The film footage at the heart of the History Channel's "The Third Reich" is remarkable, not only for what it shows but for being largely unseen since World War II. Comprised of home movies and promotional shorts from Germany's tourist agency along with the more familiar news reels and excerpts from Leni Riefenstahl, the documentary relies on editing to make its point: the juxtaposition of family outings and fairgrounds with mass arrests and the preparation for war. At least until Allied bombs rained down on German cities, life was eerily normal in the midst of great evil.
And maybe that's the underlying question: what would most of us do under comparable circumstances? The narration is composed largely from writings by Germans of all sorts, including private letters and journals. We hear, for example, from the Jewish woman who welcomed the ascent of Hitler in the earliest days of his regime. It would not be long before the Nazis belied her hope for a "German revival" by organizing boycotts of Jewish businesses, followed by violence and legal restrictions before the Final Solution resulted in the disappearance of Jews. Those Germans who were not enthusiastic Nazis seemed to greet the developments with a guilty shrug in the face of prosperity and fear. Most Germans benefited materially from the Nazi regime and were well aware that stepping out of line could be fatal.
The reasons for Hitler's rise are spelled out and resulted from a toxic brew of human anxiety. Bitterness over the punitive if not entirely undeserved peace imposed by the Allies after World War I led to social disintegration with political violence, loss of faith and the rise of the Communist Party. Germany's shaky republic might have endured nonetheless if not for the economic collapse on the heels of the Wall Street Crash of 1929. Hitler gained support for restarting the German economy with an eye toward another waran objective that wasn't made clear at first. Many Germans welcomed the arrest of Communists and the end of parliamentary gridlock as steps toward restoring social order, never imagining that within a few years their society would be pounded to rubble.
"The Third Reich" will be released on DVD on April 12.
