Germans stuggle to digest new Hitler film... (Interesting)

[JBP]

Not sure if this is the right place to put this, but thought it might be of some interest to at least some of us on this site...



BERLIN, Sept 16 (Reuters) - A powerful new film about Adolf Hitler that opened in German cinemas Thursday 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. They should have showed more of his evil side, his fanaticism, and not so much of this human side."

Played superbly by Swiss actor Bruno Ganz, Hitler's hypnotizing 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.

"We've seen Hitler before as a madman but twisting spaghetti around his fork or crying?" wrote Berliner Morgenpost film critic Hanns-Georg Rodek. "We've seen him as a clown before, but as a newlywed planting a kiss on the mouth of Eva Hitler?"

At one of the first screenings in Germany at Potsdamer Platz, just a few hundred meters from the bunker where Hitler committed suicide, many Germans wept at scenes showing Joseph Goebbels' wife icily poisoning their six children.

"Some parts were really creepy," said Marie-Louise Hellblau, 14, who saw the film with her classmates. "Hitler was totally brutal and evil. He only wanted everyone to die with him."

The film, one of the first German productions to wade into the darkest chapter of their own history, has received mass media coverage, with Hitler's visage making it onto the cover of both major weekly newsmagazines, Der Spiegel and Stern.

It was showing on 400 screens in Germany, one of the biggest releases of the year. Costing about $16.5 million, "The Downfall" is one of the most expensive productions in German history.

"So close to Hitler -- is that okay?" asked the Stuttgarter Nachrichten newspaper. "Is it right to make a film in such detail about the dictator responsible for millions of crimes?"

An opinion poll by the Forsa institute said that 69 percent of Germans answered that question with 'yes'.

"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.

But Phillip Boyes, a 19-year-old student from London and a Polish national, said the film was upsetting, though done well.

"It shows Germans as the sufferers," he said. "It's hard to accept, portraying Nazis as human beings. It's hard to see."

A Chinese student studying in Berlin said he thought there was nothing wrong with Germans making a drama about Hitler.

"It showed another perspective, that Nazis could be ordinary people too," said the student, aged 36.

"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'."

Reuters/VNU

 

[Bob the builder]

Would be interesting to see another side to the evil hitler movies shown in school.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I guess most of these Germans never saw Sir Anthony Hopkins or Sir Alec Guiness in their movies about the last days of Hitler; the subject has been addressed before. 

I do understand, however, that this movie is probably the best portrayal yet, from the POV of one of his young secretaries, and that there are some action scenes outside the Bunker.

Reminding ourselves that Hitler was human can only be a positive thing - and hopefully keeps people vigilant as to the possiblity of someone like him coming to power in one of the leading nations of the world again.  I'm sure we've seen his like in Romania, Uganda, Yugoslavia, Iraq et al in the years since, but thankfully without the far reaching consequences WW II had.

 

[pbi]

This is timely.

Last night I had a great chat with a German Artillery LCol who is stationed up here as the German LO to CJTF76. He looks like a recruiting poster (they have brought back that very sharp looking Afrika-Korps style peaked fatigue cap, and he has the Mountain badge...). Anyway, an excellent guy: very intelligent, friendly and a good English speaker.

I carefully  brought the discussion around to the issue of how much of its WWII military history the current German Army is allowed to recall. He stated that officially, while they are aware of the major events, they have never studied it and in fact until very recently almost any mention of it was completely forbidden. There are no battle honours, no commemorative days(except for the Anniversary of the Stauffenberg bomb attempt on Hitler), no tracing of unit lineage, nothing. The problem, he told me, was that they could not figure out how to separate their achievements as soldiers in WWII from their Nazi past and so they just condemned it all. He related an incident in which, at a NATO mess dinner, a Spanish Army officer sitting next to him had been praising the actions of a particular German commander in WWII, assuming that as a German he knew all about it. He said that the Spaniard was shocked to the point of disgust when he confessed total ignorance. In some ways it is an Army with a huge blank spot in its past.

However, there is a small amount of change taking place. Some barracks have been named after NCOs or soldiers who distinguised themselves in combat in WWII, as examples of soldierly virtues. He mentioned that the German Army is considering naming some facilities after officers, but this is more problematic because officers are more closely identified with Naziism. Very interesting discussion.

What do you think: should the German Army restore its WWII history totally, partially, or not at all? Cheers.

 

[CDNsig]

As I am posted on a German kaserne, I interact with them every day, both socially and workwise, and I would have to say that the war is still a subject which has to be broached with extreme caution. The guillt for the war is still so strong that most will say very little about it, although the Germans are starting to distinguish between Nazis and the majority of the soldiers who fought bravely and honourably for their country. I know another base near us does have street names like "Rommelstrasse", "Molderstrasse", "Richthofenstrasse", etc, and I believe a couple of their ships bear names of WW2 officers as well. This is healthy, I think; a nation has to come to terms with its past (good and bad), you can't just write it out of existance. Regarding the movie, I am planning on going to see it, even though my knowledge of German is limited. I have been told by Germans that have seen it that it is excellent...

 

[Michael Dorosh]

This is timely.

Last night I had a great chat with a German Artillery LCol who is stationed up here as the German LO to CJTF76. He looks like a recruiting poster (they have brought back that very sharp looking Afrika-Korps style peaked fatigue cap, and he has the Mountain badge...). Anyway, an excellent guy: very intelligent, friendly and a good English speaker.

The cap you are referring to is the Bergmütze - it is an Austrian design, and worn by mountain troops well before the Afrika Korps had it.  It never went away, really - in 1989 at the Nova Scotia Tattoo, the band of the 1st Mountain Division of the Bundeswehr were wearing theirs.  The German mountain troops wore them in World War One and World War Two - and it inspired the Einheitsfeldmütze, or what collectors call the "M43" cap (the same one James Coburn wore in Cross of Iron).

I carefully  brought the discussion around to the issue of how much of its WWII military history the current German Army is allowed to recall. He stated that officially, while they are aware of the major events, they have never studied it and in fact until very recently almost any mention of it was completely forbidden. There are no battle honours, no commemorative days(except for the Anniversary of the Stauffenberg bomb attempt on Hitler), no tracing of unit lineage, nothing. The problem, he told me, was that they could not figure out how to separate their achievements as soldiers in WWII from their Nazi past and so they just condemned it all. He related an incident in which, at a NATO mess dinner, a Spanish Army officer sitting next to him had been praising the actions of a particular German commander in WWII, assuming that as a German he knew all about it. He said that the Spaniard was shocked to the point of disgust when he confessed total ignorance. In some ways it is an Army with a huge blank spot in its past.

However, there is a small amount of change taking place. Some barracks have been named after NCOs or soldiers who distinguised themselves in combat in WWII, as examples of soldierly virtues. He mentioned that the German Army is considering naming some facilities after officers, but this is more problematic because officers are more closely identified with Naziism. Very interesting discussion.

What do you think: should the German Army restore its WWII history totally, partially, or not at all? Cheers.

I think they deserve to be in a moral quandry, frankly.  "Nazism" is such a loose term.  What the German Army needs to be ashamed of was their anti-semetism and the fact that they actively promoted and assisted in the execution of genocide on a massive scale in the war in the East.  In other theatres, they behaved more correctly.  The German Army was in the main brave, disciplined and skilled, but the racial and social Darwinist attitudes of the majority permitted bestialities on a grand scale - there are limits to how much pride one wants to encourage.  We saw the same problems ourselves on a smaller scale with certain individuals in the Canadian Airborne Regiment, for example.  Putting yourself on a racial pedestal is never productive, though of course it seemed to served us well in World War Two when we fought the Japanese.  The disadvantages of that kind of thinking still seem to outweigh the advantages..."we" also taught out soldiers that the "Nips" were short sighted, buck toothed, small and weak, and with no ability to skillfully fly aircraft or fight at night.  Boy were we wrong...

 

[Infanteer]

What do you think: should the German Army restore its WWII history totally, partially, or not at all? Cheers.

Well, the victors always write history, don't they.   Michael has stated that they deserve to be in a moral quandry, but I'd beg to disagree.

Although any complicity with the Holocaust should be laid bare, I think modern Germany has earned the right to some other aspects of the Second World War.   We cannot let them bear the sole brunt of battlefield atrocities.   As I said, the victors write the history books; Europe is rife with monuments to the Soviet soldier (I can think of two in Berlin and Vienna), these are deserved because the Soviet Union bore the brunt of defeating the Germans.   However, the Soviet Army was equally brutal in its execution of war; the conflict between the two is something I feel is a little harder to comprend in the West where we were used to fighting "civil" wars in terms of treatment.   Can we denigrate the German war effort on the grounds of treatment of Soviet prisoners and partisan communities while at the same time lauding a Soviet "Great Patriotic War" effort that encouraged mass rape of German civilians and included mass expulsions of ethnic groups (Konigsberg); what we would now term ethnic cleansing?   The military deeds of armed forces, both gallant and evil, cannot be judged soley through the lens of a contemporary timeframe.   The US order of battle traces lineage to many Cavalry units that were active in uprooting and destroying many Native American peoples.   As well, there are many units, such as the US 116 Infantry Regiment (The Stonewall Brigade), that proudly maintain ties to Confederate lineage.   Despite that the past may hold less then ideal actions and fighing for what we would now perceive to be unjust causes, we cannot rid ourselves of the fact that these units were composed of young men who bravely fought and died in the field of battle.

In essence, complete ignorance of WWII heritage is not healthy for the German military.   It is, I guess, throwing out the baby with the bathwater.   The German Heer of WWII was probably one of the best operationally functioning ground forces in the history of armed conflict.   It was an institution that possessed for the most part tactical excellence, mastery of the operational art, and a clear and well defined notion of professionalism.   It's Luftwaffe pioneered tactical intergration on the battlefield (What we now term CAS) and the Kriegsmarine pushed forth the war under the seas (The Soviet's focused on submarines, perhaps we were lucky we never put our billion dollar surface ships into conflict with them).   Many threads of the conflict, such as case studies and narratives of personal gallantry (Think Hans Ulrich Rudel - his story was a fundamental piece in the development of the US A-10 "Warthog.), should be preserved so that the modern German military can have a clear understanding of its past and what they can build on for the future.  

I am not trying to be an apologist here, and I know many of you on this board are fully aware of the strengths of the German Wehrmacht.   Just as we should admire many aspects of Germany's war, many aspects (such as complicity with the Holocaust) need to be laid bare as well; if anything to ensure that the Military as an institution can learn from its mistakes.   What I am argueing is that we cannot declare the entire spectrum of the German experience in WWII as null and void just because certain facets of it are considered morally repellent.   That is painting with a broad brush (or should I say, a big fat censors pen) and is a sign of a tainted understanding of history.

An interesting read on the subject is contained in the (out of print) book The Reforging of the Iron Cross: The Search for Tradition in the West German Armed Forces.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691055343/qid=1095530686/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-7574561-2824116?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

 

[pbi]

Michael and Infanteer:

Thanks for those comments. My own opinion is that trying to ignore your history is never healthy, any moreso than falsifying it is. While I agree fully that in purely military terms the Germans have very little to be ashamed of and much to be proud of, they must never forget in what cause those military achievements occurred. That is the "moral quandary" that Michael identified. For soldiers, I think it is probably not that difficult to rationalize: some of our Regiments carry Battle Honours from the Riel Rebellion and the South African War, both of which have been derided from time to time as naked imperialism at work. However, we have no big issues celebrating Batoche or Paardeberg.

Where the big problem may come, IMHO, is in the relationship between the Bundesheer and the rest of German society, who may look askance at the return of military heritage and traditions that they would likely identify with Naziism. They might consider it to be a resurgence of "militarism".

The ideal is to be able to honour the soldierly achievements, while keeping clearly in mind what those achievements were in aid of. But, realistically, does any Army do this? Can it be done, or is just "PC" pipedreaming. Cheers.

 

[Michael Dorosh]

I am reading Shelby Stanton's book on US GROUND FORCES IN VIETNAM 1965-1973.  He very proudly gives a short lineage for each unit he discusses as we encounter them in the text.  Without blinking an eye, the "battle honours" of the Indian Wars are reeled off in the same breath as ACW, WW I, WW II and Korean War accolades.  It would appear that the answer to pbi's question is "yes, we can."  Certainly the Indian campaigns were as racist, imperial and genocidal as some of the campaigns fought by the British.  I would not cheapen the Holocaust by comparing them to that - there simply is no comparison.  But certainly no one's swords are clean.

 

[pbi]

Are soldierly virtues, or achievements in battle, cheapened or lessened by the cause they serve? (This is not a rhetorical question)
Cheers

 

[Brad Sallows]

The German Army should not fear its past, provided it accepts the good and the bad and doesn't lose focus on how each came to pass.

Soldierly conduct and achievement are and must be separate from the cause served.  Governments - politicians, bureaucrats, and electors - are answerable to jus ad bellum. Soldiers are answerable to jus in bello.  If we mix those, we risk confusing the subordination of professional soldiers to civilian oversight and to the rule of law in general.  A soldier can honourably conduct himself while fighting an unjust war.  The senior military staff of a nation's armed forces may be answerable for advice rendered on a decision to make war.

 

[dglad]

Are soldierly virtues, or achievements in battle, cheapened or lessened by the cause they serve? (This is not a rhetorical question)
Cheers

Yes.  Like it or not, it's really only possible to separate military achievements on the battlefield from their greater context in a rather sterile, intellectual way.  You'll never be able to do it on an emotional level.  So the brilliant accomplishments of the Confederate Army on the battlefields of the eastern US will forever be linked to "defending slavery" (which isn't even really accurate, but this is still the widely popular perception).  Likewise, the tactical and operational acumen of the Wermacht, the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, etc. will always be viewed through the filter of Nazism and all the baggage that goes with it.  So while it's possible to study e.g. blitzkrieg and learn good military lessons from it, it will always be linked to aggressive expansionism, brutal subjugation of the conquered and the horror of the Holocaust.

 

[Infanteer]

Yes.   Like it or not, it's really only possible to separate military achievements on the battlefield from their greater context in a rather sterile, intellectual way.   You'll never be able to do it on an emotional level.   So the brilliant accomplishments of the Confederate Army on the battlefields of the eastern US will forever be linked to "defending slavery" (which isn't even really accurate, but this is still the widely popular perception).   Likewise, the tactical and operational acumen of the Wermacht, the Luftwaffe, Kriegsmarine, etc. will always be viewed through the filter of Nazism and all the baggage that goes with it.   So while it's possible to study e.g. blitzkrieg and learn good military lessons from it, it will always be linked to aggressive expansionism, brutal subjugation of the conquered and the horror of the Holocaust.

I don't think I agree with that.   Anyone who is not willing to separate notions such as "Holocaust" and "Lebensraum" from "Blitzkrieg" and "Schwerpunkt" is applying irrational thought to historical ideas.   I can't see how the organizational tendencies and a finely tuned system of operations can be confused with political issues; if we applied that notion, we would assume that efforts to adopt methods of organization from other societies automatically assumes that we will inherit the social baggage that happens to occupy the same time frame.

In my own studies of the German Operational Art and its inherent concepts and doctrinal structure, I see no mention of how ideas of "National Socialism" and the "Aggressive Expansionism" factor into these structures.   The same can be applied to the opposite; when we look at the evolution of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in the trenches of 1914-1918, what some have termed "The Shock Army of the British Empire", we look for development of artillery support, Currie's control measures, and the art of trench raiding.   Nowhere in this study do I see the importance of "Support of the Empire" and fighting the forces of "Imperial Teutonic Expansion" as fundamental to these tactical and operational developments.

Clearly, as Brad pointed out, one can usually find a clear line between jus ad bellum and jus in bello and this line very clearly exists outside of the "sterile intellectual realm."


As for the Civil War, I think many Americans have done a good job in separating jus ad bellum and jus in bello with regards to the Civil War.   While for the most part, Lincoln's quest to maintain the Union and to abolish slavery (remember, the Emancipation Proclamation was mainly a decision of national strategy rather than an altruistic goal) will be seen through our eyes as the good jus ad bellum, many Americans look fondly on the accomplishments of the Confederate Army.   They recognize that like any other war, the Civil War was a very complex interaction of social forces that swept Americans up in its path.   Generals like Lee and Jackson are still recognized today in the American Pantheon of war leaders, and the efforts of re-enactors represents an acute appreciation for the hardships that that young American men endured when they met each other in the smoky haze of battle.     With all these complexities, it is unfair to assume that anything related to the Confederacy means "pro slavery" and anything related to the Union was "pro-emancipation"; people who do are throwing out the baby with the bathwater.   This, like I said earlier, is bad history.