Inside Hitler's Killing Machine

What role did animals play in the Third Reich? How did they become one of the main components of Nazi racial ideology? This documentary explores a little-known chapter of the Third Reich, exposing the ruthless, pseudo-scientific methods employed by the Nazis to control nature and justify the horrors of the Holocaust.

September 1, 1939. Hitler launched the German army's offensive in Poland: in less than a month, the country was invaded and totally crushed. A blitzkrieg that the Wehrmacht owes to its tactical and technological superiority, but also to a new substance, a powerful synthetic drug known today as “crystal meth”: Pervitine. But how did it become a weapon of war? Was it really a key element of Nazi domination? And what relationship did Adolf Hitler and other Nazi dignitaries have with the drug?

Autumn 1941: a young Austrian doctor was deployed to Mauthausen concentration camp. Barely six weeks later he had already caused hundreds of deaths. His name was Aribert Heim. He was nicknamed "Dr. Death" or the "Butcher of Mauthausen" and was one of the concentration camp’s most evil torturers. Who was this man who seemed so pleasant, cheery and jovial? How did he become this bloodthirsty monster, a veritable butcher, and great admirer of Adolf Hitler, who used prisoners to carry out experiments? This documentary looks back at the improbable destiny of this man who never repented, and whose violence was tainted with the greatest perversity.

It took less than 10 years for Hitler to set up the concentration camps, many of which became centers for mass killing. As research and archaeological exploration continue, this documentary dives into established historiographical elements to explain how a system of concentrating populations became the rationalized apparatus of genocide.