Poster for The SS

ZDF 2002 1 season 6 eps TV-14 Ended

The SS

2002 1 season 6 eps TV-14

7.3

Season 1

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Season 1

45 min

S1 · E1 · Nov 5, 2002

Heydrich Episode 1

As head of the SS Security police, Reinhard Heydrich rose with meteoric speed to control the murder squads operating in Poland and Russia with brutal efficiency. He took charge of the 'final solution to the Jewish problem', becoming a central figure in the horrors of the Holocaust. Interviews with Gestapo victims Ralph Giordano, Emile Brune, Hermann Laupsien, Czech Resistance member and writer Pavel Kohout and Heydrich's SS contemporaries Franz Wimmer-Lamquet and Boris von Drachenfels are also featured.

7.5 · You

45 min

S1 · E2 · Nov 12, 2002

The Struggle for Power Episode 2

Part one looks at how the SA, the Storm Detachment of the NSDAP, began as a group of thugs and criminals, many of whom had fought in World War I. This group helped Hitler rise to power after the Beer Hall Putsch of 1923. The SS, originally Hitler's black shirted personal bodyguard regiment, was fiercely loyal to Hitler and soon became an elite and powerful group. Lead by former chicken-farmer Heinrich Himmler, the SS soon became more powerful than the SA. This episode also looks at the rising opposition Hitler faced from within the SA and the measures he took to eliminate this group. There are personal interviews with survivors and with those men who served the inhuman SS system.

7.6 · You

45 min

S1 · E3 · Nov 19, 2002

Himmler's Madness Episode 3

Part 2 looks at Heinrich Himmler, the most powerful man in the Third Reich after Hitler. The SS expanded rapidly under Himmler's efficient leadership and soon cast a black shadow over Germany. Himmler chose the castle of Wewelburg in Westphalia as the centre of the SS cult, and invented a glorious historical past and a pseudo-religion. Eyewitness accounts include SS doctor Ernst Günther Schreck, former concentration camp inmate Max Hollweg, former German army officer Bernd Freytag von Loringhoven, Himmler's personal staff member Gabriele Winckler and Florentine Rost van Tonningen who was a friend of Himmler's and the wife of an SS officer.

7.2 · You

45 min

S1 · E4 · Nov 26, 2002

Death's Head Episode 4

This episode looks at the Death's Head Battalion, whose members were identified by the badge with a skull on the right lapel of their uniform. They underwent rigorous training to abolish every trace of human emotion and independent thought, leaving them willing tools of the unimaginable crimes committed in its name. Interviews with Nuremberg Chief Prosecutor Benjamin Ferencz; former Auschwitz inmate and author of People in Auschwitz Hermann Langbein; Holocaust survivors Heinz Junge, Kazimir Smolen, Helmuth Szprycer and Hans Frankenthal as well as SS men Hans Münch and Harry Seidel.

7.3 · You

45 min

S1 · E5 · Dec 3, 2002

The Waffen SS Episode 5

"Give death and take death" — this was the motto of the Waffen-SS on the frontlines of the Second World War, which earned it dubious fame: between boldness and crime, propagated heroism and mass murder. The Waffen SS was a phenomenon full of contradictions, wooed by carefully cultivated myths... This episode looks at The Waffen SS who were the elite military wing of the organisation. They were fanatical fighters who spread fear and terror in the early days of the war as the Blitzkrieg was launched against Poland and the West. This episode also looks at the major role The Waffen SS played in the attack on the Soviet Union in 1941.

7.2 · You

45 min

S1 · E6 · Dec 10, 2002

The Mystery of Odessa Episode 6

When the "Third Reich" surrendered, Heinrich Himmler's elite order became the "Army of Outlaws". Some perpetrators are brought to trial and convicted by the Allies as war criminals, but some of the most wanted SS henchmen manage to escape abroad in a mysterious way... What became of the SS after the war? This question leads to an almost impenetrable web of Nazi legends and historical facts that sound so unlikely that one can hardly believe. Soon after the war ended, a mysterious organization "Odessa" — short for "organization of former SS members" — appeared in secret files of the American secret service. The fear is widespread that the elite of Nazi rule could re-form underground. How influential could this underground network be? This final episode features interviews with Nazi hunters Beate Klarsfeld, Ephraim Zuroff and Serge Klarsfeld; former members of the US secret service and army officers William Gowen, James Milano and Wolfgang Robinow and former SS members.

7.4 · You

6 episodes in Season 1

Some details come from TheTVDB.

SS — the two letters in old Germanic rune script represent the most effective and dangerous instrument of power of the Nazi dictatorship. The SS represented more than any other Nazi organisation the wild and deadly delusions of those who believed themselves part of the master race. It took only a few years for Hitler's Schutzstaffel to be transformed from an insignificant personal bodyguard to an all-powerful empire of evil. There are personal interviews with survivors and and with those men who served the inhuman SS system. Only now, as their lives draw to a close, are they prepared to speak up. In the world's first television series on the overall history of the SS, this documentary series takes a balanced view with many previously unpublished sources and with witnesses to the history of the SS: victims, perpetrators and opponents.

Documentary War & Politics

Where to watch

Not streaming anywhere

Not on any streaming service in United States, and not available to rent.

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Your review

Cast

1 person

Guido Knopp

Self - Narrator

Also in

Der letzte Gigant - auf der Suche nach Hitlers Riesenflugzeug

History Live

Sebastian Dehnhardt Director · Carsten Oblaender Director · Christian Frey Director

Director

Sebastian Dehnhardt

Director

Carsten Oblaender

Director

Christian Frey

Editor

André Hammesfahr

Editor

Richard Krause

Editor

Marc Nordbruch

Total runtime 4h 48m · Episode length 48 min · Type Documentary

Show info

Premiered

November 5, 2002

Final episode

December 10, 2002

Status

Ended

Network

ZDF

Country

Germany

Type

Documentary

Episode length

48 min

Total runtime

4h 48m

Original language

German

Production

Z

ZDF

Production

H

History

Production

C

Channel 4 Television

Production

S

Storyhouse Productions

Production

Languages

Original title

Die SS

Spoken on screen

German

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Some details come from TheTVDB.

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