17 episodes

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.

Nazis: The Road to Power BBC Radio 4

    • Fiction
    • 4.1 • 140 Ratings

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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.

Listen on Apple Podcasts
Requires macOS 11.4 or higher

    Introducing Nazis: The Road to Power

    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.

    • 2 min
    1. Long Live the Soviet Republic of Bavaria!

    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

    • 25 min
    2. I Can Speak

    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

    • 24 min
    3. My Little Wolf

    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

    • 26 min
    4. My Word is My Pledge

    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

    • 23 min
    5. The Enemy is on the Left, The Danger is on the Right

    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

    • 23 min

Customer Reviews

4.1 out of 5
140 Ratings

140 Ratings

Ricky Tenderkiss ,

Alarmingly timely

Very well made … and more timely than we want to admit: “make Germany great again” indeed; maybe this time around we’ll ignore the words of the budding autocrat, and learn from history rather than being doomed to repeat it.

ccHenkel ,

Brilliant

Well done, interesting and informative. Will not find these details in the history books.

Chad Leroi ,

Goebbels would be proud

“Once upon a time there was a totally unbiased story not at all intended to dupe the gullible into drawing tenuous connections and making false moral and political equivalences…and they lived credulously ever after.”

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