7 Things to Know About “Downfall” with Bruno Ganz

Recently, I watched the 1988 movie City of Angels starring Nicolas Cage, and this led me to its 1987 German predecessor,Wings of Desire with Bruno Ganz. Then, I learned that Ganz had starred in another movie called Downfall, released in 2005, about the last days of Adolf Hitler.

A movie set in the infamous bunker wasn’t too appealing to me, but Bruno Ganz was, so I searched DVD Netflix and soon after, the movie arrived in my mailbox. This is what I like about DVD.com. When I’m curious about previous versions of movies, or wish to see more from a certain actor, I’m nearly always able to find what I want in the DVD Netflix vast library.

The Downfall disc contains interviews with the director and the actors, which were as interesting as the movie itself. Here are seven interesting notes on the movie and the interviews.

1. Downfall is told from the perspective of Hitler’s secretary, Traudi Junge, who survived the war and wrote the book, Until the Final Hour. She said that Hitler was he most pleasant boss she’d ever had, but also that she allowed herself to be blinded. According to Junge, Hitler was like a pop star to women.
2. Regarding the many strategy sessions during the last days of World War II, one of Hitler’s aides comments that the Führer had lost all sense of reality and is moving around units that no longer existed, on his huge maps.
3. In one scene, Hitler places medals around the necks of Hitler Youth and tells them that they will be heroes when Germany rises again.
4. Hitler’s lover (and later wife), Eva Braun, throws a raucous party for those who had not fled the bunker while bombs rattle the walls. There is much depravity and drinking as Berlin is destroyed.
5. As the Russians march on Berlin, the Nazis turn on one another, hospitals are abandoned, and Hitler comments that if the war is lost, the people were immaterial. He will not shed a tear for them.
6. The six children, of Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels, are brought to the bunker. They are the Nazi equivalent of the Von Trapp kids and sing for Hitler. Their mother, Magda, cannot imagine her children growing up in a world without national socialism, so with the consent of her husband and the aid of a doctor, she poisons every one of them with cyanide as they sleep.
7. Over and over, Hitler is advised to flee the bunker, but he is convinced that his generals will prevail. In the end he feels betrayed by them.

In the companion interviews to the movie, the point is made that it was important to depict Hitler as a regular person rather than a mad man, because is dangerous to think of Hitler as an anomaly that could never rise again. In reality, there are countless people born every day who have the potential to wield as much evil as Hitler did. We should never become so confident to think that the nightmare he created could never happen again.

The 2002 documentary called Blind Spot: Hitler’s Secretary is also available at DVD Netflix and contains interviews with 81-year-old Traudi Junge, who recounts her last days in the bunker where Hitler dictated his last will and testament to her.

Disclaimer: I am a DVD Nation director, which earns me rewards from DVD Netflix.  DVD.Netflix.com has thousands of movies to choose from, many that you won’t find on streaming services.#DVDNation #ad

Ann Silverthorn is a freelancer and blogger who writes in a wide variety of genres. She especially loves movies and sharing her thoughts about them. Follow her blog at www.AnnSilverthorn.com and find her on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook.