Nuremburg,
1933: Johann Shmidt is a member of the Sturmabteilung a/k/a the Brownshirts
but recognizes they are only for show at the rallies; the SS are the real
soldiers. Later Shmidt is slapped around by his superior who is also
disappointed with the Brownshirts but puts his faith in Ernst Rohm the leader,
convinced that Rohm will seize power and force Hitler out. Later that night,
Shmidt approaches some SS men and asks to join them. They mock him as a kid
but one puts him to the test; handing him a gun he points at a nearby shop and
tells Shmidt to kill some Jews. Shmidt squeezes the trigger but the gun is
unloaded. The SS man laughs so Shmidt cracks him across the face with the pistol.
Shmidt is beaten up and chased off as he thinks about those Jews….
In
the Dachau concentration camp, Dieter is released and returns to town, defeated
and broken…but behind closed doors, Dieter shows that it is all and act and
gets ready to run the party again. Then Johann Shmidt breaks in; Dieter calls
him a traitor for joining the Nazis but Shmidt reveals he has been brutalized
by them too. Shmidt tells them they are going to kill Hitler….