The Age of Commercialism

Absolutely the worst movie.

The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

I am a huge WWII buff and really find this era, especially the Nazi's very intriguing. My problem with this documentary, while it was decent,glazed over a few glaring facts, and it may have been done intentionally due to political reasons in Europe and the UK currently.First, they kept referring to the Nazi party as a right-wing extremist party. Well, they ignored the fact that they were National "SOCIALISTS." In fact, in the early days Hitler gave speeches condemning capitalism, and openly saying that the ideals of the Nazi party was based on the ideas of Karl Marx and had very few differences from Marxism. They also touted themselves as a "workers party." The only mention of this in a slight way was the mention that right wing industrialists supported Hitler. They supported Hitler because they saw what happened when the Communists seized The Soviet Union, and felt that supporting Hitler would be a lot better than having everything (thier businesses and wealth) seized by Communism. Also mentioned is the large scale "Infrastructure" programs Hitler invested in such as the Autobahn...That is not the kind of thing Right Wingers do, in fact if you look at U.S. politics today you will see that this is the same thing Obama (a leftwing Idealist) is suggesting for the current bad economy. Now, Yes, The Nazi's weren't exactly leftwing either but they had to do something to separate themselves from rivals such as the Communists and Social Democrats. Groups like that wanted to cure the ills of the Depression by class warfare, and the Nazi's instead focused their furry at the Jews (who were in perceived high income occupations), but essentially they replace the class warfare argument of the communists by replacing "the Wealthy, ruling class" with "jews" which earned them much more support and got the rich industrialists on his side. Not to mention attitude and prejudice against the jews was an accepted prejudice throughout the whole of Europe save for a very few countries like Poland. Nobody likes it today when you bring up the fact that many countries, including the U.S. turned away whole shiploads of Jewish refuges, who were later sent back to the slaughter when they were forced to return to Europe. Ultimately the facts were fairly decent in this documentary, but, in my belief, there were a lot of omissions done in order to not ruffle any feathers in the UK and Europe due to the continue of barrages of left wing socialist opinions and politics currently enveloping the continent right now.

I have seen this documentary about 5 or 6 times already but it's worth watching every time.I have it taped. Since I'm interested in WW2 and pre-war History I was happy to see this show hitting screen in Hungary 3 years ago. When I watched it I realized it's the best I've seen in this category. It gives answers for questions which have never been asked in public.It gives a very good explanation about why the Germans let Hitler take over,how did they plan the "Endlösung",and other terrible or not so terrible things. This mini series follows the history of Nazism from WW1 up until the very end. I recommend it highly to everyone interested in this topic! Warning,definitely not for children under age of 16!

I first saw THE Nazis: A WARNING FROM HISTORY when it was originally broadcast on BBC 2 in 1997 but wasn't too struck by it . I found it somewhat dry and academic and unlike several documentaries dealing with the holocaust ( Most notably the episode from THE WORLD AT WAR ) it didn't leave much of an impact with me . I also noticed some irritation with the writing , for example the phrase " Ethnic cleansing " is used but this is both an anachronism and a misnomer . Anachronistic because the term wasn't used until 1991-92 during the Balkans conflict and a misnomer because what the Serbs , Croats and Bosniaks ( All sides used the technique and no one had a monopoly as perpetrator or victim ) were doing in the former Yugoslavia was fairly different from what the Nazis did in the occupied territories during the second world war . " Migratory genocide " is a phrase that came from the Soviet-Afghan war and can be said to be the precursor phrase to " Ethnic cleansing " and would be accurate to describe the tactics used in the former Yugoslavia . Nazi tactics from 1939 to 1945 were different and " Literal genocide " would be the most accurate phrase instead of " ethnic cleansing " I did catch the final episode when it was repeated a couple of weeks ago and I have to take issue with some of the points raised . For example Laurence Rees script argues that because the fascist policies of Italy were different from German Nazi racial policies , Nazi Germany couldn't sue for peace the way the Italians had done . This is a bizarre argument because whatever the ideology of Italy was during the second world war they had no real military success , even if Italy was led by someone as bloodthirsty and as racist as Hitler the Italian military had no military success as such , they'd captured very little territory . The Italian military leaders were incompetent and the average soldier in the fascist Italian army is still the butt of jokes today so it's totally irrelevant what the racial policies of Il Duce were . By a bitter irony the most serious critics of Hitler in Germany during were the Prussian aristocracy , the officer class whose generals conquered Western Europe and knocked on the gates of Moscow in 1941 . Without these officers who had little love of Hitler Nazi Germany wouldn't have been able to capture most of Europe and engage on a policy of industrialised murder It's also open to interpretation as to how much fighting spirit the Germans had in the final months of the war was down to the fear of being tried for their crimes against humanity or if it's down to the notorious German mentality . During the great war of 1914-18 Germany wasn't led by a genocidal madman or committed a policy of mass extermination but they still fought on when they realised they weren't going to win the war and the allies on the Western front were shocked by this attitude as the Germans fought until the final seconds before 11am November the 11th 1918 . Even today the Germans in sport are infamous as to their win at all costs mentality and there has always seemed to be something in the German psyche that doesn't allow them to know when they've been beaten Much of the selling point of the series - And the reason why it's so highly regarded by some critics - is that it interviews people who have innocent blood on their hands . One man tells of the time he was told to prosecute a farm worker who made a joke about the Nazis blowing up a bridge . The farm worker was found guilty of treason and hanged in the village square in front of his wife . The prosecutor in question was later found guilty of murder and sentenced to six years imprisonment . But what do we learn from these interviews ? That the Nazis murdered millions of innocent people ? I think we already knew that . That they're sorry for what they did ? That they're not sorry at all ? How can anyone prove or disprove that and what good would come out of it anyway ? Watching THE Nazis: A WARNING FROM HISTORY is a disappointment since it doesn't shed new light on a topic we already know about

I've just seen this series again for about the third time, and its importance cannot be under-estimated. At a time when German diplomats have begun to accuse the British of being obsessed with the war, the BBC decided to record as many unrepentant old Nazis as could be found and persuaded to talk. As in Shoah, they are gladly given enough rope to hang themselves.The importance of this isn't so much the story, because much of it is known, but the nuance that comes from the interviews and specific new information which has only come to light in the last decade. This proves, amongst other things that Adolf Hitler did not want war with Britain and he did know about the final solution.The repression of the Nazi Party's organisation against the Germans themselves is also highlighted, and this is very rarely covered.Highly commended.