Question:In class Friday, I posed the question “Who is this movie about?” Answer that question for today. Is it primarily about Hitler, or primarily about someone else? What do the cover and the title of the film suggest, and is that who the film actually ends up being about? What are the implications of your answer for one of our main course themes, i.e. how representative Holocaust perpetrators (and other Nazis) were of normal Germans?
Answer: The line above the bold red “DOWNFALL” on the title of the DVD says “April 1945, a nation awaits its…” That line alone means that, without even watching the movie, it revolves around the downfall of a nation. While Hitler is the one person featured on the cover, it is not just his personal downfall, but “his” nation around him that crumbles as well. The photo of Hitler on the cover of the DVD shows him without his wrinkles, paleness, shakes, and disheveled hair. This shows Hitler at his strong point in the movie. While this may be representative of the Hitler portrayed in the beginning, it is definitely not the Hitler that suffered the downfall. When Hitler committed suicide, his face was never shown after. Even when he was being directed as to how to kill himself, the soldier told him that if his hand was shaking to much, he needed to bite down on the poison at the same time. This shows that his trembling was representative to the trembling downfall of a nation.
The film also centers around Traudl, but she never suffers the same downfall that the majority of Germany did. She escaped alive, and was shown at the end and the beginning of the film as an old woman. This shows that even before the audience was familiar with her character, that she survived this “downfall” of a nation. Even the short description on the back of the DVD case says that “seen through the eyes of Hitler’s infamous secretary Traudl Junge, optimism crumbled into grim realization and terror as it becomes clear that Germany’s defeat is inevitable”. This quote explains that Hitler was not the character that the film necessarily centered around. Since Traudl was the one that the audience followed, she is the character that demonstrated the main lead. However, if this is the case, it is ironic that the film is called Downfall with Hitler featured on the cover, because Traudl escaped the downfall of Germany. I think the cover of the DVD was designed this way because Hitler’s appearance is definitely attention grabbing. Also, for the majority, if not everyone, the fact that Hitler is shown in his last years, in his declining years, is appealing. Even if the film is shown through the eyes of a survivor, she still witnessed the downfall of Hitler and everyone else around her.
She says in the end that she did not know the extent of what was happening, but that is not a fair excuse since people her age (Scholl’s) knew what was happening. However, since the movie is focused on Traudl and her experience in the bunker leading up to Hitler’s suicide, she is a good character to show the ignorance and naivety of Germany as a whole. While people like young Peter’s family obviously knew their country was crumbling before their very eyes, Traudl and others were kept in the security of a bunker. Obviously she was watching everyone around her end their lives, but she did not want her life to end that way. She wanted to leave anyway she could. This shows that even if a nation is being destroyed, some hope of survival is always possible. This was shown extremely well in the character of Traudl, as well as Peter. Peter was an individual from the beginning, when everyone he knew was killed right in front of him. Even when he saw his family had killed themselves, he still made the effort to escape. I think Peter and Traudl can be parallel characters because they both show hope during a catastrophe. Traudl was naive like a child, but Peter was mature like an adult. These two characters exemplify the people that were able to escape their fate, their fate of a downfall, and escaped successfully. While Peter was a fictional character, he was definitely added to the plot for this specific reason. To show that while Traudl may have lost all hope in her friends and everyone else she knew the bunker, she still could find hope in a little blonde boy fighting to escape the downfall of a nation.
