Europe in the 1920s and 1930s – a continent licks its wounds after the devastation of World War I.
In this fertile breeding ground for dissent, authoritarian regimes are on the rise.
The Abyss: Rise And Fall Of The Nazis takes a fresh look at the Third Reich from a global and current perspective. It tells us how the Nazis managed to conquer Germany and then half of Europe within a few years. How could that be, with the horrors of World War I still so fresh? Why did it take so long before they were stopped? A combination of previously unpublished archive material, historic sources and an international team of experts paint a new picture of Hitler’s regime. The series unpicks the complex sequence of events that boosted a new regime, allowing violence and brutality to unfold on an unbelievable scale.
Series One, Episode One: The Seeds of Violence (1918-1922)
In 1940, Adolf Hitler forces defeated Frenchmen in a train carriage to sign their surrender – the Germans had experienced the same humiliation at the end of the WWI. The world war, which took 20 million lives, did not lead to a renunciation of violence – it only laid the foundation for radical agitators to succeed in post-war Germany.
The Abyss: Rise And Fall Of The Nazis – New Series Premiere – Saturday, 18 February at 5.30pm on SBS and SBS on Demand (10 Parts)