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"When I meet Eisenhower, should I give the Nazi salute, or shake his hand?"

2004 R / War Drama Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel Starring: Bruno Ganz, Alexandra Maria Lara, Ulrich Matthes

Tagline

April 1945, a nation awaits its...

Summary Capsule

Hitler and his motley crew hole up for the last fun-filled days of WWII

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Amazon.com: DVD

Justin's Rating: On top of everything, he ruined the moustache forever.
Justin's Review: It's called Godwin's Law. Originated on Usenet during the early 90's, Mike Godwin developed a law that stated, "As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one." Once you're aware of it, it won't stop hitting you in the face; in any long or deep discussion, Hitler just tends to pop up like a sinister jack-in-the-box, usually in trying to define an absolute evil or an absolute corruption of good. Such as, "Hitler was a vegetarian, therefore all vegetarians are evil." Never mind that Stalin killed more during his reign, or that there were dozens of dictators over the centuries just as brutal, insane and remorseless, for some reason Adolf Hitler remains at the top of the Worst People Of All Time list.

"There is certainly no hope here, no life, no joy. Just ashes and denial."

It's almost taboo to make a movie where Hitler is anything less than a raving monster who's the prime target for our Allied heroes, but I'm actually glad that this taboo was broken in Downfall. Hear me out! Hitler certainly never needs to be glorified or elevated, but there's merit in studying him and coming to a conclusion about the nature of fascism, hatred and evil itself. Sure, there's one part of me that would seek justice and say that no movie about Hitler deserves to be made, because we haven't made a movie for each of his victims — why should their lives be forgotten and his remembered? But there's another part in me that knows in honestly exposing Hitler's broken humanity we might avoid elevating another one to power.

I wish I could say that the rest of this review will be of a lighter nature, but nothing doing. Downfall examines the final ten days of the Third Reich, mostly centering on Hitler, his staff and family as they hole up in the Führerbunker in Berlin. The war is already lost, but no one can seem to get Hitler — or many of his loyally blind followers — to see that. Instead, Hitler orders his generals to perform counterattacks with army units that are no longer there, promises the new head of the vanquished Luftwaffe thousands of new jet fighter craft, and thinks that if he can just get some more oil, all will not be lost. At times he seems quiet and sulky, at times gentle and amiable, but mostly he's a shell of the man he used to be, ranting about the betrayal of friends and a country he personally ran into the ground.

This is not a happy film. We who watch it have absolutely no sympathy for any of the characters on screen — many of whom were directly responsible for the "Final Solution" — with the exceptions of the naïve secretaries, a handful of children, and one Nazi doctor who honestly tries his best in the worst of times. It's a maddening experience as we see a city calm before the storm, which starts to crack and break under relentless attack. Nowhere is the film comfortable: on the streets, widespread death and desertion trail the attacks, and in Hitler's supposedly safe bunker, the walls rattle with artillery bombardments and desperation is soaked with suicide.

For Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries (who claimed she never really knew about the massive travesties her boss had committed until after the war), it is easily defined as hell in cramped quarters. She stays there out of misguided loyalty to her boss, but her frightened eyes drink in all of the morbid details of an empire disintegrating into death: a mother who kills her children with cyanide, Hitler's screaming fits, Eva Braun's delusions that this is a grand party, the soldiers who drink themselves into oblivion. There is certainly no hope here, no life, no joy. Just ashes and denial.

Much brouhaha is given to the softer side of Hitler that peeks through here. Some would say that any representation of Hitler short of a man who constantly bites off kitten's heads and keys people's cars is a crime in itself. Yet that would be a lie, and we'd know it; the worst person is capable of some good, and the best of people may do despicable things. In showing Hitler as a sometimes kind, civil man, the film is not absolving him of his sins, but instead forcing us to cope with the thought that the true villains out there don't always make long, plot-revealing speeches to the heroes and cackle maniacally. I kept expecting Hitler to draw out a gun and shoot his deserting comrades in the back, as a film villain would've done, but when he doesn't, it hits me that this is a real man instead of a caricature. And that makes his previous acts all the more terrifying.

Hitler's own Paperboy Corps - "To deliver death with pride" The hills are definitely NOT alive, Mr. Hitler Okay, it's just in bad taste to try to make jokes of these screencaps, isn't it? Sorry...

Didja Notice? [some sources: IMDb]

• The portrait Hitler is staring at in one scene is that of Frederick the Great.

Is It Worth Staying Through End Credits?

No.

Unnecessary Background [some sources: Wikipedia]

The Führerbunker was actually two connected underground bunkers designed to hold and protect Hitler and his staff in case of imminent attack or danger. Hitler had 13 of these military command posts across Europe to use at his need. The complex was protected by approximately four meters of concrete, and about 30 small rooms were distributed over two levels with exits into the main buildings and an emergency exit into the gardens. The bunker was supplied with large quantities of food and other necessities and by all accounts successfully protected its occupants from the relentless and lethal shelling that went on overhead in the closing days of April 1945. In the final war days, it is said that Hitler still enjoyed several cups of tea per day (10 to 16 cups) even though it was scarcely available. Many witnesses later spoke of the constant droning sound of the underground complex's ventilation system.

After the war, several attempts were made to demolish or disguise the bunker. Germany has wrestled with the location, between a desire to preserve it for history's sake, and to forget about it (it is currently under a parking lot).

Intermission! [some sources: IMDb]

Helping Bruno Ganz in preparing for the role was the unique, only known recording of Adolf Hitler when he held a private conversation with Field Marshal Gustaf Mannerheim of Finland (WWII ally of Germany against Soviet). Hitler unexpectedly showed up to congratulate Mannerheim on his 75th birthday on June 4, 1942. Finnish intelligence agents secretly made the recording in a train wagon (Hitler did not allow recordings nor photographs to be taken in private). Some 11 minutes of the recording feature relaxed, normal-tone talk in which Hitler generally describe his views about the war. One of two copies of the tape was discovered in 1992 and has since been studied by scientists and historians.

The featured interview samples of real Traudl Junge are taken from the documentary "Blind Spot" recorded in April and July 2001. Due to serious health problems Junge wasn't able to attend the film's premiere on the 9th of February 2002. The premiere had been a great success and the camera man went to hospital to inform Junge whereupon she is said to have answered "My lifework is accomplished. Now I can release." Just hours later she died aged 82 after a long fight against cancer.

Based on the books "Der Untergang" by historian Joachim Fest and "Bis zur letzten Stunde" by Traudl Junge, Hitler's last private secretary from 1942 to 1945.

Groovy Quotes

Hitler: In a war as such there are no civilians.

Himmler: When I meet Eisenhower, should I give the Nazi salute, or shake his hand?

Traudl Junge: All these horrors I've heard of during the Nurnberg process, these six million Jews, other thinking people or people of another race, who perished. That shocked me deeply. But I hadn't made the connection with my past. I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn't know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things.

Goebbels: I feel no sympathy. I repeat, I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don't fool yourself. We didn't force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!

If you liked this movie, try these:

• Sophie Scholl: The Final Days
• The Grey Zone
• Schindler's List