Word: hitler
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...film marks the crest of the "Hitler wave," which began in the early 1970s with a flood of books on the Reichskanzler and his era. Producer Joachim Fest, co-publisher of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung and author of Hitler, a massive 1973 biography, drew on film clips of the 1920s, '30s and '40s. Using his book's conclusions as a base, Fest set out to make a movie that would explore how an obscure Austrian postcard artist could win power and put it to such evil purposes. As the newspaper Die Welt noted in its review...
Critics complain that the film shows too much of Hitler's appeal, too little of its consequences. Jews in particular protest that it skims over the horrors of Nazism while dwelling mainly on Hitler as the hypnotic spellbinder who wooed millions of Germans into a criminal war. Says Werner Nachman, chairman of West Germany's Jewish Central Committee: "The younger generation is being shown a Hitler that does not tell them who he really was." Karl-Heinz Janssen, a member of the editorial board of the weekly Die Zeit, says flatly that "the film is dangerous," arguing that...
...cities during the war never fails to stun audiences, even those Germans who have been immersed in an atmosphere of guilt for 30 years. Scenes of adulation by massive crowds, weeping women and adoring children often evoke nervous titters. But the film's emphasis on the manner of Hitler's rise to power is intended to explain just how he managed to lead Germans to such infamy...
...younger viewers the film is a revelation. The school system in West Germany after the war either disregarded the Hitler period altogether or raced through it. Said one youth after seeing the movie: "Now I can understand why something like that was possible. In school we studied history only up to World War I." In a recent poll conducted by the illustrated weekly Quick, a majority placed the blame for the war, the extermination of the Jews and the stifling of dissent during the Third Reich on Hitler, but only about 20% condemned his policies totally. Significantly, more than...
Among older viewers the reaction is often uneasiness. Says West Berliner Eva Becker, 76: "That was how Hitler was. He was black magic, and intoxicated people. We thought of him only as a dynamic leader who got the nation on its feet again and solved the awful unemployment problem." Fest aims to correct the ignorance that one generation has forced upon its successor, so that a second Hitler cannot rise to power-and for most viewers, he succeeds. Says he: "If you want to make a society a little more secure against someone like Hitler, then you must give people...