How has the Beautiful Game played into fascist ideology? BBC Four explores how the 20th century's three most prominent fascist dictators, Mussolini, Hitler and Franco, seized upon football's massive popular appeal and ruthlessly exploited it as a vehicle for propaganda.

The theme of the programme focuses on the paradoxical nature of Germany under Nazi rule - a society obsessed by order and yet characterised by administrative inefficiency. It opens with daunting images of Nazi crowds and the comment that the

The programme starts, with Hitler in his retreat in southern Bavaria, watching feature films about the British Empire - supposedly, these offered proof of the superiority of the Aryan Race! In 1941 he said 'Let's learn from the English - what India was to the English, let Russian territories be to us'. The programme then asks the question - How did Hitler end up fighting the wrong war? - a war against both the English and the Russians.