Understanding Hitler to Understand Why 50 Million People had to Die.

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2016)

Not exactly spoilers as this movie is a true story, almost a documentary, and we already know the ending.
But this is what surprised me the most - We actually don't know Hitler as well as we think we do.
And the below review is as a layman who was never hurt by Hitler, nor have I ever really researched or studied him (other than school and movies).
The movie starts in 1943. A young woman is being interviewed by Hitler to be his secretary and I was quite amazed to see this gentle and compassionate man talking with care to this innocent girl.
Fast forward 2 years (Hitler's last day), the bunker in Berlin which is like the temporary HQ of the Nazi, and from this girl's love and respect towards Hitler we can clearly see that he has treated her well (almost like a grandfather).
But now we see a totally different Hitler. Though he is relatively kind to the non military people around him, the moment it becomes business he turns into sort of an animal. His core ideology is that the weak deserves to be killed. His subordinates, senior military officers, are killed off if they show the slightest sign of being not loyal. Example - a senior officer is missing from duty for a few hours. They find him, shoot him, and his body is just left there. When Hitler is told that the civilians need to be evacuated, he says that the German people have cheated him and so they deserve to die. Killing is rampant everywhere. About 6 million Jews were killed, so the rest 44 million were his own people!!!
Once he understands that defeat is a given, he decides not to flee and go down with the ship. But he then openly encourages the loyal people around him to kill themselves, giving them cyanide vials like precious gifts from the Freur. He then officially marries his partner of 15 years and then they both kill themselves. His guards then carry them outside, pours gasoline over them and burns them (as instructed by Hitler before death)!
And there are people who are more crazy that him. The wife of a senior political leader has bought her 6 children to this battle front so that they can die as she doesn't want them to live in a non-Hitler world! She sedates them and then proceeds to kill each one of them!!! Then she and her husband kill themselves.
There are also other surprising things - Hitler is not exactly a military person like we normally assume him to be. And he is angry with his military because the officers don't tell him everything. He sees failure as being a traitor, so they keep giving him half truths and so when he strategizes he is working on imaginary things (like whole divisions of military that don't exist or were wiped out long back). No wonder then lost.
This movie is 'not' fiction. I was repeatedly surprised realizing this, as the movie progressed.
Please do see this movie, because its not about the past. It shows us clearly 'why' there are wars and conflicts. Its mostly because the few people in power have a particular ideology and the people below them obey blindly either because they personally like him or because they swore an oath (and also because they don't care to understand because for them its just a career and they want to go up). A lot of the time its almost as simple as that. And above all, we should never create a 'culture' of killing. When by some logic it becomes OK to kill just one person, we will then become empowered on making more and more reasons (excuses) to kill more and more people.
Then there is the rampant manipulation of the young. You just need to make them pledge and they will then die for you! It made me so angry to see this.
Most ww1 and ww2 movies show us the terrible pain of war. It makes us feel that we can opt for love and prevent wars in the future. But in this movie we can clearly see that its not in our hands at all. Of all the war movies I think this is the most important.
Try seeing Gandhi just after this movie. I think the greatest difference between Hitler and Gandhi is that Hitler just hated 'everyone', whereas Gandhi never hated 'anyone', even his own oppressors. And we may even need to, to feel hope again.
The entire cast is wonderful. Proper class 1 acting. The cinematography, editing, settings and everything is like a big budget movie.
But its not at all a fun or entertaining movie. I couldn't even see it in one sitting (saw it over a week split into 3 parts). The moment I got a little distracted (annoyed, powerless, hungry, some small excuse), I stopped it. There is too much negativity. Still, its 'highly' Recommended, so much that I think this movie should be part of school curriculum.
"Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

Nelson Mandela