big evils,
43:20German society managed to be oblivious
43:22to its own atrocities.
43:24At first, concentration camps contained people
43:27who didn't conform.
43:29Then, they became forced labor camps.
43:31Eventually, the Nazis built death camps,
43:34which were located outside of Germany,
43:36and therefore farther from public view.
43:38With what the Nazis called the final solution,
43:40the entire Jewish population
43:42was targeted for extermination.
43:44In total, approximately 6 million Jews died
43:48from Nazi persecution.
43:502.7 million of those died in death camps.
43:54Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland
43:56was the biggest and most notorious concentration camp
43:59in the Nazi system.
44:01Seeing the camp can be difficult,
44:03but Auschwitz survivors want tourists to come here,
44:06to try to appreciate the scale and the monstrosity
44:09of the place in human terms
44:11in hopes that this horror, known as the Holocaust,
44:14will never be forgotten.
44:18As they entered these work camps,
44:20prisoners were greeted with a sign over the entrance.
44:23Arbeit macht frei.
44:25Work makes you free.
44:27A cynical lie.
44:29Once inside, inmates were either worked to death
44:33or executed.
44:36New arrivals were sorted into two categories.
44:39Those who would be sent to the gas chambers immediately,
44:42and those who could work would live,
44:45at least a little longer.
44:47Halls are lined with photographs of victims,
44:50each marked with dates of arrival and dates of death.
44:53Inmates rarely survived more than a couple of months.
44:56Up to a thousand people,
44:58each tattooed with an ID number,
45:00were packed into each of these buildings.
45:03The gas chambers, where the mass killing was done,
45:06were disguised as showers.
45:08People were given hooks to hang their clothes on,
45:10conned into thinking they were coming back.
45:13The Nazis didn't want to panic.
45:16Then the inmates piled into the shower room.
45:19In this facility, the Nazis gassed and cremated
45:22over 4,000 people per day.
45:25To finally defeat fascism,
45:30the alliance of Hitler and Mussolini,
45:35it took a massive and heroic allied effort,
45:38led by Britain, America, and the Soviet Union.
45:41Germany had seemed invincible.
45:44But after his ill-fated decision
45:49to invade the Soviet Union,
45:51Hitler was on his heels,
45:53and the tide was beginning to turn.
45:58From the frozen Eastern Front,
46:00the Soviet Red Army began closing in on Germany.
46:03From Britain, allied planes bombed German cities.
46:12American troops swept up from the south through Italy.
46:16Italian partisans overthrew their fascist government,
46:21switched sides, and joined the Allies.
46:25Defeating a totalitarian society like fascist Germany
46:30took total war, and victory came at great cost.
46:34To remember the final chapter of this story,
46:36we visit Normandy in France.
46:39On June 6, 1944, called D-Day,
46:43the Allies landed on the beaches of northern France
46:46and began fighting their way to Berlin.
46:48D-Day marked the biggest amphibious invasion in history.
46:52After a furious and bloody battle,
46:55they established first a beachhead,
46:57then a makeshift harbor,
46:59and the long battle to reach Berlin was underway.
47:02The war raged on,
47:04even after it was clear that Germany would lose.
47:07Death camps sped up the mass murder.
47:11Millions of German civilians, as if hypnotized,
47:14continued to support their Führer.
47:17And great German cities like Hamburg and Dresden
47:20were destroyed under massive aerial bombardments
47:23with huge civilian losses,
47:25as the Allies attempted to break the spirit of the German people
47:29who fueled the Nazi war machine.
47:32Germany was overwhelmed
47:34as the combined military might of the Allies
47:36closed in on the Third Reich,
47:40from the west, south, and east.
47:47Finally, the Nazi capital of Berlin
47:49was liberated by Soviet troops.
47:55And both great fascist commanders met gruesome ends.
47:59In Italy, angry citizens turned on their dictator with fury,
48:03executing Mussolini by firing squad,
48:06then hanging his body upside down for all to see.
48:11And Hitler finished his life here in Berlin.
48:14Deep underground, in a bunker below my feet,
48:16with his capital smoldering in ruins,
48:18the dictator committed suicide.
48:20Finally, in the spring of 1945,
48:23the war in Europe ended.
48:25The death toll was staggering.
48:28In addition to six million Jews,
48:30the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands
48:33of so-called undesirables,
48:37over a million political and religious prisoners,
48:41and nearly nine million Soviet and Polish citizens.
48:47With fascism defeated,
48:49many of its leaders and supporters
48:51had to account for their deeds.
48:54In Italy, there were violent reprisals
48:56against former fascists,
48:58but few formal trials.
49:00In Germany, Nazi criminals had to face trial.
49:04The most famous were the Nuremberg trials,
49:06where 22 major Nazi criminals
49:08had to face justice from the Allied powers.
49:12Europe's experiment with fascism
49:17left the continent devastated,
49:19with entire societies needing to be rebuilt.
49:22Germany had to be reconstructed inside and out.
49:27Italy was left bloodied and weak.
49:33While Spain stayed out of the war,
49:35and its dictator Franco would remain in power
49:37for the next decades,
49:39it also paid dearly,
49:41left isolated from the world community
49:43and behind the times.
49:49The sweeping impact of fascism
49:51can be felt to this day
49:53in the many memorials across Europe
49:55that remind us of those horrific years.
49:58It's felt in the German concentration camp memorials.
50:04They make us pause
50:06and attempt to comprehend the unthinkable numbers.
50:10The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam
50:12humanizes the horror of the Holocaust
50:14through the story of just one
50:16of its six million victims.
50:20At the D-Day memorials in northern France,
50:23we try to appreciate the sacrifice it took
50:26to defeat the hateful ideology
50:28and reestablish freedom.
50:31In Spain, near Madrid,
50:32a towering granite cross
50:34marks the Valley of the Fallen.
50:37Originally famous
50:38is the site of Francisco Franco's tomb.
50:41Today, it's considered a memorial
50:43to all the victims
50:44of Spain's devastating civil war.
50:48In Berlin,
50:49the memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe
50:51is a touching and evocative field
50:54of gravestone-like pillars.
50:57It's designed to cause people to think
50:59and to ponder this horrible chapter
51:01in human history.
51:06A common refrain at many of these memorials
51:08is, never again.
51:10But even today,
51:11in well-established democracies
51:12throughout the West,
51:14societies are facing many of the same emotions,
51:17frustrations, and inequities
51:19that a century ago opened the door
51:21to fascism in Europe.
51:24If I ask myself,
51:25could it happen again,
51:26I would say no,
51:27but it has happened in Germany,
51:30and it might happen again.
51:32So if you bring all of these elements together,
51:34a moment of crisis,
51:35a strong leader who knows how to take advantage
51:37of the fear,
51:38and you don't have a really true press
51:41where there is no exchange of opinions,
51:44I think there's a possibility
51:45for these things to happen again.
51:47Fascism happened here in Germany,
51:49the center of civilization,
51:51in the land of Beethoven, Goethe, and Schiller.
51:54And if it could have happened here,
51:57it can happen anywhere in the world.
51:59Today, Germany deals responsibly
52:02with the legacy of pain it brought Europe.
52:05Germany knows the importance
52:06of a well-informed electorate.
52:09Every school child learns of the Holocaust
52:12with a visit to a concentration camp.
52:14And Nazi documentation centers
52:16in major cities tell the story.
52:19It's all part of an educational program
52:21to teach how fascism took hold here
52:23and how it led to some of the worst horrors in history.
52:27In Germany, we definitely believe
52:28that education is one of the main ways
52:31to make sure that something like this
52:32will not be repeated.
52:34Because if you know what mechanisms were working
52:36and what mechanisms of economy and politics
52:39were at play in the 1920s and 30s,
52:42then you can see what is happening today
52:45and try to prevent it.
52:48Education is everything.
52:49Even for there to be an electorate
52:51that is capable of thinking independently,
52:55you need that electorate to be educated.
52:58Focus on the education system.
53:00Make citizens more than consumers
53:04and, very importantly, having media
53:09that are not biased, independent information.
53:13But perhaps most important
53:15is the preservation of government
53:17by the Constitution and the rule of law
53:20and not by the dictates
53:21of a charismatic, all-powerful leader.
53:24When there's great fear of the future,
53:26where what people have feels threatened
53:29and they're afraid to lose it,
53:31then it's easy for populism to come into play
53:35and it's easy for leaders
53:37who present themselves as interpreters of that
53:40to take hold.
53:42One of the things that you can do
53:44to make sure that something like this
53:46will not happen here or in other countries
53:48is not trust people that promise you
53:51very easy answers for very complicated problems.
53:54It never works.
53:56Democracy is fragile
53:58and it should not be taken for granted.
54:00So to defend it, I think, is important.
54:03I think we can learn not to follow leaders
54:06into the abyss
54:08and to maintain critical, independent thinking.
54:12As we've seen through the story of fascism in Europe,
54:15charismatic leaders rose to power
54:17through the democratic process
54:19and then seized extra-constitutional power
54:22by unlawful means.
54:24When citizens allowed leaders to do this,
54:26individual freedoms and rights
54:28soon fell by the wayside
54:30and democracy was lost.
54:32While democracy was restored to Western Europe,
54:35it easily could have been lost forever
54:37and the cost was millions of lives.
54:40As history continues to unfold around us today,
54:43it's important to remember
54:44that freedom and democracy are not guaranteed.
54:47We are all participants
54:50and we are all responsible.
54:57The story of fascism in Europe
54:59has taught us that strong and charismatic leaders
55:01can capitalize on fear
55:03to lead a society astray.
55:05Democracy is fragile.
55:07It requires a vigilant and engaged populace.
55:10And if you take freedom for granted,
55:12you can lose it.
55:13Thanks for joining us.
55:15I'm Rick Steves.
55:16Until next time, travel thoughtfully.
55:20Watch out!
55:22In this history of a Temple
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