Did it all lead to Naziism? No.

Rating: Null/10 (6 October 2011)

A very interesting, atmospheric movie. It sticks in the mind long after you've finished watching it.
However, I do taken exception to reviewers who try to connect the culture shown in the film--narrow religiosity, feudal social relations, stiff formality and discipline enforced by harsh punishments in family life--with the rise of Naziism some twenty years later. Most of those features were not at all unique to Germany but were present throughout Europe and North America. Think of the strictness of Dutch religious life, which never produced a Dutch Hitler, or of the sexual repression and cold, formal family life in Victorian Britain. Even in North America, in California, similar conditions were common, as can be seen in Steinbeck's East of Eden. The rise of the Nazis in Germany is well explained by events and conditions following the First World War, without resorting to these vague "cultural" principles.
So what about the submission to authority, as shown in the villagers' unwillingness to stand up to the Baron? Does this lay the groundwork for later compliance with the Nazis? No, that had nothing specifically to do with Germany. Remember the experiment with high school classes in California, when they were divided into groups, one given dominance over another and pumped up with parades, flags, armbands, uniforms, titles, all the paraphernalia the Nazis used for their mass manipulation. The California kids, for all their tradition of freedom and independent thought, reacted just as enthusiastically and diabolically as many German youth did in the 1930s.
No, I think this film is not about history and politics. It's about the forces that can appear anywhere and everywhere--perhaps even forces that are ultimately inescapable--that cause people to behave wickedly.