Third Reich: The Rise & Fall

I found this a very interesting and informative documentary on the rise of Hitler and the Third Reich, WWII/Europe, and the defeat of Germany, from the perspective of the Germans. Through letters and remembrances from German soldiers and civilians alike, it gives Americans used to documentaries from "our" view a nice reverse angle look at those events. I'm still not sure whether more Germans were for or against Hitler at the time, but we hear both points of view here.

Having been a History Channel fan for 15 years, "Third Reich: The Rise & Fall" still managed to come up with a lot of material and film I had not seen before, some of which is still banned in Germany. (Nothing like seeing a starving man standing in rubble carve meat off of a bomb-killed, bloated horse to give you a sense of the moment.)

As networks, even the History Channel, are wont to do with these documentaries, silent film footage has added sound effects (bomb blasts, rifles shots, laughter, etc.). I find that highly insulting to the intelligence, and suppose they only do it for the kids with no familiarity with silent film. {Hey, if they weren't interested in the true history of the time, they wouldn't be watching anyway.} Also, all the cuts from one topic to the next had these little one to two second clips of "end of film reel" scenes where the screen goes to white and you see the film sprocket holes go by. I found that became annoying rather quickly. And although those are small gripes, they caused me to drop my rating to a 9.

Overall, a fine documentary on the Third Reich, which itself was proof positive of the principle of Cause and Effect. The Cause being Hitler bent on world domination, and the Effect being a Germany so thoroughly pummeled that it would take decades to fully recover.