Review for Nazi Hunters

Nazi Hunters is a get set of documentaries and if you like other documentary series such as The World at War; this is a great accompaniment to that. If you want to know how some of the most prominent Nazis rose to power and how they were brought to justice, then this is the DVD for you.Nazi Hunters is a fascinating series; over the thirteen episodes it reveals the stories of the fall of Germany after the Second World War and the hunt for many prominent Nazis afterwards. These include familiar names like Hermann Goering, Albert Speer, Heinrich Himmler, Joseph Mengele and Adolf Eichman. Told with a use of archive footage, interviews and reconstructions we see the role that these people had in the Nazi regime whether it was to do with the war effort, war crimes or with the Holocaust how they came to be in that position and then their fall, death or capture. Some of the stories are familiar, but many are new to me and even the stories that I had heard where given enough time to reveal even more information to make them feel fresh.

Though many where captured immediately after the war, the series also looks at the attempts by many Nazi hunters including Simon Wiesenthal and the work of Israeli's Mossad (Secret Service) to track these men down all over the world. Though all of the episodes are wonderfully thorough and full of information, the two that are the most interesting and seem to embrace the point of the series are the ones concerning Joseph Mengele 'The Angel of Death' and Adolf Eichmann. Both were hunted for many years with Eichmann captured by Mossad and tried and executed by an Israeli court. Mengele on the other hand was never captured and though they are 99% certain that the dead body found in Paraguay is his, there is always a little doubt (Though he would be a hundred years old if he was still alive).

The other episode that is fascinating is one concerning Albert Speer, dubbed 'The Good Nazi' who apologized for what the Nazi regime did, but declared that he had no knowledge of the Holocaust. Many people believed he said this just to escape execution, which he did instead being imprisoned for twenty years. Speer always claimed that he should have known, but he didn't and made no attempt to find out. However, it was later revealed that he was present for a Nazi party conference where Himmler gave a speech outlining the Final Solution. My only issue with this series is that there is no rhyme or reason for who is covered. Instead of going chronologically by capture or death or to go through people based on rank it just randomly moves from one Nazi to the next.

That being said, the reason may be that a lot of the same footage is used in the episodes, particularly from the Nuremberg Trials and from the final desperate scrambles towards the end of the war. Lack of subtitles is another issue with lots of footage of Nazis speaking but with no translation and so though we can presume that what Hitler is saying is not positive if you did not speak German he could be telling the crowd a joke for all you knew. The lack of extras, besides some preview clips for other releases is a shame as I'm sure that more footage must have been made for the shows. However the set is great enough to not need them.