The downfall

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Movie
Original title The downfall
The downfall.svg
Country of production Germany , Italy , Russia , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2004
length Theatrical version: 155 minutes,
TV version: 178 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel
script Bernd Eichinger
production Bernd Eichinger
music Stephan Zacharias
camera Rainer Klausmann
cut Hans Funck
occupation

Fictional people:

The Downfall is a feature film by Oliver Hirschbiegel from 2004. The film focuses on the events in the Berlin Führerbunker during the Battle of Berlin in the last days of World War II in Europe and received an Oscar nomination in the category Best Foreign Language Film in 2005 .

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The film is primarily based on the eponymous work by the historian Joachim Fest , who also wrote an extensive biography of Hitler , and the memories of Hitler's then 25-year-old private secretary Traudl Junge (both published in 2002). The latter appeared as a book (Until the last hour) and as a film ( Im toten Winkel - Hitler's secretary ). Excerpts from the film can be seen at the beginning and at the end of The Downfall . As another original presentation used in 1945. As a doctor in Hitler's Reich Chancellery of Ernst-Günther Schenck .

production

The feature film was produced by Bernd Eichinger , who also wrote the script. The exterior shots were taken in Saint Petersburg , whose historic city center bears a great deal of resemblance to Berlin in 1945. The scenes in the bunker were shot in Munich. At 13.5 million euros, Der Untergang was the third most expensive feature film produced in Germany at the time it was made, based on Wolfgang Petersen's Das Boot and The Neverending Story .

The work premiered on September 9, 2004 in Munich. The international premiere took place on September 14, 2004 at the Toronto International Film Festival . The film was released in German cinemas on September 16, 2004. In mid-November 2004, Bernd Eichinger found a film distribution company, Newmarket Films , which brought the film to cinemas in the USA and Canada.

On October 19 and 20, 2005, Das Erste and ORF broadcast the film for the first time on free-to-air television . The two-part television version contains some previously unreleased scenes and is 25 minutes longer than the theatrical version of the film.

The film was nominated for an Oscar in 2005 for best foreign film .

Since 2005, this film also audio description that the Bayerische Rundfunk produced. The image description was published on the DVD and will be broadcast on television. The image descriptions are spoken by Christian Baumann , the subtitles by Bernd Benecke .

action

The film is about the fall of the Third Reich and the end of the dictator Adolf Hitler .

In November 1942, 22-year-old Traudl Humps from Munich (after marriage in 1943 Traudl Junge ) was hired by Hitler as a secretary at the “ Wolfsschanze ” leader's headquarters . By then, the German troops have conquered most of Europe. Two and a half years later, the tide has turned. The German troops have been pushed back into their own territory on all fronts, Berlin is under siege and the “Third Reich” is on the verge of collapse.

On April 20, 1945, Hitler's 56th birthday, Soviet artillery fire reached downtown Berlin for the first time . Hitler does not want to leave the city, although everyone urges him to. He apparently still believes in a " final victory " and his vision of a "Germanic world empire". His generals try to explain the hopeless situation to him, but he reacts with outbursts of hysterics. So also on the news that the " Steiner Group " could not carry out a relief attack ordered by him . He insulted his generals as "faithless cowards" and spoke for the first time that the war was lost and that he would rather kill himself than leave Berlin or capitulate. His generals are at a loss. On the one hand, they feel obliged to Hitler's will through the Fiihrer's oath , on the other hand, they can no longer implement his senseless orders. Hitler takes no account of the civilian population in his decisions and, like Joseph Goebbels , speaks of the fact that the German people are approaching their “deserved downfall”, which they can ascribe to themselves. Most of the political leaders have since left Berlin. Some of them are suspected of being traitors by Hitler. Especially Hermann Göring , Heinrich Himmler and Albert Speer arouse his anger. Goering tried to take over government on the grounds that Berlin was cut off from the outside world. Himmler contacts the Western Allies to make them an offer of surrender. Speer is the only one to speak to Hitler personally and reveals to him that he has been suspending Hitler's destruction orders , which were supposed to ensure that “the enemy will only find a desert”, for months.

In addition to his personal entourage and the leading generals Wilhelm Keitel , Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf , only the Reich Minister for Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, State Secretary Walter Hewel and the head of the party chancellery Martin Bormann remain at Hitler's side. While Keitel is sent by Hitler to Admiral Karl Dönitz in Flensburg and is allowed to leave the bunker, Goebbels has his wife Magda and their six children brought to the Führerbunker. Hitler's lover Eva Braun is also determined to stay with Hitler. In contrast, her brother-in-law Hermann Fegelein , Hitler's liaison with Himmler, is planning to flee Berlin and would like to take her with him. Hitler's secretaries Traudl Junge and Gerda Christian also want to stay in the Führerbunker, even though Hitler advises them to leave. Eva Braun cannot dissuade Hitler from having her brother-in-law shot for desertion and as revenge for Himmler's betrayal, but unconditionally accepts his will.

The battle for Berlin has now broken out. The Soviet troops conquer the city in bitter house-to-house fights . The German troops, some of which consist of fanatical Hitler Youths and the forced draftsmen of the Volkssturm , are waging a hopeless struggle. The SS doctor Ernst Günther Schenck drove through the city in search of medication and met SS commandos who murdered civilians and Volkssturm men who were ready to surrender as " disintegrators " and deserters just before the end of the war . In the Führerbunker, Hitler distributed cyanide capsules to his closest colleagues . There is a discussion about how best to kill yourself and there is a lot of alcohol being consumed. The Air Force General Robert von Greim and the aviator Hanna Reitsch visit Hitler in the bunker with the intention of dying with him, which he persuades them with reference to fantastic secret war plans. Meanwhile, the SS Reich doctor Ernst-Robert Grawitz asks the “Führer” to be allowed to flee Berlin and, after Hitler's negative answer, kills himself and his family with hand grenades at dinner. On April 29, 1945, Hitler dictated his private and political will to Traudl Junge . After that, he can be with Eva Braun married . SS-General Wilhelm Mohnke , who as combat commander is responsible for securing the government district, reports to Hitler that the Reich Chancellery is completely surrounded by Soviet troops. The positions could only be held for a maximum of one day. For Hitler this means that the only way to avoid being captured by the Soviets is to commit suicide. Under no circumstances does he want to fall into the hands of the enemy as a trophy. That is why he made his adjutant Otto G possibly promise to remove all his remains. On the afternoon of April 30, 1945, Hitler and Eva Braun poisoned themselves with cyanide capsules. At the same time, Hitler shoots a bullet through his head. The corpses are then burned in the rear courtyard of the Reich Chancellery.

After Hitler's death, a dispute breaks out in the Führerbunker about whether to continue fighting or surrender. Goebbels, as Hitler's successor, instructs General Krebs to negotiate peace with Soviet Colonel General Vasily Ivanovich Tschuikow . In the process, Krebs informed the Russian leadership of Hitler's suicide. Tschuikow rejects peace negotiations and in view of the hopeless situation only accepts an unconditional surrender, which Goebbels strictly rejects. His wife Magda, loyal to Hitler, can not imagine a life without National Socialism for her children . She gives them a sleeping pill, which the twelve-year-old Helga has to be forced to do, and kills them with cyanide capsules in their sleep. The Goebbels couple then shot themselves while the other bunker inmates left the premises and tried to escape from Berlin in several groups. The machinist Johannes Hentschel was the only one left in the driver's bunker.

On May 2, 1945, General Helmuth Weidling , who was appointed combat commander of Berlin by Hitler at the end of April, called on his soldiers to stop fighting and surrender to the Soviet troops. A group around General Mohnke, whom Gerda Christian and Traudl Junge joined while fleeing from the Führerbunker, encounters trapped Waffen SS units. Some SS officers commit suicide immediately before being captured by the Red Army; likewise Walter Hewel, who thereby kept a promise that Hitler had made him.

While Gerda Christian does not want to go any further, Traudl Junge walks between the Soviet soldiers on the advice of Professor Schenck and Brigadefuhrer Mohnke, in the hope that she as a woman will be spared from capture. Spontaneously, twelve-year-old Peter Kranz joins her, an orphaned Hitler Youth who was personally honored by Hitler at the beginning of the film and who was able to save himself in an adventurous way through the fighting in Berlin after marauding Nazi activists killed his parents in their apartment for treason had. Appearing like mother and son, they pass through the siege ring unhindered. Peter finds a bike they both leave town on.

success

In Germany, around 4.5 million visitors saw the film in cinemas. According to the online film portal Box Office Mojo, the worldwide box office total was 92 million US dollars.

Despite much controversy (see below), the downfall received a lot of praise for its daring perspective on Adolf Hitler and was also very well received internationally. It is one of the most successful recent German productions abroad, especially in the USA, where the film was released under the title Downfall .

The downfall won a Bambi in several categories at the Bavarian Film Prize as well as in the category “Best National Film” (see below). The film was also nominated for the Oscar for best foreign film at the 2005 Academy Awards.

reception

For the first time in German film history (and in contrast to Georg Wilhelm Pabst's The Last Act from 1955) Adolf Hitler was portrayed as the central scenic figure in a period film . The users of the Internet Movie Database rate this film with a score of 8.2 out of 10 points (as of December 28, 2017). This puts Der Untergang in 115th place in the “Top 250” and, alongside M (50th place), The Lives of Others (63rd place), Das Boot (72nd place) and Metropolis (90th place), is one of the best German-language films on this list .

The film had sparked controversial discussions before it even opened in theaters. Proponents of the project praise the authenticity of the film (also postulated by the makers) , which contains many historically guaranteed quotes.

The Nazi researcher Michael Wildt criticized, however, that the film, with its unstoppable promise of authenticity, stages itself as a source: “Anyone who promises such 'authenticity' does not express historical events, but rather designs the current scene in the opposite sense The past. ”Each scene“ plays a uniform and one-dimensional 'authenticity' to the audience: what can be seen is the real. The filmmakers' assertion that the 'downfall' adhered strictly to the historical documents can therefore no longer be called naive - it is a deliberate deception. "

The German filmmaker Wim Wenders criticized the dazzling narrative perspective of the film in a detailed review in Die Zeit . The film takes up the Traudl Young's point of view over long distances without questioning this point of view in any way. Other passages show a fanatical Hitler Youth. In the last scene he in turn appears as Traudl Junge's “savior”. So the film constantly changes position. Wenders also points out that the film, which otherwise revels in the explicit depiction of violence, does not show the deaths of exactly two people : Hitler's and Goebbels'. For Wenders, to graciously turn away when these two main responsible parties die, means paying them an honor that is not due to them.

It was also criticized as embarrassing for the casting agency in charge that the right-wing extremist Karl Richter, convicted of sedition in 1995, was an extra for the film shoot, in the role of field marshal Keitel's adjutant. He claims that 15 to 20 people from the right-wing extremist camp known to him were still on the set. As he says, he was particularly moved when "Hitler" shook his hand. However, the scene was later cut out. From 1990 to 2009, Karl Richter was one of the editors of the right-wing extremist magazine Nation und Europa - German monthly magazine .

More general criticism

This article or the following section is not adequately provided with supporting documents ( e.g. individual evidence ). Information without sufficient evidence could be removed soon. Please help Wikipedia by researching the information and including good evidence.

Some of the critics see the film downplaying the Nazi atrocities, because the film makes too little reference to the murder of the Jews and instead shows Hitler in some scenes as a sensitive charmer, as someone who admits mistakes or is shown eating pasta, for example . The producers, who are responsible for The Downfall , are also accused of unfairly letting some of the supporting characters appear in a too favorable light, because the viewer's background is not made known to the viewer. This applies above all to the character of Albert Speer , who can pass through in the film as an insightful admonisher and refuser. In the opinion of the critics, similarly distorted images apply in particular to the portrayals of SS group leader Hermann Fegelein or the sensible, humane doctor Ernst Günther Schenck . Fegelein is shown as a more or less charming bon vivant, but was actually also actively involved in the extermination of the Jews in Russia. The end of the film was also partly criticized. In the credits, a photo of the main characters taken from the film was shown with a brief summary of their further fate.

On the other hand, it has often been noted that the film helped demystify Hitler. One can only really understand the rise of the National Socialists and the fascination that emanated from Hitler if one deals with the person Hitler and does not see him as a mythological being or an inhuman. Hitler's atrocities do not lose their horror; on the contrary, it is precisely because of this that they become terrifying as human work. To prevent the dictator from appearing as a figure of identification, the narrative perspective of the secretary Traudl Junge was chosen. The fact that the viewer should accept their perspective is made clear by an opening credits showing how Hitler chooses his secretary at the Fuehrer's headquarters in Wolfsschanze. Proponents of the film also counter that a basic knowledge of history with the classification of the people in a wider context can be expected from the vast majority of viewers, since it is not an entertainment flick. Critics counter that the increasing reception of the work in contemporary history lessons should be viewed as extremely problematic. The students often actually lack the historical background, which can be reflected in many discussions in the form of revisionist conclusions.

The acting performances are highly praised, especially by Bruno Ganz as Hitler and Corinna Harfouch as Magda Goebbels. The main actor, who comes from Switzerland, prepared himself very carefully for his role in terms of his physical expression. The frequently expressed claim that his way of speaking was also very close to Hitler's, which Hitler used in smaller circles, was contradicted, however. Testimony of contemporary witnesses and a comparison with a short sound film sequence and, above all, with an original recording that a Finnish technician secretly recorded of a private conversation between the "Führer" and Mannerheim make it clear that the portrayal of Hitler is mostly based on his appearances today is based on speeches that are perceived as deterrent at major events. In the audio documents you can hear that Hitler no longer rolled the "R" at this time, only had a very light Austrian dialect and spoke softly and fluently instead of staccati . Proponents of the film project believe that this representation is another dramaturgical means to prevent the audience from identifying with the historical figure.

Factual errors

Although the makers of the film emphasized how detailed and historically accurate the script was researched, everything that could be seen was documented and nothing decisive was invented, the film contains several factual errors - some of which are scenic. In one scene, the film character Schencks is commissioned to bring various medical materials into the bunker. The list of requested utensils includes penicillin , which was only brought to Germany by the Americans after 1945. SS General Hermann Fegelein wears the badge of an SS Brigade Leader , although he was SS Group Leader in April 1945 (one rank higher) and is also referred to as such in the film. He also only wears the oak leaves for the Knight's Cross in the film, although he also received the swords on July 30, 1944; The collar tabs and headgear of the Reich Youth Leader Artur Axmann do not correspond to the historical photos.

Furthermore, Hitler's former telephone operator and bodyguard Rochus Misch criticized the Fest book and the film: “The performances of the individual actors were okay. I was very disappointed when the director of the film, Bernd Eichinger , only visited me after the film had been in the cinemas for about 4 weeks. This writer put things in my mouth that I never said. He never visited me or spoke to me on the phone. I don't even know him! Some scenes do not correspond to the historical truth either. Traudl Junge couldn't hear the shot at all during Hitler's suicide. She herself writes that when Hitler committed suicide she was in the bunker with the Goebbels children and that Hitler was in the main bunker. In between was the engine room. It made such a noise that neither she nor any of the children could hear the bang. ”However, the portrayal of Misch contradicts the young portrayal in her book" Until the Last Hour ", according to which she and the Goebbels children heard the shot and son Helmut would have shouted "But that was a direct hit".

In an interview in 2005, Misch described the film as Americanized in view of some of the scenes shown . He stated that while the film accurately portrayed the important facts, other details were exaggerated for dramaturgical reasons. He makes this clear, among other things, using the example of the recurring loud screaming of film characters, while in his memory most of the people in the bunker would have spoken softly.

In the film, the suicides of Generals Hans Krebs and Wilhelm Burgdorf are shown by headshots. In fact, they died from poison. This is confirmed by autopsy reports from the Red Army and witnesses. Rochus Misch in the same interview on April 6, 2006 (see above): “A little later I found the bodies of General Krebs and General Burgdorf. They clearly poisoned each other together, as no wounds or blood could be seen. ”In the film, Misch covers the heads of the bloodied dead with cloths.

Magda Goebbels also died - in contrast to the portrayal in the film - from poison: She and her husband Joseph Goebbels killed themselves with hydrogen cyanide on May 1, 1945 at around 9 p.m.

Furthermore, a telex that reaches the Führerbunker is signed with “Göring, Reichsfeldmarschall”. The correct rank of Göring was " Reichsmarschall "

In contrast to what is shown in the film, due to an unusually mild spring, the arrival of spring in Berlin was much more intense even before the fighting began.

International reviews

David Denby , the film critic of the US magazine The New Yorker , observed that Bruno Ganz's performance was “not only amazing, but also moving”, and that Hitler was “not a superhuman, but just a normal person who was guided by the wishes of his followers was raised to power ”“ But ”, asks Denby,“ is that enough to do justice to Hitler? [...] This Hitler may be human, but completely humiliated as a human. "

Hitler expert Ian Kershaw wrote in the Guardian that Ganz “portrays Hitler authentically” and praised his imitation of the typical Hitler voice.

Satire and internet phenomenon

The comic artist Walter Moers satirized the film in 2005/2006 in his book Adolf - Der Bonker and the accompanying video animation Adolf: Ich hock 'im Bonker . The parody won the audience award “ Sondermann 2006” at the 2006 Frankfurt Book Fair in the “Best comic - self-published national” category .

A special scene of the film is enjoying great popularity as a parody template on the English-speaking Internet, primarily on YouTube . The scene shows a briefing in the Führerbunker in which the highest Wehrmacht officers report to Hitler that a planned counterattack against the Soviets did not take place. The dictator initially reacts to this with a violent fit of anger, before resigning himself to the fact that the war is lost. In countless Internet parodies, mostly by YouTubers, also known as Unterganger, who specialize in this field, this scene is underlaid in the original German with invented English subtitles or is represented by audio cuts of different scenes and with visual effects (such as the Parody: "Adolf Hitler VS A Fly"). In these subtitles Hitler rages z. B. about the collapse of the US real estate market or the suspension of his World of Warcraft account. The currently best-known downfall, Stacy Lee Blackmon from Great Britain, has over 120,000 subscribers on YouTube under the pseudonym "Hitler Rants Parodies" and has even been on a Swedish television series that featured parodies of The Downfall . Oliver Hirschbiegel regards these adaptations as a compliment and praised, among other things, a video in which Hitler learns of Michael Jackson's death .

You can also find many parodies on YouTube that give the impression that Hitler is singing famous songs. This is done by adding the original melody, using auto-tune and editing sounds similar to sounds.

Awards

The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating particularly valuable.

TV Extended Version

In addition to the theatrical version, which is 150 minutes long , there was also an extended version specially produced for television . The public television station Das Erste broadcast the 25-minute longer Extended Version for the first time on October 19, 2005 , where it ran in two parts, each about 90 minutes in length. It was later released on DVD . The Extended Version contains many new scenes in the bunker and shows more of the bombed city of Berlin .

Similar films

literature

Film studies

  • Willi Bischof (Ed.): Filmri: ss. Studies on the film "The Downfall" . Unrest e. V., 2005, ISBN 3-89771-435-3 . Contains the essays:
    • Alexander Ruoff: The Renaissance of Historicism in Popular Culture . (Ruoff deals with the problem of telling history, which in the case of the film does not make clear the "crack in history" that was created by Auschwitz, but rather helps present history in "meaningful units".)
    • Ilse Bindseil: "... as if they were all called Emma."
    • Ellen Martin: "Sophie Scholl - the last days" and "Downfall". Feature films and their perspective mediation of the Nazi era. In: PÄD Forum: Teaching - Education, 1 (2006), pp. 29–33.
    • Birgit Schmidt : Hitler's women .
    • Tanya Ury : Disregard the suffering of others .
    • Lars Quadfasel: Brutes , from a human point of view . (Lars Quadfasel uses the film to investigate the origin of the fascination that the human view of "monsters" seems to trigger.)
  • Hannes Heer : The Downfall - How a film erases and reinvents the history of Nazi Germany . In: ders .: It was Hitler . Aufbau-Verlag , ISBN 3-351-02601-3 , pp. 11-27 (Heer criticizes the fact that in the film "by deleting all historical data [...] criminals, those involved in the crime, confidants" are shown as honest men. The crimes of National Socialism appeared thus as almost only executed by Hitler and Goebbels).
  • Roel Vande Winkel: Hitler's Downfall, a film from Germany (Der Untergang, 2004) . In: Leen Engelen and Roel Vande Winkel (eds.): Perspectives on European Film and History . Academia Press, Gent 2007, ISBN 978-90-382-1082-7 , pp. 182-219.
  • Alexandra Tacke: De / Festing Hitler. Playing with the masks of evil . In: Erhard Schütz / Wolfgang Hardtwig (Ed.): Nobody gets away. Contemporary history in literature after 1945 . Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, Göttingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-525-20861-8 , pp. 266–285 (comparison of Der Untergang and Adolf - Der Bonker ).

Background literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Downfall . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , August 2004 (PDF; test number: 99 150 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Downfall . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ End credits of the audio film version and The Downfall in the audio film database of Hörfilm e. V.
  4. ↑ Untergang, Der (2004) , in: IMDb - Earth's Biggest Movie Database, available online at imdb.com.
  5. ↑ The Downfall , in: Box Office Mojo, available online at boxofficemojo.com.
  6. ^ Ulrich Gregor Daamen: The performance of German cinema films and contemporary actors in German film , Rainer Hampp Verlag, Munich / Mering 2008, ISBN 978-3-86618-260-8 , p. 135 mw N.
  7. ↑ Untergang, Der (2004) , in: IMDb - Earth's Biggest Movie Database, available online at imdb.com.
  8. ↑ "I stick to the story". Interview with Bernd Eichinger. In: Der Spiegel 17/2003, April 19, 2003: “We're making a great epic film for the cinema. However, we strictly adhere to the documents. On the shorthands of the briefings and the notes of contemporary witnesses. What is not historically proven does not occur. (...) I think our film will be more authentic than any previous one. "
  9. ↑ Michael Wildt: "The Downfall": A film stages itself as a source. In: Zeithistorische Forschungen 2 (2005), issue 1.
  10. ↑ Wim Wenders: Well, let's go , in: Die Zeit No. 44 of October 21, 2004, available online from ZEIT online.
  11. ^ Right-wing extremist as an extra - "When Hitler shook my hand" , in: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of October 1, 2004, available online at FAZ.net.
  12. ↑ roland-harder.de: Conversation with Rochus Misch, April 6, 2006 .
  13. ↑ Junge, Traudl, Until the last hour. Hitler's secretary tells her life , List Taschenbuch 2011 (ebook), chapter: My time with Adolf Hitler. Recorded 1947; Section VI.
  14. ↑ Ida Hattemer-Higgins: Hitler's bodyguard . In: Salon . February 21, 2005. Retrieved November 29, 2017.
  15. ↑ David Denby : Back in the Bunker . In: The New Yorker , February 14, 2005, available online ( memento of the original from March 3, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. via newyorker.com. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.newyorker.com
  16. ^ Ian Kershaw: The human Hitler . In: The Guardian , September 17, 2004, available online from The Guardian's website.
  17. ↑ a b Daniel Erk: I still have one more ... ( Memento of the original from April 2, 2010 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . In: Hitler blog , taz.de, February 21, 2010. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / blogs.taz.de
  18. ↑ Hitler spoof - Real Estate Downfall, available online at youtube.com.
  19. ^ Entry for the extended version of The Downfall in the online film database .
  20. ↑ Comparison between the theatrical version and the extended version of Downfall on Schnittberichte.com .