it is personal for me as much as it is a national and global story. announcer: you can watch this or other american artifacts programs at any time by visiting our website www.c-span.org/history. "reel america," "d filmbe a sucker," a war warning the dangers of persecuting minorities, reacting to a hate filled political speech in an american city. recalling how similar speeches led to nazi persecution of groups and eventual destruction of german society. this is about 20 minutes. ♪

>> [yelling] narrator: this looks like a fake, doesn't it? well it is a fake. but he is a fellow who is willing to bet his hard-earned money on it. henry got on the train with $200. he could not see any harm in a friendly game of cards. what if the other men were strangers?

collins. joe he's got a nice wife at home, but he met this nice girl at the bar and she looked kind of cute after the first couple drinks. ♪ narrator: there is a good old-fashioned word for people like this. we call them suckers. and there are other people, people who stay up nights figuring out how to do take away what they've got. games,re all kinds of and all kinds of suckers. take mind care for instance.

-- mike here for instant. he is young, he is healthy, he's got a job. and he's got a country called america. it is a wonderful thing to have, america. lots of room. room enough to raise plenty of food. take factories to make things a man can use. big cities to do the list of a big country. and people. lots of people. enough to work the farms and build the factories. and run thes, 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 are free. free to vote, to say what they please, go to their own churches. ♪

to pick their own jobs. mike's got something all right. he's got america. up there are guys who stay nights figuring out how to take that away from you. >> i want to give you the truth folks. the truth about america. i know you've got a lot of questions. you want to know why you're not getting the breaks you deserve. i am not a politician. but i've made it my business to study these things and i happen to know the facts. friends, i am just an average american. but i am an american american. some of the things i see in this country of ours make my blood boil. i see people with foreign accents making all of the money. i see negros holding jobs that belong to me and you. i ask you, if we allow this thing to go on, what will become

of us real americans? >> i have her this talk before, but never expected to hear it in america. our rights.s >> what are our real americans going to do about it? you can read about it in this little pamphlet. the truth about negroes and foreigners, the truth about the catholic church. friends, these books are free, paid for by real americans that were others to know the truth. >> are you actually going to read that stuff? >> sure, why not? >> do you believe in that kind of talk? >> been exported good sense to me. >> i'm speaking to you as an american american. and i tell you friends we will never be able to call this country our own until it is a country without.without what?

without negros, without alien foreigners, without catholics, without freemasons. >> what's wrong with the masons? i am a mason. that fellow was talking about me. >> that makes a difference, doesn't it? >> these are your enemies. these are the people trying to take over our country. you know what they stand for and it is up to you and need to fight them. fight them and destroy them before they destroy us. thank you. before he said mason, you are ready to agree with him. >> yes, but he was talking about -- what about those other people? >> in this country we have no other people. we are american people, all of us. >> what about you, you aren't american. >> i was born in hungary, but i am now an american citizen.

i have seen what this kind of talk can do. i have seen it in berlin. i was a professor at the university. i heard the same words we have heard today. but i was a fool than. i thought nazis were crazy stupid fanatics, but unfortunately it was not so. 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. bornman beings are not with prejudice. they are made for us, made by someone who wants something. remember this when you hear this kind of talk. someone 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 standing in the car listening to the nazi speaker. eric was a catholic. was a a student of mine, jew. and an unemployed metalworker. >> to our true germans i say it is time you inherited the nation which rightfully belongs to you. to you alone belongs the glorious destiny of the greater germany. the nazi party will provide land for the farmer, work for the worker, and profits for the small businessman. now?s getting these things the jew who has stolen our nathan and our birthright. -- our nation and our birthright. who takes our money and jobs? the jew.

he must be shunned, ostracized, eliminated. and the catholics, we don't want our great nation run by a foreign church. we germans will know what to do with these people when the time comes. they and their faith must be destroyed. then there are the freemasons. in germany we have no place for secret societies. there may be only one society, and that is the nazi party. there may be no secrecy about that in the new greater germany. narrator: one by one he attacked each minority and split them off one from another. these men were all fellow germans when they came here today. now they were split into rival groups, suspicious of each other, hating each other. they were being swindled all of them,. but the men -- the man who is really being fooled. he was pure german according to nazi standards. to him they promised everything

and he fell for it. >> you who are true germans may share the glorious destiny of our fatherland. you are the pure blooded, the master race. it is your divine right to rule and the nazi party stands ready to put you into power. it is for you to command our germany and someday the entire world. ♪ >> that is how he became a superman. they gave him a uniform. he wasn't just a little fellow out of work anymore. he was a member of the master race. his wife couldn't quite understand, even though he was a superman, there wasn't any food in the house. stupid woman. didn't you realize that the nazis were going to make jobs for everybody? there would be plenty of food and clothing and a new house. everything they wanted. the glorious future of germany

was to be theirs. and their children would someday rule the world. stills wife, silly woman, wondered where the next meal was coming from. he didn't like that kind of talk. it was dangerous. for that kind of talk, people should be put in jail. ♪ he had swallowed the bait all right. and these were the men who beat the hook. -- baited the hook. why? so that he could come to power? of course not. so they could come to power. they would merely using to have him get there. he would do the dirty work for them. he and thousands of others like him all playing the suckers game. they gambled with other people's liberty, and of course they lost their own. a nation of suckers.

fiddler needed these people. there was lots of work to be done. there were unions to be smashed. it was unions that were organized and might offer resistance. there were many political parties in germany. please the nazis destroyed. they were determined to smash every organization where people might stand together and resist them. they refused to be beaten and killed. the jews were not powerful, but were a convenient excuse for all of the nation's ills. besides a nazi party member cannot take over this man's store. hundreds of catholics were put in jail because the catholic church could resist the nazi's rise to power. they had split the nation into 100 pieces, and then one by one they had destroyed the pieces. over these broken pieces the nazis rode into power. one party, one nation, one religion.

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 that 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 brave men in germany were jailed or driven from the country. teachers, writers, scientists. education was discouraged. in five years, college attendance dropped 53%. it was for britain to listen to a british radio program. -- forbidden to listen to labor his radio program. in nazi germany you had to get your information from dr. goebel's. she knew what was best for you. you could not seen this movie or

listen to this music. and you couldn't watch the fight, because the champion had black skin. it proved hitler's theory of nordic supremacy. albert einstein, one of the worlds great scientists, disproved the theory too. he was non-alien, so he had to leave germany. his mind was dedicated to search for truth, and the nazis having sold a lie, were most afraid of truth. >> no doubt is possible that we christians are in a great battle.against us blood.a faith out of range fromsignals

cold repudiation to hate filled causes. weapons are used that centuries have dulled. to aim of this battle is erase christianity from our fatherland. >> this catholic creech was arrested the following day on charges of immorality. the protestant church also continued to try and fight for truth. >> he who desires liberty for himself cannot deny to others, lest he lose what he has gained. this is the great lesson the world can learn from germany. >> the nazis put this man in a concentration camp. there were others who spoke for truth, and i am proud to say that educators were among them. anand what may i ask is aryan? i don't know myself. presentus see what our

so-called authorities have to say about it. they say he is tall. blonde. blue-eyed, and race.is no aryan and more important, there is no master race. there are people who may find these ideas convenient, but science cannot support it. 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. geniuses, wes and find criminals and philanthropists. we must judge each man as an individual, and not by the color of his skin or his eyes, for by the length of his nose. come in gentlemen, make yourselves comfortable. there are many differences between individuals. we each have different capabilities, different backgrounds, different views about what is right and what is wrong, like the difference between me and these gentlemen who have just arrived. but that is not the difference in race. it is a difference in the way we

think. remember that and there is no master race. that is a scientific truth. anyone who tells you otherwise is lying. ♪ >> and so far all practical purposes, truth has been abolished in germany. a lot of my german friends wondered what had hit them. how did it happen? where did it start? it started right here. and this is 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 allow themselves to be split apart, they were helpless. when that first minority lost

out, everybody lost out. they made the mistake of gambling with other people's freedom. let's see how those vets paid off -- bets paid off. carl the farmer was bidding on a better life for himself. what he got was extra hours of backbreaking work, as much as 100 hours per week. he was forced to stay on his land and produce what he was told, h because now hitler was preparing for war. for he who owned the hardware store, the bet did not pay off either. thousands of small businesses were closed within two years. he has a job now in the munitions factory, but he works long hours for little pay. the working conditions grew increasingly bad. and even though he did not like the job, she wasn't committed to leave it. there still wasn't enough food in his house.

hitler said you couldn't have butter and cannons. so hanz couldn't have butter. germany went to war, not by declaring war, by but a carefully prepared sneak attack. once again hitler needed hanz to do his dirty work. he was an expert, and hitler decided to use hanz and his brutality against the other people, the, czechs, poles, russians. hitler's race theories did not pay off. he's pure blooded supermen were defeated by the mongol armies he despised. by the british at el alamein. ♪

by the russians at stalingrad. by americand-day soldiers by every color and religion who smashed across normandy beaches and drove on 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. karl the farmer was left inside the snow outside of moscow. heinrich stayed in italy. and hanz, who is going to rule the world, only a little patch of normandy that he could call his own. we must never let that happen to us or to our country. we must never let ourselves be divided by race or color or religion.

because in this country we all belong to minority groups. i was born in hungary. you are a mason. these are minorities. you belong to other minority groups too. you may farmer, you go to the methodist church. you are right to belong to these minorities. you have a right to be what you are and say what you think because here we have personal freedom, we have liberty. and these are not just 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 will lose our own. if we allow any minority to lose prejudice, we are threatening our own freedom. and this is not simply an ideal. this is good hard common sense. you see, here in america it is not a question of 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 befriend by any act -- to be threatened by any act or word. let's forget about "we" and "they," let's think about us. ♪ week american history america" brings you archival films that provide context for today's public affairs issues. "let usfrom 1953, live!" which tells the story of germany refugees fleeing the soviet occupied zone from berlin to west germany. an estimated 20,000 germans were crossing the border each month. this u.s. army