First reaction, on watching this hour-long documentary from 1958, was to be stunned, yet again by Hitler's build-up of power and mobilisation of arms. This was not his secret life, but his public life, and it amazes every time. No telling where all this footage came from, though I spotted a sliver from Leni Riefenstahl, of a young boy vigorously pounding on a drum. Those regimented masses, and the forest of upstretched arms presented a threat not exactly matched by Osama bin Laden! This is a truly lightning tour of Hitler's life and the footage is cut to the nearest millimetre.On reflection, the addition of Eva Braun's anomalous gymnastics and innocent home movies, and the nature of the narration, as well as the virtually total elimination of Britain's role in Hitler's downfall, then caused a sense of puzzlement. There was not the slightest hint of Britain's solitary defiance of Hitler in the skies above the Channel, until the attack on Pearl Harbour, and Hitler's declaration of war against America finally forced US entry in the war, nor of the desert action against Rommel. It was clear from this film that the US of A had won WWII single-handed, although it was admitted the Russians had done some mopping up at the end. While Hitler was not a house painter, as stated more than once, it was extremely interesting to have a detailed account of his final suicide, and the terminal cremation of his and Eva Braun's corpses. Who was Eldorous Dayton ?It turns out, from Google, that he was, surprise, surprise, chess columnist for the Mount Vernon Daily Argus and New Rochelle Standard Star. He also wrote poetry. Besides his book on Hitler, he also wrote on Harry Truman. This unusual combination of interests partially explains some of the oddities in the film. It is certainly worth seeing, but is misnamed and needs approaching with a critical eye.

Nazi history buffs will find some interest in the obscure Hitler and Eva home movies found in the second half. I echo the suggestion of another reviewer to just turn the sound off, negating the lurid, badly-dated narration. The domestic scenes have the effect of 'humanizing' Hitler, for those who might be naively surprised to find there was an actual man behind the colossal 'historical figure.' The conclusion I have come to is that Hitler was a authoritarian crank like millions of others, who by a combination of historical circumstance, certain talents, and 'luck' gained supreme power in a certain major industrialized European nation--with incredibly horrible results.Oddly, this late-50's made-for-TV documentary was dropped into a 2011 'made for DVD' documentary entitled "Hitler and the Nazis," expanding the 2011 feature to five 'episodes' (the first four are more recent productions, through also far from first-quality work).

Secret Life of Adolph Hitler, The (1958) ** (out of 4) WW2 made documentary covering the life of Hitler from his early childhood to his final days. I was really looking forward to this film since Hitler's sister and several men who knew him during his final days were interviewed but in the end this turned out to be a major disappointment. Even with the first hand accounts of his life, there's really nothing to learn here as the only thing the documentary keeps saying is how evil he was. We never really learn what might have been behind his evilness and the accounts of his final days is rather dull. Some of Eva Braun's home movies of Hitler are on display here.

Which thing surprised me. For the most part people like Adolf Hitler are referred to by others as "monsters". I understand that we do this in an effort to disassociate these others from us, thus making us immune. We believe that WE could never do such things. Only someone, some THING, other than human could commit such atrocities. This documentary is striking in that Hitler, and those around him, are treated in a very human manner. Given that its production was so soon after the war, and considering that a great many of the people who would have viewed this in '58 would've been in their 30s and 40s and WWII veterans, makes the treatment and mentality all the more surprising to me. Aside from this "The Secret Life of Adolf Hitler" is also scary in many respects. The interviews strike home in a very strange and terrifying way. The words, chosen with what seems so much care, would seem to indicate that these people were still worshiping their national hero and that he would always be for them their "beloved Leader". Put together almost completely of REAL footage, I only saw one short part that looked staged for the documentary itself. All factual, all straightforward, all human, all the more frightening.