I’m delighted that Der Untergang (The Downfall) has now been released on DVD. After so many years of films depicting our Fuehrer as a monster, it is a relief to see a film that treats him with sympathy and respect. As the title suggests, the film depicts the downfall or Gotterdammurung of a great man – a tragic figure brought low by incompetent generals and those so-called friends who tried to undermine his authority. And yet, even during this wintertime for Hitler, he is able to show his affection for Joseph Goebbels’ beautiful Aryan children who dote on their Uncle Adolf.
The film reveals his deep love for the lovely and charming Eva Braun, whom he had the decency to marry at the end. No wonder his young secretary Traudl Junge, who narrates the film, idolised him as we all did. I knew her father, who helped Hitler gain power, as well as her husband, a fine SS Officer and faithful Hitler aide. The film also shows Magda Goebbels as a loving wife and mother who quite rightly would rather see her six children dead than live in a world without Nazism. The film makes clear that she had no other choice.
The Downfall proclaims that Nazism was the best bulwark against Bolshevism. In the end of the film we see how barbaric the Soviets were. As the sweet secretary bravely walks through their ranks with a blond boy by her side, they are lucky not to have been raped by them.
The director Oliver Hirschbiegel is too young to remember the war as I do, but his vivid evocation of the last days of Germany is admirable. I heil a good old-fashioned film with the best Nazi iconography since Leni Riefenstahl’s great films celebrating the Third Reich.
The film is marred slightly by the tacked on final interview with Junge, who talks about not knowing anything about our Fuhrer’s ‘crimes’, although I’m willing to concede that Hitler hated the Jews more than necessary. Nevertheless, it is heartening that Downfall was enthusiastically reviewed by critics all over the world and was nominated for an Oscar.
SS Obersturmbannführer Heinrich Ehrhardt (retired)
(As told to Ronald Bergan).
Downfall was recently released on DVD.
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© Copyright Ronald Bergan 2006. No part of this article
may be reprinted without permission of the author.
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