Der Untergang is better than most documentaries on Hitler. It is truly the best look inside the mind of that sick, sad man during the last hours of his existence. It is certainly the single most perfect performance ever given by an actor playing Adolf Hitler. It's like they opened a portal to April, 1945 and just started filming.
Hitler was human. People all too often forget that. There were no demons at work, no gods in play, nothing but pure humanity. His actions were monstrous but that doesn't make him a monster. Not in the way people seem to like thinking. And that is why I find it so utterly disgusting when people try to paint supernatural or other tones on him. It demeans the lives lost. It takes away our collective responsibility. Hitler wasn't the Devil. He was a man of flesh & blood. He had hopes, dreams. He had immense courage. He survived the Great War, despite being hit by mustard gas. He had feelings.
Had he not genuinely, totally, utterly believed everything he said he couldn't of done what he did. He couldn't of won others to his side. He couldn't still win people to his side today if he weren't totally convinced that he was doing the right thing.
That's what people should see when they think of Hitler. A man. Possessed by nothing but his own contempt for others, driven by the pain of his life and the injustices he saw around him, and willing to do anything & everything to right what he saw as wrong.
Had Hitler put that drive & passion into anything else, we might now be talking about the greatest humanitarian of the 20th century, or the most brilliant composer of our time. But rather than appeal to Athena or to Aphrodite, Demeter or Mercury, he sought the path of Mars. And that's what we got.
