Helena Bonham Carter shines a light on extraordinary stories from World War Two. Join her for incredible tales of deception, acts of resistance and courage.

Hitler is now Chancellor but what matters is that Hermann Goring is Minister of the Interior with 50,000 policemen at his disposal. They immediately crack down on all Communists, placing their Members of Parliament into ‘protective custody’ – detention for their own safety – in a new camp near a Bavarian village called Dachau. But when the Reichstag, the Parliament Building, catches fire, Hitler decides this Red Uprising must be nipped in the bud. But who started the fire? Starring Tom...

With Franz von Papen now willing to act as Vice Chancellor, alongside Hitler as Chancellor, can he convince Alfred Hugenberg to bring his 51 Nationalist MPs into coalition with the Nazi Party? Von Papen believes that together they will box Hitler in, that they will be “hiring him” – in fact, the Nazis demand is for merely two cabinet seats. But suddenly there’s talk of a military coup to forestall this - will President Hindenburg finally agree to appoint Hitler as Chancellor? Starring Derek...

The current Chancellor, General Kurt von Schleicher, and the previous, Franz von Papen, are both determined to unseat each other – once allies, they are now sworn enemies, plotting in corridors. President Hindenburg would rather see von Papen restored to the post but, like von Schleicher, he cannot form a governing majority. Meanwhile the President’s son, Oskar, once a close friend of von Schleicher, starts to see a way through...and it involves the Nazi Party. Starring Derek Jacobi as...

By 1932, the Nazis have 230 Members of Parliament, the largest single group but no-one will invite them into coalition and President Hindenburg refuses to even contemplate appointing Hitler as Chancellor. Yet Hitler flatly refuses any arrangement where he is not Chancellor – Vice-Chancellor will not suffice. But so many of his party members, his stormtroopers have been waiting for government jobs, government salaries – they’re pushing hard for the compromise. Can Hitler hold them off for long...

When Hitler encounters an elegant, divorced woman at his Berlin hotel, he finds that he is unexpectedly drawn to her. Unfortunately, what he doesn’t know is that Magda Quandt is already involved with his Head of Propaganda, Joseph Goebbels. But that isn’t Goebbels’ only headache: the first great love of Magda’s life was Chaim Arlosoroff, fervent Zionist. Nevertheless Hitler’s Deputy, Rudolf Hess, can see a perfect compromise: if Joseph and Magda marry, she will thus become the perfect...

Hitler’s strange dealings with the opposite sex come into sharp focus when his niece, aged 23, living in Hitler’s apartment, shoots herself. Geli first moved in when she was 18 but from that moment on, Hitler refuses to let her go out on her own, even chaperoned. He nurtures hopes that she will become an opera singer and, enraged by the very idea, refuses her permission to marry. Was it suicide? Was it murder? Was it an accident? Starring Melody Grove as Anni Winter, Hitler’s housekeeper,...

On the first sitting of the new Reichstag, the 107 Nazi Members of Parliament deliberately create chaos. But with the Nazis now the second largest group in Parliament, foreign newspapers have to start taking Hitler seriously – even if he can be hard to pin down. Rarely rising before 11am, and not often in his office, he’s more usually to be found in a nearby café, cramming his face with cream cakes. One way or another, Dorothy must land an interview with him. Starring Laura Donnelly as...

By 1929, Berlin may be cross-dressing and dancing to jazz but governments still rise and fall with banana-republican regularity. As Chief Foreign Correspondent for the New York Post, it’s Dorothy Thompson’s job to report on this maelstrom. And in Berlin she meets (and too quickly marries) Sinclair Lewis, novelist, alcoholic and soon-to-be Nobel Laureate. Meanwhile, Joseph Goebbels, now Party District Chief for Berlin is generating daily street disturbances, Jewish-owned department stores are...

Released after just six months in prison, Hitler must now renounce violence and vow that the Nazi Party will seek power through the ballot box. But his speeches are still vitriolic and he is soon banned from public speaking again. Goebbels is drawn deeper into the party faction who advocate the Socialist in ‘National Socialist’ but how will he react when Hitler personally writes to him, seeking to bring him closer to his own standpoint? And will it mean the end of his relationship with...

Far away in the Rhineland, 26-year-old Joseph Goebbels has a PhD, an unpublished novel and a half-Jewish girlfriend, Else Janke. But he finds himself drawn to the Nazi Party and Hitler’s rhetoric. Every day in his diary (undiscovered until this century) he records his excitement as he reads about Hitler defending himself – the latter is now on trial in Munich for his totally unsuccessful coup. Given free rein by a clearly sympathetic judge, Hitler is fast turning the courtroom into his own...

In what became known as the Beer Hall Putsch, the Nazis seize power in Munich, now intending to march on Berlin and announce a national dictatorship led by Hitler. But first they must take control of all the police forces and the infantry barracks, and it’s essential they shut down the telephone exchange and radio transmitters. It is a night of chaos. And is the Army really on their side or do they have their own coup planned? Starring Corey Johnson as Putzi Hanfstaengl, Tom Mothersdale as...

Footloose in Munich, Harvard-educated Putzi Hanfstaengl finds himself drawn in by Hitler’s charisma, quickly becoming one of his entourage, partly thanks to his enthusiastic piano-playing. But with the whole country in the grip of hyperinflation - pushing wheelbarrows of money to pay for a single loaf of bread - there is a call for a more drastic step: a coup against the federal government. Are the Nazis ready? Can they wait any longer? Starring Corey Johnson as Putzi Hanfstaengl, Tom...

When a merger with other nationalist parties is suggested, Hitler – effectively the Nazi Party’s only source of revenue – threatens resignation if he is not given total, unquestioning control over every aspect of the party. He uses this to establish the paramilitary Storm Division led by Captain Ernst Röhm, the ‘Machine Gun King of Bavaria’. So when Mussolini takes power in Italy in October 1922, everyone is asking: when will Hitler launch his own coup? Starring Nancy Carroll as Helene...

Hitler has a gift for oratory and party membership is growing: every week he draws a larger crowd. The party formally changes its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party – soon everyone will be calling it Na-Zi for short. But in his speeches, Hitler still reserves his vilest attacks for the ‘November Traitors’, namely any politician who signed the Versailles Treaty and plunged Germany into third-class status. But all this campaigning costs: will Helene Bechstein, whose husband...

Once the revolution is crushed, Army Intelligence looks around for soldiers who might be able to influence their comrades, steer them away from all this Bolshevik nonsense. And that’s how Corporal Adolf Hitler starts making speeches – it seems he has quite a talent for it. Even his old platoon members are amazed to see him transformed. He is also sent to observe one of the many fringe political parties, to check they’re not getting too subversive. The German Workers Party has less than forty...

From the producers of NUREMBERG, the story of how in just thirteen years, Adolf Hitler led a fringe group with outlandish proposals and less than a hundred members to be the dominant force in German politics. It is also about the forgotten players from these early years who played crucial roles in the Nazi Party's rise to power. This new scripted podcast takes listeners into the intrigues, the personalities, the knife-edge decisions which would ultimately lead to forty million dead in the...

From the producers of Nuremberg, the story of how in just 13 years, Adolf Hitler led a fringe sect with less than a hundred members and outlandish ideas to be the dominant force in German politics. It is also about the forgotten players from these early years who played crucial roles in the Nazi Party's rise to power. This new scripted podcast takes listeners into the intrigues, the personalities, the knife-edge decisions which would ultimately lead to forty million dead in the world’s...