Hitler: The Rise of Evil
The opening of the film features a montage of Adolf Hitler's life during the years 1899-1914, when he left Austria for Munich. His participation in the First World War on the German side is then shown in a series of episodes which includes his promotion to the rank of corporal, his winning of the Iron Cross for bravery, and his blinding during a gas attack.
Hitler returns to a revolutionary Munich in 1919 and, still employed by the army, is assigned to report on the newly formed political parties in the city. After attending a meeting of the German Workers' Party, he is recruited by the party’s leader, Anton Drexler, to organise its propaganda activities and give increasingly popular speeches that harp on the themes that Germany has been betrayed by the leaders who surrendered in the last war, and that Communists and Jews are sapping the German spirit from within. After meeting the wealthy art publisher Ernst Hanfstaengl, Hitler is encouraged to refine his image and create a symbol for the party - which he does by adopting the Swastika. Hanfstaengl also puts Hitler in contact with the city’s elite, including the war hero Hermann Göring, and the militant Ernst Röhm, eventual organiser of the paramilitary SA. In 1921, Hitler forces Drexler to resign and takes over as leader of the renamed National Socialist Party.
In 1923, the Minister of Bavaria, Gustav von Kahr, urged on by his speechwriter, the journalist Fritz Gerlich, tries to outfox Hitler by convincing him that he is preparing to stage a military coup against the national government in Berlin and that Hitler must remain silent or else his party can play no part in it. Upon learning that the proposed putsch is merely a ruse, Hitler confronts Kahr at gunpoint and coerces him and his associates into supporting his own plan for a putsch. Röhm and the SA plan to take over the military barracks in preparation for a march on Berlin, but the attempted coup is quickly crushed. Hitler takes refuge at the Hanfstaengl home, almost resorting to suicide before Ernst’s wife takes the gun from his hand.
Arrested by the authorities and tried for treason, Hitler manages to use the trial to his advantage, winning over the audience and the Judge with his courtroom theatrics. Consequently, he is awarded a lenient sentence in Landsberg Prison, during which he writes his memoirs (later published as Mein Kampf). In 1925, Hitler goes to the countryside to escape from politics and is joined by his older half-sister, Angela, and her daughter Geli Raubal. When he returns to Munich, Hitler takes Geli with him but, distraught by his overbearing control of her life, she later commits suicide.
Eschewing revolution, Hitler now demands that the party follow a democratic course to power. This declaration puts him into conflict with Röhm, but Hitler’s demand for complete subordination of the party to himself as Führer (Leader) wins the approval of most others, including an impressionable young agitator named Joseph Goebbels. During the late 1920s, the party’s political fortunes improve, with the National Socialists gaining more and more seats in the Reichstag with each election. Alarmed by the party’s growing popularity, Gerlich continues to write articles in opposition to Hitler and, when the paper’s editor fires him, forms his own newspaper.
In 1932, Hitler becomes a German citizen and runs for President against the incumbent, Paul von Hindenburg. Although he is unsuccessful, the party has become the largest in the Reichstag, which emboldens Hitler to demand that he be made Chancellor of Germany. Though Hindenburg despises Hitler, the former Chancellor Franz von Papen helps bring this about in 1933. Thereafter, the Reichstag building is set on fire, allegedly by a communist, and Hitler uses the incident to have parliament award him dictatorial powers, which include suspension of civil liberties and suppression of the press. As a consequence, Gerlich's newspaper is shut down and he is arrested by the SA and sent to a concentration camp.
Germany now becomes a police state and Hitler crushes all his opponents, both inside and outside the party. Röhm is shot and the SA is absorbed into the German Army. Following Hindenburg’s death in August 1934, Hitler combines the office of President and Chancellor into one – thus making himself the country’s absolute ruler.
violence