Hitler's Bodyguards

[laura_seabrook]

I've been watching Hitler's Bodyguard on SBS. This is a sequel to an earlier series, Churchill's Bodyguard, which I posted about a while ago. The big difference between the two, is that Churchill had only a few bodyguards, whereas Hitler had thousands!

This series has many of the same problems that the original does - a lack of proper original footage  means that some shots appear again and again - sometimes for vastly different things. For example, when we hear the Gestapo or another security force picked up some unfortunate, we see the same (recreated) live footage of two carloads of rain coated thugs drive down an alley and turn right. The computer models however can't be faulted in their detail, though I suspect they skimped on the maps.

Whereas Churchill's misadventures, near assassinations and panics were all shown in chronological order, and much depended on his faithful protector Thompson, we're shown details of Hitler's not only chronologically but also by type. there are episodes about his travels by car, plane and train, as well as (this week) the Wolf's lair. What astounds me was the shear scale of security within Nazi Germany, and how often just how ineffective it was (e.g. one lone assassin successfully blew up the beer cellar in Munich). Thing was, that Hitler had enemies everywhere, including his own party, and especially his own military. Pure luck and his habit of travelling unpredictably seems to have saved him over 25 years. 

There's also an odd sort of humour in this series, despite the subject matter. In last weeks episode we're told of a plot to poison the water supply on Hitler's special train, and other plans by the SOE to assassinate him and make it look like someone in his own party did it. What stopped them? Well the war ended and he committed suicide.

Comments

[quicksilver555.livejournal.com]

interesting.i watch alot of ww2 stuff so id like to see this some time.maybe it will come arount to the usa soon or i could rent it at the library.

anyway,hope you are well thease days!

[laura-seabrook.livejournal.com]

I wasn't yesterday. Spent two days on motorcycle training and was exhausted by the third. Otherwise I'm thinking of taking a break on my Masters because I'm having major problems on settling on a research question to get with my work practise.