Rick Steves' Europe

- Fascism.

We hear this word a lot lately, but just what is it?

The word comes from the Latin word for this, a fasces.

The idea?

Well, you can break one stick easily, but when you bundle them together, they become very strong.

And when a dictator convinces an entire nation to march together in lockstep, they feel strong, too.

And in fascism an ax symbolizes that it's unity with discipline, brutal if necessary.

I'm Rick Steves, and in this special program we'll learn from the hard lessons of fascism in 20th century Europe.

Thanks for joining us.

(dramatic music) (speakers yell indistinctly) (group chanting indistinctly) (group chanting indistinctly) (footsteps stomping) (group yelling) (dramatic music continues) (ceramic clinking) (footsteps stomping) With some thoughtful travel, we'll see how entire nations were first mesmerized and then led astray by their fascist leaders.

Our journey will take us back nearly a century to learn how in Europe, fascism rose and then fell, taking millions of people with it.

We'll trace fascism's roots during the turbulent aftermath of World War I as masses of angry people rose up.

The rise of charismatic leaders who manipulated that anger, the totalitarian societies they built, and the brutal measures they used to enforce their ideology.

We'll see the horrific consequences, genocide, and total war.

(plane buzzing) Along the way, we'll talk with Europeans whose families lived through those times.

- And we have to be vigilant.

- And visit sites related to fascism.

In 1918, world War I ended, leaving 10 million dead and Europe in ruins.

The chaotic aftermath of the war created fertile ground for the seeds of fascism.

Nowhere was that more true than in defeated and devastated Germany.

(dramatic music) Imagine Germany after 1918.

For four long years, they'd fought bravely, lost over 2 million men, and then surrendered.

Veterans limped home to a country in shambles.

(people speak indistinctly) Their emperor had been toppled, replaced by a weak democracy.

Their nation was humiliated with especially harsh terms of surrender, including an Allied demand for Germany to pay costly war reparations.

Cynical Germans were convinced their own leaders had sold them out and surrendered too early.

They called it the stab-in-the-back.

The economy was horrible, people needed jobs.

Terrible inflation wiped out savings.

It took literally a wheelbarrow of nearly worthless currency to buy a loaf of bread.

Germans had no faith in their government to get society back on track.

In this vacuum of power, a fringe movement claiming to be the champion of the oppressed emerged.

They dressed in intimidating brown shirt uniforms, roamed the streets in gangs, and wanted to restore Germany's national pride.

They called themselves the National Socialists or Nazis, their leader, Adolf Hitler.

(dramatic music) Those early Nazis found a natural base here in Munich.

While a pleasant and idyllic city today, this capital of Bavaria was known for it's conservative and nationalistic passions.

Nazi street gang violently attacked unwanted outsiders, Jews and communists.

(dramatic music continues) In 1923, in a beer hall like this, the original Nazi leadership gathered their followers, they were impatient and eager to take power.

Hitler waved his pistol in the air and called for the revolution to begin.

(intense music) Hitler led the ragtag revolutionaries in the beer hall into the streets of Munich, planning to overthrow the government.

But that attempted revolt called the Beer Hall Putsch, failed after a bloody confrontation, the police crushed it, here at Odeonsplatz.

Hitler was arrested and sent to jail.

And it seemed that Germany's fascist movement was finished before it got off the ground.

Unable to overthrow the government by force, Hitler resolved to take it by political means.

While in prison, he wrote "Mein Kampf," or, "My Struggle," which preaches his message of uniting all ethnic Germans and giving them more space to live.

The book remains potent to this day, particularly for Germans like Andreas Clemens.

Could Germans just buy this?

- Until recently, it was illegal to buy or sell it in Germany.

- [Rick] So if I was to read "Mein Kampf," what's the writing like?

- Well, you can see that Hitler had problems with grammar, part of it is gibberish.

It's very hard to get through.

The book is one of the most published books in history.

And every German household had that book and they probably tried to read it, but they gave up 10, 20 pages in.

- And this, I would imagine, lays out the main points of the fascist future.

What are those points?

- He's saying that democracy doesn't work.

That it's a flawed system that can be manipulated by outside forces for their own gain.

He's blaming communists for it.

Ultimately, at the end of everything, is the Jewish world conspiracy.

So Jews are behind everything that is wrong with the world, that he has a solution for that and the solution is fascism or national socialism, and that he can make Germany strong, he can unite the country, he can unite the master race and get us back to a rightful status.

- Hitler may have been locked up in prison, but he was tapping into ideas that had already been percolating in places around Europe.

One of those was the country where the fascist ideology would first come to power, Italy.

In the center of Rome, capital of Italy, stands the Victor Emmanuel Monument.

With its Altar of the Fatherland, it was designed to celebrate the greatness of Italy.

And facing this monument on Piazza Venezia, nationalists would gather to honor their nation.

In the 1920s and '30s, tens of thousands of Italians would fill this square to hear rousing speeches delivered from that balcony.

The speaker proclaimed the greatness of Italy and promised them a glorious future.

And the people followed.

(people yelling indistinctly) Once a rabble-rousing journalist, this charismatic speaker became their leader, Il Duce.

The man was Benito Mussolini.

(Mussolini speak in Italian) Mussolini's rise, like that of Hitler, had its roots in World War I.

- 1918 is the end of World War I.

There was a lot of discontent in Italy after World War I.

The country was in a pure chaos, very high unemployment, lot of strikes, and was almost in a verge of communist revolt.

- There was great disappointment.

Even the fact that Italy was on the winning side, it felt that it did not get enough out of the peace treaties.

They talked about the mutilated victory, that is the equivalent of a German stab-in-the-back.

And so there's that and all these veterans coming back, having fought in the trenches, for what?

- All of the soldiers coming back from the battlefields were not really welcomed back.

So there were a lot of street fights and basically the soldiers came together in this party called Fasci di Combattimento, and they had a leader, which was Benito Mussolini.

- Mussolini capitalized on a deep-seated frustration among Italians.

Italy was still a young nation having only united in 1871.

The surge of nationalism that came with unification left Italians hungry for greatness, but feeling disappointed.

Its parliamentary democracy was weak and ineffectual and the economy was terrible.

And as with Germany, the Italians had just suffered through World War I and people were angry about the way it was fought and the way it was finished.

Mussolini seized this moment to launch a new movement, the fascist party.

While fascists won only a handful of seats, they were a potent political force and a paramilitary one.

(tense music) Fascism was not just an ideology, but a campaign of physical intimidation.

Gangs of armed black-clad war veterans called Squadristi, nicknamed the Blackshirts, wielded violence against their political opponents.

- Fascism starts as violence.

I mean, how did fascism start?

These were gangs of, in most cases, veterans of the war who went around the streets, beating workers up, beating up the socialists, this is how it started.

- The Communist Party was a threat during the end of World War I.

And actually, the Fascist Party was formed because of the clashes.

- [Rick] The Blackshirts broke strikes, expelled socialist mayors, and gave their base the promise of action.

(tense music continues) In 1922, some 30,000 fascists descended on the nation's capital in a show of force, the so-called March on Rome.

Without firing a shot, Mussolini was handed the reigns of power.

Suddenly, Italy was under fascist rule with a bold if politically inexperienced, new leader.

Piazza Venezia became the stage for a new amped up kind of nationalism.

Mussolini loved big rallies, and from his balcony offering big promises and simple solutions to complex problems, he whipped his followers into a mass frenzy.

(Mussolini speaking in Italian) (crowd roaring) They interrupted his speeches with chants of, "Duce, duce, duce," leader.

(crowd roaring) - What I understand now is that it was like a collective dream.

It was like hypnosis, standing in a crowd with thousands of people, all focused on one man who was terrific at using his body, his facial expressions, and language to reach their hearts.

(Mussolini speaking in Italian) - They were going ballistic, even for a hand gesture or a facial expression of Mussolini.

Mussolini was an actor, and when he eventually show up in that window and he stood in his typical posture with his imposing chin, for the Italians, it was the personification of a greater Italy.

- He promised an Italy that would be great, that would be modern, that would be finally unified where there would be work for everybody.

- [Rick] For his first 15 years, Mussolini ruled with dictatorial power and impressive success.

He pumped up the economy, created jobs, and invested in infrastructure.

(Alfio speaking in Italian) - Build, build, and build.

- In the beginning, I think Mussolini was able to garner so much favor because it really did seem that he was making this a modern country, a lot of building, a lot of modern infrastructure jobs, homes.

So on the surface at least it did seem that he was actually getting things done.

- So Italians are happy at the moment, 'cause they come from the pure chaos of 1918, 1919, to having jobs and having a society that apparently works.

- [Rick] He energized Rome with grand projects like this Olympic stadium, which is still in use today.

(dramatic music) - And stopped using steel and cement- - [Rick] Francesca grew up hearing stories of Mussolini.

She shares some local insight.

This is an impressive stadium.

- Mussolini built the stadium to promote Rome for the Olympic games, but also to promote sports and physical prowess as key elements of fascist ideology.

These statues represent athletes, but they also represent new fascist man.

A man who is physically strong, proud, disciplined, but who is also willing to support the fascist dogma.

Believe, obey, fight.

- Believe, obey, fight.

- So these mosaics are inspired by ancient Rome and they proclaim the greatness of the leader and the achievements of the fascist regime.

Military events, Roman salutes.

- Oh, yeah.

- And for emphasis, things are repeated, duce, duce, duce, duce.

- [Rick] Look at that, 10 duces.

- In fascism belligerence is celebrated.

Look at this.

(Francesca speaks in Italian) Many enemies, much honor.

- Mussolini's ego is immense.

In fact, one of the motto was.

(speaks in Italian) "Mussolini is always right."

- He certainly had a vision of himself as a man of genius with a capital G, a man who had a superior vision of society and the world.

- He truly believed he was a new Roman emperor.

He wanted to somehow recreate this new Roman empire and he couldn't stand that Italy was not important anymore in Europe.

(tense music) - [Rick] Mussolini championed the revival of the glory of ancient Rome.

He created this grand boulevard of the Imperial Forum for stately and military processions between the Colosseum and his office in Piazza Venezia.

He lined it with imposing statues of emperors.

Absolute rulers enjoy each other's company.

Mussolini built a futuristic city at the edge of Rome called EUR.

This planned city is the architectural embodiment of fascism.

The uniform buildings and the rigid grid-planned streets celebrate order and conformity while echoing a powerful past and promising a glorious future.

The centerpiece is called the Palace of Italian Civilization.

- So the Palace of Italian Civilization was intended as a celebration of the Italian people and their many talents.

But there's something about it, this monolithic starkness it has that also seems to remind us that fascist ideology requires individuals to give everything up for the state.

(dramatic music) - [Rick] With a populous tired of dysfunctional government, Mussolini rose to power with the promise of action.

And throughout Italy, imposing architecture like this train station in Milan seemed designed to remind all that the state is more important than the individual.

The state gets things done, and of course, with the leadership of Il Duce, the trains will run on time.

(train rattling) - This famous sentence, "Trains run on time."

So an appearance of success at what cost?

At the cost of personal freedom.

- People didn't have a choice to accept Mussolini as their leader.

It was against the law to talk against the Fascist Party.

Not even journalists were independent to write exactly what they want to.

- There was this famous fascist motto, "Everything for the state, everything within the state, nothing against the state."

- While Mussolini was forging the first fascist state in Italy, back here in Germany, Hitler was taking notes.

Once out of prison, he played on many of the same themes as Mussolini, rousing a disillusioned workforce, reviving a struggling economy and fixing what was considered a weak government.

At first, the boom times of the Roaring Twenties blunted his populist message.

But then the Great Depression hit in 1929, the working masses were angry again, and Hitler's promises gained traction.

Fascism was now taking root in Germany.

(Hitler speaking in German) (crowd roaring) - So Hitler promised jobs, jobs, jobs to everybody.

And of course, people needed jobs.

That was exactly that what they wanted to hear.

- Hitler promised the people everything, everything they wanted.

He promised them a bright future.

He promised them work, he promised them (speaks in German) living space.

(Hitler speaking in German) - [Rick] Hitler was a powerful, mesmerizing speaker.

(Hitler speaking in German) - People were taken by Hitler's speech, not so much by the beauty of his arguments, but by his sheer fanaticism, by his anger, by his rage, and his repetitive rhetoric.

And people, eyewitness accounts describe it as a barbaric, primitive effect.

- What he was telling people was a disaster, but the performance he delivered was a big artistic show.

- He repeated a lie endlessly, and he didn't make it a small lie.

He made it a big lie and he kept hammering it into their heads.

He also dumped it down as much as possible.

- [Rick] His simplistic promises were made to order for his political base.

(people clapping) More prosperity and expanded borders for more room in which to live, or.

(speaks in German) (Hitler speaking in German) - Fascism is perceived as a strong movement with simple answers for complicated problems.

- Giving simple answers and simple solutions.

That's exactly what people wanted to hear, because that gave them the hope that it'll change soon, not in 10 years, but now.

- He blamed Germany's problems on scapegoats like Jews and communists.

Fears that the Communist Revolution in Russia would spread to Germany.

People were singing "Deutschland, Deutschland ber alles," Germany, Germany above all, above all the world.

(Germans singing) And they trusted Hitler to take them there.

In 1932, the Nazi party won only about a third of the seats in parliament, but Hitler managed to take power.

He put together a ruling coalition partnering with conventional conservative politicians who figured they could control him.

After struggling to find an alternative.

German president von Hindenburg reluctantly appointed Hitler chancellor in January, 1933.

It was the only way he could form a government with a parliamentary majority.

Suddenly, Adolf Hitler was heading a new German government.

Then just a few weeks into Hitler's rule, under mysterious circumstances, there was a fire in Germany's parliament building, or Reichstag.

A disaster like this, which many historians believe was actually the work of Hitler's people, is an answer to an aspiring dictator's prayer.

With this national security emergency, Hitler now had his excuse to crush the communists, silence moderates, and create laws giving him sweeping new powers.

Suddenly in Germany there was no middle ground.

You were either with Hitler or against him.

Hitler followed a playbook that has inspired autocrats left and right ever since.

Hitler proceeded to consolidate his power in the most ruthless ways, he locked up the few courageous politicians who voted against him and established his total control of the German government.

This poignant memorial remembers those who tried to resist Hitler's power grab.

The German equivalent of congressmen and senators, they were quickly silenced.

You can see the dates they were arrested sent to concentration camps and executed.

- I think the rise of Hitler was done with a mix of two things.

One is fascination and the other is terror.

So basically give people something that they can believe in by false promises.

The other thing is whoever does not fit in will get beaten up or put in prison or killed.

- A lot of the (indistinct) was actually based on violence or at least the implied threat of violence.

- There was a private army.

Hitler had, he had terror on the streets.

He had a big protection of his political movement.

- And of course, people knew about concentration camps in Germany for political enemies, and they were supposed to know so they would keep their mouth shut.

- [Rick] Hitler had hijacked Germany's democracy.

He was given extraordinary powers to temporarily suspend democratic procedures in order to get things done.

A dictator now in charge of a mighty industrial nation, Hitler and his team began to lay out his plan for Germany and the world.

Inheriting a German economy suffering from the Great Depression, including an unemployment rate of nearly 30%, Hitler quickly turned to improving the economy.

He accelerated the previous government's policy of large public works and infrastructure projects financed with deficit spending.

As a result, employment increased dramatically from 1933 to 1936.

- The Autobahn is probably the best known example, the highway construction program of Adolf Hitler, that gave a lot of jobs to people.

- The Autobahn was actually invented before the Nazis, one or two years before that.

But the Nazis accelerated the construction of the Autobahn to bring Germany to a more modern age.

- We didn't have the money.

It was all financed on credits on a future war.

- Of course, these Autobahn were empty because until the war started, hardly anybody could afford the cars.

(dramatic music) - [Rick] Despite this new focus on jobs and the German worker, the Nazis had no use for labor unions.

- Well, fascism basically hates everything communist or Bolshevik, as they call it.

So they would not like trade unions.

They were not within the frame of the fascist movement.

- And so what the Nazis did one year into their government, they declared May Day a holiday, for the first time, the union celebrated, the next day when they were hungover, more or less.

They smashed the unions.

- [Rick] They replaced the now abolished unions with the Nazi party controlled German Labor Front, which all workers had to join.

(Hitler speaking in German) Hitler spent large amounts of state money on a comprehensive state welfare program called the National Socialist People's Welfare.

Despite having the term socialist in the party name, Hitler was a friend of industry.

He privatized many industries and the corporations that had supported his candidacy continued to back him.

- Corporations would support the Nazi government of Germany because it was good for their profits.

- I think you know, bigger corporations, the steel industry, for example in Germany as a big one, they were afraid of communism for sure, but they also actually supported Hitler because it was easier for them to kind of make their business within a stable government.

- [Rick] One German industry that boomed was the auto industry and one of the world's most famous cars was born during the Nazi era.

- The VW was the idea that it's an affordable car for everybody that then would fill these Autobahn.

- [Rick] With all this economic activity and employment, Hitler re-energized Germany.

(Hitler speaking in German) (dramatic patriotic music) (crowd roaring) Much of Germany was swept up in Hitler's charismatic vision and the country had a common purpose.

(crowd chanting in German) Everywhere he went, crowds adored him.

Women swooned when his car drove by.

(dramatic music) In clubs called The Hitler Youth, boys and girls pledged their allegiance to him.

- A little boy in 1945 when he looked at Hitler, he would see a God-like person.

He was somebody who would elevate the German people, who would elevate the people of this boy to become the perfect master race running the planet.

- [Rick] Hitler became known by a new title, which meant he was their leader, their Fuhrer.

- He coined himself the phrase the Fuhrer, the leader as also establishing himself as a bit of a new God for Germany.

So he was not part of democracy anymore.

He was a godlike figure.

- A fascist system needs a fuhrer, it's the big hero.

It's a saint, it's the one and only people believe in.

- He has the vision for everybody and the others will follow him.

(Hitler speaking in German) (crowd roaring in German) Fascists believed in a fascist system you can unite everybody that believes in the system and it will be a strong, a powerful system that can achieve complicated goals.

- The idea about fascism is to have a big community that all operates exactly the same way and to have a common opinion that covers all.

- There was one phrase that was called (speaks in German) "One people, one empire, one leader," full stop.

(crowd roaring) - [Rick] There was a dark side to all this Nazi conformity.

Individuality was lost.

- Individualism doesn't even exist in fascism.

It doesn't exist in any aspect, it doesn't exist in art.

It doesn't exist in lectures at university.

It doesn't exist in newspapers and press.

- Individuality was something that was deemed unfit for a German, basically.

So what mattered was the (speaks in German) the society, the common denominator of the German people.

- All people who tried to make it any different in their private life, in their professions, in their way to to express their opinions, they all had to be stopped - For the Nazis, the city that most embodied their sense of national unity was Nuremberg.

Nuremberg, so steeped in German history, was nicknamed the most German of German cities.

That's one reason it was a favorite of Hitler's to showcase his nationalistic pump and pageantry to inspire all of Germany to get on board.

(crowd roaring) There were three German Reichs, or empires.

The first was medieval, it was called the Holy Roman Empire.

In fact, the emperor's castle still towers above Nuremberg.

The second Reich was 19th century the creation of the modern German state by Prussia, under the leadership of Bismarck.

And it was here in Nuremberg that Hitler declared the Third Reich, a powerful German empire to last a thousand years.

When Hitler took power, he made Nuremberg's Zeppelinfeld the site of his enormous Nazi Party rallies.

Today, the stark remains of this massive gathering place are thought provoking.

German tour guide Thomas Schmechtig is joining me for some insight.

(Hitler speaking in German) For several years, increasingly elaborate celebrations of Nazi culture, ideology, and power took place right here.

Fascist dictators understood the propaganda power of big rallies where they can manufacture the adoration of their people, bask in it, and then broadcast it to the rest of the population, as Hitler said, turning the little man into part of a great dragon.

(Hitler speaking in German) (crowd yelling in German) - Imagine Hitler stepping out of that door, overlooking the masses, 200,000 people being lined up.

He used propaganda to create a new community.

In fact, we even have a word for it.

It's called Volksgemeinschaft.

- [Rick] Inspirational images from Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda movie, "Triumph of the Will," were filmed at the 1934 Nuremberg rallies and then shown in theaters and school rooms throughout the country.

The goal?

To bring a visual celebration of the power of the Nazi state to all 70 million Germans.

Nuremberg shows the enormous power of fascism's secret weapon, propaganda.

- The media in Nazi Germany were controlled by the government, by the Ministry for Propaganda and Enlightenment in Berlin headed by Joseph Goebbels.

So everything that was distributed to the people through the media was controlled from Berlin.

- [Rick] Goebbels used every means available to him along with the new and powerful media of movies, he used traditional formats such as newspapers, posters, and even postcards.

And perhaps the most far reaching was the new medium of radio.

- Hitler was one of the earlier politicians to really make use of a mass media that was just coming on, which was the radio.

So every German had in a household the Volksempfnger people's radio, so his speeches would get into every German's living room, basically.

- Within something like six years, the number of radios in Germany went from 4 million to 17 million.

So they could really reach almost every household and people listen to the radio differently than they do today.

If there was an important radio report, it wouldn't just be two people doing housework or one person doing housework next to it.

You would have the entire family there.

Maybe the neighbors if they couldn't yet afford a radio.

So those were special events that appealed to the family community that would appeal to the neighbors, so you would reach a lot of people through only one medium.

- [Rick] Looming over now peaceful lake in Nuremberg is another remnant of the dictator's megalomania, his huge yet unfinished Nazi Congress Hall.

Hitler, who believed he would create a new civilization based upon fascist values, modeled this building after the ancient Roman Colosseum, but even more colossal.

- Imagine 50,000 leading Nazis in here, one third higher covered by a roof, a window inside the ceiling.

Sunshine would've fallen down to the podium, once a year, one speech of Adolf Hitler.

- Another stage set for this propaganda show was Hitler's mountain capping Eagle's Nest.

This alpine getaway just south of Munich in Berchtesgaden was used to soften Hitler's image against a majestic, almost theatrical backdrop.

His visits were lovingly filmed to show him as the embodiment of all that was good about Germany.

Healthy, vigorous, respectable, everyone's favorite uncle.

Set in the scenic foothills of the Alps, it was built in 1938 as a mountain retreat for Hitler and his guests.

A stone tunnel crafted with fascist precision leads to Hitler's plush elevator, which still whisks visitors to the top.

Because it was in this corner of Bavaria that Hitler claimed to be inspired and laid out his dark vision, some called Berchtesgaden the cradle of the Third Reich.

By the mid-1930s, fascism was well established in two of Europe's leading nations, Germany and Italy.

Germany was booming and building up its massive military, blatantly breaking the Treaty of Versailles, which ended World War I.

The ideology of fascism was spreading and the rest of the world was viewing it with alarm.

Expansionism was a key tenant of fascism.

Germany first annexed neighboring Austria, then the German speaking region of Czechoslovakia, the Sudetenland, followed shortly after that, by the rest of the country, Italy under Mussolini invaded Ethiopia and Albania.

In 1939, Hitler and Mussolini signed a treaty creating what they called the Pact of Steel.

Further west, Spain and Portugal were also flirting with fascism.

Spain, like other nations at the time, was making the awkward transition from 19th century monarchy to 20th century democracy.

By the 1930s, it was governed by a modern but fragile democracy.

By 1936, the Spanish people had become extremely polarized as the old guard of royalty, military, and industry pushed back.

Representing this reactionary faction, a military strongman, General Francisco Franco invaded Spain from Spanish Morocco.

Using colonial troops and borrowed Italian planes, he attempted a coup d'tat.

Like Mussolini and Hitler, Franco vowed a return to order and to restore Spanish power and national pride.

But the democratically-elected government fought back and the nation descended into a bloody civil war.

(explosion blasts) Conservatives under Franco fought the liberal democratic government.

It was a brutal war between classes and ideologies, dividing both villages and families.

In three years of fighting, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards died.

Franco used predictable strongman tactics, including intimidation by police in the military.

Hitler and Mussolini, who mistakenly believed Franco would join their fascist alliance, threw gas on the fire.

(explosions blast) One of the most tragic episodes of this tragic war was in Guernica, a workaday town in the Basque region of northern Spain.

It was here that the world first witnessed the terrible power of the fascist state, a prelude to World War II.

Guernica was the capital of an independent-minded Basque community that stood up to Franco.

(person speaks in foreign language) To break their spirit, Franco enlisted the help of Germany's air force and the defiant town was decimated in the world's first saturation aerial bombardment.

(dramatic music) The Spanish artist, Pablo Picasso, heard the shocking news and immediately set to work sketching the destruction as he imagined it.

In a matter of weeks, he wove these bomb shattered shards into a large mural called "Guernica."

In Picasso's masterpiece, a woman looks to the sky, horses scream, a soldier falls, body shattered, sword broken.

A wounded woman flees a burning house.

A bull, symbol of Spain, ponders it all, watching over a mother and her dead baby, a modern pieta.

Picasso's painting put a human face on the horror of war and threw a stark light on the brutality of Franco and Hitler.

To this day, "Guernica" remains the iconic depiction of fascist crimes against humanity.

Hitler may have stoked Germany's economy and put people back to work, but it was becoming clear that whatever benefits fascism might bring to its political base, it had a darker side and it came at a huge cost.

Despite its veneer of respectability and its popularity among ordinary people, the thriving fascist state relied on increasingly brutal repression.

Hitler continued his ruthless creation of a totalitarian fascist state.

The free press was silenced, as were intellectuals and universities.

- The Nazis approach to intellectuals was to dismiss them.

They played no role.

A good way to describe it is if you compare Nazis and communists, a communist needs an enormous bookshelf.

He needs to start with Marx and Engels, he goes through Lenin, he has dozens of books up until the present day.

A Nazi's bookshelf has "Mein Kampf" and that is basically it.

- [Rick] The Nazi approach to art was the same.

Only one style was acceptable.

- The Nazis or Hitler's approach to art was quite simple.

Their idea of art was to be as naturalistic as possible.

Basically blonde, blue-eyed people doing field work.

When you look at these pictures, you see the perfect German family , according to the Nazis.

Everybody is tall, blonde, blue-eyed, beautiful, great shape, and this is the idealist version of the German people.

- Anything else that would question society or bring society forward, which art is quite well able to do, would just be deemed like unnatural or un-German.

(speaks in German) - What they did not like was complicated modern art, what they call degenerate art.

That is something that they either destroyed, sold off to make some money, or kept under wraps.

- In May, 1933, Hitler was chancellor for just a couple of months, we had the burning of books in Berlin, in (speaks in German) everywhere.

- [Rick] Books that caused people to question the Nazi agenda were forbidden and publicly burned with delight by Hitler's supporters.

- The books of left wingers, psychologists, for some reason, the Nazis hated psychology.

Books by Jewish writers, of course, they would be publicly banned in big ceremonies.

- If you have some books, titles of those books that were burned the night before and you invite some people, they can argue against you because you have those books in your private library and even your roommate has an argument against you.

You do not trust in anybody any longer after the burning of books.

One famous German writer and author said, "Once you're burning books, very soon you're going to burn people."

- [Rick] Artifacts and posters illustrate the Nazi notion of a master race.

Anyone who didn't fit into their model could be viewed as an enemy of the state and sent to concentration camps.

The Nazis required those they imprisoned to wear badges that identified their status, political traitor, lawbreaker, foreigner, homosexual, and a catchall, asocial.

Anyone who would not conform.

A special badge, the yellow star of David went to Hitler's lowest of the low, the Jews.

- The Nazis believed that the German people were the master race, the toughest, the strongest, the bravest, the smartest.

They said, "We should be running the planet.

We just can't do it because this conspiracy, the Jewish world conspiracy's in the way and without them, if we deal with that conspiracy, then we will achieve our rightful status again."

(Germans yelling in German) - [Rick] The Nazis started putting their anti-Semitic ideas into action as early as April of 1933, when they organized a boycott of Jewish businesses.

- He specifically blamed one group, the Jewish people, for ruining things for everybody else.

- For him, it was clear his scapegoat was the Jews.

They were the source of all evil in Germany and in the world, and he wanted to kind of get rid of that evil, and that's what he worked for.

- Then in November of 1938, the Nazis led a pogrom against Jews throughout Germany.

During Kristallnacht, or the Night of the Broken Glass, as it was called, Jewish homes, hospitals, and schools were ransacked.

7,000 Jewish businesses were damaged or destroyed, and over a thousand synagogues were burned, and 30,000 Jews were arrested and put in concentration camps.

This was a turning point from earlier, economic, political, and social persecution to physical beatings, incarceration, and even murder.

It was the beginning of Hitler's Final Solution.

Today, Berlin's Topography of Terror exhibit stands on the rubble of what was once the most feared address in Berlin, the headquarters of the Gestapo Secret Police, and the elite SS Force.

(somber music) It was from here that government employees managed the Nazi state and dispassionately coordinated it's most ruthless activities.

The efficient and heartless bureaucracy behind Hitler's crimes gave rise to the expression, "The banality of evil."

Fascism continued to spread and its militarism threatened peace in Europe, while the whole world had gotten a preview of the horrors of modern warfare in Spain, that was just the beginning.

(explosion blasts) (dramatic music) In 1939, Germany invaded Poland, and World War II began.

The military might of Germany seemed unstoppable, employing their fast lightning war technique called blitzkrieg.

Hitler's mighty tanks and high-tech air force, the Luftwaffe, swept across Europe.

(explosion blasts) France fell quickly and suddenly Hitler was playing tourist at the Eiffel Tower.

Soon, nearly all of the continent was under direct or indirect fascist rule.

With their final victory seemingly inevitable, the Nazis tightened the screws within their own society.

(footsteps thump) The evils of fascism were incremental.

As its small evils became big evils, German society managed to be oblivious to its own atrocities.

At first, concentration camps contained people who didn't conform.

Then they became forced labor camps.

Eventually, the Nazis built death camps which were located outside of Germany, and therefore farther from public view.

With what the Nazis called the Final Solution, the entire Jewish population was targeted for extermination.

In total, approximately 6 million Jews died from Nazi persecution.

2.7 million of those died in death camps.

Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland was the biggest and most notorious concentration camp in the Nazi system.

Seeing the camp can be difficult, but Auschwitz survivors want tourists to come here to try to appreciate the scale and the monstrosity of the place in human terms, in hopes that this horror known as the Holocaust, will never be forgotten.

(somber music) As they entered these work camps, prisoners were greeted with a sign over the entrance, "Arbeit macht frei," "Work makes you free."

A cynical lie.

(somber music continues) Once inside, inmates were either worked to death or executed.

New arrivals were sorted into two categories.

Those who would be sent to the gas chambers immediately and those who could work would live, at least a little longer.

Halls are lined with photographs of victims, each marked with dates of arrival and dates of death.

Inmates rarely survived more than a couple of months.

Up to a thousand people, each tattooed with an ID number were packed into each of these buildings.

The gas chambers where the mass killing was done were disguised as showers.

People were given hooks to hang their clothes on, conned into thinking they were coming back.

The Nazis didn't want a panic.

Then the inmates piled into the shower room.

In this facility, the Nazis gassed and cremated over 4,000 people per day.

To finally defeat fascism, the alliance of Hitler and Mussolini, it took a massive and heroic Allied effort led by Britain, America, and the Soviet Union.

(dramatic music) Germany had seemed invincible.

(explosion blasts) (gunfire popping) But after his ill-fated decision to invade the Soviet Union, Hitler was on his heels and the tide was beginning to turn.

(explosion blasts) From the frozen eastern front, the Soviet Red Army began closing in on Germany.

From Britain, Allied planes bombed German cities.

(bombs blasting) American troops swept up from the south through Italy.

(crowd roaring) Italian partisans overthrew their fascist government, switched sides and joined the Allies.

(gunfire pops) Defeating a totalitarian society like fascist Germany took total war and victory came at great cost.

To remember the final chapter of this story, we visit Normandy in France.

On June 6th, 1944, called D-Day, the Allies landed on the beaches of northern France and began fighting their way to Berlin.

D-Day marked the biggest amphibious invasion in history.

After a furious and bloody battle, they established first a beachhead, then a makeshift harbor.

And the long battle to reach Berlin was underway.

The war raged on even after it was clear that Germany would lose.

Death camps sped up the mass murder, millions of German civilians as if hypnotized, continued to support their Fuhrer, and great German cities like Hamburg and Dresden were destroyed under massive aerial bombardments with huge civilian losses, as the Allies attempted to break the spirit of the German people who fueled the Nazi war machine.

Germany was overwhelmed as the combined military might of the Allies closed in on the Third Reich.

(explosion blasts) From the west, south, and east.

(gunfire popping) Finally, the Nazi capital of Berlin was liberated by Soviet troops.

(crowd cheering) And both great fascist commanders met gruesome ends.

In Italy, angry citizens turned on their dictator with fury, executing Mussolini by firing squad, then hanging his body upside down for all to see.

And Hitler finished his life here in Berlin, deep underground, in a bunker below my feet, with his capital smoldering in ruins, the dictator committed suicide.

Finally in the spring of 1945, the war in Europe ended.

The death toll was staggering.

In addition to 6 million Jews, the Nazis killed hundreds of thousands of so-called undesirables, over a million political and religious prisoners, and nearly 9 million Soviet and Polish citizens.

(somber music) With fascism defeated, many of its leaders and supporters had to account for their deeds.

In Italy, there were violent reprisals against former fascists, but few formal trials.

In Germany, Nazi criminals had to face trial.

The most famous were the Nuremberg Trials where 22 major Nazi criminals had to face justice from the Allied Powers.

(somber music continues) Europe's experiment with fascism left the continent devastated, with entire societies needing to be rebuilt.

Germany had to be reconstructed inside and out.

Italy was left bloodied and weak.

While Spain stayed out of the war, and its dictator Franco would remain in power for the next decades, it also paid dearly, left isolated from the world community and behind the times.

The sweeping impact of fascism can be felt to this day, in the many memorials across Europe that remind us of those horrific years.

It's felt in the German concentration camp memorials.

(somber music) They make us pause and attempt to comprehend the unthinkable numbers.

The Anne Frank House in Amsterdam humanizes the horror of the Holocaust through the story of just one of its 6 million victims.

At the D-Day Memorials in northern France, we try to appreciate the sacrifice it took to defeat the hateful ideology and reestablish freedom.

In Spain near Madrid, a towering granite cross marks the Valley of the Fallen.

Originally famous as the site of Francisco Franco's tomb, today it's considered a memorial to all the victims of Spain's devastating civil war.

In Berlin, the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe is a touching and evocative field of gravestone-like pillars.

It's designed to cause people to think and to ponder this horrible chapter in human history.

A common refrain at many of these memorials is, "Never again."

But even today in well-established democracies throughout the West, societies are facing many of the same emotions, frustrations, and inequities that a century ago opened the door to fascism in Europe.

- If I asked myself, could it happen again?

I would say no.

But it has happened in Germany and it might happen again.

- So if you bring all of these elements together, a moment of crisis, a strong leader who knows how to take advantage of the fear, and you don't have a really true press where there is no exchange of opinions, I think there's a possibility for these things to happen again.

- Fascism happened here in Germany, the center of civilization, in the land of Beethoven, (speaks in German) and if it could have happened here, it can happen anywhere in the world.

- [Rick] Today, Germany deals responsibly with the legacy of pain it brought Europe.

Germany knows the importance of a well-informed electorate.

Every school child learns of the Holocaust with a visit to a concentration camp and Nazi documentation centers in major cities tell the story.

It's all part of an educational program to teach how fascism took hold here and how it led to some of the worst horrors in history.

- In Germany, we definitely believe that education is one of the main ways to make sure that something like this will not be repeated.

- Because if you know what mechanisms were working and what mechanisms of economy and politics were at play in the 1920s and '30s, then you can see what is happening today and try to prevent it.

- Education is everything, even further there to be an electorate that is capable of thinking independently, you need that electorate to be educated.

- Focus on the education system, make citizen more than consumers, and very importantly, having media that are not biased, independent information.

- [Rick] But perhaps most important is the preservation of government by the constitution and the rule of law, and not by the dictates of a charismatic, all powerful leader.

- When there's great fear of the future where what people have feels threatened and they're afraid to lose it, then it's easy for populism to come into play and it's easy for leaders who present themselves as interpreters of that to take hold.

- One of the things that you can do to make sure that something like this will not happen here or in other countries is not trust people that promise you very easy answers for very complicated problems.

It never works.

- Democracy is fragile and it should not be taken for granted.

So to defend it, I think, is important.

I think we can learn not to follow leaders into the abyss and to maintain critical independent thinking.

- As we've seen through the story of fascism in Europe, charismatic leaders rose to power through the democratic process and then seized extra constitutional power by unlawful means.

When citizens allowed leaders to do this, individual freedoms and rights soon fell by the wayside, and democracy was lost.

While democracy was restored to Western Europe, it easily could have been lost forever, and the cost was millions of lives.

As history continues to unfold around us today, it's important to remember that freedom and democracy are not guaranteed.

We are all participants and we are all responsible.

The story of fascism in Europe has taught us that strong and charismatic leaders can capitalize on fear to lead a society astray.

Democracy is fragile.

It requires a vigilant and engaged populace, and if you take freedom for granted, you can lose it.

Thanks for joining us, I'm Rick Steves.

Until next time, travel thoughtfully.

Hey, I'm Rick Steves.

Remember, this station is unique on the dial, it's public and made possible with your support.

Public television is quality media.

It sees us not as shoppers or eyeballs on some ratings chart, but as neighbors and fellow citizens.

Considering how influential media is in our community these days, the value of this channel has never been greater.

I'm haunted by a belief that there are powerful forces in our society that would find it convenient, more profitable, frankly, if we were all just disengaged, dumbed down.

Commercial stations seem to do just that, but here in public television, the programming is positive, it's uplifting, and it expands our horizons.

Public media inspires us to be not afraid, but to be confident, not disillusioned, but engaged, not discouraged, but encouraged, and it only happens with support from viewers like you.

Pledge your support to this station and you also get great benefits, including Passport, which gives you even more access to stream even more shows right here.

Consider the value that the programming you enjoy adds to your life, and then scan or go online and make your donation now.

(uplifting music) - [Announcer] Invest in your local PBS station by becoming an $8 monthly sustainer, or make a $96 annual contribution right now and we'll say thanks with a wonderful collection of gifts, you'll receive Rick Steves' book, "For the Love of Europe," which shares his favorite memories from decades of travel in 100 essays.

It's 400 pages of fun and inspirational travel stories.

On top of that, you'll receive a copy of "Europe Through the Back Door."

This book is packed with practical tips from chapters on packing light and planning a smart itinerar, to eating your way through Europe and finding great hotels.

We'll also send you this map of Europe, which is perfect for pre-trip planning and using while you're on the vacation of your dreams.

Plus, you'll receive Rick Steves' newsletter, which is packed full of travel tips about European destinations.

And don't forget, with your qualifying contribution, you'll be able to enjoy a terrific member benefit, PBS Passport, which lets you watch every one of Rick's shows that's available on the PBS app.

With PBS Passport, you'll also be able to stream a treasure trove of your favorite dramas, history, arts, music, and more.

So don't wait, go to pbs.org/rick to give now.

Thank you.

(uplifting music continues) - As you can see, it's easy to donate to support public television.

Whether you're watching the station on the air or streaming shows like this right here.

Please, take a moment to make your donation.

Doing so, you'll support your local station and the great programming it brings your way.

And again, as a bonus, you'll enjoy great benefits including Passport.

Thanks a lot.

(dramatic music) (dramatic music continues) (dramatic music continues) (gentle music) (dramatic music)