AMD 1 - Downfall

Movie : Downfall

Watched in German with English Subtitles.

Movie Depicts the final 12 Days of Hitler's life and is set mostly in his bunker.

The very beginning of the movie opens up with an interview with one of Hitler's Secretaries (in present day). The movie then proceeds to when she was first hired.

Hitler asks : Wie heisen sie?
Ich bin Traudl, Ich komme aus Munich.

I was pleased to recognize at least some conversational German!

The interesting part about this movie is that it shows Hitler as more than just the evil man we recognize him as in the history books.
He is given a more complex personality with some shades of grey. He is nice to the young girl, she replies she is zweiundzawnzig and gives her a job as his secretary. She is Traudl Junge. (Traudl Junge is the one whose memoirs the movie is based off of.. )

Fast Forward 2.5 Years ahead.

Russians begin invade the city on Hitler's 56th Birthday. Awaken in the Führerbunker (his bunker in the center of Berlin) to the sound of Soviet artillery.
They make their way towards the bunker and panic breaks out between the ranks. The Nazi's being to burn everything and "pack" to leave the Wehrmacht offices in Berlin. (I heard counting in the background as they burn things.. vier funf!)

Ein Professor Doktor Schenck worries about the soliders and civillains finding food after the evacuation. His worries fall on deaf ears as the other generals have chosen not to care. Hitler tells Himmler to leave now saying - gehts.

Hitler says he will even defeat them in berlin or meet his downfall. This is a writer's liberty at foreshadowing in the movie, even though we know, in the present that his downfall is inevitable. It is revealed at this time, that Himmler plans to negotiate with the Allies behing Hitler's back.

(Interestingly enough: Hitler's Models for his ideal German City in the Third Reich, include many centers of Art and Culture).

Hitler youth in the streets think they can fend off the Russians. This is where me meet a young boy named Peter. His father pleads with him to come home saying : You won't even be able to hold them off for - fünf Minuten!! Peter runs off from his father.

Hitler refused to evacuate civilians saying they deserve it, the others ask will happen to the Frauen und Kinder.

The Berlin Youth meet the Führer, who congratulates them on tank hunting and presents them with a medal (the iron cross)
Falsely telling them they will be German's heroes when this ends. He tells Peter that he wishes his generals were as brave as he is.

The women talk about where they would go if the flee, Traudl dejectedly states that she came for the job out of curiosity (she says in the
opening as old woman as well) - here she admits her family warned her not to go and fears they would not take her back if she fled there now.

At a party held above the bunker, Hitler's lady friend (Eventually Wife). Traudl talks about how right now everything feels like an Albtraum.
Right after a bomb explodes into the room - Gerda (traudl's friend) pleads with her to be Kalm, Kalm.

Schenck (ein Professor Doktor) is called to bring penicillin and morphine to the government district.

A general goes to see the führer because he is told he is to be shot for moving his command post
which he did not. Upon going to see the führer the guard stops him and tells him to Machen sie hier.

Meanwhile Schenck makes it to the hospital, they tell him it is now in Russian territory and there is nothing there
any longer, he proceeds anyway. Schenck enters the hospital and sees that in fact it does look empty. He enters a
room and sees a pile or corpses obviously killed and left by the germans, entering another room in the basment
he finds old civillian and infirm patients left to fend for themselves, sick and weak in bed -the Nazi's leaving them rather than worrying about them.

Meanwhile the general is promoted to commander of German's defense, he says he would have rather have been shot.

Peter, the hitler youth is with the soliders as they are getting killed in the streets, civillian women and children are dying
and the solider with Peter is soon shot in the head. Everyone around him is dying and he is watching people suffer.
He is probably only around 10 years old, soon all his friends in the Hitler Youth are killed as well.

Schenck finally makes it to the army hospital and finds doctors literally just sawing off limb after limb, watching them drop into a bucket.

Hitler discusses how to kill themselves. He talks about a cyanide pill, the girls ask for one as well.
Hitler obliges, saying he is sorry he couldn't give them a better present.

All this being said, this is about up into the halfway point of the movie. The rest you should probably watch. It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 2004. It was truly riveting and I actually enjoyed watching it.

Furthermore, it was truly exciting to realize how much of conversational German I understood and how I could pick out words we've already been using in class! And it's only week three! If you want to watch the movie Youtube has the entire thing uploaded online with English Subtitles you can find it here:

It is about 2.5 Hours long and is better watched uninterrupted.

It's sehr gut (which you will actually hear said in the movie) and will definitely help you hear vocab you already know, and Vocab you can't believe you already know!

Happy Friday the 13th.

Chrissy