Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Hitler was mental

He really was. I know you don't need me to educate you on this. I just saw a film last night that reminded me of the fact, though. It's called The Downfall and it proved to be a very interesting and educational film. It is actually all in German with English subtitles which I found to be really interesting. I like hearing other languages and I feel that we're very guilty in the English-speaking west of isolating ourselves from other languages.

The film tells the story of the last days inside Hitler's bunker as the Red Army closed in on Berlin and Germany's defeat became apparent. It's told from the view of Traudl Junge who was Hitler's secretary during the war. She actually wrote the story so it's pretty authentic.

I just found it interesting because often war films tend to show America or Britain and not really tell you much about the Germans other than the fact that they're the nasty people we're fighting against. In The Downfall, you see the humanity of some of the German officers and it was reassuring to learn that some of them genuinely cared about their people and wanted to protect the civillians and so on. Don't get me wrong here, though. Most of them were mental. I'm not condoning any Nazi ideals at all, just pointing out that there were real people there too.

This maybe isn't making much sense. I'd recommend seeing it if you want to learn more about that part of history, though. I think we can always learn from the past. I'm glad I didn't have to live then, right enough. Thank God for peace in our time.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

yes Hitler was indeed, mental. a demoniac. and other things as well.

Sgt Steve said...

I was talking to my dad about the war the other day. My Grandfather (dad's dad) was in The Netherlands during the war but was quite young. He said the normal German soldiers where just normal people fighting for their country. It was the Nazi soldiers that where terible. They would just kill for the sake of killing, just senseless. My Grandfather didn't say much about the war, but from what he did say, I understand why. And ya, thank the Lord for peacefull times.