american history prime time begins at 8:00 p.m. eastern. c-span, where history unfolds daily. in 1979 c-span wu created as a public service by america's cable television companies and is brought to you today by your cable or satellite provider. don't be a sucker is a 1947 war department film that uses the experience of a hungarian american to warn against the dangers of persecuting minorities. reacting to a hate filled political speech in an american city, he recalls how similar speeches led to nazi persecution of minority groups and the eventual destruction of german society. this is just over 15 minutes. ♪ >> henry got on the train with

$200. he couldn't see any harm in a friendly game of cards. what if the other men were strangers. and take joe collins, he's got a nice wife at home but he met this girl at the bar and she looked, after the first couple of drinks. ♪ ♪ >> there's a good old fashioned word for people like this. we call them suckers. and there are other people, people who stay up nights figuring up thou takehow to tak what they've got. there are all kinds.

take mike for instance. he's got everything. he's young, healthy, got a job. and he's got plenty of food. big factories to make things a man can use. big cities to do the business of a big company and people, lots of people. enough to work the farm and build the factories, dig the mines with, run the business, all kinds of people. people from different countries with different religions, different colored skins, free people. they can live together and work together and build america together because they're free. free to vote, to say what they pleased. go to their own churches. to pick their own jobs. yeah. mike has got something all

right. he's got america. but there are guys who stay up nights figuring up how to take that away from him. >> i happen to know the facts. now, friends, ie'm just an average american, but i'm an american american and some of the things i see in this country of ours make my blood boil. i see people, negros holding jobs that belong to me and you. i ask you. if we allow this thing to go on, what's going to become of of us real americans. >> i've heard this kind of talk before but i never expected to hear it in america. >> fella seems to know what he's talking about. >> what are the real americans going to do about it? you'll find it right here in this little pamphlet. the truths about the foreigners, the truth about the catholic church. >> you believe in that kind of

talk? >> i don't know. it makes good sense to me. >> and i'll tell you we'll never be able to call this country our own until it's a country without. without what? >> yeah, without what. >> without negros, without alien foreigners, without catholics, without free masons. >> masons, what's wrong with the masons. i'm a mason. hey, that fella is talking about me. >> and that makes a difference, doesn't it? >> these are your enemies. these are the people who are trying to take hold of our country. now you know them. you know what they stand for. and it's up to you and me to fight them. fight them and destroy them before they destroy us. thank you. [ applause ] >> before he said masons you were ready to agree with him. >> yes, but he was talking, well, about those other people. >> in this country we have no

other people. we are american people. >> what about you? you ain't american, are you? >> i was born many hungry but now i'm an american citizen. and i have seen what this kind of talk can do. i saw it in berlin. >> what were you doing there? >> i was a professor at the university. i heard the same words we have heard today. but i was a fool then. i thought nazis were crazy people, stupid fanatics but unfortunately they were not so. you see, they knew that they were not strong enough to conquer a unified country so they split germany into small groups. they used prejudice as a practical weapon to cripple the nation. of course that was not easy to do. they had to work hard to do it. you see, we human beings are not born with prejudices. always they are made for us, made by someone who wants something. remember that when you hear this kind of talk.

somebody is going to get something out of it and it isn't going to be you. this is not classroom theory. i saw it happen. i saw it first in berlin in 1932, five young men that i knew were stand in the crowd listening to the nazi speaker. eric was a catholic. anton, a student of mine was a you. heinrich owned a small hardware store. karl was a former and heinz was an unemployed worker. >> i said it's time you inherit the nation that rightfully belongs to you. you belong to the glorious destiny of the germany, provide land for the farmer, work for the worker and profits for the small businessman. who is getting these things now?

the jew. the jew who has stolen our nation and our birthright. who makes all of the money and takes all of our jobs? the jews. they must be shunned. he must be astra siostracized. he must be eliminated. and the catholics, we don't want our great nation run by a foreign church. we germans know what to do with these people when the time comes, they and their faith must be destroyed. and now the free masons, in germany we have no place for secret society. there be only one society and that is the senate nazi party. no secrecy about this. >> one by one he attacked them and split them off one from another. these men were all fellow germans when they came here today now split into rival groups, suspicious of each other, hating each other.

they were being swindled, all of them. but the man who was really being fueled was hans. he was pure german. to him they promised everything and he fell for it. that is how he became a superman. they gave him a uniform and pumped up his ego. he wasn't just a little fellow after work anymore, he was a member of the master race. hans and thousands of others like him, all playing a sucker's game. they gambled with other people's liberty and of course they lost their own. a nation of suckers. hitler needed these people. there was lots of work to be done. there were three unions to be smashed because unions were organized and might offer resistance. there were many political parties in germany. these would have to be destroyed.

they were determined to smash every organization where people might band together and resist them. there are jews to be beaten and killed. the jews were not powerful but were a convenient excuse for all the nation's ills. besides, a nazi party member could now take over this man's store. hundreds of catholics were put in jail because the catholic church could resist the nazi's power. they split the nation into a hundred pieces. and then one by one they had destroyed the pieces. over these broken pieces the nazis rose into power. one party, one nation, one religion. these men had won their struggle for power. they now ruled all of germany. but still they had trouble with their oldest and most persistent enemy, the truth. they found the truth does not die easily.

and so they decided to abolish truth. one great source of truth is literature. so they burned books. 20 million of them. many great men in germany who spoke the truth were jailed or driven from the country. teachers. scientists. education was discouraged. in five years college attendance dropped 53%. it was forbidden to listen to a british radio program or read an american newspaper. in nazi germany you had to get your information from this man. he knew what was best for you. the church was one force in germany still strong enough to proclaim the truth in public. this catholic priest was arrested the following day on charges of immorality. the protestant church also tried

to speak the truth. the nazis put this man in a concentration camp. there were others who spoke the truth and i am proud to say educators were among them. >> what, may i ask, is an alien? i don't know myself. but let us see what our present so-called authorities have to say about it. they say he is tall. slender. and blonde. there is no aryan race. and more important, there is no master race. there are people who may find these ideas convenient, but science cannot support them.

there is no scientific proof that there is any correlation between a man's racial characteristics and his native ability or character. in all racial groups we find the same range of potentialities. we find idiots, geniuses, criminals and flphilanthropists. we must judge each man as an individual and not by the color of his eyes or by the length of his nose. come in, gentlemen. it's comfortable. and remember that there is no master race. that is the scientific truth.

anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. ♪ >> so, for all practical purposes, truth had been abolished in germany. a lot of my german friends wondered who had hit them, how did it happen, where did it start. it started right here. and this was where it could have been stopped. if those people had stood together, if they had protected each other, they could have resisted the nazi threat. together they would have been strong, but once they allowed themselves to be split apart, they were helpless. when that first person lost out, they all lost out. they made the mistake of gambling with other people's freedoms. carl the farmer was gambling on a better life for himself.

what he got were extra hours of back-breaking work. as much as 100 hours a week. he was forced to stay on his land and produce what he was told to produce because now hitler was preparing for war. for heinrich who owned the hardware store it didn't pay off either. 104,000 small businesses were closed in two years. and for hans, conditions hadn't improved any. he had a job now. in the munitions factory, but he worked long hours for little pay. the working conditions grew increasingly bad. and even though he didn't like the job, he wasn't permitted to leave it. when hitler decided the time was right, germany went to war. not by declaring war but by a carefully prepared sneak attack. once again, hitler needed hans to do his dirty work.

hans was an expert at brutality. and hitler decided to use hans and his brutality against other people. the czechs, the poles, the russians. in the crucial test of war hitler's race theories didn't pay off. his pure-blooded supermen were defeated by the mon grgrel army they despised. the british. by the russians. at stalingrad. then on d-day by american soldiers of every color and religion, who smashed onto normandy beaches and drove through to the heart of germany. for the misguided germans who had swallowed the nazi bait, the

game did not pay off. the continent of europe was strewn with millions of german bodies, pure aryan bodies. carl the farmer was left in the snow outside of moscow. heinrich stayed in italy at salerno. hans, who was going to rule the world, got only a little patch of normandy that he could call his own. >> you must never let that happen to us or our country. we must never let ourselves be divided by race, religion. i was born in hungary. you are a mason. these are minorities. you are a farmer. you go to the methodist church. you are right to belong to these minorities. these are precious things. you have a right to be what you are and say what you think because here we have personal freedoms. we have liberty.

these are not fancy words. this is a practical and priceless way of living. but we must work at it. we must guard everyone's liberties or we can lose our own. if we allow any minority to lose its freedom by persecution or prejudice we are threatening our own freedom. this is not simply an idea. this is good, hard common sense. you see, here in america it's not a question whether we tolerate minorities. america is minorities. and that means you and me. so let's not be suckers. we must not allow the freedom or dignity of any man to be threatened by any act or word. let's be selfish about it. let's forget about we and they. let's think about us. ♪

don't be a sucker airs next weekend on american history tv's reel america. saturday, august 26th at 10:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. tonight on american history tv in prime time, day two of the gettysburg college civil war institute conference with discussions about president james buchanan, political cartoonist thomas nash and general robert e. lee. president james buchanan has been blamed for failing to avert southern secession and avoid the civil war. historians discussed his legacy at the annual conference of the civil war institute at gettysburg college in pennsylvania. th