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"Der Untergang (Downfall)" - movie review


“However, I find it hard to forgive myself” confesses Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler. The movie begins with The Fuhrer interviewing six ladies at midnight for his secretary position. Presently, The Fuhrer is calm, friendly and feeding his dog. The next scene, he is coming down on his men with the style that we know of him from all the books written on Second World War. It is his 56th birthday, and the Russians are only 12kms away from Berlin dropping long range artillery on the city. The Fuhrer is furious, enraged and has called for evacuation of the office effective immediately. More than anything what strikes you is the Fuhrer’s charisma, you would want to be him or at least be by his side. The man was an incredible visionary.

His left hand that he crosses against his back and fingers that are trembling all the time- the director has made sure that The Fuhrer is depicted powerful, full of pride and enigmatic. With the background noise of bombing on Berlin, the Fuhrer is praising his architect’s prowess in making sure that the Third Reich is protected. What we are shown is not the desperation or dejection, instead it is hope that Hitler is shown clinging to, not as a weak glimmer, but a tenacious unyielding and indomitable spirit.

“you have to be on the stage when the curtain falls” suggests speer, one of his men, to The Fuhrer. Hitler stays in Berlin while the rest leave; amidst the bombing, Hitler stays. “I would have liked to give you a nicer present” The Fuhrer says, handing over a cyanide tablet to his secretary. Even in utter despair, Hitler is shown to be a man of great resilience, he discusses his death not as a tragic moment but as a military operation that he had been planning for a long time now.

Hitler mistrusted everyone around him. Even the high rank officials, D.H.Lawrence would have said this of The Fuhrer’s situation “mistrust of a captured bird”. He fantasised of miracles at the end, and ordered for stripping the officials of their uniform if they failed or resisted in sharing his fantasies-of German power. “To feel compassion for the weak is betrayal of nature” explains Hitler over dinner table. The man was full of pride, a profound idealist and exceedingly intolerant of imperfection. He demanded for improvement and perfection, was ruthless in command. Many feared him, revered him and many were repulsed by his tall order. The movie only presents Hitler’s views insofar that the secretary had access to, volumes have been written about him, many found his actions and opinions distasteful, but the movie manages to stay away from drawing conclusions on the perfectionist’s personality. It merely presents to us, the powerful idealist’s final days.

Hitler gets married in the underground bunker where he takes refuge with his men while the city of Berlin takes all the battering of Russian artilleries overhead. His secretary types his will, the testament as Hitler calls it. In response to an inquiry on what has to be done, The Fuhrer responds “I will never surrender. I forbid you, my army men and soldiers from surrendering”. Such was the man. The director has very cleverly confined Hitler to the large table with a giant map spread over it. It is as if Hitler was still in power, despite the constant barrage of communications from his soldiers of losing. You, the viewers feel disconnected to the soldiers and secretaries, but for Hitler the movie refuses to connect to its viewers. You don’t feel sympathetic to Hitler, you just feel acute admiration for the man despite the stubbornness, for his tenacity rested wholly on German’s supreme powers that he believed were capable (and they actually did) of holding the world leaders in their palms and play puppetry with the strings all hinged in Berlin.

A quiet dinner with his secretary and wife; a goodbye handshake with everyone on the inside; cyanide meal for his dog; a mother who kills six of her children with cyanide herself (Hitler honours her with his batch and comments ‘You are the best mother of Third Reich)that was the end of Adolf Hitler.

Most of his men either shot themselves or swallowed cyanide. No surrender, those were the orders from the Fuhrer.

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