Destruction of the Empire

Jeromy 2022-04-23 07:01:19

On the eve of the sixtieth anniversary of the end of World War II, Germany produced this film about the last twelve days of Hitler. I just watched it for ten minutes, and I was a little doubtful about whether I should watch this movie. This old man with a bow is the devil? But then, the calm, humanistic approach of the film convinced me. We have become too accustomed to the educational significance of movies. Movies, novels, plays, etc., must explain a truth and have a position. The film, no, definitely does not force the audience to be bound with the same point of view. In all the World War II movies, Hitler was cartoonized, and his senior generals and ministers were cartoonized. All ignoring how Hitler could have come close to conquering Europe if he was a clown. The movie restores the human side of Hitler, but such a Hitler is even more disgusting. Just because he is a person, how can he disrespect life, stubborn, arrogant, and his choices lead to the suffering of the masses. Hitler aside, the generals and ministers of the Reich at the time were different in the final moments of the collapse. It has to be admitted that Hitler was surrounded by elites who were indeed loyal and admired Hitler. In addition to the suicide of the senior generals, Mrs. Goebbels even poisoned her seven children with her own hands....... A movie worth recommending, it is not difficult to understand why even Israel has released this film.

View more about Downfall reviews

Extended Reading

Downfall quotes

  • [last lines]

    Traudl Junge: All these horrors I've heard of during the Nurnberg process, these six million Jews, other thinking people or people of another race, who perished. That shocked me deeply. But I hadn't made the connection with my past. I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn't know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn't an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things.

  • Walter Hewel: Why do you want to live on?

    Prof. Dr. Ernst-Günter Schenck: And you? Why do you absolutely want to die?

    Walter Hewel: You see this?

    [shows him a cyanide cap]

    Walter Hewel: The Führer personally gave it to me!

    Prof. Dr. Ernst-Günter Schenck: [bitter] As last honor?

    Walter Hewel: ...maybe.