01x03 - Episode 3

[bunniefuu]

Berlin, 1933.

In January, the National
Socialists under Adolf Hitler

come to power, along with the
German National People's Party

under Alfred Hugenberg.

In February, the Reichstag
building goes up in flames

in an arson attack
allegedly by communists.

There is no proof, but preparations
are under way for a trial.

Members of the Communist
Party are arrested.

Social Democrat and Catholic
Centre Party followers

are threatened and persecuted.

Jews are barred from
certain professions.

The streets are dominated
by swastika flags

and military-style marches.

The police and civil
service are being purged.

The press, radio, film
and theatre are censored.

Books are blacklisted
and about to be burned.

TRANSLATION: -
Since the afternoon,

open trucks loaded with
books have been bringing in

whatever could be found
in municipal libraries

and private collections
across the city.

Students are waving flags and
singing n*zi songs together.

- The police were patrolling

the cordoned-off square.

In the middle was a pyre.

On a specially erected
platform were spotlights,

film cameras and microphones.

The roofs and windows of
the surrounding buildings

were full of spectators.

The mood was a cheerful one.

It is, after all, springtime.

Students surrounded
the pile of wood

and threw their flaming
torches onto it.

The music continued to play.

Then 20 students
stepped forward.

Each had a book in his hand,

and as they threw
it into the flames,

they each shouted
out the same slogan.

The white pages of the books
opened up and fluttered

around like birds,
illuminated by the flames.

A great sadness seized my heart.

I grieved for the
books as dying objects.

I grieved for the people

that was bringing this
shame down upon itself.

I was ashamed to be
witnessing this ignominy

as a gawping foreigner.

Gradually, the fire burnt out.

The fire brigade helped
extinguish the flames with water

and the ashes turned to mud.

- On duty at the state hospital.

First, a police
prisoner with a seizure.

Probable renal bleeding
of the left kidney.

In the women's outpatient clinic

was a woman who had
supposedly collapsed.

In the evening,
Truda came to see me.

Sweet and kind as ever.

But a change has
taken place in her.

She's now constantly pushing
for us to get engaged.

She's rather forward
and presumptuous.

I don't know what's
got into the girl.

- The Germans are
celebrating Mother's Day.

This year, it is
intended as a tribute

to families with many children.

The National Socialist
Movement foresees no other

task for women
than to be mothers.

The party wants German
women to have long hair

and refrain from
powdering their faces,

painting their lips, and
smoking in bars and restaurants.

- At a conference for state education
ministers in Berlin on the 9th May,

Reich Minister of the
Interior Dr Frick,

outlined the basic principles for
educating youth in the Third Reich.

"Racial hygiene must," he said,

"be an integral part
of the curriculum.

"The mixing of German blood
with that of other races,

"in particular with
Jews and coloured races,

"must be avoided at all costs."

- My dear children

Werner and Emmy are
still in police custody.

Neither of them has even
been interrogated yet,

so there seems to be
nothing we can do.

I go to the police
headquarters every three days,

but have still not received
permission to talk to them.

Neither of them has
done anything wrong.

And if they are locking
Werner up because he is Jewish

and because he used to
be politically active,

that is outrageous enough.

But what has his wife done?

Surely, no-one can have any
interest in destroying our family.

- Ossietzky walked towards us

across the empty courtyard
Sambor concentration camp.

His arms were hanging stiffly from
his shoulders, as if lifeless.

His face was unscathed,

but his expression
was heart rendering.

During our brief conversation,

it remained rigid
and deathly serious.

His response to the hesitant
question, "How are things?"

was an almost soundless
"Tolerable. For the moment".

- My dearest Maudie,

thank you very much for your card,
which I was very happy to receive.

I am relieved to learn that
our daughter has come to terms

with the difficult
circumstances.

Next Sunday is Pentecost.

You will be alone together.

I'm with you both
in my thoughts.

I remain, as ever, your Carl.

- In the evening, SA Mann Brand

at the Ufa-Palast Cinema.

Grand Premiere.
Hitler there, too.

There's too much
talking in the film.

It must be edited down.

- Sturm evening.

First, we all got together in the
Sturm pub, and then we marched

to the music halls, carrying
the flag in front of us.

The night revolved around
singing and explanations of the



It ended at 11.30.

Truda and I went
onto Zimmermann's.

We were together until
three in the morning.

It was already
getting light outside.

- The Social Democratic Party

has been banned
throughout the Reich.

In Bavaria, members of Parliament
from the Bavarian People's Party

have been arrested.

Persecution of Centre Party
members across southern Germany.

Numerous Social Democrat
MPs and functionaries

have been arrested.

- On Wednesday, the 21st of
June, our house was searched

and occupied by the SA.

The search was conducted
by 20 to 30 SA men.

The SA men immediately
positioned themselves in front

of the telephone so that
nobody could call for help.

They pushed my husband
down the stairs,

kicked him and threatened
him at gunpoint.

- I was taken to
the SA-Sturm pub

in Elizabeth-Strasse.

We were received with
jeering and the first blows.

We were then forced to walk up
the wooden stairs to the hayloft,

accompanied by kicks and blows.

- One after another, we
each received 30 or 40 blows

with rubber
truncheons, steel rods

and other objects.

In between, the SA men
punched us with their fists.

Some of us dropped to
the floor unconscious.

- My brother-in-law,
Anton Schmalz,

who they also came to arrest,

resisted and fired several
shots at his attackers,

hitting four of the SA men.

He turned himself in
at the police station.

- At the police station,

a shot was fired from
within a group of SA men,

which seriously
injured Anton Schmalz.

Schmalz's father hung himself,

doubtless fearing the
consequences of his son's crime.

The washing line used in the
suicide had been cut with a knife.

A bloody jacket was
lying in the kitchen.

According to the SA report,

the dead man had caused his own
injuries in a fit of raving madness.

An SA man, Paul Scherer, observed
a sack floating in the Dahme.

It was pulled to the river bank.

Inside it was the
contorted corpse of a man.

There were many injuries
to his upper body.

The corpse is
believed to be that of

Social Democrat MP
Johannes Stelling,

formerly state minister of
Mecklenburg-West Pomerania.

He had been reported missing.

He had allegedly been taken
away by SA men for questioning

early in the morning.

- In spite of all the
political upheavals,

we're blessed by God.

How rich is the harvest
He bestows upon us?

Fruit is ripening all around us,

delighting our palate.

- I've been buying almost a
pound of strawberries every day.

The German National Front
has dissolved itself.

All its members have
joined the NSDAP.

Reich Minister
Hugenberg has resigned.

- No-one sheds a tear.

Hugenberg resigns
once and for all.

The boss is very good to me.

I'm getting Hugenberg's
official residence.

Fantastic.

- My surgery was open to the
public for the last time.

I put a brave face on it.

My flat looks like a
garden in full bloom.

My farewell bouquets.

It's like experiencing
my own funeral.

My assistant is beside
herself with sorrow.

I've closed my patients'
register for the last time.

- Werner and Emmy
have now been released

from so-called protective custody
and placed in investigative custody.

Werner thinks they could
be there for months.

He's been questioned only once
and not at all thoroughly.

I don't know whether Emmy
has been questioned at all.

It's not certain whether they'll
be charged with anything.

- My little Erna
has been invited

to the flag consecration

of the National Socialist
Factory Cell Organisation.

Although she isn't a member,

she wants to go along
with her colleague.

She left the house
dressed up very nicely.

I certainly don't begrudge the
girl this nice change of scene.

- I'm pleased. At
home with Magda.

I give her the keys
to our new home.

She's very happy.

The furniture isn't right.

- The Propaganda Ministry
has shone its light

on the new Inspector General
for German Roadways, Fritz Todt.

Todt has been given the
task of constructing

tens of thousands of kilometres
of roads and motorways.

My little Erna didn't
really enjoy the party.

She sat quietly at a table
and watched the proceedings.

The rooms were unbearably muggy.

Otherwise, the revolution
is boldly progressing.

- Van Patten in Rome.

He has negotiated a
concordat with the Vatican.

Checkmate for the Centre Party.

- Until recently, the Reich
Chancellor would not have thought

it possible that the Vatican
would be ready to commit

the bishops to our state.

It would undoubtedly represent

wholehearted recognition
of the current regime.

- There's general agreement here

that the situation for the
Jews will get worse by autumn.

We are convinced that one profession
after the next will be denied to us.

Civil servants have been strictly
forbidden to buy goods from Jews

and all Christian raw
materials suppliers

have been forbidden
to sell to Jews.

Mr Goebbels has
asserted on the radio

that he will not rest until
the last Jew has gone.

But where to? Where to?

- My husband has also had
to leave the hospital.

I know how much he
misses his work there.

It hurts me more
than my own loss.

Patients are coming to me every
day, asking where they should go.

I advise them as best I can.

I give them medicine from
my own medicine chest.

But I can't write
sick notes for them.

And they want these all the time
so that they won't have to go

to meetings or
after-work gatherings.

But I'm not in a
position to help them.

- I visited our
family burial plot.

Two heavy bronze chains
have been stolen from it.

The marble gravestones have
been smeared with swastikas.

- Yesterday, an SA man
repeatedly rang the doorbell

wanting me to buy a
pamphlet from him called,

"The Goals And Purpose Of National
Socialism - The 25 Points.

"What Does Our Fuhrer Want?"

The man was very pushy, and
I couldn't get rid of him.

I had to buy one.

- On August 1st, I begin work
as a police medical assessor

in Recklinghausen.
Hurrah, hurrah.

Poor Truda was very upset and
sad when she heard about it.

- Lots of meetings.

Discussions with the
boss in the afternoon.

Power is in our hands.
We dictate the pace.

- The Reich Government has
passed the following law.

First, the National Socialist
German Workers' Party

is the only political
party in Germany.

Second, maintaining any
other political party,

or founding any new political
party is punishable with prison

of up to three years,

or with jail from six
months to three years.

- Dearest Maudie,
I hope you're well.

I have nothing to report.

I'm well.

Please send me three stamps
for 12 pfennigs each.

Say hello to our baby.

- Ossietzky was sick.

The camp commanders wouldn't
allow him to be examined.

He received a postcard from
his daughter in England

that suggested she was happy
not to be in Germany any more.

As a result, Ossietzky was
taken to the guardhouse

and brutally beaten
by the squadron leader

for bringing his
daughter up badly.

- Today, I was on duty in the
hospital for the last time.

Now I just have to
say my goodbyes.

In the evening, at about ten,

I wanted to say farewell to Truda,
but she didn't want to leave.

We spent our happiest, most
passionate night together

for a long time.

In the morning, I took
her to Ackerstrasse

Truda got out of the car,
after giving me one last kiss.

She was sobbing, and
walked away from me slowly.

I gave her one piece of advice.

"Don't throw yourself at men
who are not worthy of you."

- My staff are hardworking
and meticulous.

We can be very
satisfied with them.

All the departments are
working magnificently.

Broadcasting has been purged.

- The Social Democrat
leaders, Ebert and Heinemann,

and the leading radio functionaries,
Director General Flesch,

Alfred Braun and Dr Magnus

were taken to Oranienburg
concentration camp.

They were forced to take their
clothes off in front of a crowd

of rowdy SA men.

The six men then had
their heads shaved bare,

although they left Ebert
with a circle of hair

in order to make him look
especially ridiculous.

- Opened the radio exhibition.
A grand, befitting ceremony.

I visited the exhibition.

The technological
developments are astonishing.

Tried out new radio equipment.

- When Erna came home
yesterday at lunchtime,

she brought very sad news.


their jobs as of the 1st October.

Of course, the mood was awful.

She was therefore all the more
excited about the mystery moonlit

boat trip that her
office organised.

The presence of every staff
member was checked on the way

there and the way back.

One-and-a-half hours
before departure, we found

all the seats already taken.

Anna's superior got
folding chairs for us.

We went upriver.

Suddenly, the lights of an
idyllically situated inn appeared.

The night proceeded
without incident,

with coffee, beer and dancing.

And I even ventured a
waltz with my little Erna.

But it's hard to get her
moving around in a circle.

She doesn't really like to dance
because she is rather ungainly.

- To Nuremberg. Visited Luitpoldhain,
the hall, the Zeppelinfeld.

Everything is built on a grand
scale, but the organisation

doesn't seem to be
working properly.

Raving women want to
hear the Fuhrer speak.

Vast crowds in the city,
impossible to get through.

I flee to my hotel
and rewrite my speech.

I tone down the content
of the Jewish question

for foreign policy reasons.

Party Congress opened.

Hess spoke well.

All very impressive.

- Henry Mann spoke of
the conversation he had

had with the Chancellor.

Hitler is a fanatic
on the Jewish problem.

He has no conception of
international relations.

He considers himself
a German messiah.

- The official films of this year's
Nuremberg Party Rally will be

made by Leni Riefenstahl.

They say she has
won Hitler's favour.

- The celebratory sounds of
Nuremberg have faded away.

The SA members in Erna's
office have been talking

about their experiences.

Every participant had to
pay for the trip themselves.

Food was provided, as was
accommodation on beds of straw.

Almost all of them returned home
dead tired and with aching limbs

from all the endless
standing still or marching.

- We have had our second
death here in Oranienburg,

a 31-year-old worker
called Sens from Zerbst.

I can bear witness that this
athletically strong, healthy worker

was beaten to death by
Sturmbannfuhrer Krueger

and two other SA men with
three rubber truncheons.

- On September 8th, my husband
was moved to Oranienburg

concentration camp.

- The Reichstag fire
trial has begun.

If you didn't know anything about
it, you'd think that a few idiots

had decided to play with
fire for recognition

or God knows what other motive.

Nobody with any sense,
whatever their opinion of

the Communist Party, could possibly
believe that those men would do

anything that insane.

- I accused the defendants of
jointly, A, undertaking to change

the constitution of the German
Reich through violent force,

and, B, deliberately setting
the Reichstag building on fire.

- Torgler looked ghastly,

a greeny-grey prison
pallor on his face.

He was tense, scared,
a nervous wreck.

The Bulgarians looked
wiry, tough, indifferent.

Van der Lubbe was one of the most
awful sights I have ever witnessed

in a human being.

He sat there motionless, his
head and hands hanging down

between his knees, either
in a trance or doped.

He seemed to be
slobbering at the mouth.

- Dr Todt explained that construction
work was to begin on two motorways.

Each would be 100km long.

The Reich Chancellor expressed
that the section from

Frankfurt Am Main to Heidelberg
must be completed quickly.

The Reichswehr, he said, was also
gradually beginning to understand

the importance of the motorways.

- Sturmbannfuhrer Krueger from Trebbin
felt particularly big and strong

when visitors came and he had
us parade in front of them.

Like a puffed-up animal trainer
from a minor travelling circus,

he would stalk around the camp,
summoning all the prominent

prisoners and presenting
them to the visitors.

- Muhsam was punched
in the kidneys.

They kicked him, pulled his beard
and his hair, and forced him to

lap up dirty mopping water.

Covered in blood,
exhausted and worn down,

Muhsam was made to run up and down
four flights of stairs five times.

With all their might, they
punched him, kicked him

and beat him with brooms.

- I had a telephone call telling
me that Germany was withdrawing

from the Geneva
Disarmament Conference and

the League of Nations.

A risky game.

- I went today at 12 o'clock
sharp to see Chancellor Hitler.

I went up broad stairways, guarded
at every turn by n*zi soldiers

with arms raised
in fascist salute.

Adolf Hitler appeared in
a simple workaday suit.

My impression was that he's very
confident and itching for conflict.

- The mood among us Jews in
Germany is terribly gloomy.

Now that the country has
left the League of Nations,

there is a fear that they won't
restrain themselves at all any more.

- Referendum and Reichstag
elections on 12th of November.

Hitler is always in need of new
propaganda and wants the people

to deliver him a new, purely
National Socialist Reichstag.

- We watched the
film Hitlerjunge Quex

at the Ufa Cinema.

- TRUMPET PLAYS
ON FILM SOUNDTRACK

- A splendid film, produced
with great diplomatic finesse.

- HE SINGS THE INTERNATIONALE

- In the intervals, little
Hitler Youth boys collected money

for winter relief.

- Frequent feelings of
despair, exhaustion, emptiness.

At least the Reichstag arson
trial has taken a surprising turn

Goering took the stand.

Huge, paunchy,

his stomach protruding,
his face sagging.

Pompous, and yet
a little nervous.

His voice was uncontrolled,
his gestures melodramatic.

Dimitrov interrupted him several
times and he flew into a rage.

- HE SHOUTS:

- Dimitrov, with deadly sarcasm,
was beginning to reveal so much

that Goering shouted
for him to stop.

- Erich and Edith visited Werner
and Emmy, and they've written to me

that there's been no progress.

Soon they will have been
in jail for seven months.

Emmy is stick-thin.

The Jewish partners
left their company.

It's a tax office that has been
brought under government control.

Of course, we will lose
the printing contract.

We've been printing their
tax reports for years.

I am very worried about what will
happen when one customer after

the other vanishes in the
maelstrom and Theo is left

with nothing but a pile of rubble
from our once-thriving business.

- Our 10th wedding anniversary.

Our table is decorated with
soft pink chrysanthemums,

as it was in the old days.

"Here's to the next ten years,"

says my husband, and I
feel my heart tremble.

They have taken away
my calm certainty,

the peace I felt in my own home.

They have tried to debase me.

They have taken my work,
what I loved most, from me.

- This morning mist had settled
over the woods and fields.

At lunchtime in Spandau, I took
the opportunity of listening to

Hitler's speech in a small cafe.

- Hitler was going to give a
speech in the Siemens factory.

A crowd was standing
outside a radio shop.

I joined them.

A big loudspeaker had been
mounted above the door.

- The broadcast began with
the clattering of machines,

the chugging of a locomotive,
the noise of chains and hammers.

After a while, the Fuhrer's
approach was announced by the sound

of people shouting, "Heil!"

That moment had an overwhelming,
unprecedented drama.

Then came a husky bass voice,

as if his throat was
sore from schnapps.

Unsure, faltering,

sometimes raising his voice

to a frightened screech
before levelling off again.

Gasping for breath, wheezing.

A terrible mix of fury,
pleading, triumph,

imploration and fanaticism.

All in all, utterly repellent.

It's absurd, gruesome
and raging all at once.

I couldn't take it any
more and left the cafe.

The streets were almost empty.

On some corners, or above entrances
where there were loudspeakers,

groups of people
huddled together.

The expression on their faces
was not one of enthusiasm,

but a kind of dull gravity,
like an intimation of danger.

- Election Sunday.

The polling station is in
a pub. Long queues outside.

The election committee
members sit at tables,

the men wearing National
Socialist insignia.

Behind the curtain, the
people make their crosses.

Two metres away are two SA men.

- The Consul in Stuttgart
reports that, from 4pm to 6pm,

uniformed National Socialists
called at the homes of non-voters,

basically forcing
them to go and vote.

The same was reported by
the Consul in Breslau.

- I've attached a page from
the afternoon newspaper

with the final election results.

No need for me to comment.

- Voter turnout
of more than 90%.

Around 10% dared
to vote against.

- The self-assured direction of
film actress Leni Riefenstahl

has produced Victory Of Faith,
a document of our times.

The images of the Fuhrer

being greeted by Germany's
youth are staggering -

the centrepiece and
culmination of the film.

- The suspense over the
outcome of the Reichstag trial

has reached fever pitch.

People are reading
reports about the trial

in foreign newspapers.

In the cafes, they are
passed from hand to hand.

- It seems barely possible that
the court can convict Torgler

and the Bulgarians of
complicity in the arson attack.

- CHOIR SINGS "STILLE
NACHT, HEILIGE NACHT"

- My dear Maudie,

I have enough underclothing
and warm things.

Don't send me any more.

Just a few things to
eat every now and again.

And more often, some tobacco.

All the best for the
new year, my child.

May it see us all
together again soon.

I embrace you, your Carl.

- Following
international protests,

Carl von Ossietzky was
released from prison in 1936

and awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize.

Two years later, isolated
from the outside world,

he died from the after-effects
of his imprisonment and t*rture.

He was 48 years old.

Erich Muhsam was m*rder*d

in Oranienburg concentration camp
in 1934. He was 56 years old.

Clara Brause died in


What became of her
daughter Erna is unknown.

Willi Lindenborn joins
the Wehrmacht in 1936.

He becomes a staff surgeon and
fights in the Second World w*r.

His last diary
entry is from 1975.

Emmy Scholem is released
from jail in 1934

and able to flee to England
with her two children.

Werner Scholem is m*rder*d

in Buchenwald
concentration camp in 1940.

Betty Scholem flees to Australia
in 1939 and dies there in 1946.

Berlin was planned to become
the great metropolis, Germania,

capital of the Third Reich,
enduring for 1,000 years.

After just 12 years, the city
has been reduced to rubble.