A new film about Hitler's final days shows that to understand is not to forgive or forget, writes Gina Thomas.
There have been many attempts to portray Hitler on screen, from Charlie Chaplin's parody to Alec Guinness's manic depressive. But until now, no one has dared to present the demagogue as a human being. Producer Bernd Eichinger has broken this taboo in his film Der Untergang (The Downfall), which will be released in Germany next month.
Already, this account of the last 12 days in Hitler's bunker has sparked a lively debate. "Is it legitimate to portray a monster as a human being?" asked De Bild.
Almost 60 years after Hitler's demise, Eichinger set out to discover how a decrepit man in his mid-50s could still have such a hold on his entourage. This, he felt, could not be achieved by representing barbarism in a one-dimensional way, but by accepting that "seductive people with charisma . . . could seduce you and me".
In The Downfall, you see a Hitler who kisses Eva Braun on the mouth, who is moved to tears, who is charming to his secretaries, who cradles one of Joseph Göbbels's children on his knee. You see a man who is bitter and vindictive; a broken tyrant who, on realising all is lost, can still muster the energy to quench his thirst for extermination by dragging his own people with him into the abyss.
More than 30 years ago, the historian Golo Mann questioned whether it was right to devote 1,000 pages to a biography to the "most abominable, and at the same time the most inferior, villain in 4,000 years of European world history".
Length, he wrote, was not possible without a certain "cosiness". The more space one devoted to the "hero", his origins, the motives that drove him and his psychology, the more one was inclined to understand him, and from there, Mann argued, "it is only a small step towards forgiving - and then admiring".
Mann was affected by the trauma of his generation, which was haunted by the fear that a new Hitler might be born. But this danger is past. Germans are sated with information on the crimes of the Nazi regime.
The novelty of Eichinger's approach lies in his desire to paint a realistic portrait, without the habitual moralising, preaching and self-flagellation connected with this sorry chapter. In The Downfall, Germans are left to make up their own minds about the man whose shadow seems to grow longer as time goes by.
There are now almost two generations of Germans who had nothing to do with the Third Reich. Nevertheless, they feel it is their history. They want to know what really happened.
Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, one of the 1944 plotters, is alleged to have said: "Hitler in the bunker, that is the real Hitler." Eichinger recognised that those final days, in which the führer shut himself away while the battle raged overhead, contain in a nutshell "the whole mechanism and fabric, the thinking and belief" that characterised the regime, right down to the contemptible performance of the officers who urged Hitler on although all was lost.
All Hitler's traits were condensed in his last performance: the cold-bloodedness, destructiveness, sentimentality, and hypnotic power he exercised, even when a quivering wreck.
Bruno Ganz, who plays Hitler, says he could not have taken on the role had he not felt momentary pity for this "miserable human being".
In an interview, he said: "Even if there are situations which can be understood on a human level and in which Hitler does not always bear the sign 'mass murderer' on his forehead, the image of these figures is so absurd that I think this country is strong enough to bear this film."
Almost 60 years after his demise, seeking to understanding Hitler is not, as Mann feared, to forgive, or to forget.