The Hitler Miniseries.

[Japher]

Who's Hitler?

[Sava]

some of Robert Carlyle's lines sound strangely similar to Fez...

[Ramo]

The first part was good.

[Adalbertus]

Originally posted by Boddington's
Was he ever arrested?

I only browsed shortly through this thread, so forgive me if it already was said:
Yes, Hitler was arrested for a year around 1924, after he incited a revolt (mainly in Munich). In jail, he had time to write (or complete) "Mein Kampf".

Besides: Boris is right. I always suspect that demonizing Hitler serves to lull vigiliance. Hitler belongs to the past, we are living now. What we can learn, is to compare patterns of Hitler's behaviour with acts of today. No (ok, probably no) really evil person would be so stupid to have their followers running around with brown clothes. History doesn't repeat word by word. But patterns do repeat, and we have to be vigiliant now.

[Ben Kenobi]

And that's always been one of the most disturbing things about Naziism.

Again, Solzhenitsyn says it better than I ever could:


"If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart.

Criminal is the government that throws the national property up for grabs and its citizens into the teeth of beasts of prey in the absence of law.

Why is Germany allowed to punish its evil-doers and Russia is not? What kind of disastrous path lies ahead of us if we do not have the chance to purge ourselves of that putrefaction rotting within our bodies? ... In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousandfold in the future."

http://members.aol.com/Aspirennies/private/Alsolz/Ssquote.htm

[Agathon]

I thought that part one was a bit overdone. The bit where Hitler beat the dog was a bit strange, since everyone knows he liked animals more than people (the guy was a committed vegetarian for Christ's sake). The rest of it was overblown in similar ways, although it did do a good job of emphasising how the Nazis were part of the crazy political climate of the time. And they downplayed his decorations (which there is some dispute about).

You can call him what you like but I've seen no evidence that he was a coward or a bad soldier.

What I'd have liked to have seen is a film that starts from Hitler's childhood and paints him as the quiet, sensitive child he apparently was - a boy and teenager whom many people liked. Presumably his frustrations as an artist and the traumatic experience of the war were fundamental in the development of his personality and ideas.

If he was portrayed more sympathetically I think it would make a more powerful film, because I think we would then be closer to understanding the nature of his evil and how it is reflected in our own natures.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Sikander


Some madmen are created by society, and some are born. Hitler seems to be a creation of environment. He seemed an annoying person before WW1, and after 4 years in the Somme his more brutal and insane characteristics came to the fore.

But how many people had essentially the same environment? Yes, his Dad was rigid, unloving and severe, but in those days these were considered good paternal traits, so millions of boys must have had similar upbringings. Many of them must also have been survivors of the Somme, too, though I believe that only a small fraction of the men who joined the German Army on the same day as Hitler made it to Armistice Day. I'd have liked to have seen a more thorough treatment of his childhood.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by Agathon
What I'd have liked to have seen is a film that starts from Hitler's childhood and paints him as the quiet, sensitive child he apparently was - a boy and teenager whom many people liked. Presumably his frustrations as an artist and the traumatic experience of the war were fundamental in the development of his personality and ideas.

Who knows? Maybe his childhood and youth really had little to do with his ultimate personality formation. I'm going to catch it from some of our pro-drug people for saying this, but the German Army medical corp routinely administered synthetic cocaine to gas attack victims in the belief that they could prevent shock. Perhaps the involuntary administration of a psychostimulant changed his personality.

[Peter Triggs]

Agathon,

What I'd have liked to have seen is a film that starts from Hitler's childhood

Did you know that Hitler and Wittgenstein went to the same school? There's gotta be a drama-documentary in that.

[War4ever]

i think one of the first posts stated it perfectly, Hitler was a charismatic and brilliant madman all in one...

love him or hate him, the 20th C is full of dictators and Hitler is one of the best...

he gets a bad rap for slaughtering the jews and trying to take over the world...

but Stalin killed 20-30 million of his own people during his reign of terror..and many were jews too....

the victors always portray the losers as the villains...

in hitlers case he truly was a despicable man....brilliant in some ways, evil in others and an amazing public speaker who was able to captivate people with his intensity.

i am watching this mini series, but to be honest , i think its a bit weak

[Imran Siddiqui]

2nd part was good too!!

It was really interesting to see how he manipulated poor old Hindenburg and the rest of the country with him. Just making people bend to his will by sheer charisma.

I liked how they did it. His rise through the political structures of Germany makes for good theatre. Adding his childhood would have bogged it down and make it boring, IMO.

[FrantzX]

Hitler was also a moronic micromanager who violated one of the most basic tenets of war by attacking the Russians: Never start a two front war.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by War4ever
i think one of the first posts stated it perfectly, Hitler was a charismatic and brilliant madman all in one...

love him or hate him, the 20th C is full of dictators and Hitler is one of the best...

he gets a bad rap for slaughtering the jews and trying to take over the world...

but Stalin killed 20-30 million of his own people during his reign of terror..and many were jews too....

the victors always portray the losers as the villains...

in hitlers case he truly was a despicable man....brilliant in some ways, evil in others and an amazing public speaker who was able to captivate people with his intensity.

i am watching this mini series, but to be honest , i think its a bit weak

Was he really brilliant, or was it simply that he didn't know better than to allow his every selfish impulse rise to the surface? Perhaps he had the "rare" knack of complete and unabashed cynicism which permitted him to make a superficial show of paying homage to certain traditional mores while subverting them to his own purpose and yet so able to so delude himself that he felt not the slightest qualm over his deception. He also had a "knack" to know which mores to make a show of keeping and which to make a show of breaking. He was in touch with the people, because he was one of them, amnd the people of Germany loved him for this, yet he kept himself above them.
I wonder whether in some ways he wasn't a sort of evil version of Chancey Gardner in "Being There", someone who seemed more intelligent than he really was because people expected it of him.

[Imran Siddiqui]

Doc, I think part of it is that he WAS brilliant, but also his following of every selfish impulse made him seem smarter than he was. After all, doesn't the quote go Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration (or something). You will find few people in history that had the knowledge of where they wanted to go and went full force to that end. He didn't waver or compromise and got it by brute force. Yet, his brilliance showed itself in his politics. He knew how to manipulate people. He knew how to put himself in the right place at the right time. That was sheer brilliance, IMO.

[uh Clem]

A thousand kilometers deep in Russia in the middle of winter...that's "the right place at the right time," I suppose. When and why did he stop being brilliant and become stupid?

Like any sociopath, he had a good ability to read people. In Europe of the 20s & 30s, where revulsion for war and militarism was almost universal among intelligent people, Hitler's recklessness paid off. It was difficult for ordinary people to accept that anybody could be that loony, an image that Hitler capitalized on.

As people caught on to his cons (some catching on too late, of course), Hitler's gambling ended its winning streak. It's amazing how much his IQ appears to have dropped between 1939 and 1943. By that time he was advising his generals to fight the Russians "Indian style," based on the wild-west books he was so fond of. Some genius.