Hitler's Circle of Evil

This is an excellent doc on the inner workings of the Nazi top tier of characters. The re-enactments are well done, some of the actors don't look anything like their real life counter-parts but I guess they took what actors they could. Tons of little seen and rare footage. The historians give a balanced account of these horrible men in-the-making rather than the standard they are totally evil repugnant creatures stance seen in more unbiased documentaries that only serve to distance and turn-off the viewer and possibly taint the lessons needed to be learned by the Nazi era. This doc could easily have been named "Absolute Power corrupts..."

This is a very good series, and very well presented. Shines a light on the inner circle of the mafia-like organization that was the Nazi regime and the inner fights between the senior members. Very interesting to see how these horrible people fought each other, hungry for power and/or survival, and still the show constantly reminds the viewer that these interesting characters, were also the monsters responsible for some of the worst crimes of the 20th century.

Only flaw I think is that it is a bit repetitive sometimes, since we have to be constantly reminded who was who. It is understandable of course that not everyone is a history buff who would always recognize historical figures, so that is excepted.

In general is a very good documentary series, highly recommended.

This excellent historian-narrated docu-drama retells the history of the making of the Nazi party and the Third Reich by focusing on the interplay of the main characters at the center of it all: Hitler and his inner circle of Nazi leaders. For me, the series rates very highly among many others in the genre for the seamless use of archival photos and footage, rich and convincing dramatization, and constant narrative driven commentary by numerous historians. The use of music to heighten the drama is not too intrusive, and is actually effective. One can forgive the British historians for their obvious bias in describing Hitler and his henchmen as "evil" and "deranged" because they were! Yet, it is important to take in the lessons the narrative also presents (with less obvious emotional force) in how Germany's economic ruin after WWI and the colonial ambitions of other European powers at that time abetted the drive toward the rabid nationalism that Hitler promoted... lessons that America had taken in far better than Britain and other Allies following WWII with the brilliant Marshall Plan. Back to this production, though: Even if you are well familiar with the history of the Nazi party, Hitler's Circle of Evil is fascinating and even entertaining viewing.

I have to disagree respectfully with the other two reviews on this documentary series, I found it very good and enjoyed it.

This series presents the Nazi high command as people in a way that I had never seen in any previous documentary or book. The writers made good and frequent use of many primary source documents - diaries, letters, court transcripts, memos and other materials - so I would in no way class this as "propaganda." I think this series is an admirable work that probably represents many hours of research and puts together information I had never seen presented like this.

Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, Goering, Speer and others were not inhuman monsters who just sprang up out of nothing, they were people who behaved monstrously, and neither were they supermen nor military geniuses. This documentary gives a detailed picture of who they were as individuals through how they interacted with each other, and how these monstrous, flawed humans destroyed themselves and their own country.

I've seen a lot of bad critics here and I wanna say something.This is not a documentary that focuses on WWII.Its mostly about the personalities of the people that Hitler had in his circle.Also it kind of showing you how it all started,and as repetitive as it is,cause it is,its very educational and actually did some great work and dig.You dont have to criticize everything that you see,like the costumes,if the buttons were untied,who cares.This is a great show and I highly recommend it to anyone that gets interested on how some people in nazi circle acted, rised up or how it all kind of started.Good work