One can never forget the evil they have taken part in

Rating: 9/10 (31 October 2007)

This film is tragic. It shows the fall of Berlin in the hands of the Soviets in April-May 1945 in the most realistic way possible. But the film decides to show the event from inside the inner circle around Hitler himself in his bunker and there we are surprised . First we are surprised because the film insists too much on the insanity and degenerating disease or sickness of the Führer. It is so simple to say he was crazy, megalomaniac, schizophrenic, the victim of some degenerative disease. It is so easy that it becomes some kind of an excuse for the crimes he committed. But this vision surrounds Hitler with people who are either yellow bellies or fanatics. Yellow bellies in front of Hitler and that makes them accept anything. Fanatics, like the Goebbels, to the point of poisoning their children. And the fanatics are holding the yellow bellies in line. Too easy in many ways since some of these yellow bellies will be tried, convicted and sentenced as guilty in Nuremberg. The last explanation is provided in the film with the testimony of Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary. They were young and they should have been more curious in order to learn what was really happening. Günther Grass in a recent book more or less defends the same opinion, though with less one-sidedness. Yes he says they knew a lot more than some might have pretended, but they did not look or see or think it was in any way important. Grass goes slightly further and pretends they had been well conditioned and formatted by Nazi propaganda, which is another half truth again. These survivors, and it is true on the other side too, like among the French resistance, needed in those difficult times to believe without any doubt what some adults were telling them. They needed to follow the line set in front of them in order to become adults, to believe in themselves. There is even one more element that is generally forgotten. These young people needed to accept the authority of an order that was bigger than them in order to be worth living, and that implied they had to suffer in order to get this worthy self-belief, self-respect, self-pride. Some even go as far as considering that dying in the most reckless way for a cause is a sacrifice, a human sacrifice mind you, a voluntary and willing human sacrifice for an absolutely justified cause. I am afraid that all survivors develop this idea, this attitude, just to be able to survive, that is to say to forget what they have to forget if they want to keep their sanity after the events, no matter what they may be. The film here is not centered on this issue, but it supposes the issue, whereas Günther Grass addresses the issue directly and then rewrites his "memories", pretending they are all fake and false in all possible ways, in order to retain the little sanity history has decided to grant him the privilege of enjoying. But it is a false truth in many ways because the disguising of the truth in order to survive also feeds the guilty conscience that haunts the surviving years.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines