Culture Thursday: The Last Days of the Third Reich—A Review of "Downfall"

How often do you see a particular scene of Hitler screaming at his generals deliberately mistranslated for comedic purposes?

Whether it’s related to politics or to Putin’s war in Ukraine, it is quite a popular scene to turn into a meme.

However, the original scene and the context are anything but comedic.

In the original scene, Hitler is told that a counterattack by Felix Steiner, commander of Army Detachment Steiner, could not complete an impossible maneuver to save Berlin, his force being outnumbered ten to one. Reluctantly, several of what are left of Hitler’s high command make it clear that this force that was supposed to save Berlin simply lacks sufficient potency to carry out the assignment. Hitler proceeds to calmly dismiss everyone but a few of the generals from the room before he begins his vicious rant about how the Wehrmacht betrayed him, about how he conquered Europe all by himself. Hitler proceeds to blame everyone but himself for the self-inflicted predicament while his delusions about final victory come crashing down.

It comes from the 2005 German film Downfall.

Downfall is a film detailing the last days of the Third Reich as the Red Army takes over Berlin.

Although the film is well researched, the primary source is an account by one of Hitler’s secretaries present in the Führerbunker, Gertraud “Traudl” Junge. Her accounts can be found in her memoir, Until the Final Hour.

While I am more than a little skeptical of her claims of ignorance about the Holocaust and other horrors the Third Reich was responsible for, her account is nonetheless an excellent source of the Third Reich’s final hours.

What is most impressive about Downfall is the film does an outstanding job humanizing the men and women of the Third Reich but never letting the audience forget the horrors they were responsible for.

Hitler of all people is humanized in the best way possible. He is depicted as good with kids, is friendly to his secretaries, and even has a dog, Blondi, that he likes more than most people.

But none of that stops him from making it clear that he is OK with sending children (mostly boys) and young men to their pointless deaths. In response to a subordinate pleading with Hitler to act with sense by pointing out all the young officers and soldiers that have been killed during the Battle of Berlin, he remarks, “But that is what young men are for.”

Nor does the film sugarcoat his demented worldview of compassion for people being a sin against nature (never mind the fact that is not how the process of evolution or nature works) and how it allows him to avoid taking responsibility for the deaths of millions of his own people.

Most importantly, Downfall makes it clear what kind of monstrous crimes Hitler’s regime committed in the name of his demented vision. This deformed conscience allowed Hitler to rationalize killing millions of other people in the name of racial struggle, especially millions of Jews.

Hitler is not the only one who the film strikes the right balance with.

The most moral characters in the film are either career opportunists who don’t want to die for a damned cause (even if they all deserve to for crimes against humanity), Red Army soldiers fighting to end the Nazi regime, civilians in Berlin just trying to keep themselves and their family alive, or children who don’t know any better.

The rest are either cowards or fanatical Nazis who would rather destroy the world than let it move past the failures and horrors of Nazism.

In my opinion, the most disturbing part of the film is when Magda Goebbels, wife of Joseph Goebbels, has her own children murdered. She does this not because of what she fears will happen to them at the hands of the Red Army, but instead because she fanatically believes that a world without National Socialism is not a world worth living in and that her children belong to Hitler.

The actress who plays Magda had such a difficult time filming this part of the movie that she could not recreate the real Magda, who was serene as she murdered her own children along with propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels.

Downfall is shot entirely in German, and I think this makes the film better because it adds historical authenticity to the film.

Funny as the Hitler rant parody videos are, it’s vital to remember the horrors unleashed by the man and ideology. I strongly believe that this film is essential viewing for everyone.

Downfall as a film makes the case that the Third Reich needed to die.

Now it’s up to us to make sure that the evil ideals that led to its rise die as well.