Directed by Joaquim Fest and Christian Herrendoerfer
Written by Joaquim Fest
1977/West Germany
IMDb page
First viewing/Netflix streaming
The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. — Adolf Hitler
I’ve watched a lot of Hitler documentaries on this journey. They are making me increasingly anxious about the world in which we live.
This documentary covers the life of Adolf Hitler from birth to ignominious death, with an emphasis on his rhetoric, political tactics, and psyche. Copious use is made of newsreel footage.
This documentary is unique in my viewing so far in that it was made by Germans and contains a lot of footage I had never seen. A lot of the other ones draw again and again from Triumph of the Will and Eva Braun’s home movies. Some of the psychology seemed a tad facile to me. I have to accept that I will never understand Hitler and I will never understand many of my fellow humans.
The film is currently streaming on Netflix (US).
This is one story I am truly sick of.
No matter how often it is told, there is a level of horror that never get sufficiently expressed and all too often trivialized.
I know it is more important than ever to learn from the past, but it makes me sick to the bone.
Sad, sad, sad. Unspeakably sad. Unspeakably horrific. More and more I am as terrified at the people who bought into the lies as I am at the liars themselves.