GERMANY: The German filmmakers working on an upcoming major feature film centred around Hitler had to shoot it discreetly because of “resistance” in Germany against dramas “in which Hitler takes centre stage for fear that the audience will start identifying with the protagonist”, as per its historical adviser.
The movie, named “Führer und Verführer” (Führer and Demagogue), was denied public funding in Germany and was produced in Bratislava instead.
To ensure historical accuracy, they appointed Thomas Weber, a highly respected academic and history professor at Aberdeen University, as their historical adviser.
He stated that there were valid concerns regarding humanising demagogues accountable for one of the darkest periods in human history.
As a result, there are very few films that depict figures like Goebbels, Hitler, and any other demagogues without either making them appear as comic characters or relegating them to minor supporting roles. In the case of the 2004 drama “Downfall,” it chose to focus solely on a brief period in Hitler’s life—his final days.
“If we want to thwart the demagogues of our own time, film and television productions must abandon the long-standing, though entirely understandable, reluctance to turn the spotlight on Hitler, Mussolini, Goebbels, and Stalin,” Weber added.
“We can only tear off the masks and see them as they really were and how they were able to succeed if we place them centre-stage on film,” he continued.
He argued, for instance, that images and video clips shown in the majority of movies about the Third Reich frequently incorporate Goebbels’ propaganda without realising it because they were created by the Nazis.
The new movie centres on an information warfare campaign spearheaded by Goebbels, who is widely regarded as the greatest mass manipulator in history and the inventor of fake news.
Goebbels produced films and stirring images of crowds waving flags and preparing the public for the mass murder of Jews.
Scheduled for release in cinemas next year, “Führer und Verführer” features Fritz Karl in the role of Hitler and Robert Stadlober portraying Goebbels.
Joachim Lang, the film’s director, stated, “The film shows the perpetrators as human beings, with all the attributes of evil. Only the fictional form allows proximity to the characters and their mendacious depravity.”
“If such criminals are portrayed cinematically solely as one-dimensional marginal figures or even as screaming buffoons, we cannot understand them or their deeds. Nor can we draw any lessons for the present,” Lang added.
The movie takes audiences backstage, offering a glimpse into Goebbels’ world as he crafts his deceptions and distorts reality while conceiving and rehearsing his speeches, ultimately making the viewers more conscious of the potency of images and manipulative strategies.
“The dialogue almost exclusively contains verifiably accurate quotations from a wide variety of sources,” Lang said of the film’s emphasis on accuracy.
The film’s impact is amplified by its skillful blend of fictionalized scenes featuring the central characters and their Nazi associates, along with archival footage and the firsthand accounts of Holocaust survivors.
Among them is Margot Friedlander, who is 101 years old and lost her parents and brother in the Auschwitz death camp.
Following a preview screening, the survivors were reportedly profoundly affected. One survivor, in particular, fell into a contemplative silence for several minutes before embracing the director. She expressed her wish that such a film had been created a decade or two earlier to help curb the ascent of radical right-wing populist groups.
Lang stressed the critical importance of examining the past, especially in times when far-right parties hold government positions, incidents of anti-Semitic violence are on the rise, and there is an increasing tendency to downplay the crimes of the Third Reich.
“For me, the sentence of Auschwitz survivor Primo Levi, with which our film begins and ends, holds true: It happened so it can happen again. That is the core of what we have to say,” he continued.
Also Read: Brazil: Rise of Neo-Nazi Groups and the Controversy Surrounding Bolsonaro’s Policies
