It’s doubtful that anyone reading this doesn’t have a general handle on Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in post-World War I Germany and the broad events that led to World War II. The period and the incidents are well-turned earth, the subject of thousands of books and millions of metres of film, both non-fiction and fiction.
Onerous war reparations imposed on Germany at the Treaty of Versailles put Germany on the economic backfoot, which was exacerbated by the Great Depression. Failed artist, war veteran and right-wing demagogue, Hitler clawed his way to prominence through a combination of nationalism, populism, and the scapegoating of the Jewish people for the country’s woes. Economic revitalisation and military rearmament followed, then expansionism enabled by Britain and the Western powers’ policies of appeasement. In 1939 German tanks rolled across the Polish border, and the war began in earnest.
That’s enough to not embarrass yourself on a high school test paper, but the general gist only gets you so far. The specifics, however, are fascinating. In the new three-part documentary series, Hitler: Countdown to War, specialist history director and producer Robin Dashwood puts the focus squarely on the 18 months leading up to the invasion of Poland, beginning with Germany’s annexation of Austria on March 12, 1938, and ending with the invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939.
Going almost day by day and beginning with the foreboding title card ‘540 Days To War’ the series attempts to drill down into the specific events, decisions and negotiations that led to the outbreak of war, eschewing generalisations for the nitty-gritty of diplomacy, policy and brinksmanship.
Professor Saul David is one of the historians who discuss the events in ‘Hitler: Countdown to War’. Source: Sam Al-Kadi for Voltage
Broadly speaking, the most revealing area of inquiry is Germany’s invasion of Czechoslovakia, which began with the annexation of the culturally German Sudetenland in 1938 and was effectively Hitler testing the waters of military action. While Hitler was cheered upon his entry into Austria, German ambitions in Czechoslovakia were condemned on the international stage, but Hitler’s promise that the Sudetenland represented the limit of German territorial expansion saw the invasion met with little resistance or censure – a costly mistake. This period tends to get skipped over in more broad accounts, and this deep dive sheds some welcome light on the events.
But even more interesting is the insight we get into Hitler’s personal life and psychology. We’re told how Hitler enjoyed cinema, especially films like King Kong and Walt Disney cartoons, and how he made time in his schedule of public appearances to watch movies procured by Josef Goebbels. We hear how he was a fan of Westerns, viewing the European colonisation of North America as a natural extension of Anglo-Saxon expansion in the home continent. These are somewhat humanising touches, but all the more chilling for that; the notion of Adolf sitting with Eva Braun and laughing at Donald Duck in the evening and stoking the fires that led to Kristallnacht the next morning makes the blood run cold.
“Hitler was a real movie buff,” says Dr Emma Butcher in ‘Hitler: Countdown to War’. Source: Sam Al-Kadi for Voltage
And that is the essential value of a documentary series like Hitler: Countdown to War. When we think about history in the abstract, it’s easy to forget that the events of both the past and the present are rooted in choices made by mere people, no matter how heinous. However, a closer scrutiny of the past reveals the quotidian nature of evil. Hitler’s monstrosity was not supernatural, and it’s always worth remembering that the most horrifying decisions are made by ordinary human beings.
Three-part series Hitler: Countdown to War airs back to back from 7.30pm, Friday 19 November on SBS.
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