logo
episode-header-image
Jan 2022
22m 33s

Episode 5 - Documents Don't Lie

Bbc Radio 4
About this episode

August 1945, the war is over, and the evidence is building up. If anything there’s too much paperwork, too many files – the Nazi machine insisted on recording everything. But are these documents sufficient – or will they need to hear from the victims themselves?

Meanwhile, across Germany, ordinary soldiers are stumbling across the concentration camps, shocked and stunned by what they find. The British drive into Belsen having been told it was ‘just a typhus hospital’. But when they start taking affidavits from prisoners, the investigators start to hear about a place in the East called Auschwitz-Birkenau – and the witnesses talk about gas chambers and industrial-scale killing. It’s unbelievable. Starring Luke Norris as Roger Barrett, lawyer in charge of the Nuremberg Documents Room, and featuring Rosie Sheehy as Ada Bimko, a Polish Survivor of Auschwitz.

Cast: Roger Barrett - LUKE NORRIS Robert Storey - HARI DHILLON John Amen - JOSEPH ALESSI Robert H Jackson - JOSEPH MYDELL Colonel Leo Genn - NICHOLAS WOODESON Fritz Leo - NIGEL LINDSAY Ada Bimko - ROSIE SHEEHY Captain Galitzine - ILAN GOODMAN Captain Smallwood and other roles - MARK EDEL-HUNT Major Williams and other roles - NATHAN WILEY Heinrich Hoffman and other roles - JASPER BRITTON Wilhelm Keitel and other roles - JONATHAN CULLEN Lord Cadogan and other roles - ANDREW WOODALL Quartermaster Sergeant and other roles - CLIVE WOOD Titles - LEWIS MACLEOD

Sound Designer - ADAM WOODHAMS Studio Manager - MARK SMITH Casting Director - GINNY SCHILLER Original Score - METAPHOR MUSIC Writer and Director - JONATHAN MYERSON Producer - NICHOLAS NEWTON

A Promenade Production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds

Up next
Jan 2022
Episode 9 - To Stay the Hand of Vengeance
20th November 1945 and the Defendants take their place in the dock – 22 of the most senior Nazis, representing each component of Hitler’s machine. But without simultaneous translation the trial will be unworkable – are the interpreters ready? Can they manage 100 words-per-minute? ... Show More
21m 53s
Jan 2022
Episode 8 - Who is Truly Guilty?
October 1945 and the trial starts in less than a month – but do the Russians genuinely want it to happen? They seem to be employing delaying tactics – is it because they can also be accused of war crimes? Or is it just another regular SNAFU?Each day brings a new problem: first, t ... Show More
19m 49s
Jan 2023
Introducing Nazis: The Road to Power
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 r ... Show More
2m 54s
Recommended Episodes
Jan 2023
6. The National Dictatorship is Here!
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 do ... Show More
22 m
Feb 2023
10. The Little Man
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 bef ... Show More
25m 28s
Jan 2023
7. Write the Bitterness Out of Your Soul
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 ... Show More
24m 7s
Feb 2023
8. The Big Lie
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 w ... Show More
26m 21s
Jan 2023
5. The Enemy is on the Left, The Danger is on the Right
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 ... Show More
23m 12s
Mar 2023
16. Make Germany Great Again
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 ... Show More
27m 20s
Jan 2023
2. I Can Speak
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 h ... Show More
24m 9s
Jan 2023
1. Long Live the Soviet Republic of Bavaria!
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 playe ... Show More
25m 31s
Feb 2023
9. National Socialist or Social Nationalist?
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 ... Show More
26m 14s
Jan 2023
3. My Little Wolf
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 ... Show More
26m 53s