Secrets of the Dead

Bugging Hitler's Soldiers (12x2)

Data emisji: Maj 01, 2013

In the aftermath of World War II, ordinary German soldiers claimed they knew nothing about the Holocaust. They blamed all its atrocities on the SS. However, recently uncovered transcripts of a massive bugging operation by MI19, an intelligence division of the British War office, tell a very different story. Over the course of the operation, MI19 spied on 4,000 German POW's, listening in as the men revealed their inner thoughts about the Third Reich and let slip military secrets that helped the Allies win World War II. Some of these POW's were high-ranking German officers who were lulled into a false sense of security by the special treatment they received while held in stately British country homes that were bugged with state-of-the-art equipment. They spoke freely, sharing their--at times conflicting--opinions of Hitler, the Third Reich, and the fate of Germany. Over 100,000 hours of conversations by German POW's were secretly recorded, and the most dramatic and revealing of these unguarded conversations are recreated, offering new insight into what German soldiers really thought about Hitler's regime. Based on groundbreaking research conducted by a team of leading German historians and scientists, BUGGING HITLER'S SOLDIERS tells the story of how those confessions were stolen, how they changed the outcome of the war and how they can now reveal, in more shocking detail than ever before, the hearts and minds of the German fighter.