Nazis: The Road to Power BBC Radio 4
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- Fiction
The story of how in just 13 years, Hitler led a fringe sect with less than a hundred members and outlandish ideas to be the dominant force in German politics.
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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 roles in the Nazi Party's rise to power. This new scripted podcast takes listeners into the intrigues, the personalities, the knife-edge decisions which would ultimately lead to forty million dead in the world’s greatest catastrophe.
Starring Sir Derek Jacobi as President Hindenberg, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and Alexander Vlahos as Joseph Goebbels. With Toby Stephens, Nancy Carroll, Laura Donnelly and Juliet Stevenson as the Narrator.
Written and directed by Jonathan Myerson.
Producer - Nicholas Newton.
A Promenade production for BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds. -
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 played crucial roles in the Nazi Party's rise to power. This new scripted podcast takes listeners into the intrigues, the personalities, the knife-edge decisions which would ultimately lead to forty million dead in the world’s greatest catastrophe.
Starring Derek Jacobi as President Hindenburg, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and Alexander Vlahos as Joseph Goebbels, Toby Stephens, Nancy Carroll, Laura Donnelly and Juliet Stevenson as the Narrator.
Cast:
Ernst Röhm & Gregor Strasser - JOSEPH ALESSI
Emil Maurice & Rudolf Diels - OSCAR BATTERHAM
Gottfried Feder & Otto Meissner - EDWARD BENNETT
Helene Bechstein - NANCY CARROLL
King Ludwig & Franz von Papen - WILLIAM CHUBB
Dorothy Thompson - LAURA DONNELLY
Sefton Delmer - TOMIWA EDUN
Kaiser Wilhelm & Karl Alexander von Müller - NICHOLAS FARRELL
Leni Hanfstaengl & Anni Winter - MELODY GROVE
President Hindenburg - DEREK JACOBI
Putzi Hanfastaengl - COREY JOHNSON
Hermann Göring - SCOTT KARIM
Rudolf Hess - GEORGE KEMP
Else Janke & Mimi Reiter - SORCHA KENNEDY
Oskar von Hindenberg & Theodor Duesterberg- JACK LASKEY
Sinclair Lewis & Alfred Hugenberg - FORBES MASSON
Kurt Eisner & Joachim von Ribbentrop - MICHAEL MALONEY
Hermine Hoffman - LYNNE MILLER
Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE
Magda Goebbels - SHANAYA RAFAAT
Captain Mayr - TOBY STEPHENS
Geli Raubal - TANVI VIRMANI
Joseph Goebbels - ALEXANDER VLAHOS
General Ludendorff and Kurt von Schleicher - ANDREW WOODALL
The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON
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 -
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 his old platoon members are amazed to see him transformed.
He is also sent to observe one of the many fringe political parties, to check they’re not getting too subversive. The German Workers Party has less than forty members and meets in a grimy room at the back of a grimy restaurant. The army orders him to join: Adolf Hitler becomes Party Member 55.
Starring Toby Stephens as Captain Mayr, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and featuring Jack Laskey as Anton Drexler, founding Chairman of the German Workers Party.
Cast:
Captain Mayr - TOBY STEPHENS
Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE
Gottfried Feder - EDWARD BENNETT
King Ludwig - WILLIAM CHUBB
Kaiser Wilhelm - NICHOLAS FARRELL
President Hindenberg - DEREK JACOBI
Kurt Eisner - MICHAEL MALONEY
General Ludendorff - ANDREW WOODALL
Other parts were played by: JOSEPH ALESSI, OSCAR BATTERHAM, SCOTT KARIM, GEORGE KEMP,
SORCHA KENNEDY, JACK LASKEY, FORBES MASSON and LYNNE MILLER
The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON
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 -
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 vilest attacks for the ‘November Traitors’, namely any politician who signed the Versailles Treaty and plunged Germany into third-class status.
But all this campaigning costs: will Helene Bechstein, whose husband inherited the piano company, be able to help?
Starring Nancy Carroll as Helene Bechstein, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and featuring Edward Bennett as Gottfried Feder, the Nazi Party’s first economist, and Joseph Alessi as Ernst Röhm, Commander of the SA.
Cast:
Helene Bechstein - NANCY CARROLL
Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE
Ernst Röhm - JOSEPH ALESSI
Karl Harrer - OSCAR BATTERHAM
Gottfried Feder - EDWARD BENNETT
Rudolf Hess - GEORGE KEMP
Anton Drexler - JACK LASKEY
Other parts were played by: WILLIAM CHUBB, NICHOLAS FARRELL, SCOTT KARIM, SORCHA KENNEDY, MICHAEL MALONEY, FORBES MASSON, LYNNE MILLER and ANDREW WOODALL
The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON
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 -
4. My Word is My Pledge
When a merger with other nationalist parties is suggested, Hitler – effectively the Nazi Party’s only source of revenue – threatens resignation if he is not given total, unquestioning control over every aspect of the party. He uses this to establish the paramilitary Storm Division led by Captain Ernst Röhm, the ‘Machine Gun King of Bavaria’. So when Mussolini takes power in Italy in October 1922, everyone is asking: when will Hitler launch his own coup?
Starring Nancy Carroll as Helene Bechstein, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and featuring Edward Bennett as Gottfried Feder, the Nazi Party’s first economist, and Joseph Alessi as Ernst Röhm.
Cast:
Helene Bechstein - NANCY CARROLL
Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE
Ernst Röhm - JOSEPH ALESSI
Karl Harrer - OSCAR BATTERHAM
Gottfried Feder - EDWARD BENNETT
Rudolf Hess - GEORGE KEMP
Anton Drexler - JACK LASKEY
Other parts were played by: WILLIAM CHUBB, NICHOLAS FARRELL, SCOTT KARIM, SORCHA KENNEDY, MICHAEL MALONEY, FORBES MASSON, LYNNE MILLER and ANDREW WOODALL
The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON
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 -
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 pay for a single loaf of bread - there is a call for a more drastic step: a coup against the federal government. Are the Nazis ready? Can they wait any longer?
Starring Corey Johnson as Putzi Hanfstaengl, Tom Mothersdale as Adolf Hitler and featuring Michael Moloney as Gustav von Kahr, Bavarian State Commissioner.
Cast:
Putzi Hanfastaengl - COREY JOHNSON
Adolf Hitler - TOM MOTHERSDALE
Ernst Röhm - JOSEPH ALESSI
Emil Maurice - OSCAR BATTERHAM
Leni Hanfstaengl - MELODY GROVE
Herman Göring - SCOTT KARIM
Gustav Ritter von Kahr - MICHAEL MALONEY
Ulrich Graf - FORBES MASSON
General Ludendorff - ANDREW WOODALL
Other parts were played by: EDWARD BENNETT, WILLIAM CHUBB, NICHOLAS FARRELL,
GEORGE KEMP, SORCHA KENNEDY, JACK LASKEY and LYNNE MILLER
The Narrator is JULIET STEVENSON
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