Heinrich Himmler, perhaps the strangest high-ranking individual of the Third Reich, was inspired by mystic visions, runes, horoscopes and a longing for a heroic German past.

Josef Goebbels is widely known as the master of propaganda because he harnessed the combined power of radio, print, posters, film and oratory to shape the Nazi political agenda.

Julius Streicher was the publisher of the notorious Der Stürmer magazine, which formed the anti-Semitic agenda in the Third Reich; often overlooked by history Stretcher was hanged at Nuremberg.

The drug-addicted dilettante who created the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering was at Hitler's side from the ill-fated Beer Hall putsch of 1923 until the estrangement between the two in April 1945 when Hitler ordered Goering's arrest.

Albert Speer, the man who designed the Nuremberg Rallies and headed up the slave labour organisation which created the V1 and V2 rockets. Speer is consigned to life imprisonment for his crimes.

Tracing the life of Adolf Hitler from his roots in Austria to his military service in World War I, his rise to power in Nazi Germany and his downfall.