Helped into Power

How was it possible that the cultured nation at the heart of Europe ever allowed Hitler to come to power?

With the help of film archive discoveries from Russia and interviews with eyewitnesses, many of whom are former members of the Nazi party and have never appeared on television before, this film reveals how the Nazi party was born and grew in support in the late 1920s, and shows just why in January 1933 Germany's President Hindenburg appointed a new popular chancellor who was openly committed to overthrowing German democracy - Adolf Hitler.

Hitler's personality was to dominate the Nazi party. But eyewitnesses have very different recollections of his effect upon them. To Nazi supporter Fridolin von Spaun 'the long gaze which he gave me convinced me completely that he was a man with honourable intentions.' But to German diplomat Herbert Richter, who saw Hitler in the 1920s, 'he wasn't quite normal. He was spooky.'

The Nazis wanted the world to believe that Hitler's rise to power was inevitable - this programme shatters that myth.