WW2 - A German View

So I will start things off with a quick review of a couple of movies I have recently watched. It apparently was World War 2 from a German view this last week as my wife and I watched Der Untergang (The Downfall) and Sophie Scholl. Both are a couple of years old and both were nominated for Best Foreign Language Oscars.

Der Untergang tells the story of Hitler's final days in his Berlin bunker. It was based largely on the accounts of one of his personal secretaries, Traudl Junge. Starring Swiss actor Bruno Ganz as Hitler and Alexandra Maria Lara as the aforementioned secretary, the movie is a chilling account of the madness that surrounded Hitler and his entourage in those frantic final days. Ganz is particularly compelling in his portrayal, alternating between blind madness (his insistence up until the final moments that divisions of the defeated Wehrmacht were going to breakthrough and relieve the besieged Berlin) and the easy charm that allowed him to build such a devoted following. Lara's portrayal of Junge is also fascinating. A naive young woman caught up in the charm of the Nazi's inner circle, she remained surprisingly loyal, even to the bitter end. Archival interviews at the beginning and ending of the film feature the real Junge, as she confesses her horror of discovering afterwards the extent to Nazi crimes. She said she was able to ignore her own guilt until seeing a plaque memorializing Sophie Scholl, a young resistor to the Nazi regime who was of a similar age to Junge.

Which brings us to the second movie, Sophie Scholl. The movie is based on the young woman of the same name who, along with her brother Hans, was a key member of the anti-Nazi movement The White Rose. Caught distributing anti-Nazi leaflets, Sophie, her brother and several others were tried and convicted of treason. Despite the Scholl's fate (not to give the ending away, but it was not particularly pleasant) this movie is rather uplifting, in a way. Sophie's courage in the face of her fate is inspiring. In spite of her youth (or perhaps because of it, a different facet of naivety from that of Traudl Junge) she refused to cooperate with the Nazi authorities, despite offers of leniency, and was defiant in the face of the kangaroo court set up to "try" her and her "co-conspirators". The performances were spot on here. Julia Jentsch, as Sophie, is strong and carries the movie well (she needed to, I believe she is in nearly every scene).

I would strongly recommend both movies, and not just for history buffs. They work well in viewing together (or a week apart like me), as they show two very different sides of Nazi Germany. Junge, the acquiescent Secretary, who stood by the Nazis despite alarming evidence of their crimes, and Scholl, who acted on her conscience once the horrors of the Eastern Front became known.

Two sides standing in stark contrast.