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Downfall (Der Untergang) is an Oscar nominated 2004 German / Austrian drama film depicting the final twelve days of Adolf Hitler in his Berlin bunker and Nazi Germany in 1945, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, written by Bernd Eichinger, and based upon the books: Inside Hitler's Bunker, by historian Joachim Fest; Until the Final Hour, the memoirs of Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's secretaries; portions of Albert Speer's memoirs; Hitler's Last Days: An Eye-Witness Account, by Gerhardt Boldt; doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck's memoirs; and the memoirs of Siegfried Knappe.

Synopsis
In the last days of World War II in Europe, the Soviet Red Army is fighting its way into Berlin. Deep within his bunker underneath the Reichskanzlei, Hitler's last birthday is celebrated and he lives out his final 10 days isolated from the world, ordering counterattacks that will never happen, from armies that exist only on maps. Hitler (Bruno Ganz) is presented as he was in the last months of the war: a physically ill, exhausted man but dreaming still of a Greater Germany amid the ruins of war-ravaged Berlin and callously ranting against the "weakness" and "deserved destruction" of the German people for their lack of resistance. As the Red Army draws nearer and imminent defeat looms over the Third Reich, Hitler is seen alone with his clique which consists of Joseph Goebbels (Ulrich Matthes), Albert Speer (Heino Ferch) and (briefly) SS leader Heinrich Himmler (Ulrich Noethen), along with his personal staff.

Most of the events are depicted from the perspective of Hitler's young personal secretary Traudl Junge (Alexandra Maria Lara). A few events outside Hitler's bunker, such as the suicide of SS doctor Ernst-Robert Grawitz are also depicted. On the day before his death Hitler marries his longtime mistress Eva Braun (Juliane Köhler) and they commit suicide together on April 30, 1945, ten days after Hitler's 56th birthday.

Plot
The film begins with a clip from the documentary Im toten Winkel, where the real-life Traudl Junge wonders why she decided to work for Hitler. The narrative then starts in 1942, in Rastenburg, East Prussia, where Traudl Humps and four other applicants vie for the position of secretary to Hitler. Upon hearing Traudl comes from Munich, Hitler takes an immediate liking to her and tests her dictation skills. Portrayed as a kindly employer who loves his dog, he overlooks Junge's nervous errors and hires her.

The narrative moves to Hitler's 56th birthday on April 20, 1945. Traudl, now Traudl Junge, resides in the Führerbunker with Gerda Christian and Constanze Manziarly, another secretary and private cook, respectively. Generals Wilhelm Burgdorf and Karl Koller indicate the Soviets are only 12 kilometres from the city center. Hitler is now visibly aged, shaking, and in poor humor. At his birthday reception, Heinrich Himmler, his adjutant Hermann Fegelein, party leader Martin Bormann and Walther Hewel of the foreign ministry are present. Hitler resolves to stay in Berlin. By contrast, Fegelein wishes to leave. Hewel and Himmler urge Hitler to try a diplomatic solution, which Hitler rejects. Albert Speer and Eva Braun later arrive, and reject Fegelein's advice to leave for Bavaria.

At an office building, operation "Clausewitz" is in effect, where papers are being burned and artwork moved. SS-Doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck, the overseer of public safety in Berlin, witnesses the breakdown of the SS medical infrastructure. In the government quarter, Himmler reveals his secret negotiations with the Allies. Fegelein cautions him against treason.

The father of Peter Kranz, a Hitler Youth soldier, begs his son to come home. Peter's teenaged commander says that he should be proud of Peter, who is to receive a medal from Hitler himself for destroying two Russian tanks that day. The father says that if they continue, the Red Army will kill them. They remain determined to fight to the end. Peter calls his father a coward.

In the Führerbunker, Field Marshal Wilhelm Keitel and General Alfred Jodl tell Hitler of the worsening situation. Propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels advises that that if the generals hold Berlin for a few more days, they will be able to negotiate with the more accommodating Americans. SS General Wilhelm Mohnke, under orders to defend the government district, tells Hitler that many civilians must be evacuated, but this suggestion is refused. After the meeting, the officers agree that the Führer has lost his sense of reality.

Hitler presents medals to tank hunters of the Hitler Youth, including Peter. Outside the vacant hospital, Schenck tells his adjutant that they should go, since they are not much use now. Hitler discusses his scorched earth policy with Speer. Speer begs mercy for the German people, but Hitler claims that if they fail this test, they are too weak and must be exterminated. Eva Braun holds a party for the bunker inhabitants, but shelling interrupts and ends the party early.

In a meeting between Generals Helmuth Weidling, Hans Krebs and Burgdorf, Krebs accuses Weidling of retreating westward, which Hitler has forbidden under penalty of immediate execution. Weidling denies this, and Burgdorf demands an explanation. Weidling shows his Knight's Cross. He then reports to Hitler. Impressed, Hitler assigns Weidling command of Berlin's defenses, to Weidling's private displeasure. In the streets, Kranz tries to defend a position from a Russian tank attack, and a soldier dies trying to protect him.

In the bunker, Hitler discusses the situation with the generals. Traudl believes that General Felix Steiner will save them. However, Steiner cannot mobilize enough men. Upon learning this, Hitler dismisses all except the four highest-ranking generals. He furiously rebukes them, and states that he would prefer suicide over surrender. He offers Gerda and Traudl a flight south, but Traudl refuses. The generals argue over what to do next, with Fegelein and the other generals at opposing viewpoints.

After defensive action with his few remaining soldiers, Mohnke returns to the Führerbunker. Schenck and his adjutant see the Military Police beating two men past military age and accusing them of desertion. Schenck tries to save them, but the MP leader kills the two men. Schenck arrives at the bunker, and sees an amputation performed without anaesthetic. He offers help to the attending physician, Werner Haase, with his assistant, Erna Flegel. Goebbels is arranging for his children to come to the bunker. Mohnke says that the Russians are killing the unarmed Volkssturm (German Home Guard) for no reason. Goebbels shows no sympathy.

Eva Braun receives a phone call from a drunken Fegelein, her brother-in-law, asking her to leave Berlin. Fegelein has left the bunker, and is with his mistress. The Goebbels children arrive with their mother Magda, and sing for Hitler. Afterwards, Hitler, Eva, Gerda and Traudl discuss various means of suicide. Hitler proposes shooting oneself through the mouth. Eva mentions taking cyanide. Hitler then gives Gerda and Traudl a cyanide capsule each. Eva Braun and Magda Goebbels type goodbye letters, Eva to her sister and Magda to her adult son Harald Quandt. Peter's artillery post runs out of ammunition. Most of the Hitler Youth members run away, but one girl, Inge Dombrowski, stays and begs her commander to shoot her. He obliges, then feels such remorse that he decides to shoot himself. Peter later finds Inge's body.

In the bunker, General Keitel is ordered to find Karl Dönitz, whom Hitler believes is gathering troops in the north, and help him to plan an offensive to recover Romanian oilfields. Rochus Misch, Hitler's radio officer, receives a telegram from Hermann Göring, head of the Luftwaffe. Bormann reads the telegram to Hitler, where Göring asks permission to assume command of the Reich and asks for acknowledgment by 10 PM, at which time he will assume authority in the absence of a response. Hewel attempts to defend Göring, as the bunker's communications system can break down at any moment; Bormann and Goebbels declare that Göring is betraying Germany by this action. Hitler calls Göring a morphine-addicted traitor, and orders his arrest and removal from office.

Speer advises Frau Goebbels to leave with the children. She refuses, not wanting her children to grow up in a world without national socialism. He meets Eva Braun, who says that she is not afraid to stay with the Führer. He meets Hitler, and admits to ignoring and acting contrary to most of his orders of the past several months, but also reinforces his personal loyalty to Hitler. Meanwhile, Peter Kranz returns to his parents.

In the bunker, Hitler sees General Robert Ritter von Greim and flying ace Hanna Reitsch, who had flown in through heavy gunfire to see Hitler. Hitler appoints von Greim as commander-in-chief of the Luftwaffe and General Field Marshal. Heinz Linge reports that Himmler has secretly been in contact with the Allies regarding surrender, which enrages Hitler. He orders Fegelein to be brought to him. He asks Greim and Reitsch to join Dönitz to ensure that Himmler is punished. Hitler also states that Dönitz and Albert Kesselring are mobilizing enough troops to crush the Russian assault on Berlin; Greim is amazed that Germany still has so many troopers available.

Ernst-Robert Grawitz, a senior SS doctor, asks permission to leave Berlin, since most of Himmler's SS medical staff have already left. Denouncing Himmler as a traitor, Hitler assures Grawitz that he has done no wrong and that his work will be recognised as beneficial to humanity, but denies the request. Otto Günsche enters, and Grawitz leaves. Günsche cannot find Fegelein, and Hitler calls Fegelein a deserter and traitor. At his home, Grawitz kills himself and his family by exploding a pair of hand grenades while they are having dinner. Military police find Fegelein naked, passed out and intoxicated, in his apartment with his mistress. He is arrested and brought back to the bunker. Eva Braun pleads for Fegelein, but Hitler insists that Feiglein be court-martialed and shot.

Weidling reports that the Russians have broken through everywhere. There are no reserves, and air support has stopped. Mohnke says that the Red Army is now 300 to 400 metres from the Chancellery, and that they can hold out for a day or two at most. Weidling suggests trying to break through the encirclement and making a last stand. Both Goebbels and Hitler oppose this. Before leaving, Hitler reassures the officers that General Walther Wenck will save them all. The Generals discuss whether Wenck can hold off the Russians. All except for Krebs and Burgdorf know that there is no hope. Fegelein is executed.

On Hitler's wedding day, Traudl takes dictation of the Führer's political testament. Hitler has ordered Goebbels to leave Berlin, but Goebbels intends to ignore the order. He asks Traudl to take his personal testament also. Hitler marries Eva Braun, with Goebbels, Bormann, Krebs and Burgdorf as witnesses. Mohnke reports that they can hold out for no more than 20 hours.

Günsche later brings a reply from General Keitel. The main armies are encircled or cannot continue their assault. Hitler states that he will never surrender, and he forbids everyone else to surrender. Günsche leads him from the room. Hitler says that he is about to commit suicide with his new wife, and entrusts Günsche with disposal of his remains. Günsche assents reluctantly, and begins to gather 200 litres of petrol, aided by Misch and SS-Sturmbannführer Erich Kempka.

Schenck brings Haase, with Erna Flegel, to the bunker. The officers and generals are drinking heavily. Günsche, the only sober person, sends them to Hitler. Flegel begs for assurance of victory from Hitler. Eva Braun enters and tells the assembled group to call her Frau Hitler. Several soldiers arrive with the petrol. General Krebs invites their leader for a drink. Schenck excuses himself, and at the toilet, overhears a conversation between Haase and Hitler. Haase advises Hitler to take poison while he shoots himself. Inside the toilet, Hitler's dog Blondi is put down with cyanide.

Eva Braun has her last conversation with Traudl, and admits that she never liked Blondi. She gives Traudl one of her best coats and advises her to escape. Hitler has his final meal in silence with Constanze Manziarly and the secretaries. He bids farewell to the bunker staff, gives Magda Goebbels his Golden Party Badge (marking original members of the NSDAP), and retires to his room with Eva Braun. Despite Frau Goebbels' pleas, the pair commit suicide and the bodies are burned outside the bunker complex.

Peter witnesses German security forces executing civilians for not continuing to fight. After learning of Hitler's death, officers and others in the bunker simultaneously light up cigarettes, an allusion to Hitler's opposition to smoking. Krebs attempts to negotiate with Marshal Vasily Chuikov, who insists on unconditional surrender. The Goebbels children are killed, with Dr. Ludwig Stumpfegger preparing sedatives and Magda Goebbels placing cyanide capsules in their mouths as they sleep. Krebs and Burgdorf commit suicide.

Weidling arranges for a cease-fire and calls publicly for the fighting to stop, then collapses exhausted. Peter Kranz returns home to find his parents killed by security forces. Joseph and Magda Goebbels commit suicide outside the bunker. Inside the hospital bunker, Mohnke asks Schenck to accompany him out. As they leave, one officer kills himself and Constanze Manziarly is contemplating her cyanide capsule.

Most of the bunker survivors attempt to escape, but die at the hands of Red Army infantrymen, including Schenck's adjutant, who is shot saving Gerda from enemy fire. The next day, Traudl and Gerda are advised to cross the Russian lines. Gerda refuses. Traudl makes her way through the Russians, joined by Peter Kranz.

Mohnke asks for opinions on what to do next. One young officer, who brought the petrol to the Führerbunker and oversaw the burning of the Goebbels' bodies, declares that they cannot outlive the Führer and must fight to the very end. The assembled men agree, including Hewel. However, after word arrives that Berlin has surrendered, only the young man and Hewel shoot themselves.

The film ends with Traudl and Peter escaping Berlin by bicycle. An epilogue details the final fates of many of the film's historical characters. Another interview excerpt with the elderly Traudl Junge is shown. While the Nuremberg Trials made her aware of the horrors of the Holocaust, she had excused herself because of her youth, ignorance, and lack of personal guilty acts. After seeing the memorial to Sophie Scholl, who was of her own age and executed for resisting the Nazis, Junge realized that she could have acted differently.

Cast

 * Bruno Ganz (Adolf Hitler)
 * Alexandra Maria Lara (Traudl Junge)
 * Juliane Köhler (Eva Braun)
 * Thomas Kretschmann (SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein)
 * Christian Redl (Generaloberst Alfred Jodl)
 * Corinna Harfouch (Magda Goebbels)
 * Ulrich Matthes (Joseph Goebbels)
 * Heino Ferch (Albert Speer)
 * André Hennicke (SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke)
 * Ulrich Noethen (Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler)
 * Christian Berkel (Ernst-Günther Schenck)

Commentary
While treatment of the Third Reich is still a sensitive subject among many Germans even 60 years after World War II, the film broke one of the last remaining taboos by its depiction of Adolf Hitler in a central role by a German speaking actor (as opposed to using actual film footage of Hitler). Ganz himself did 4 months of research to prepare for the role. Ganz studied a recording of Hitler in private conversation with Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim in order to properly mimick both Hitler's conversational voice as well as his distinct Austrian accent.

The film's impending release in 2004 provoked a debate in German film magazines and newspapers. The newspaper Bild asked "Are we allowed to show the monster as a human being?"

Concern about the film's depiction of Hitler led New Yorker film critic David Denby to note:

""As a piece of acting, Ganz's work is not just astounding, it's actually rather moving. But I have doubts about the way his virtuosity has been put to use. By emphasizing the painfulness of Hitler's defeat Ganz has [...] made the dictator into a plausible human being. Considered as biography, the achievement (if that's the right word) [...] is to insist that the monster was not invariably monstrous -- that he was kind to his cook and his young female secretaries, loved his German shepherd, Blondi, and was surrounded by loyal subordinates. We get the point: Hitler was not a supernatural being; he was common clay raised to power by the desire of his followers. But is this observation a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did?""

With respect to German uneasiness about "humanizing" Hitler, Denby said: ""A few journalists in [Germany] wondered aloud whether the "human" treatment of Hitler might not inadvertently aid the neo-Nazi movement. But in his many rants in [the film] Hitler says that the German people do not deserve to survive, that they have failed him by losing the war and must perish &mdash; not exactly the sentiments […] that would spark a recruitment drive. This Hitler may be human, but he's as utterly degraded a human being as has ever been shown on the screen, a man whose every impulse leads to annihilation.""

After previewing the film, Hitler biographer Sir Ian Kershaw wrote in The Guardian: ""Knowing what I did of the bunker story, I found it hard to imagine that anyone (other than the usual neo-Nazi fringe) could possibly find Hitler a sympathetic figure during his bizarre last days. And to presume that it might be somehow dangerous to see him as a human being - well, what does that thought imply about the self-confidence of a stable, liberal democracy? Hitler was, after all, a human being, even if an especially obnoxious, detestable specimen. We well know that he could be kind and considerate to his secretaries, and with the next breath show cold ruthlessness, dispassionate brutality, in determining the deaths of millions."

Of all the screen depictions of the Führer, even by famous actors such as Alec Guinness or Anthony Hopkins, this is the only one which to me is compelling. Part of this is the voice. Ganz has Hitler's voice to near perfection. It is chillingly authentic.""

Addressing other critics like Denby, Chicago Sun-Times film critic Roger Ebert wrote : ""Admiration I did not feel. Sympathy I felt in the sense that I would feel it for a rabid dog, while accepting that it must be destroyed. I do not feel the film provides 'a sufficient response to what Hitler actually did,' because I feel no film can, and no response would be sufficient.""

""As we regard this broken and pathetic Hitler, we realize that he did not alone create the Third Reich, but was the focus for a spontaneous uprising by many of the German people, fueled by racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear. He was skilled in the ways he exploited that feeling, and surrounded himself by gifted strategists and propagandists, but he was not a great man, simply one armed by fate to unleash unimaginable evil. It is useful to reflect that racism, xenophobia, grandiosity and fear are still with us, and the defeat of one of their manifestations does not inoculate us against others.""

Hirschbiegel confirmed that the film's makers sought to give Hitler a three-dimensional personality. ""We know from all accounts that he was a very charming man &mdash; a man who managed to seduce a whole people into barbarism.""

The movie was nominated for the 2005 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in the 77th Academy Awards. The film also won the BBC's 2005 BBC 4 World Cinema award.

The film is set mostly in and around the Führerbunker. Hirschbiegel made an effort to accurately reconstruct the look and atmosphere of the bunker through eyewitness accounts, survivors' memoirs and other historical sources. According to his commentary on the DVD, Der Untergang was filmed in Berlin, Munich, and in a district of Saint Petersburg, Russia, which, with its many buildings designed by German architects, was said to resemble many parts of 1940s Berlin.

Criticisms
The film has been criticized for its presentation of some characters apart from Hitler. Giles MacDonogh wrote: ""The film turned a butcher like SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke into an honorable soldier and the SS doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck into something approaching a Hollywood hero, despite the fact that he had carried out experiments on the prisoners in Nazi concentration camps"."

In footnote, it should be noted that the film's director in the DVD commentary stated he did his own research and did not find the allegations as to Ernst-Günther Schenck without question.

Additionally, Wim Wenders has noted the filmmakers' collaboration with a history professor as a strategic move to compile cultural capital and move the film beyond the reach of reprehensibility, challenge, or contradiction by writers or critics unwilling to engage the material other than by pointing out historical inaccuracies. He felt that the film said: "Wir wissen, wovon wir reden" ("We know what we're talking about"). Further, Wenders argued that Der Untergang could not be seen as presenting anything other than an uncritical viewpoint toward the barbarism of its subject matter, and accused the filmmakers of Verharmlosung (rendering harmlessness). Wenders supported this observation with close readings of the film's first scene, and of Hitler's final scene, suggesting that in each case a particular set of cinematographic and editorial choices left each scene emotionally charged, resulting in a glorifying effect.

The film's ending has also been the subject of criticism. In the film, the women in the bunker manage to escape or disappear. The truth was far more gruesome. Together with others in the bunker, Gerda Christian, Traudl Junge, Else Krüger and Constanze Manziarly left the bunker on May 1 under SS-Brigadeführer Wilhelm Mohnke's leadership. This group slowly made its way north hoping to link up with a German army holdout on the Prinzenallee. The group, hiding in a cellar, was captured by the Soviets on the morning of May 2. Like thousands of other German women during the fall of Berlin in 1945, Gerda Christian and Else Krüger were repeatedly raped by soldiers of the Red Army in the woods near Berlin. Junge was likewise raped repeatedly by Soviet soldiers, but she does not mention such a rape in her autobiography.

Finally, despite the film stating that Manziarly vanished in 1945, Junge recounts Manziarly being taken into an U-Bahn tunnel by two Soviet soldiers, reassuring the group that "They want to see my papers." She was never seen again after that. 

Downfall as an Internet meme
Throughout 2008 a number of clips from Downfall, especially the scene where Hitler finally realizes the war is lost, have become viral videos. The original German soundtrack remains but the clips are anachronistically subtitled (in English or other languages), to show Hitler erupting in rage over current events, video games, television shows, etc. The best-known of these videos in the United States has Hitler speaking as Hillary Clinton, infuriated by Barack Obama's victories in the Democratic presidential primaries. In February 2009 such a video protesting parking issues in Tel Aviv, Israel sparked a heated debate with Holocaust survivors regarding the legitimacy of jokes involving Hitler and the Nazi regime.