Netflix’s Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial takes viewers back to one of the darkest chapters in modern history, examining how Adolf Hitler rose to power, how the Nazi regime carried out its atrocities and how surviving leaders were eventually brought before an international court.

The six-part documentary series, directed by Joe Berlinger, uses a combination of archival footage, expert interviews, historical recordings and dramatic reenactments to explore the events that led to the Second World War and the Holocaust.

Rather than focusing solely on the battlefield, the series examines the political and social conditions that allowed Hitler and the Nazi Party to gain control of Germany. It traces the role of propaganda, antisemitism and the systematic dismantling of democratic institutions in the regime’s rise.

A central part of the story is the Nuremberg Trials of 1945–46, where leading surviving Nazi officials faced accountability for crimes committed under their rule. The documentary revisits the courtroom proceedings and the evidence that helped establish the scale of the regime’s crimes.

One distinctive feature is its use of the perspective of American journalist William L. Shirer, whose reporting documented Hitler’s rise and the Nazi regime. AI voice recreation technology was used to bring elements of Shirer’s historical writing into the series.

Across its six episodes, the documentary also explores the Holocaust and the devastating consequences of Nazi ideology, placing individual decisions within the wider history of state-sponsored persecution and mass murder.

Ultimately, Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial is more than a retelling of familiar historical events. It asks how ordinary people and institutions can become part of an authoritarian system — and why remembering the past remains essential to protecting democracy today.