HITLER: TheThe RiseRise ofof “THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR THE TRIUMPH OF EVIL IS FOR GOOD MEN TO DO NOTHING.” EvilEvil —EDMUND BURKE GUIDE FOR EDUCATORS Premiering Sunday May 18, 2003 9:00–11:00PM E.T. Check Local Listings HITLER: (Liev Schreiber and Julianna Margulies). Hitler also has opponents, such as the crusading journalist Fritz Gerlich (Matthew Modine), who senses early on that the Nazis pose a serious threat to the nation. Although not as well known as the others, Fritz Gerlich, like them, was a real person, and typical of the many courageous German journalists TheThe and writers who spoke out against Hitler in the 1920s. His confidence boosted by the cheering crowds, Hitler decides on a bold move in November 1923. He and his fellow Nazis stage a putsch, or uprising, in an attempt to seize power first in Munich and then in all of Germany. In its early hours, it looks as if the putsch will succeed. But then the Munich police and the army gain the upper hand, and Hitler, Hess, and the other Nazis are routed. Hitler flees to the home of RiseRise ofof the Hanfstaengls, where in pain from a dislocated shoulder and con- vinced that his revolution has failed, he puts a pistol to his head. But Helene Hanfstaengl steps in at the last moment and convinces him to drop the weapon. Soon afterward, the police arrive at the Hanfstaengl home and Hitler is arrested. He is EvilEvil put on trial for treason and receives a five-year SYNOPSIS prison sentence. But when the sympathetic judge adds that the Nazi leader will be eligible for parole in a matter of months, Hitler smirks NIGHT ONE, MAY 18: HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL with pleasure. Who was Adolf Hitler? What were the experiences that shaped him? How did this deeply disturbed man rise to supreme power in such a civ- ilized country as Germany? These questions and the answers to them are brought to dramatic life in this compelling mini-series about Hitler’s NIGHT TWO, MAY 20: HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL early life and career. First we see Hitler’s parents: his father (Ian Hogg), a stiff-necked Austrian customs official, and his mother Hitler uses his time in prison to write his political autobiography, Mein (Stockard Channing), a sickly, indulgent homemaker. Kampf (“My Struggle”), in which he lays out his radical ideas for elimi- nating the Jews and acquiring more territory for Germany. The young Hitler dreams of becoming an artist, and after the deaths of his parents he applies to the finest art school in Vienna. Rejected not Upon his release from prison in December 1924, Hitler once more once but twice, he drifts aimlessly about the Austrian capital until he assumes leadership of the Nazi Party. At a meeting of the party faithful, comes into his inheritance and is able to move to Munich, Germany. he declares: “Our new policy is to win elections. Agitation is a thing of Soon afterward, in 1914, World War I breaks out and the 25-year-old the past.” In other words, there will be no more putsches. He and his Hitler (Robert Carlyle) finds a vocation at last when he joins the followers pursue this policy rigorously in the next few years, manipulat- German army and is assigned to the Western front in France. ing the unstable German political situation to win more and more seats in the Reichstag, the nation’s parliament. A fanatic patriot, Corporal Hitler is devastated when Germany surren- ders to the Allies in November 1918. But he discovers a new vocation, Fritz Gerlich and other journalists expose the Nazis’ underhanded tac- as well as a gift for political oratory, when he becomes an active mem- tics, but they are unable to halt the party’s momentum. Hitler is less ber of the National Socialist (or Nazi) Party, and then its leader. Postwar successful in his personal life, where his misplaced obsession with his Germany, wracked with high unemployment and runaway inflation, is niece, Geli Raubal (Jena Malone), leads to her death. Later, another a fertile breeding ground for extremist groups such as the Nazis. Hitler’s young woman with whom he has become involved, Eva Braun (Zoe fiery speeches, in which he blames the Jews for all of Germany’s prob- Telford), suffers from his coldness and inattention. lems, attract ever larger and more enthusiastic audiences. Hitler refuses to let these personal crises sway him from the political Among Hitler’s ardent new supporters are students such as Rudolf Hess course he has staked out. His goal is to be named chancellor, the second (James Babson), military men such as Ernst Röhm (Peter Stormare), most powerful position in the German government. Taking advantage and wealthy socialites such as Ernst and Helene Hanfstaengl of the social turmoil brought on by the Great Depression, Hitler and his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels (Justin Sallinger), maneuver the HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL 2 2003 © KIDSNET SYNOPSIS NIGHT TWO, MAY 20: HITLER: THE RISE OF EVIL THE HOLOCAUST (continued) No one knows for certain why Adolf Hitler Nazi Party to victory in one special election after hated the Jews. What we do know is that his another. By 1932, the Nazis hold more seats in murderous hatred eventually led to the the Reichstag than any other party. Flush with deaths of many millions of people and the success, Hitler forces the ailing president, Field suffering of millions more. Marshal Paul von Hindenburg (Peter O’Toole), Hitler’s virulent anti-Semitism was already to grant him the coveted chancellorship. evident in his earliest speeches and in his Once in office, Hitler moves quickly to have 1923 political autobiography, Mein Kampf. his totalitarian program enacted. The suspicious burning of the But systematic repression of Germany’s Jews Reichstag building gives him an excuse to severely curtail the civil liber- began only after Hitler was named chancel- ties—such as freedom of speech, association, and the press—guaranteed lor in 1933. During the next nine years, the under the German constitution. Labor unions are prohibited, opposition education of young Jews was severely limit- parties are outlawed, and the first restrictions are imposed on ed, Jewish property and businesses were Germany’s Jews. With no one to stop him, Hitler also decides it’s time confiscated by the Nazis, and Jews were to take revenge on everyone who stood in the way of his rise to power. excluded from the courts, the civil service, The victims of the dictator’s purge include not only his former rivals and professions such as medicine and the and opponents among the Communists and Social Democrats, but also law. Their basic rights as citizens were long-time supporters such as Ernst Röhm. stripped from them, and they were made to wear six-pointed yellow stars on their cloth- A special target of Hitler’s fury is journalist Fritz Gerlich. First the Nazis ing as identifying marks. shut down his newspaper, then he is sentenced to death at the Dachau concentration camp. But in a final letter to his wife, Gerlich delivers a When Germany annexed Austria and message not just to her but to the German people. “Urge others to speak Czechoslovakia, and then invaded and con- out,” he says, “even when what they have to say is not popular. Tell quered much of the rest of Europe, the them to embrace courage as a gift, and pass it on to their children!” Nazis’ restrictive policies were imposed on Disillusioned by Hitler’s ruthless actions, Ernst Hanfstaengl leaves the Jews living in the occupied countries. In Germany, but his wife, Helene, who has become one of the dictator’s Poland, the Jewish population was forced to devoted followers, stays on. move into crowded ghettos in major cities such as Warsaw and Krakow. Even more In August 1934, President Hindenburg dies and Hitler persuades a com- drastic measures were taken in the occupied pliant Reichstag to name him president as well as chancellor. Now, with portions of the Soviet Union, where Jews in the two key reins of government in his hands, a triumphant Hitler pro- town after town were rounded up, shot, and claims the start of a new era in Germany and shouts to his cheering buried in mass graves. supporters that “the thousand-year Reich has begun!” But what the Nazis called “The Final At almost the same time, Gerlich’s wife finds a package waiting for her Solution,” and what later became known as at home. When she opens it, she sees her husband’s blood-spattered the Holocaust, did not begin with methodical glasses—the only notification she will receive that he is dead. Finally, a precision until after the Wannsee quotation from the great 18th-century orator Edmund Burke reminds us Conference in 1942. Concentration camps of Gerlich’s last words and serves as a warning should other monstrous such as Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen were leaders like Adolf Hitler come to power in the future: “The only thing built or enlarged, and Jews were transported necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” to them from all parts of occupied Europe. At The portion of Hitler’s life dramatized in Hitler: The Rise of Evil ends the camps, about 10 percent of the healthiest at this point. It is important to keep in mind, however, that this was just adults were assigned to work as slave labor the beginning of his deadly reign. In the years that followed, Hitler in adjoining factories.