Stalingrad

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television series on the overall history of the SS, this documentary series takes a balanced view with many previously unpublished sources and with witnesses to the history of the SS: victims, perpetrators and opponents.

Today, the word "Auschwitz" is a synonym for the Holocaust. Thousands of Jews died there every day. With the help of some acted scenes, photos and graphics, the film tells of a day in May 1944. The starting point is a unique document: a photo album created by the SS perpetrators themselves. Almost all of the photos were taken at the end of May 1944, in just a few days. They show the cruel routine, the arrival of the victims, their "selection" on the ramp, the robbery of their property and the transformation of all those who were not immediately killed, into shaved, uniformed slaves. One survivor is Irina Weiss. On a photo she recognizes her little brothers and her mother - waiting unsuspectingly near the crematorium. The SS photographers captured all of this. Their identity is known today: one of them was Bernhard Walter, a "Stabsscharführer" who lived with his wife and three children near the extermination camp.

The spectrum of topics ranges from political history with a focus on contemporary history (especially National Socialism and post-war history) to cultural history and social history. In addition, ZDF-History also regularly deals with pre-modern history, art and cultural history.