Silent Saviors

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television series on the overall history of the SS, this documentary series takes a balanced view with many previously unpublished sources and with witnesses to the history of the SS: victims, perpetrators and opponents.

August 1942: Amidst the unimaginable suffering inflicted during the blockade of Leningrad by the German Wehrmacht, an orchestra director was given an almost impossible task: to stage the premiere of Dimitri Shostakovitch's "Leningrad Symphony". The performance became a symbol of the brief triumph of culture over the barbarism of war.

How was Adolf Hitler able to count on the German public even in the face of unspeakable suffering and impending doom? Evocative and previously unseen private archive footage, much of it in colour, shows life in Nazi Germany from 1933 onwards till the end of the Nazi regime in 1945. This documentary is a revealing portrait of the German people, how they lived and perceived the world, under Hitler.

The Wehrmacht is a 5 parts documentary that provides differentiated answers on the Wehrmacht role in the World War II based on the latest historical and comprehensive investigative research, bringing many new facts to light, among them documents proving for the first time ever, what many among the officers actually thought from Trent Park operation archives.

The First World War - carnage on a scale never-before seen. But how did it all start? And how did some key figures of WWII fare in the earlier war?

April 1945. In a dramatic operation the SS transports 139 special prisoners, and kin of the prisoners, into the Alps. The plan: to use the prisoners as bargaining chips in possible negotiations with the Allies. During the journey a number of prisoners plan their escape and experience six days between liberty and death, their fates in the hands of ruthless and increasingly nervous criminals. But the hostages band together and turn the tables with a clever ploy: they call in the Wehrmacht to aid them…

April 1945. In a dramatic operation the SS transports 139 special prisoners, and kin of the prisoners, into the Alps. The plan: to use the prisoners as bargaining chips in possible negotiations with the Allies. During the journey a number of prisoners plan their escape and experience six days between liberty and death, their fates in the hands of ruthless and increasingly nervous criminals. But the hostages band together and turn the tables with a clever ploy: they call in the Wehrmacht to aid them…

Little-known events that played a large role in determining the outcome of World War II are revealed in this documentary series.