Hitler A Career
by Joachim C. Fest
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DVD details
Director: Joachim C. FestDVD: Region Code 1
Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC
Running Time: 151 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2001-11-15
Studio: International Historic Films, Inc.
DVD Reviews of Hitler A Career
DVD Review: A look into Hitler - and into German ways to cope with him
Summary: 4 Stars
You might possibly want to buy the German edition along with the U.S. one - the latter comes with considerably better video quality, the former with a noticeably better audio track. (Also, the U.S. version has been edited. Footage of Hitler praising German car producers as well as chastising foreign ("Jewish", in his language) media have been cut from it.)
There are really some insights to be gained from this renowned movie. When I, a German, first watched it back in 1977, I noticed something I had not been aware of before - namely, the utter self-assurance of the rank-and-file Nazis surrounding Hitler, Goebbels et. al. Those lower ranking Nazis were very at ease with themselves, standing unimpressed while the audience gets excited by raucous speeches, coolly taxing the impact of their leaders. They behaved quite contrary to the closemouthed, insecure lower ranks I'd encountered during visits to what then was East Germany. It is a glimpse into what made Nazism different from Communism: The Nazis got elected, and they felt so. They did obviously not feel being pushed around by a clandestine party hierarchy, they felt legitimate. The interesting extra footage of 1932 campaign events that is included in the U.S. edition adds some more proof to it. Watch the guys standing behind Hitler as carefully as Hitler himself.
A major drawback of the U.S. edition are its insufficient subtitles. The distinctive, odd, at times archaic yet often very forceful and very frightful ways Hitler used and abused German words, idioms and Grammar peculiarities is not at all being reflected in the scant English sentences. Hitler's German language was psychopathic and creative at gthe same time. The subtitles give me a clue what would happen to John F. Kennedy's speeches being translated by North Koreans. Only the combination of Hitler's brutal voice and his command of words made him the terribly efficient orator he was. American viewers without knowledge of German might not experience the real chill his speeches are still sending down the spine, though watching his facial expression in the brief yet frightening "On January 30, the die has been cast"-footage might give you an idea about it.
Furthermore, the film allows for glimpses into the two sides of Hitler - the dreamer, the artist, and the mass murderer he was. As with his speeches, this combination gave him an quixotic, perverse appeal. The whining speech to Siemens workers shown in the movie displays that quite well - the forlorn soldier, the self-pitying muscular man with emotional eyes that made quite some elder ladies feel a lot of unclear vexing feelings for him in the '20s. Hitler knew how to evoke the notion that his emotional, forlorn trait cared for Germans, whereas his brutal shouting and psycho gestures were meant for imaginary and real adversaries only. Some people like that, even today.
Most interesting is the contrast between Hitler and his Gang, and the German well-off traditional gentry. It is mostly overlooked today how young the Nazis were when they came to power - Hitler, being only 44, already the granddaddy of them all, Goebbels, Himmler, Heydrich, most of the infamous SS under 40, even younger than 30 at that point of time. Determined youngsters fighting old ways and habits, and getting things done whereas the elder did just talking - quite some pictures in the movie let you feel what that mood might have meant for insecure young jobless Germans. Watch the former Chancellor von Papen rambling helplessly about Germany in his arrogant English, watch his pityful attempt at Napoleonic gestures, and compare that to the body language of the Nazi demagogues. You might get a feeling that politicians of his brand were a liability for the Republic. Watch President von Hindenburg addressing a huge youth rally in March 1933, the proverbial nice old somewhat gruffy grandfather (who wasn't so nice and lovely in WW I), and see Hitler wrapping it all up then with a powerful salute right after it, done, over, we are the new masters. Or see Prince August Wilhelm, clad in shorts, cigarette in his fingers, greeting a U.S. reporter in the U.S. edition's extra footage. He rants about Germany's plight in grotesquely distorted yet funny English, a man who did not grasp what was at hand, who nevertheless thought of him as embodying the natural upper social stratum. Those politicians weren't a match for the Nazis. (But see the young Countess looking warily as Hitler and Hindenburg walk by on that infamous "Day of Potsdam", 1933. She clearly senses something coming on.)
The German edition has been narrated by a then-famous German theatre actor, while the U.S. edition employs a professor. The U.S. narrative is by and large a translation of the German one, albeit with a slight, purposeful German accent and some new wording that sometimes adds a palpable anti-German perfume to the narrative. That is unfortunate, for it would hamper some viewers' willingness to grasp the tragedy, the feeling of betrayal, of shame, of bitterly and slowly accepted self-delusion (and self-pity) that marks the German original. It would also make some viewers to side with the depicted Nazis, just out of dislike for being patronized.
That said, the movie is a unique opportunity to delve into what and who made Germany go genocidal. As said before - it wasn't merely Hitler alone. His technique, unleashing emotions employed to attack a traditional old-fashioned society, is still a powerful example of what man can do to each other. I watched the movie as a warning not to believe that I, had I been exposed to that force, might have been surely immune to it. I have been lucky to not having been put up to that test.
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