Deutschland Unter Alles

Rating: 8/10 (21 December 2008)

Frau Traudl Junge, Hitler's secretary, is the focal point of this 2004 German-made Bunker film. She is portrayed by Alexandra Maria Lara. In her comments at the beginning and end of the film, the real Traudl reflects on the forces that led her to be in the position she was and the immorality of Hitler and the Nazi regime. In the movie, the young Traudl has an innocent and despondent demeanor from the time she was chosen as Hitler's secretary in November 1942 until the end, when she and a group of other Bunker persons have fled, seeking to escape the Russians.
Director Oliver Hirschbiegel does an amazing job in continually making the viewer feel the sense of siege. What is most striking about "Untergang" is its graphic realism. All the scenes of shells dropping bring the viewer there, as if the viewer is experiencing it. In one scene, officers and other Nazis are dancing and making merry in the Old Reich Chancellery (connected to the Bunker by a tunnel) and a wall is blown up by a shell. This is a true story per Traudl's account. The realism of "Saving Private Ryan" may have come a few years before, but in urban battle scenes that use darker colors, military green, and grayish shading, Hirschbiegel makes things interesting in his own way, very vivid. Furthermore, he presents a number of scenes involving the wounded awaiting or undergoing medical treatment, including amputations, that are very graphic and gruesome. There was plenty of morphine available, but other medical supplies were scarce.
As for the characters, the Germans are divided between fanatical Nazis and those who are reasonable, those who have compassion for people suffering from the physical agonies of war. One of the central figures is Dr. Ernst-Gunter Schenck, played by Christian Berkel. He serves to symbolize the force of reason, as he objects to evacuations of installations and supplies that victimize remaining civilians, seeks morphine and other medical supplies, and questions the meaningless honorable-death mindset of remaining fanatical Nazis. Bur realities are remaining fanatics, wandering terrorized civilians, and the agonizing wounded. The scenes showing the human suffering serve to accentuate the evils of Hitler. He chose to commit suicide to avoid capture by the Russians, so he would not have to experience what everyone else was suffering through. In the meantime, many young German children, which could include females, were serving militarily and being killed or mutilated.
Hitler is played by Bruno Ganz. He is the ranter devoid of reason with whom most people are familiar. Ganz is a more wrinkled Hitler than in real life, but he does a good job with the mannerisms, the ravings, and the tremors. He is a totally evil person, as shown in his demand to implement a scorched earth policy even though it would leave German civilians without any necessities. That is on top of his lecture on the savagery of apes, who trample on outsiders; Hitler says humans should learn to be like apes. On this comments board and boards for other Bunker films, it is often noted that the Nazis and others in the Bunker have human feelings and are not totally evil. This observation includes Hitler, who thanks his cooks for things etc. But to me, "Untergang," like other Bunker films, still shows Hitler, Dr. Goebbels, Martin Bormann, and some others as consummately evil, as they should be shown. There are some who seem not to be, military officers or whoever, yet even as they question what Hitler does, they are still loyal. He had a hypnotic effect on people. Even after Hitler refuses Eva Braun (Juliane Kohler) the favor of rescinding his order to execute her brother in law, a favor requested with all trappings of emotion, she says, "You're the Fuhrer." Magda Goebbels (Corinna Harfouch) worships Hitler like her husband does and is willing to kill her seven children and herself to avoid a world without him. A well-acted emotional moment, for right or for wrong, is when she holds Hitler and falls to his feet, before he commits suicide. How sad will be life without Hitler.
One of the final scenes, after Hitler's suicide, involves Traudl in a group of Bunker escapees deciding what to do next. In combat garb, accompanied by a young boy, she is permitted to pass through the Russian lines with the watching Russian soldiers still. I guess it is silly to compare it to "The Birds," for Traudl is not Tippi Hedren. But as in "The Birds," when "Untergang" ends the viewer is left with the sense of having been relieved from a siege in a turbulent epic.