Der Untergang

[dlloyd]

Sorry for the rant, but as I said, it´s been a long time - too long - since I have really been moved by a movie. I just needed to vent a bit.

I don't often watch movies, I can't sit long enough to watch them.

However, the most moving piece of music I've heard in a long time (as I've already mentioned) is Different Trains by Steve Reich.

He's often described as a minimalist composer, but I find that kind of meaningless. It's a piece in three movements played by the Kronos Quartet with sampled voices. The first movement is his recollections of travelling between his separated parents' houses in wartime America. The second movement is the recollections of his counterparts (he's Jewish) in Europe at the same time, boarding a different type of train going east to Poland in cattle trucks. The third movement is their recollections following the war, emigrating to America.

The piece is utterly hypnotic, with the viola and cellos taking melodic cues from the recorded voices, incorporating the melodies with train rhythms.

I've probably managed to make it sound rubbish.

It totally blew me away and has been spinning in my walkman for the last week.

 

[Tsal]

I just saw the movie..

I must say this is one of those movies you just have to see for yourself, if for nothing else, then just to be able to understand history. It's not very lighthearted, so I'd suggest you take some time to ponder it afterwards - as CoolHat noted, it can have quite an effect.

 

[CBRStingray]

...He even killed two thirds of his armies leaders, thats why the soviet army was so weak when the Germans attacked. ...

I think that's less likely to be the reason that the red army was weaker. The German Economy was considerably stronger at the time, with a lot of funding going straight towards the war effort. It really took the rest of the free world to stop the German Army. I dare say that one-on-one, the German Army would have taken out any army on the planet at the time. It's only because the Allied nations all fought together that Germany was stopped.

 

[CBRStingray]

These are pretty high estimates... others place them at 40M for Mao, 20M for Stalin and 34M for Hitler. Nevertheless, there's a point you get to where "x is more evil than y" is meaningless.



That's bull. The Holocaust started long before the cattle trucks went to Auschwitz, the intent was there long before the implimentation.

http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/holocaust/timeline.html

I'd have to agree with dlloyd. Hitler's quest towards the Final Solution began long before WW2. During the '20s he was already publicly scapegoating and oppressing the Jews and doing everything in his power to get the German public onside. I'm inclined to think that the only reason he didn't begin slaughtering them earlier was because he didn't have enough power politically and militarily.

 

[Frank Martin]

Here's a website which deals with the numbers better than I can. If you click where it says sources, he discusses the range of estimates typically given.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/tyrants.htm

Right there it says that the 34 million is only if you blame the entire WWII on Hitler; otherwise it also says 15 million.
However, the "Lower Numbers School" of Stalin's toll is a bit far from reality. Even the numbers they are based on are contradictory: Nove says 9,5 million, however where he quotes from says 9,8 abnormal deaths, 6,6 from hunger, and 1,5 million more counterrevolutionaires. BUT IT IS ONLY THE 30S! So the lower numbers school is a bit wrong. Maybe the "Big Numbers School" also exaggerates a good bit, but the low numbers school is way off. Hunger alone caused more deaths. The number is most probably between 30-40 million, maybe even worse.

I don't know. I find the idea that he never really meant to exterminate the Jewish race in the beginning and that somehow the Nazis were unable to contain his sudden irrationality in 1941 extremely hard to swallow. It was the logical culmination of the previous decade's policy.

I also find it distasteful and inappropriate to explain away evil such as the genocide of the holocaust as an act of insanity. It kind of excuses away responsibility, don't you think? He did not act alone.

What I said was:

Hmm... like
- Stalin
- Mao
- Pol Pot

and others. Curiously, these people are somehow "overlooked" compared to Hitler;

And I added something I've seen and heard recently, that Hitler was drugged and was going insane over time.

But if we are at that, Stalin and mao and Pol Pot didn't act alone, as well.

My point is that they all killed a lot of people, I just don't like that while crimes of fascism and holocaust are on every day, there is little or no mention of crimes of communism, whereas more people died because of it.

 

[Frank Martin]

You gotta remember Mao, Stalin, and Pol Pot weren't genocidal, merely, fierce, poor leaders. Mao's people starved to death, they weren't shot in the face. Stalin worked people to death in the gulags.

I'm not saying they're not as bad as Hitler (they're probably worse), I'm saying that Hitler is different because he wasn't just killing his own people through some political change (Mao). He was just looney tunes and a genocidal one at that. Furthermore, he didn't kill his own people in an attempt to acheive something. He ousted a race and tried to wipe them out. Others have done that, Hitler was just the first to do so concurrent with mass media.

So, y'know, it's a little different. That said, I agree with the comment that humanizing Hitler isn't a bad thing. If he's just an aloof monster, we'll never really understand the actual (and horrific) truth that normal, everyday people are whack jobs.

Don't forget that the Soviet Union wasn't just Russia. Many states were forced into the union. He even orchestrated mass killings in his homeland of Gruzia, to force them into the union.

And Stalin was also a big anti-semitist. But till then Hitler's evil doings have been known and many fleed. That's why there are so many Russian Jews in Israel.

 

[warwickben]

iam not sure the name of this movie i saw. one of the main actors is the guy that played hellboy. iam not to sure when the movie was spose to be takeing place.i belive early on in the war. the whole movie is set in a room, with the people that were below hitler. the whole movie is them trying to figure out how to carry out hitlers plan. the main things i rember from it is at one point they find out that they all ready were gasing them. making fun of the fact that the bodys turn purple/pink.

id really liek to find out the name of this movie and beable to see th downfall. is it going to be released in the states or am i gonna have to find a dvd

 

[Tsal]

the whole movie is set in a room, with the people that were below hitler. the whole movie is them trying to figure out how to carry out hitlers plan. the main things i rember from it is at one point they find out that they all ready were gasing them. making fun of the fact that the bodys turn purple/pink.

I think it's called The Conspiracy, I remember seeing it at a local rental but didn't watch it. There's also a german movie called The Wannsee Conference about it.

About Hitler versus Judaism, I think during the 30's in Germany there was a great depression. Massive amount of people were without a job, struggling for their daily food, and jews were one group who were to take the blame.

When the National Socialist Party started rising in power, they promised work and bread for all - and actually reached this goal, one tool being the construction of massive autobahn system - and their actions against the "greedy" class of jews were not always seen as a bad thing by the commoner. They had plenty of support from the people, however the people voting for them probably didn't realize how sinister figures there were amongst the party and later amongst the SS leaders.

Even so, it's quite impossible to tell how much impact Hitler himself had on the Holocaust. It might be his idea, or it might be doings of the people underneath him, in the SS organisation When there's a organisation leading the nation, even those officials who don't have much general power, make quite an effect in their respective fields. There's even some suggestion that Hitler might not have knew what was done in concentration camps at all.

What touched me most in the movie was the fact how the organisation that had done great deeds was now crumbling, the great leaders now in despair to flee and hide in front of the end of their materialized dream. "Downfall", I agree, is the perfect title.