Der Untergang

Watching Downfall again. I love this movie so much.

This is why it's so great: Yeah, Hitler murdered millions of people, a large percentage of which were Jews. But the crimes he committed against the German People themselves (the brainwashing, the jingoism) are despicable as well.


The film sort of follows Hitler's secretary, Traudl Junge, from her hiring in 1942 to her escape from besieged Berlin in 1945. At one point, during a Russian artillery bombardment, she laments how surreal her life is and how she wishes she could wake up from this nightmare. Obviously, the camps were more nightmarish, and I cannot compare Traudl's worries to those of emaciated Jews. But still.

The candid exploration of post WWII German guilt in this film is terrifying. Children soldiers committing "honorable" suicide, Goebbels and his wife murder their six children with cyanide pills, Hitler, the vegetarian, euthanizes his beautiful dog. I'm reminded of one of my favorite German writers, Heinrich Böll, who was dubbed an author "of the rubble," who himself fought in the war and whose characters deal with the shame of rabid Nazi parents and a sister killed at the hands of the Wehrmacht.

The only thing this film is missing and would make it complete is a scene where Hitler shoots up amphetamines. It would help viewers more fully comprehend his psychoticness. The actor does a fantastic job, though, with violent outbursts and shaking hands. We witness the conqueror of Europe, the largest threat to the Jewish people in all of history, as a powerless, sad man, wrought by delusions. We witness him as a human being.

Also exploring this theme, and highly recommended, is Sophie Scholl, which is about domestic opposition to the Nazis. At the end of Der Untergang, the real Traudl is interviewed and she mentions how Sophie Scholl was born the same year as she and was murdered around the time Traudl started working for Hitler.