SBS - Hitlers Warriors (1998) Part 3 Keitel The Lackey

Since the early 1980s popular German TV journalist and presenter Guido Knopp has unearthed a wealth of new material about the leading figures of the Third Reich. Subsequent to the successful series “Hitler - A Profile” and “Hitler's Henchmen”, Guido Knopp and his team continue this significant television analysis of the Nazi period with a series of the six most important German generals. He has spoken to countless contemporaries and eyewitnesses, relatives and friends of these men, and has been given access to documents that until now have been kept under lock and key. In this series, Guido Knopp's reassessment of Germany's guilty past, turns to the careers of six key military leaders of the Third Reich, and their relationships with Hitler. Profiling these men, the series continues to pose the question as to why it all happened. Rommel, Canaris, Keitel, Paulus, Udet and Manstein. Six careers caught in the tangle of Nazi political intrigue and ultimate disaster. What led all these officers to put their military talents at the service of a murderous dictator? To what depth was their involvement in Hitler's crimes? To what limits did their obedience lead them?

Part 3 Keitel The Lackey

Like many of those who surrounded Hitler, Wehrmacht chief of staff Field-Marshal Wilhelm Keitel was simply too weak to accept where his actions were leading. Instead, he took refuge in obedience without limit. With archival footage never previously shown, the film draws the psychological profile of aman whose moral failings had fatal consequences. Former officers of the general staff and fellow travellers describe his path from joining the imperial army to the gallows of Nuremberg. Keitel's key role in the secret rearmament of the Reichswehr to the apocalyptic plans for massive use of nerve gas during the last weeks of the war are presented as stages in a military career caught under the spell of the dictator.

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