Downfall.

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Movie Review.

The movie being reviewed is "Downfall" .

The German version of the last days of the Third Reich. Won the Academy Award for a documentary.

This movie did not strike me as being a documentary. But was categorized as such.

Was well done and very worth seeing. I recommend this movie!

This subject matter, the last days of Hitler and the Third Reich has been touched upon on a number of occasions by the film industry. And uniformly done well too. I cannot recall seeing a bad version of this material.

This particular film, "Downfall" is largely based upon the memoirs of Traudl Junge, Hitler's personal secretary [Hitler appears to have had three personal secretaries at any given moment]. Also contains material taken from other memoirs.

It seems that in some circles and to a lot a persons, the topic of Adolf Hitler is one of unending fascination.

Much of this fascination seems to center around apocrypha relating to Hitler. Aprocrypha [something that cannot be confirmed or denied or is of dubious source.] such as:

Did Hitler actually have sex with Eva Braun?? [undetermined!!]



Was Hitler Jewish?? [under the laws of the Third Reich - - perhaps!! Under Jewish Law - - NO!!]

Was his real name Schicklgruber or Hitler. [father's name is either Hitler or Schicklgruber. Adolf always went by the name of Hitler.]

Was Hitler mentally deranged?? [not until the very end, NOT mentally deranged as the term is generally understood!]

To me, that Hitler was ABLE to gain power and maintain that power undiminished IS amazing.

By modern standards, and perhaps even by the standards of the time, Hitler WAS an anomaly. Hitler DID NOT possess any of the qualities normally associated with a leader or leadership as we understand it today.

Hitler was neither physically attractive or imposing. Rather, the opposite.

[applying for enlistment in the pre-World War One Austrian Army, Hitler was found to be physically not fit and too weak to perform the task of a soldier!!]

Hitler was not an intellectually gifted person. Rather, the opposite. A mediocre student AT BEST who barely completed secondary education.

[Hitler is said to have possessed the greatest oratorical ability of any person that every lived. Why that is so, if it is so, is just unexplicable, even to the experts. It would seem to me that Hitler also possessed a nature that could best be described in modern terms as being "street wise". From his experiences during his "artistic" period, when he roamed Vienna living the life of a "hobo", or again, in modern terms, a "homeless" person.]

And yet, Hitler was able to rise to power of perhaps the most forward and progressive nation of Europe.

Hitler seemed to stumble his way through life without direction, National Socialism only being "discovered" by Hitler when he spied on the Nazis for the post-war Weimar Republic Army, the Reichswehr. It seems quite an accident that Hitler even found out the Nazi Party existed, much less that he became their leader!!

Not only rise to power, but maintained that power with ruthlessness. Command authority from those around him with slavish devotion. DOMINATE the situation in a manner that others did NOT, and did so uncontestedly!

And WAS able to continue his rule in this manner until the very end. For whatever reasons, the German people and his [Hitler's] coterie were malleable to his will and followed him to the bitter end, in most cases without murmur.

[Even those senior figures of the Third Reich who wielded considerable power and were strong willed characters in their own right appear to have been very deferential and obsequious in the extreme to their "Fuhrer".]

As to the mental illness.

Hitler did suffer from Parkinson's disease. That has recently become accepted fact. During that time, in the 1940's, and at least until the 1950's, the diagnosis and recognition of Parkinson's was not fully understood by the medical profession. To what extent Parkinson's would have effected Hitler's mental health is unclear.

He did have rages, yelling, screaming, shouting, rabid like behavior [this is shown in the movie repeatedly]. During the last years of the war, Hitler DID have to be sedated so he could sleep [excessive stress??!!]. It would seem the pressures of war leadership and the realization that Germany COULD ONLY NOT WIN the war, but were doomed to LOSE it, became too much for Hitler.

On many occasion, Hitler displayed a total lack of being in touch with reality. With the Soviet forces closing in on him, he DID continue the practice of issuing orders to non-existent German military units, fully expecting deliverance from further Soviet attack. Deliverance that did not materialize.

Hitler probably did suffer from some sort of mental derangement at the end, becoming unhinged, but to what extent is unclear, and will probably always remain so.

Again, "Downfall" is worth seeing!

coolbert.