We continue to study Adolf Hitler and the Nazis because they embody the immense dangers of extremism and the horrific costs of wickedness. The subject is endlessly confounding. How did it happen? Such pressing interest has created a genre of informational features on W.W. II; yet with its new series, Hitler and the Nazis: Evil on Trial, Netflix manages to break new ground. The episodes are narrated by William L. Shirer, the journalist who wrote the colossal history The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. Shirer died in 1993, but in a voice recreated by A.I. he describes events—reenacted—beginning with Germany’s growing resentment toward the Treaty of Versailles, then moving through Hitler’s search for a purpose, the rise of the Nazis, their plans to appropriate countries and exterminate peoples, the death of six million Jews in the Holocaust, the might of the Allies, and the end of the war. The series is framed by scenes from the Nuremberg Trials, which took place from November 1945 to October 1946, and held the profoundly amoral Nazi high command accountable before the world. All this is supplemented by commentary from scholars as well as archival photographs and video footage, including colorized clips from the Nuremberg Trials. —Jack Sullivan