Fredrick Töben reviews Downfall – a film by Oliver Hirschbiegel

 

Background

 

During the afternoon of 17 April 2005, together with about 130 persons, I attended a preview screening of Downfall. These individuals, whose age ranged from the early 20s to the early 80s, generated within the boutique picture theatre a somewhat expectant atmosphere. They were openly going to view a film about that most terrible man of recent world history, Adolf Hitler. For over 60 years the world media – particularly that owned by Jews, but not only – has continually hammered home the point that Hitler was the incarnation of ‘absolute evil’, and by implication, the Germans embodied such evil, if not for all time then at least for three generations.

  

The cinema proprietors advised me that they expect a full house during the screening of Downfall for some time to come.

  

Within the past 30 years the image of Hitler became to personify not only ‘absolute evil’, but it also created the ‘absolute’ of victimhood – the Jews and their exclusive ‘Holocaust’. That Hitler and the ‘Nazis’ were responsible for the systematic extermination of European Jewry in homicidal gas chambers, is beyond doubt, beyond discussion, and beyond dispute. In fact, anyone who dares to question the physical/historical authenticity of such claims is labeled a ‘hater’, ‘Holocaust denier’, ‘antisemite’, ‘neo-Nazi’, ‘racist’. In a number of European countries it is a criminal offence to doubt and question this period of German history. 

  

Ernst Zündel, among others, can already speak volumes on his 40-year battle against this view of Hitler/German history. Since 5 February 2003 he has been imprisoned, currently in Mannheim, Germany, because he refuses to believe in the ‘Holocaust’, refuses to believe in the homicidal gas chamber story, something he calls an outright lie. His substantial argument that underpins his opinion on this matter has been tested in a Canadian court. He has had a significant effect upon the official ‘Holocaust’ narrative.  The official death figures of 4 million for Auschwitz, still current during his 1988 Toronto trial, was a few years later reduced to 1.-1.5 million deaths.

  

In 2002 Fritjof Meyer reduced this figure to around 510,000, and claimed the gassings did not occur at the Auschwitz camp but in two farm houses outside of the camp. However, their location and their existence is rather questionable. Meyer thereby repeats Gitta Sereny’s claim that Auschwitz was not a death camp.

  

Ironically, the official total of 6 million dead Jews has not been reduced accordingly. Asking questions about such matters is a criminal matter in, among other countries, Austria, France, Germany, Switzerland, Belgium, Poland, and the latest country – Romania.

  

Culmination of the feeding frenzy against Germany occurred on 8 May 2005 where the traditional view of Hitler-Germany was again played out on the world stage.

  

This rather unbalanced view of history, and the role played by Hitler during 1933-45, creates a simplistic good-evil dialectic thought process that is distorting our factual understanding of world history. This is especially noticeable when one reads reviews of Downfall by Germans who have successfully undergone the 60-year re-education process. Non-German reviewers of the film merely re-affirm the stereotypical image of Hitler with some significant amounts of triumphalism that is vigorously reinforced by the ‘Holocaust’ story. Now that V-E Day is over, there will be an urgent need to reinforce this particular world-view that is so hostile to Germans. The so-called coalition of the willing, which has been determining world events since it engineered Pearl Harbour, will need to come up with even more fantastic world events to keep the ‘Holocaust’ story alive, the most recent being 9/11. If there is no new world-shattering event/tragedy, then the mental framework that is currently determining the battles of the wills on the world stage, will begin to unravel. For one, Germans will once again liberate themselves from 60 years of military and economic occupation.

  

The Film

 

Using the usual framework of form and content helps to gain an appreciation of a film’s success or otherwise. I judge individuals using these two categories – external and internal. The former is how an individual physically presents, and the latter reveals itself when the mouth opens, i.e. what is in the head, where the whole value system of an individual resides. The ideal is a balance between these two forms. It can create startling situations where a physically ugly person has a beautiful mind, or vice versa as we see promoted in Hollywood films – a beautiful body but an empty mind devoid of all moral and intellectual values. Characters are either ‘round’ or ‘flat’, i.e. developed or underdeveloped.

  

 I do not shy away from rejecting those individuals who claim that we should not be judgmental in our dealings with others. All of us are judgmental, or as the politically in-correct individuals would have it – we all discriminate, we are all afflicted with apartheid thoughts! Why? Because an active mind discriminates because that is the essence of thinking. This is why the discrimination industry has been so harmful in education where young impressionable minds have been directed not to discriminate, i.e. not to think, unless it is in the victim category.

 

Remember the politically correct mystery writer who wrote the following: “A shot rang out. Holding a smoking gun over the lifeless body was someone whose race, gender, religion, sexual orientation or political leanings is none of your business, and to infer anything from it is not only judgmental, but may constitute hate speech…”.

  

This neutralising of the mind is, however, not absolute because a sop has been thrown to individuals in the form of the catch-cry – choice! This dialectic trick effectively confuses developing minds because a teacher can thereby easily control it. Don’t discriminate but make a choice! What effect this has had in education is, after 30 years of intense propaganda, visible in our hedonistic consumer society where many individuals never rise above the sea of particulars to reach an overarching world-view of things. Most individuals who somehow do rise above the navel from which to contemplate their own mortality fall into derivative religiosity, where faction fighting flourishes.

  

Form

 

The production quality of the film is excellent because a balance is achieved between portraying realistically the horrors of the carnage that ensued within the final ten days of Hitler’s life, from 20 to 30 April 1945. The bloody heart-wrenching external battle scenes – and hospital scenes – stand in stark bloodless contrast to what is going on in the Führer’s Bunker, until the famous suicides, of course. Subdued colours accentuate the almost ordinariness that pervaded this tragic war-time period of history.

 

Films have a tendency to compress events and incidents, thereby dramatically heightening such that in ordinary time would not be veiled with any urgency at all.  Hollywood is good at creating distortions of time and place by not worrying about any ascetic balance, for example the usual hot pursuit by the good of the bad.

  

When members of the German army meet and fight members the Soviet army no ugly good versus bad image emerges – just soldiers fighting one another. Interestingly what came to my mind here was the fact that it was Europeans fighting Europeans with only one invisible distinguishing mark: an ideological difference. So, while watching some realistically portrayed battle scenes on the screen my mind reflected on this fact, and I realized that the question – in whose interest is all this, who benefits from Europeans killing one another? – will need to be further explored and answered.

  

Revisionists know that Jewish and internationalist interests fared well out of the World War Two carnage.

  

Ideally any such analysis should come from the Germans themselves, but owing to an ever-tightening legal noose, it is not possible for any German to create a balanced representation of this period of German history. If such is attempted, as the political NPD members are attempting to do, the world invokes the still functioning evil-Nazi label, and the possible uprising of the people is quickly nipped in the bud. The legal framework ensures that Germans cannot/must not develop a balanced view of their own history. Any positive factor within the 1933-45 period cannot be expressed because legally it could be interpreted to mean that one wishes to whitewash the National Socialist period. That in itself is a criminal matter punishable by a heavy fine or with an actual prison term. Those currently at the levers of power in Germany know this, and so they do not have to make any mental effort in their public endeavor but to suppress/oppress their fellow Germans.  

 

Here I am reminded of Ingrid Weckert who in 1999 was sentenced and fined for having written an essay that contrasted two diary entries written by two former inmates of Auschwitz –  one was a positive account of time spent there while the other was negative. Weckert’s crime consisted in daring to suggest that Auschwitz was not quite a total hell-hole. In other words, the legal framework is perverting German minds, away from balance, which is the most natural state that ordinary mature citizens find themselves in.

 

Unbalanced minds develop a certain smugness that I saw in public prosecutor Hans-Heiko Klein during my 1999 Mannheim trial where, Klein as the prosecutor did not have to prove his case against me, except to assert that I had a Revisionist mindset, full of criminal energy. Anything that I had written would prove my guilt – and I pointed out to Germans that I was guilty by virtue of being in court. Had I mounted a defence, then I would have merely compounded my guilt, and Klein would have triumphantly pointed this out to the judges, and perhaps have charged me with another crime. As is evident from such an action, little brain power is needed to support such a mindset because it does not know anything about mental balance and objectivity.

 

At the 8 May 2005 commemoration ceremony, the German president, in true form of a re-educated German, babbled on about Germans needing forever to be vigilant in ensuring that this dark Nazi period never returns. That is not how you honour and reflect upon your own fallen heroes – and sadly Germany must be the only country in the world that still literally defames-shits on its own soldiers. Even President Putin of Russia has now re-welcomed the soldiers who fought under the Soviet Union banner, and this in spite of the fact that former president Yeltsin criminalized the Communist Party.

  

Oliver Hirschberg’s film grasps the events and incidents with delicacy and refined appreciation where exaggerations of the superficial Hollywood kind have no place.

  

Content

 

One immediate effect of watching the film’s day-by-day actions unfold is that the mind has time to reflect on other matters that arise in response to what is presented on the screen. There is no obsessive tension as such, but a mildness and ordinariness pervades scenes and events.

  

There is the opening scene where a number of girls are interviewed for the position of private secretary to the Führer. That the successful applicant, Traudl Junge, was alive until 2002, and refused to apologize for having working for der Führer, still riles those who wish to cling to that simplistic absolute evil Hitler image that justifies a perpetual hand-out from Germany. Traudl also gives the closing commentary wherein she states something about the “6 million Jews” murdered during the war that claimed 50 million lives. One wonders if this statement was the bribe needed to ensure a world-wide release. Then again, The Passion managed to slip through the Jewish censorship net, so perhaps the “6 million Jews” is more a sop to the German legal system.

  

There is the scene where Hitler is heard and seen shouting in the room. It is that classic trademark of ‘the terrible madman and dictator who wanted to rule the world and hated the Jews so much that he expanded valuable time and energy to devise a systematic way of exterminating them – the ‘Final Solution’! Such guff came to my mind during this one shouting scene, and somehow it was gently neutralized when one young officer comments to another that perhaps this raving is a result of Hitler being a vegetarian and teetotaler. Interestingly, I know a few individuals who delight in throwing such Hitler fit-tantrums for the sake of getting their way – their form of the battle of the wills.

  

There are the terrible hospital scenes, the actual soldiers fighting for their Führer, for their country, for their lives, losing limbs and life. There are the heroic scenes, individuals surviving and dying in Berlin, especially of the little boy who receives a personal bravery award from Hitler, and survives to tell the tale. Together with Hitler’s secretary we see the two riding a bicycle away from the advancing Soviet troops.

  

The film inexorably reaches its climax, though I find it difficult to speak of such in this film. I am reminded of TS Eliot’s “This is the way the world ends…not with a bang but with a whimper”. The subject matter of the film is so overloaded with propagandistic rubbish that Hirschbiegel has certainly succeeded in deflecting from his subject such distorting elements. That is why his Hitler and the individuals around him seem ordinary individuals.

  

Add to that the fact that Hitler was an idealist and not merely a hedonist, as was Churchill, it is obvious that this man was motivated by ideals and the realization of such ideals. Most hostile commentary on Hitler doesn’t deserve consideration because it reflects more of what is in the minds of those who write such negative comments, and that critical concept of balance is nearly always missing in such writings. It still amazes me with what venomous distortions some commentators regard this 1933-45 period of history. All too often many of Hitler’s critics are themselves ‘failed individuals’ who project their own miserable existence upon Hitler, the useful scapegoat. It is also a certain envy that accompanies such negative and unbalanced writing because, again, the heights that Hitler reached during a very short and remarkable career can never be reached by those individuals who drip with venom when they hear the name Hitler. Hitler’s so-called dark side is legendary, but a view of the man just from that angel distorts his positive achievements, and there were many.

  

I recall how during my teaching days I observed a student in year nine, an Australian of German descent, who walked around the school grounds clutching a big book about Hitler. This was his way of deflecting any ribbing he would receive from others about his German background – and to this day it is not easy being a German, or of German descent. It helps individuals to gain acceptance by repeating the mantra: “Yes, the Holocaust happened; yes, I believe in the Holocaust; yes, Hitler was the most evil person in the world; yes, anything German is Nazi stuff”; No, I am not a Nazi or a Hitler sympathizer, etc.

  

So, when it gets to the battle of the wills stage in any relationship, the Nazi-Hitler card still plays a significant role in world society. But that is only the case because individuals dare not stand up to the pressure – and it is considerable – and they let it happen to themselves. I am reminded of our former colleague Michael Murphy who passed away on 7 October 2002. Unhesitatingly he pursued his Revisionist work, stating that upon his death he wished his $600,000 legacy to be used to establish a trust fund with his home forming a centre of learning. He did not think that his sister would drastically change his will so that his dream has now been blown, and that his legacy is in his sister’s pocket.

  

So when I watched that heart-wrenching moment where Magda Goebbels gives her children the sleeping potion, then later returns to insert in each one of her sleeping child’s mouth the cyanide capsule, and noted that Josef Goebbels himself waited outside the room while his wife was killing her children – I thought of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. Having been prodded by Lady Macbeth to kill their king Duncan, who is sleeping in their castle, Macbeth returns and says something about hearing the King’s attendants muttering in their sleep, which leads Macbeth to abandon his act of regicide. Lady Macbeth has no mercy on her husband and goads him for being “infirm of purpose. Give me that dagger!”, and she completes the job.

  

Dr Goebbels stands outside the room, passively leaning against the wall while his wife kills their children, much like Macbeth faltering at a critical moment. Shakespeare’s universal dramas tell us something about human nature that only great literature can capture. Unfortunately the politically-correct Marxist-feminism ideology generated programs for schools with titles such as ‘conflict resolutions’, rather than exposing developing minds to such literary masterpieces. The definition of drama is conflict – but I forget, I may be upsetting someone if I expose them to great literature where human nature is revealed in all its varied dimensions.

  

Interestingly in the film Goebbels takes his wife out of the bunker above ground, then she walks away from him, stops, turns around to faces him, and he then shoots her and then himself.

  

In real life this is not what happened. Magda Goebbels use the cyanide capsule and Joseph Goebbels was shot by one of his officers.

  

Debate still hots up about whether this act of killing one’s own children is justified or not. I recall the Palestinian and Iraqi suicide bombers who also sacrifice their lives for a cause – as did soldiers during World War Two, and during any former and subsequent wars. I am reminded how Professor Robert Faurisson came out with that memorable line when considering the issue of war crimes guilt: “All war is criminal.”

  

That Goebbels snuffed out his whole family can be viewed from an ideological viewpoint – that he cheated the Allies, as did Göring, of a vengefully gratifying spectacle. We see this pattern emerging in the USA’s behaviour towards Saddam Hussein in Iraq, and in its behaviour towards Slobodan Milosevic who stands accused of war crimes before the George Soros-funded International War Crimes Tribunal at Den Haag. The victors are not graceful and generous as was Alexander the Great when he viewed the young Persian soldiers lying dead on the field before him. Alexander is reported to have cried. Hitler knew he was dealing with the vengeful mind that sharpened itself on Talmud and all the hatred that that work contains.

  

In the crop of today’s world leaders, who are currently involved in war-making, there is no heroic – and for that matter no tragic – individual. I put that down to the Hollywood influence – these leaders have the world mediated for them where they believe their own propaganda without making direct contact with life in the raw. That Hitler was a World War One soldier indicates to me he was smithied on the anvil of pain/life. That he was quite an accomplished artist speaks for itself. The fact that he focused on predatory capitalism as something from which Germany must disconnect so as to regain its autarky, is understandable. Also understandable is that the internationalists could not let this happen – as today they cannot not let it happen that Iraq was about to switch from the US$ to the Euro in oil trade!

  

It thus does not surprise that these critical suicide scenes are presented in some detail. Some critics of Hitler’s suicide claim he should have gone out and joined the young boys that he had sent off to fight the Soviet army, i.e. he should have fallen in battle. Such a view fails to note the dimension of the whole matter, and again I was reminded of Macbeth. After Macduff advises him that all three witches’ predictions have been fulfilled, Macbeth gives up and his famous soliloquy sets the scene of his death – “tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow... Macbeth advances towards Macduff, knowing full well that this is his end – “and damned be him who first cries, hold, enough!” Macduff triumphantly cuts off Macbeth’s head and displays it to his followers – the tyrant is dead! 

 

Hitler’s protagonists were no-where to be seen and so his equals were not available to him as was the case with Macbeth where the man-to-man heroic end could be played out. It certainly would not have been fitting for him to have his body mutilated by Soviet soldiers, as happened to Mussolini when his own Italian people caught up with him.

 

The calmness surrounding the burning of the bodies enables the viewer to reflect on the tragedy of it all. That Hitler is not made out to be absolute evil enables individuals to reflect on what Hitler attempted to do for Germany, for the world. What was his message to the world? Revisionists know what this is all about because Revisionists are defamed and libeled in an attempt to discredit the message that they have for the world. Unfortunately character assassination techniques are transparent mechanisms and mentally not very demanding, and those who have developed their minds, those who are independent thinkers, can see through the deceptive propaganda that shrouds most matters concerning Adolf Hitler.

 

 

 

Conclusion

  

In an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Rochus Misch, the young officer who spent five years with Hitler, and who was in charge of the bunker’s telephone exchange, claims the film was somewhat exaggerated because the situation in the bunker was not as exciting as the film portrays it to be. Also, he says that everyone whispered because the atmosphere in the bunker was like that in a mortuary, and Hitler did not speak loudly. He, Misch, was the only one who spoke with a normal voice because he manned the telephone.

  

 

[Das ist ja ein Spielfilm und keine Doku. Das ist alles übertrieben. So aufregend und spannend war es nicht. Jeder flüsterte nur noch. Ich war der einzige, der noch laut geredet hat am Telefon, weil die Stimmung wie in einer Totenkammer war. Hitler hat auch nicht so laut gesprochen. Süddeutsche Zeitung - http://www.sueddeutsche.de/deutschland/artikel/240/52188/]

 

He claims that Hitler’s last hour began on 22 April until his death, because on this day Hitler dismissed his personnel, except for those whose services were absolutely essential.

 

[Jetzt will mich jemand besuchen, der will nur die letzte Stunde Hitlers wissen. Dabei geht Hitlers letzte Stunde vom 22. April bis zum Tod. Das ist die letzte Stunde. Denn am 22. April hat er alle entlassen. Alle weg. Er sagte: „Bis auf die, die blieben müssen, weil es nun mal nicht anders geht.“ Süddeutsche Zeitung - http://www.sueddeutsche.de/deutschland/artikel/240/52188/]

 

 It is interesting to read the full Rochus Misch interview at the above URL. The Süddeutsche Zeitung’s interviewer’s questions clearly indicates the degree of hostility that the topic has generated within the reporter. Subtle attempts to extract from Misch some negative comments about Hitler fail.

  

 

Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film reveals no such hostility towards his subject matter. The film has no shroud of deception – and that is refreshing, something the 130 people viewing the film also radiated through their body language. Most individuals emerged from the theatrette without anguish on their faces. Most felt the film explained something without becoming hysterical and without loading up individuals with the usual demeaning and obsessive ‘shame’ and ‘guilt’.

  

 

The film certainly illuminated something for those who came to view it, and therein lies its success. The film sensitively and delicately portrays the final ten days of one of the most insightful politicians of the 20th century.

  

Fredrick Töben, Adelaide, 9 May 2005