Rise of the Nazis

In the winter of 1944, Germany is losing the war on all fronts, but Hitler refuses to contemplate surrender. Instead, he calls leading military generals to a secret location and orders them to start preparing a massive surprise attack against the Western Allies as part of his policy of total war. It's an attack he believes will finally break them.

At the end of March 1945, with the German Army utterly depleted and Hitler's circle of trust rapidly shrinking, Hitler invites a group of Hitler Youth to the Reich Chancellery gardens to be congratulated. These are the people upon whom he now relies – children.

Nazi Germany is on the brink of collapse, and with Berlin under daily bombardment, Hitler has permanently retreated to his bunker, a series of 30 cramped rooms under the Reich Chancellery where night and day merge into one. As his life becomes increasingly bizarre, Hitler and Joseph Goebbels look for signs from German folklore that fate will intervene.

In April 1945, the Nazis organise one of the final acts of the Third Reich – a concert by the Berlin Philharmonic, including the last scene of the opera Die Gotterdammerung, which features a suicide at its centre. It's a clear sign that Hitler and many of his supporters are going to end it all.

Most of Germany is occupied by invading Allied forces. A two-million strong Soviet army is now just a mile from Hitler's hiding place.
With the Nazi regime disintegrating, most of Hitler's deputies are busy making plans to try to survive the end of the war. Only his most die-hard loyalists stay by his side.

At the end of the war, British troops are confronted with the true horrors of Nazi crimes when they discover Bergen Belsen concentration camp. Preparations begin for a trial at Nuremberg, but not all high-ranking Nazis have been captured. The job of tracking them down falls to Allied soldiers.

As the Cold War escalates, most Nazi hunting is abandoned. Suddenly, Nazis are able to return to normal life or find refuge overseas. Thousands begin new lives in South America.

In the 1960s and 70s, WW2 is a distant memory, but a few diehards are determined to hunt down thousands of Nazi war criminals, some of whom are living in plain sight.