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25 out of 27 people found the following review useful:
astounding historical presentation, 12 February 2004
10/10
Author: FilmLabRat

Perhaps the most solid and interesting documentary I have ever seen. This exploration of Nazi history attains a scholarly approach that is neither inflammatory nor preachy, helping viewers to see how the Nazis came to power and how the atrocities came to be committed. It was not all about one big, bad wolf who scared everyone into blind obedience.

Unlike Michael Moore's humor, flash-and-propaganda documentaries, this one not only interviews the victims as well as perpetrators without comment but also presents photographs and historical, archival documents and footage to illustrate the cool narration of facts. Amazingly, it manages to avoid commentary while presenting and interviewing those involved, including Nazis who were remorseful as well as those who were not, without ridicule. It is quite astonishing to hear how cold-blooded people were, right from their own mouths. Many knew what they were doing and some even made their own decisions about their cruelty and testified right on camera. Several still have no remorse about it.

As in quality scholarly historical scholarship, everyone stands on their own, leaving the audience members with the complete picture, facts, angles, voices, footage and photos to think for themselves. Remarkable collection and tight, professional filmmaking (choices, interviews and editing) - unbelievably thorough in research and excellent in presentation. An exemplary must-see for any history buff or documentary maker or anyone wondering about the Nazis. 10 out of 10

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22 out of 25 people found the following review useful:
How could it possibly have happened?, 4 April 2001
10/10
Author: Rich-315 from Whitley Bay, England

An evocative series which rather than investigating the Second World War as a whole, looks at how it could have happened. How did anti-semitism permeate throughout Germany society? How did people feel about having to murder civilians in cold blood? Anyone who believes in the ultimate goodness of humanity will be left with the shivers after watching interviews with ex-Wermacht and SS soldiers who took part in massacres. The sheer indifference of one individual who clearly has never even heard of the concept of guilt never mind considered it is horrifically compelling. This is a man who could appear as a harmless grandfather, still harbours no regrets about his role and claims that his very short prison terms alleviates him of any responsibility for the taking of innocent lives. This series is fundamentally important history as it illuminates what humanity is capable of when all normal controls are removed and men are invited to behave in a lawless manner. Furthermore, with recent history in Rwanda and the Balkans leaving many people shaking their heads at what could motivate such savagery, this series offers a potential cross-referenced explanation.

Watch it; you'll be compelled to try and understand why and how.

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19 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
A thorough, heart-ripping piece of work, 30 October 2001
Author: Swangirl from United States

I've seen my fair share of documentaries about World War II and Nazism. Some were good and some downright awful. But this one gets at some issues that are often addressed poorly by other investigations.

One question this six-part series attempts to answer is how did Germany fall under Hitler's spell? How was it possible? Perhaps one of the best moments is in laying the ground work for answering this complex question by detailing the circumstances and climate of the time. It certainly solved some mysteries for me concerning the hatred of Germans toward communism and Bolshevism.

The interviews themselves are hard hitting. I am amazed that some of these former Nazis agreed to be interviewed and unblinkingly told why they acted as they did. Some give excuses but many simply state it...as if daring anyone to deny them their right to feel that way. It is simply amazing and stunning to watch. And to realize that even in the light of how horrific their actions were, they still would have acted in such a manner. It defies description.

The series' creators seem to understand that in no way can they tackle all the issues of Nazism so they pick their issues with care. I especially appreciated hearing how the ethnic Germans returned to their newly expanded homeland, causing the SS to have to throw out the Poles living there. It was an aspect of the annexation I knew nothing about until now.

My only complaint was that there was so much I am sure they had to leave out. But what is included is first-rate, well done and definitely skillfully pieced together. The graphics are also top notch. I must also applaud the creators for choosing original music or period music and not the usual synthesizer overdubs one hears in most documentaries.

Kudos, too, to narrator Sam West, who does a top-notch job.

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13 out of 14 people found the following review useful:
A Warning; not a Almanac of WWII, 5 March 2006
10/10
Author: joe_darlow from United Kingdom

It seems a shame that it has been criticised, I think this series, especially the 5th episode deals with the subject in a very interesting manner.

Road to Treblinka (title of 5/6) is itself a marker on what this series is all about; so easily it could have been road to Auschwitz-Berkenau or Bergen-Belsen, where there would have been plenty (respectively) of survivors to recount tales and make us cry, but this wasn't about understanding what happened (Premo Levi said that this would be indecent itself, to understand it is almost like sympathising) but this series, as Rees discusses in The Holocaust and the Moving Image (Haggith and Newman) is about discussing the unadulterated scale of murder. Treblinka was a factory, a death factory which filled its quota and was destroyed and hidden from history.

This series asks the difficult questions to the right people. How could you stand there and shoot those children? to a Lithuanian Nazi sympathiser, Why did you think Reinhard Heydrich was a nice man? to his friend.

This series is not about understanding. It is about looking at what happened and remembering it. Forgetting it is inviting it to happen again.

Watch this and remember.

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14 out of 17 people found the following review useful:
New insight into the development and functioning of the Nazi state, 24 July 2005
9/10
Author: Michael Wehle from San Francisco, United States

Six 45-minute episodes are arranged chronologically, from the NSDAP rise in the context of the social and political turmoil which followed the first world war to Hitler's suicide in April 1945, and arranged thematically, dealing with the origins of the party, the road to the Chancellery, Anschluss, resettlement in the East, the death camps, and finally the Reich's collapse.

The first episode mentions the workers revolution that briefly took control of München, and shows how the number of Jews among the Communist leadership supported widespread theories of a Jewish-Communist alliance. Street-fighting between Communists and reactionaries is chronicled, explicating the German populace's understandable desire for law and order.

Local operation of the Gestapo, the surprisingly low count of actual employees and the extent to which surveillance by neighbors led to non-conformant citizens' denunciation and imprisonment is illustrated through a brief look at a case in Nürnberg. The informant who sent her innocent neighbor to die in a camp is interviewed.

The Wild East chapter illustrates the great variance in regional Nazi commanders' approach to Germanization of Poland and how Hitler's management style facilitated bureaucratic fiefdoms.

Too often documentaries demonize the Nazis and assume individuals somehow sprang fully formed from the gates of hell. In contrast, each of the well-crafted installments of The Nazis: A Warning from History offers new insight into the development and functioning of the Nazi state and enables us to intelligently consider the lives of its supporters. In calling for a more sophisticated understanding of totalitarianism the warning is very much that of Resnais' Night and Fog.

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16 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
A VERY Important Documentary, 16 April 2003
10/10
Author: tgtround from England

I've just seen this series again for about the third time, and its importance cannot be under-estimated. At a time when German diplomats have begun to accuse the British of being obsessed with the war, the BBC decided to record as many unrepentant old Nazis as could be found and persuaded to talk. As in Shoah, they are gladly given enough rope to hang themselves.

The importance of this isn't so much the story, because much of it is known, but the nuance that comes from the interviews and specific new information which has only come to light in the last decade. This proves, amongst other things that Adolf Hitler did not want war with Britain and he did know about the final solution.

The repression of the Nazi Party's organisation against the Germans themselves is also highlighted, and this is very rarely covered.

Highly commended.

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9 out of 10 people found the following review useful:
a great documentary, 1 March 2006
9/10
Author: carly-51 from United Kingdom

this is a compelling documentary on a very emotive subject, as a historian i found this documentary to be of great interest and full of accurate and important information. I would highly recommend reading "Auschwitz" and the updated version of "Nazis : A Warning from History" (due out 2nd March) by Laurence Rees who played a big part in the making of the documentary. One of the things i found the most interesting about this documentary was the fact the they used a lot of primary sources including, rare film footage, pictures and they spoke to a lot of people involved in the Nazis regime. It was very interesting to hear how they felt about what they did under Hitlers regime nearly 60 years later.

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8 out of 9 people found the following review useful:
The only good documentary on this subject I've seen, 30 April 2009
10/10
Author: panik65 from United States

I second what a lot of other reviewers have said, but only add this. Ruthless, authoritarian governments are often portrayed as being "efficient" - one of Mussolinis mottos was that he would "keep the trains running on time." The Nazi propaganda machine pushed this image of the efficiency of fascism so well it persists to this day. This documentary show the reality - the Nazi's were grossly incompetent as cronyism very quickly set in, as it does in all such tyrannical states. I'm also tired of this myth that the Nazis "almost won" - they did not only not "almost win" WW2, they got completely obliterated and got their own country destroyed.

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6 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Something to live with, a vision of the past and the present., 22 October 2009
9/10
Author: juvetifoso from Long Island, New York

Sometimes in the late hours or at strange moments one is left to wonder about the nature of life and death, the future. Watching the Nazis: A Warning from History gives one just such thoughts. What was it like to be a young German in 1934 watching this great revolution unfolding? A thousand changes imperceptible and perceptible, talk of destiny and triumph, erasing the past for a new future. It makes one wonder about the next step to take, and where it may lead one years down the line.

In this documentary we experience the various chapters in the Nazis' rise, moving forward with the Germans as each change, each new step by the Reich brings about a new world of possibilities, but still with enough retrospect to know where it's all heading. It's frightening, one feels like a blind man walking but inevitably we know the dark place we're going. The Nazis were bad, born out of chaos aided by fate, but from the day to day life of the poor German it was an evil that might've seemed good at first, and certainly an evil much more abstract than the daily struggle to survive, in the wake of WW1 and Versailles. With each chapter we watch the Nazis' rise as one of them, we're in the present and when events finally cascade we feel just as helpless as that nation held sway under evil forces along with its countless victims.

The Nazis: A Warning from History is something to see because it detaches us from the our time and let's us witness first hand how our own weakness, desperation, and bitterness can lead us to a place much worse than the one we left. The cold, evil, and unrepentant accounts of those who took part in the killings contrasted with those who knew but felt powerless, along with those who felt clever enough to ride the wave only to find themselves crushed beneath, paint a dark picture. An ugly world, shrouded in darkness where the future is an illusion disclosed by carnival frauds, and when curtain falls the people are left with the consequence of their ignorance and heartlessness.

From the infighting of the Weimar Republic, to the rise of the National Socialist party, to re-armament, colonization, war, and final defeat we are left to wonder how it all happened. Some still cling to their blame of the Germans, but with the silent knowledge that we're no longer talking about Germans anymore, we're watching humanity. As it happened before so has it happened again, and could easily yet still.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Interviews from the Criminals Themselves and a Variety of Victims, 17 March 2008
10/10
Author: MRavenwood from United States

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

It is ironic that in their attempt to prove Germans a "Superior Race" Hitler and Nazi supporters demonstrated themselves to be more sub-human than the "sub-humans" they so cavalierly murdered and profited from. It was most interesting to me in this series to see interviews of the "by standers" of the war. One citizens that benefited from and supported the forcing of Jews into Ghettos had no remorse at withholding food he had access to from starving people after they could no longer bribe him with diamonds for bread. I rejoice that he and others have admitted on camera exactly how they feel. You see that, while a Nazi soldier would have been shot for disobeying orders, there was no coercion at all for many of the people who betrayed their fellow citizens who were Jews. They did it freely and from their evil hearts. It is also clear that people wanted to be proud. They wanted to be big shots. They wanted anyone other than themselves to be the unpopular ones as the Germans were after World War I. So they developed this egomaniacal belief of their complete perfection and invincibility. When one sees the pattern of belief and thinking of the ordinary German citizen of that time, it becomes a delicious irony, rather than a tragedy that the Communists took over East Berlin. Many of those very same people who ended up behind that Wall had cheered when the German Jews were hauled away to be gassed. The Jews were specifically hated because of the belief they were all Communists. And it is once again ironic that the Germans who sought so much to regain their proud, good image after World War I etched a more permanent stain on themselves in trying to remove the first one. Almost like a shameful tattoo.

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