Hitler and the Nazis

A well-intentioned documentary series about the rise and fall of the Third Reich, director Karl T. Hirsch's Hitler and the Nazis nevertheless reminds us that it is nearly impossible to craft a nonfiction work that offers anything original in its depiction of Adolf Hitler's ascension to power and the subsequent brutality he visited upon Europe and the world at large. Kirsch does an intelligent job of culling historical newsreel clips and photographs (many familiar from the hundreds of documentaries on this topic released since the end of World War II), mixing them with interviews of eyewitnesses from both sides of the conflict. But the series only raises the question of how much value lies in repeatedly covering the same historical territory in an all-too-familiar manner. While this may be of educational value to young students unknowledgeable about the roots of World War II, adults who know about the Nazi policies in 1930s Europe, key wartime battles across Europe and North Africa, and tragedy of the Holocaust, will find this to be a retread of well-worn territory covered better elsewhere, including The Nazis (VL-3/00) and the BBC History of World War II (which includes Auschwitz: Inside the Nazi State, reviewed in VL-5/05). Optional. (P. Hall)