Annette von der Heyde

The First World War - carnage on a scale never-before seen. But how did it all start? And how did some key figures of WWII fare in the earlier war?

SS — the two letters in old Germanic rune script represent the most effective and dangerous instrument of power of the Nazi dictatorship. The SS represented more than any other Nazi organisation the wild and deadly delusions of those who believed themselves part of the master race. It took only a few years for Hitler's Schutzstaffel to be transformed from an insignificant personal bodyguard to an all-powerful empire of evil. There are personal interviews with survivors and and with those men who served the inhuman SS system. Only now, as their lives draw to a close, are they prepared to speak up. In the world's first television series on the overall history of the SS, this documentary series takes a balanced view with many previously unpublished sources and with witnesses to the history of the SS: victims, perpetrators and opponents.

With the help of Hollywood, top Nazi Albert Speer tried to unscrupulously whitewash himself of his crimes in the 1970s. Speer gave long interviews to Hollywood author Jack Neuman and mimed the "good Nazi". After his release from 20 years in prison in Spandau, Hitler's former architect and armaments minister earned a lot of money with books about his time at the side of the dictator and his years in prison. However, a Hollywood feature film about his life was still missing. Speer received Neuman at his villa in Heidelberg.

On operated by Prussian prime minister Otto von Bismarck the German Empire is finally founded in 1871 on the floors of Versailles castle, ancestral seat of the French monarchy.

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