The original post: /r/television by /u/thomasburchfield on 2026-01-05 22:40:50+00:00.
Despite some flaws, I most strongly recommend Hitler and The Nazis: Evil on Trial (2025) a six-part series on Netflix) for genuine timeliness. Noted true crime documentarian Joe Berlinger drew his material from two sources: the wartime reporting of William L. Shirer (author of The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, still among the best introductory books to Nazi history) and the first Nuremberg trial, which Shirer, along with Walter Cronkite and many other journalists, attended. He also interviewed several experts including Richard J. Evan’s.
Berlinger chose to intersperse colorized documentary footage of the actual horrifying events with dramatic recreations, some of which are not well done. The guy playing Hitler doesn’t look like him at all outside the stupid mustache and some of the recreations of Nazi atrocities are of questionable taste in a documentary context.
Nevertheless there is much footage I’ve not seen before, along with authentic voice recordings from Shirer’s broadcasts (he really laid his life on the line; his story would make a genuinely compelling dramatic series) and the Nuremberg trials itself.
It’s hard not to contrast and compare between then and now and deeply sad to consider we might be being pulled to the brink again, but the truth is these evils never truly go away and must always be guarded against.
