Corroboration

Rating: Null/10 (14 March 2006)

I was lucky enough to see this film accompanied by a lecture by a survivor of the German side of the war. He is a professor of German at the University of Minnesota, and in March of 1945, was an 18 year-old Jew living in Berlin. He escaped deportation, as he was half Jewish.
He not only told the audience of the details of life in Berlin at the time, but praised the film for its ability to faithfully recreate the city's conditions in the spring of '45. He also was amazed at how much Bruno Ganz sounded like Hitler. He said it was chilling to hear his words in the theater, sound so much like the voice he was familiar with in his youth.
One of the most amazing things he brought to the lecture was a copy of the last newspaper printed in Nazi Berlin, featuring the story of the little boy who fired on the Soviet tank, as shown in the film. This made "Downfall" feel like so much more than a film... it was like a true slice of history.