The Rise of the Nazi Party

At the end of World War I, Hitler makes his way to the politically charged city of Munich, where he joins a fringe group and begins to transform it into the Nazi Party. After recruiting Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, and others to the cause, he readies his "Brownshirts" for his all-or-nothing bid to seize power by putsch.

Released from prison after just nine months of a five-year sentence, Hitler works with party propagandist Joseph Goebbels to rebrand the National Socialists and broaden their appeal. But by now the Weimar Republic is enjoying a better economy, and people seem unreceptive to the Nazi message until the worldwide events of 1929 change the course of history.

As the Great Depression grips the country, the Nazis grow in popularity to become the second-biggest party in the country. When the Reichstag is burned down, Hitler makes his power grab: he suppresses the Communist Party, reaches out to centrists, blames the Jews, and promises peace abroad and full employment at home.

Now führer, or supreme ruler of Germany, Hitler puts the country to work and the military on a rebuilding program. In a series of new laws, the Nazis identify the group they consider to be the country's chief enemy, targeting them during the events of Kristallnacht in November 1938. Soon, Hitler is ready for war.

Hitler unveils his plans for Germany's future in Europe, much to the horror of some of his generals, who believe his timetable is reckless and unrealistic. Austria, the Sudetenland, and the rest of Czechoslovakia are his first targets, followed by Poland and the Soviet Union. By 1941, he has accomplished most of his goals, and it looks like the war is essentially over.

After invading Russia in June 1941, Hitler makes his biggest error of the war in the wake of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. The Nazis suffer a series of reverses at Stalingrad, in North Africa and Italy, and in the round-the-clock bombing of their cities by U.S. and British air forces. No amount of Goebbels's propaganda can convince Germans they are still winning.

The Nazis groom the nation for the worst genocide in human history. Blaming the Jews for everything from Germany's surrender in World War I to its postwar economic woes, Hitler takes a series of steps to deny them their rights as citizens and then their rights as human beings.

Defeat after defeat on the battlefield undermine the führer's image of invincibility, and some army officers plot his overthrow. But Hitler believes Germany can still win the war, and just before Christmas 1944, he prepares for his final roll of the dice on the western front.

With the Red Army closing in on Berlin, Hitler is a wreck of a man: prematurely aged, pill-dependent, losing touch with reality, and determined to fight to the end. Nazi ringleaders maneuver to save themselves and cut their own deals with the Allies. The inner circle gathers for one last time to celebrate the führer's 56th birthday, days after which he arrives at his own final solution.

The Allies make a gruesome discovery as they advance through Germany--Nazi concentration and death camps and the systematic wholesale murder of millions of people. They institute a program of denazification that only comes to an end in 1951, by which time Germany is front and center in the Cold War, which the Allies believe former Nazis can help them win.