The Abyss – Rise and Fall of the Nazis

At the beginning there is the promise of old greatness and new order, at the end there is the murder of millions. What lies in between is a warning from history.

In 1923, the NSDAP had grown to 55,000 members, and its party leader, Adolf Hitler, was portraying himself as the strong man of the right-wing extremist scene. But what was he up to?

At the end of the 1920s, the "rural people's movement" protested against social decline. The protest became a radical movement, whose anger was exploited by Hitler and the NSDAP.

As soon as he took office, Chancellor Adolf Hitler dropped his mask and nipped any opposition in the bud. In less than two years, he turned Germany into a dictatorship.

Hitler's aggressively anti-Semitic policy is supported by millions of Germans. Jews are discriminated against, deprived of their rights and persecuted in plain sight.

On September 1, 1939, German troops invade Poland. SS men follow behind them with orders to murder the Polish intelligentsia. Thousands fall victim to them.