Downfall: opening the book on the final days of Adolf Hitler

Downfall (2004)
Director: Oliver Hirschbiegel
Entertainment grade: A–
History grade: A–

On 20 April 1945, as the second world war drew to its conclusion, Soviet forces began to shell the centre of Berlin.

People

The film is bookended by documentary footage of the splendidly named Traudl Humps, Adolf Hitler's private secretary from 1942-45. In 1947, she wrote a memoir. It was published in 2002 under her less thrilling married name, Traudl Junge. The film draws extensively on the book, especially for the relationship between Hitler (Bruno Ganz, in the performance of a lifetime) and his girlfriend, Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler). Junge paints Eva as a needy, delusional figure – dancing around her old living room "in a desperate frenzy, like a woman who has already felt the faint breath of death". Another eyewitness, Gerhard Boldt, said she was "rather affected and theatrical." This is the Eva who makes it to the screen, and she's a historically credible one.

Characterisation

The film's most famous scene is no less brilliant for the fact that it is often comically resubtitled on Youtube. When Hitler's generals tell him he can't mobilise troops that don't exist, he flies into a fury: "What I should have done is liquidate all the high-ranking officers, as Stalin did!" Historian Giles MacDonogh, who took some issue with the film for its gentle treatment of SS Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke and heroic characterisation of concentration camp medical researcher Ernst-Günther Schenck, approved of its portrayal of Hitler: "What I really liked about the film was the suggestion that Hitler was acting. He was a remarkably good actor. He bit carpets to frighten people, and it worked." (Reportedly, Hitler writhed on the floor biting at the carpet during his famous tantrums, earning himself the nickname Teppichfresser – rug muncher.) "Eva Braun says he is acting in the film, and that the real 'Adolf' was different. I don't think we will begin to understand Hitler until we wipe away the portrait imposed on him by wartime propaganda." The Hitler of Downfall is horribly realistic. "Hitler was, after all, a human being," noted historian Sir Ian Kershaw in a glowing review of the film, "even if an especially obnoxious, detestable specimen."

Isolation

As the Soviets close in, many of Hitler's people either desert him or commit suicide. Of his close political associates, almost no one remains but Joseph Goebbels. Actor Ulrich Matthes, playing Goebbels, has black hair swept smoothly back, a beaky nose, and eyes so dark they seem not to have whites at all. He looks quite a lot like Goebbels, but even more like Feathers McGraw, the evil penguin from The Wrong Trousers. No wonder Hitler finally realises that all is lost.

Death

The film's Traudl (Alexandra Maria Lara) is in the bunker kitchen, entertaining the six children of Joseph and Magda Goebbels, when their "Auntie Eva and Uncle Hitler" go into their private quarters for the final time. A shot rings out. "Bullseye!" shouts nine-year-old Helmut Goebbels, thinking it is an explosion outside. Later, after the bodies have been carried away, Junge goes into Hitler's room and sees the Führer's blood on the upholstery. According to the real Junge's memoir, this is all precisely as it happened. She also remembered being sickened by the "heavy smell of bitter almonds" – the scent of Braun's used cyanide capsule.

More death

The film shows a resolute Magda Goebbels (Corinna Harfouch) writing to her son from a previous marriage: "The world that will come after the Führer and National Socialism is not worth living in, and for that reason I have brought the children here as well." Then, she feeds a sleeping draught to her other six children. When they're asleep, she crushes cyanide in each of their mouths. This awful scene is accurate, according to telephonist Rochus Misch, who was in the bunker at the time. Junge and others suggest that the children were injected with morphine, rather than forced to drink a sleeping draught. The outcome was the same, and the quote from Magda Goebbels' letter in the film is correct.

Verdict

Downfall is an intelligent, thoroughly researched recreation of Hitler's last days, and a terrific movie.