Alexander Scourby narrates this documentary showing the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler. Produced by Henry Salomon and Richard Hanser. Musical score by Robert Russell Bennett. NBC news bulletins with Wilson Hall interrupts programming, stating that "President Eisenhower has broken off U.S. relations with Castro's Cuba." This program originally aired on March 14, 1956.
NOTE:
This was the second of over 30 different NBC PROJECT XX documentaries made for television (1954-1970). This broadcast depicts a chronicle of the rise and fall of Adolf Hitler, dictator of Germany. The story begins with scenes of Hitler as a shabby street-corner orator in Munich Germany. It shows his rise to a position of supreme power in his homeland and eventually in much of Europe.
High Nazi officials are seen strutting about at the height of their success. Goering, Goebbels, Himmler and Hess are among the figures seen in addition to Adolph Hitler. Aside from newsreel shots of concentration camps there are reconstructed scenes of Nazi victims being prepared for extermination.
There are scenes of mass Nazi rallies.
As Nazi power begins to fail, there are scenes of Germans fleeing for shelter from "Allied bomb s. From a recent German movie comes re-enacted details of the abortive bomb lot against Hitler's life on July 20, 1944. Newsreels show Der Fuhrer being congratulated on his escape from death. But in fact his health is broken. While he broods in his bunker, Berlin falls in ruins above him. As the Russians advance on the doomed capitol Hitler takes his own life.
An exceptional original music score is composed by Robert Russell Bennett to compliment and give impact to the visuals, and the narrative by Alexander Scourby is superb. He would continue to narrate over half of all Project XX events during its 16 year television cycle.
