Debate rages over Hitler film

BERLIN – A powerful new film about Adolf Hitler opened in German cinemas last week amid a raging debate about whether the dictator can be portrayed as anything less than the world’s greatest evil.

‘The Downfall’ drew mixed reviews from German film critics and ordinary cinema-goers, with many applauding its gory depiction of the final 12 days of the Nazi regime but others objecting to some scenes showing Hitler having a human side. “It’s a masterpiece,” wrote Bild, Germany’s top-selling daily.”It’s the film of the year, a German film about the eternal ghost of German history.Hitler:human, monster, mass-murderer.Confused, raging, insane.”Told from the point of view of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries in his Berlin bunker ‘Der Untergang’, as it is called in German, is also based on eyewitness accounts from a book of the same name by leading German historian Joachim Fest.”I think it’s good that a German filmmaker is confronting Hitler, but I don’t like the way Adolf comes off like such a human being,” said Hans Joachim Drewell (70), a Berlin pensioner.”It was too much to take.”Played superbly by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, Hitler’s hypnotising outbursts of rage at his generals’ failure to stop the Soviet advance are mixed with scenes in which he is kind to his female staff, his fiancee Eva Braun and even his dog.At one of the first screenings in Germany at Potsdamer Platz, just a few hundred metres from the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, many Germans wept at scenes showing Joseph Goebbels’ wife icily poisoning their six children.The film, one of the first German productions to wade into the darkest chapter of their own history.”It’s a great film, but sad and horrible at the same time,” said Justina Kerwitz, 57, a Berlin hairdresser.”They’ve done a brilliant job capturing how the mood in Berlin must have been.”She dismissed criticism that it showed Hitler’s human side.”He wasn’t born as a beast,” Kerwitz added.A Chinese student studying in Berlin said he thought there was nothing wrong with Germans making a drama about Hitler.”Sixty years on, I think it’s important that Germans can show another side of Hitler even if there’s a danger some will say ‘Hitler wasn’t so bad after all’.”- Nampa-Reuters”It’s a masterpiece,” wrote Bild, Germany’s top-selling daily.”It’s the film of the year, a German film about the eternal ghost of German history.Hitler:human, monster, mass-murderer.Confused, raging, insane.”Told from the point of view of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler’s secretaries in his Berlin bunker ‘Der Untergang’, as it is called in German, is also based on eyewitness accounts from a book of the same name by leading German historian Joachim Fest.”I think it’s good that a German filmmaker is confronting Hitler, but I don’t like the way Adolf comes off like such a human being,” said Hans Joachim Drewell (70), a Berlin pensioner.”It was too much to take.”Played superbly by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, Hitler’s hypnotising outbursts of rage at his generals’ failure to stop the Soviet advance are mixed with scenes in which he is kind to his female staff, his fiancee Eva Braun and even his dog.At one of the first screenings in Germany at Potsdamer Platz, just a few hundred metres from the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, many Germans wept at scenes showing Joseph Goebbels’ wife icily poisoning their six children.The film, one of the first German productions to wade into the darkest chapter of their own history.”It’s a great film, but sad and horrible at the same time,” said Justina Kerwitz, 57, a Berlin hairdresser.”They’ve done a brilliant job capturing how the mood in Berlin must have been.”She dismissed criticism that it showed Hitler’s human side.”He wasn’t born as a beast,” Kerwitz added.A Chinese student studying in Berlin said he thought there was nothing wrong with Germans making a drama about Hitler.”Sixty years on, I think it’s important that Germans can show another side of Hitler even if there’s a danger some will say ‘Hitler wasn’t so bad after all’.”- Nampa-Reuters