Tonight I did what any normal person who is suffering from borderline clinical depression would do—I went to see a three-hour movie about Adolf Hitler. “Downfall,” starring the amazing Bruno Ganz as Hitler, was nominated for Best Foreign Film at this year's Oscars and I think it should have won. It is a remarkable depiction of Hitler and company’s final 10 days. The film takes place in his Bunker and also in the brutal streets of bombed-out Berlin. One of the main characters in the film is Traudl Junge, herself the subject of a fascinating documentary I saw a few years ago called “Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary” in which she discussed what it was like to work for Hitler and how, while she claimed she had no idea about the genocide that was taking place, she came to believe that her youth was no excuse—she should have found out what was going on. But from where she sat, Adolf was a kindly old gentleman who treated her respectfully. It was only when she was taking dictation that she saw the massive disconnect between the Hitler she knew and the murderous ravings she was typing up.
There has been much controversy about the film’s “humanizing” of Hitler. I don’t get this at all. Of course he was a human being—THAT is one of the lessons we most need to take away from the Holocaust, that human beings, not alien monsters from another planet, perpetrated such madness. How easy it would be to take ourselves off the hook by thinking of Hitler as non-human. I’m glad they showed Hitler being so nice to his secretary and petting his dog Blondi, and acting like a sweet grandfather to the SS Officers' children. I think it’s important to see the full picture of how a charismatic leader with unlimited power can seize the soul of a nation and cause ordinary people to commit such atrocities.
Along with Traudl Junge, I found the female characters in the film the most fascinating. Juliane Kohler was a revelation as Eva Braun, Hitler’s main squeeze whom he married the day before their double suicide. Her Eva evoked Carole Lombard, or I should say Carole Lombard on crack. She was hopelessly giddy throughout the film, throwing lavish parties even as the Russians were moving closer and bombing the crap out of Berlin, and while all the other wives of the Nazi honchos were dressed in the finest 1940s couture, Eva favored folksy German costumes that made her look like she just stepped out of a Bavarian dairy farm. All the better to please her mann, with his perverted fantasies of pure and unsophisticated Aryan womanhood. At a few key points in the film we see cracks in Eva’s happy-go-lucky veneer and get a quick glimpse of the terror that lived just underneath. She knew she was on a collision course with death and that she was in too deep for any way out.
I was completely riveted by the character of Magda Goebbels, as played by Corinna Harfouch. As the aristocratic wife of Hitler’s chief propagandist Joseph Goebbels, Magda shows up at the Bunker with her six sweet-as-stollen children. As the film progresses and tensions are bubbling over in the Bunker when it becomes clear the war is lost, we keep seeing shots of the Von Trapp-like Goebbels children singing lovely German songs in perfect harmony. This sugary view of the Goebbels kids would be hard to digest in normal circumstances, but we are in on a little secret. Magda Goebbels can’t conceive of her beautiful children living in a world without National Socialism so she has a plan to make sure that doesn't happen. The scene in which she carries out this plan is shown in excruciating detail, and it is heartbreaking and horrifying.
I’ve rarely seen such a realistic looking depiction of the gruesome aspects of war. Limbs being blown off or sawed off in makeshift hospitals are a matter of course and the director constantly juxtaposes the freshly scrubbed faces of the Hitler Youths willing to die for their Fatherland with the unromanticized violence and destruction that drenches every bit of 1945 Berlin. As we approach the 60th anniversary of the end of World War II, and we attempt to lull ourselves into the fantasy that such a thing could never happen again, I think we could all benefit from a trip down to Hitler's Bunker.
Oh God. Now I will have to see this movie and I was SO planning NOT to!
Danny, you are so right when you say that of course Hitler was human. Such an important point to the complexity and confusion about life. It's this purist approach where "evil-doers" are thought of as alien that is so scary for me. Because surely we all contain some of these desperately human flaws? We all just cannot bear to face them within ourselves. And therefore ordinary people commit acts of horrendous terror and atrocity over and over again.
Most of the atrocities during the holocaust were carried out by ordinary people. And some, highly intellectual!
Posted by: Tamar | March 09, 2005 at 04:50 AM
Yes, he was human, and that has always terrified me. The idea that someone is so charismatic that others carry out evil in his name sends chills. When I was a kid and we learned about him in school, I wondered if I was the only one dealing with the feelings of fear when I saw his face or heard his name. I don't think I could see the movie. As an adult I've tried to deal with my feelings about this and decided to visit the holocaust museum here. There was a section that the tour guide said and there were signs posted on the wall, that if you are sensitive don't look there. I looked. I experienced what I think was a panic attack. The movie might be too much for me.
Posted by: nappy40 | March 09, 2005 at 06:45 AM
It has been over a year since I saw "Downfall" at a local art theater. I still feel chills remembering stumbling out of the theater with a companion, and wondering how she could talk when all I wanted to do was hit my head against a wall and wail.
Humanize Hitler? This movie did more to set my mind against war and the despots who run it than any movie I have ever seen.
Posted by: Libby | November 30, 2006 at 08:15 AM
First of all, Magda Goebbels didn't kill her kids because they couldn't live without the National Socialism, it is a lie, but to be affraid of what the russians could have done to them, it is well known that the red army kill and rape millions of german women and children when they got into Germany, this was called the hidden Holocaust, besides, Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchil, were not so different of Hitler, everybody in that war was an assassin, search in the Internet about "Lebensborn children" in Norway, also I recommend you to read the book: "remember Dresden" so you will understand a little what really happened there and what the americans, Polish, French, british and russian did to us.
Posted by: Rudolf Rahn | February 27, 2007 at 07:40 AM
Who among us isn't quickly bored by those who can't own up to their country's past. Rudolf, just what exactly are you trying to "counter-balance" with Dresden? The war crimes in Poland/Ukraine/Russia? The Holocaust? Are you kidding? Hitler did not act alone. And 200 Dresdens wouldn’t justify, or even come close to comparing to, what the German nation did to its Jewish citizens and the citizens of neighboring nations. It appears to me that acceptance of historical responsibility is all that’s being asked of you. Be a man and study your own history honestly, it’s the least you can do.
Posted by: Shannon | March 02, 2008 at 01:46 AM
Rudolf Rahn's comment is symptomatic for a german mainstream history-audit (I don't know the proper english word for what I wanted to say / Geschichtsrevisionist /).
In Germany it is so symptomatic that there is often been spoken about the evil russians that raped and killed, the evil tommys that bombed the wonderful (medieval) cities. They did this and they did that. But all in all, they are just trying to point out the cruel things "the others" did to them - to disfocus what "they" did.
But, I am not for establishing something like a historical scale. If you are really interested in WHAT history is, then you wouldn't put this and that in these scales. And you don't speak of "historical responsibility".
Let me say something to the movie.
In Germany this movie "made high waves", probably like in America. "Can you humanize Hitler?" "Are 'we' allowed to make a film with that issue?" - things like that. When I watched the movie, I thought it was a caricature. It pure pathos. At least for a german in his twenties. You have been confrontated with Hitler a lot; in school, books, films/documentations - such like from National Geographic. In Germany there is a mighty Historician called Guido Knopp - "like" the lead-historician for german history on television. He made hundreds of documentation films, that are not representating a scholastical approach on historical actions. A lot of people are watching his mass-media productions, so he is forming a "national identity", he gives the feeling that everyone can take part in a discussion when he watched one of his movies. That is wrong. The movie serves such desires. Unfortunately... for the good film-maker Bernd Eichinger.
Posted by: Manuel H. | November 16, 2008 at 04:40 PM
Mr Rudolf Rahn: you maybe have forgot what the germans did in Russia and who started the war, and who wanted a BRUTAL war? Germany killed some 13 million innocent civilians in Russia..You mention Dresden, OK, I mention Leningrad : 1 million civilians killed ONLY in Leningrad...
Are the german civilians more worth than the russians?
Posted by: Ari Nurminen | July 20, 2010 at 08:50 AM
Rochus Misch the last living survivor in the bunker has stated the movie was "hollywood drama" & was more of a glamorization then an authentic depiction of the final bunker days in 1945-that being said-- remember-- Stalin made a huge deal with Hitler in 1939 & England & France allowed Germany to regain lost lands--Hitler was not alone in the actions of history--as far as holacausts go-- if you have ever resided in the USA you hear about it so much you think it happened in 2002 in Virginia-its saturated in the media there-- when in reality-- over 30 million babys have been killed in abortions in the USA since 1973--remember-- until Germany reunited--aboriton was banned in the former Reich-why?? it was deemed as murder-- & Germans know what the loss of Christianity led to-- lots of deaths-- it seems the world never learns--nothing happens in history without a reason--there are always 2 sides to every story-- right ot wrong-- I may some day see this movie-- but not with hollywood type eyes but with objective research--peace to all
Posted by: lejos del us 6 | November 25, 2010 at 06:43 PM