UKTV - Nazi Collaborators (2010)

Nazi collaborators, driven by greed, survival instincts or ideology, from Jewish leaders offering labor to politicians aiding Nazis against their countrymen, unraveling their complex motivations during WWII.

Part 1: Chaim Rumkowski - The Polish Jewish Ghetto
With Adam Czerniakow, he led the Jewish Council in the ghettos of Warsaw and Lodz. He acted as a mediator between Jews and National Socialists. His offer: Jews in the ghettos would receive food as payment for their work. This plan improved the situation of the people, and many owe their lives to it. But his tactics also claimed victims: children, the elderly and the sick who could not work were deported.

Part 2: Pierre Laval - The French Vichy Government
Pierre Laval was executed by firing squad in October 1945. As a French minister subordinate to the Vichy regime, he was one of the most hated people in the country. The former socialist and pacifist initially condemned the National Socialists in the strongest possible terms. However, cooperation with them offered him many additional powers. He came to terms with them, brought forced laborers to Germany on their behalf and organized the deportation of Jews. Laval thus became an accomplice and supporter of the National Socialist regime.

Part 3: The Arajs Kommando - The Latvian Holocaust
The Nazi regime also had helpers from other nations in the murder of millions of Jews. One of them is the Latvian Viktor Arajs, who was responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Jews. Arajs saw himself as a patriot fighting to protect his homeland and recruited thousands of volunteers. After the war, he hid in Frankfurt and lived there undetected for many years until he was finally discovered and sentenced to life imprisonment.

Part 4: The Belgian Collaborator - Degrelle and his SS
The Belgian Leon Degrelle, leader of the Walloon fascist party Rex, was a devout Catholic, admirer of Hitler and anti-communist. After the occupation of Belgium by the National Socialists, his party was formed into the Walloon Legion. In this unit, Degrelle fought alongside the German Wehrmacht on the Eastern Front. He was then promoted to SS Sturmbannfuhrer. His Belgian Legion was one of the last troops to defend Berlin. Only after the end of the war did the collaborator flee to Spain, where he died in 1994.

Part 5: The Croatian Collaborator - Sakic's Concentration Camps
Dinko Sakic is known as a pioneer and as a brutal Nazi collaborator. As a member of the fascist Ustasha movement, he had minorities persecuted and placed in concentration camps. His brutality as commandant of the Jasenovac concentration camp was feared. After the war, he fled to Argentina. But the efforts of the Simon Wiesenthal Center led to Sakic's extradition, indictment and conviction.

Part 6: Vidkun Quisling - His Puppet Norwegian Nazis
Vidkun Quisling was a man of the people who hoped to gain power with the help of the National Socialists. Quisling spent a long time in the Soviet Union, and after his return he helped to build up a fascist movement. When the National Socialists invaded Norway, the Wehrmacht appointed him as Prime Minister, but he received little support from the Norwegian population. After the war, he was executed.

Part 7: The IRA - Sean Russell and his Group's Aid to the Nazis
Despite differing political views, the Irish Republican Army sought an alliance with the Germans against Great Britain. The IRA's goal was to unite northern and southern Ireland into a republic. Their 'S Plan' envisaged the massive bombings campaign of England in order to drive the British troops out and achieve Irish independence. The Irishman Sean Russel pushed forward the plan for a German invasion of Northern Ireland. After Russel's death, Stephen Hayes devised 'Plan Kathleen', which, however, only led to disputes within the IRA.

Part 8: The Grand Mufti - The Collaborator of Jerusalem
The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, Mohammed Amin Al-Husayni, wanted to free his country from British occupation. To do this, he enlisted Hitler's help. He recruited Bosnian Muslims for the Waffen-SS and maintained close ties to Mussolini. In the spring of 1944, he called on his people on the radio to kill Jews on God's orders. Historians still disagree today about whether Al-Husayni wanted to help his people or whether he had other goals.

Part 9: The Jews who Fought for Hitler - Jews in Germany who Fought for Hitler and Supported Him
The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 created a legal basis for the persecution and discrimination of German Jews. It systematically defined who was Jewish. Many so-called mixed-race people were politically persecuted. Some of them had high-ranking protectors: despite having a Jewish father, Field Marshal Erhard Milch was essential to Goering's air force. Others worked for the National Socialists: Werner Goldberg became a model soldier in order to save his Jewish father. Today they are plagued by doubts about their behavior at the time.

Part 10: The Dutch Collaborator - Mussert, the Shadow Fuehrer
The leader of the Dutch National Socialist Party, Anton Mussert, dreamed of being Hitler's deputy in a Greater German Reich. Originally, the engineer was not an anti-Semite, but after the Nazi invasion his attitude changed. He was blinded by the prospect of power. Despite being appointed "Fuhrer des niederlandischen Volkes", 'Leader of the Dutch People', he was ignored and was not given any command authority. He watched helplessly as the Dutch population was oppressed and killed. After the war, he was sentenced to death.

Part 11: The Greek Collaborator - Rallis and his Puppet Government
When the German army occupied Greece, a large resistance movement emerged. Nevertheless, many Greeks supported the German terror regime, even though it claimed hundreds of thousands of civilian victims. During this time, the anti-communist Ioannis Rallis was appointed prime minister by the German occupation. Rallis led a bitter fight against the partisan movement and helped deport Jews. In his memoirs, he deeply regretted this. After the war, he was sentenced to life imprisonment.

Part 12: The Good Collaborators? - Finland's Nevanlinna
When Stalin invaded Finland, Commander-in-Chief Carl Gustaf Mannerheim was able to push back the Russian troops. To be prepared for a Russian setback, he looked for allies. Since he received no support from Great Britain or France, the German Wehrmacht seemed to be the only option. The Finn Rolf Nevanlinna recruited fellow countrymen on behalf of the SS and fought side by side with the Germans. When it became clear that the Nazis would lose the war, Finland negotiated its own peace treaty with the Allies.

Part 13: Hitler's Killer Police - The Schutzmannschaft Squad
When the German Wehrmacht invaded Lithuania and Ukraine, the National Socialists were celebrated in many places as liberators, as large parts of the population suffered under the Soviet occupation. Anti-Semitic currents already existed in Lithuania. One person who shared the National Socialist worldview was the Lithuanian Antanas Gecas. With his military unit, he was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Jews. Gecas lived as a free man after the war. In Ukraine, more than 34,000 Jews were killed in the ravine outside the city of Kiev within two days.