Swastika

Still a chilling, frightening film
I first saw this documentary in 1976. It took several days for me to shake the chilling, disturbing effect it had on me at the time. I just bought the DVD and watched about half of it. It still has the same effect, particularly if you have not seen it before.

What makes it so upsetting? It's not what you've come to expect in a documentary about Nazi Germany. This is the Nazis through their own eyes. The entire film is archival footage from the time. There is no narration. There are no post-facto talking heads. In short, there is no editorializing, and, lacking that, you start to see why the German people were willing to follow such evil people.

The bulk of the film is from before the war. The highlight is Eva Braun's home movies of Hitler and the Nazi leadership. We see Hitler relaxing at Obersalzburg, talking to friends, greeting children, petting dogs. As the film says at the beginning, it is necessary to see the human face of evil in order to...

A Must See Film!!
This is an absolutely fascinating look at pre-war Nazi Germany. The film attempts and I believe succeeds in allowing the viewer to experience what it was like to live in Germany prior to the Second World War. This was before the bombings, death camps and all the horrors that are now associated with the words Nazi and Adolf Hitler. Hitler as well as his inner circle are shown in a manner that makes them all too human and, for me; quite easy to relate to on a human level. That alone would make the film worth watching but what I really found extremely powerful was seeing how much the German people idolized Hitler and watching it could understand why. The film was vilified when it first opened and considered by many pro Nazi because it lets the viewer interpret this material for themselves. This is a film that doesn't "tell" the viewer anything. It is a film that makes the viewer experience something radically different and having experienced it forces them to understand exactly...

Not So Shockingly New
For those who are avid students of WW II, those who have seen the better WW II documentary films and those who watch a lot of The Military Channel and The History Channel on cable, 90% of the Berghof footage is old news. A lot of the Nuremberg footage is well known. There is a very short scene of one of the Braun sisters skinny dipping up in the mountains which was new to me. Yes,they played with their doggies, sipped tea, doted over the children, frolicked in the Alpine meadows and murdered millions. There are numerous scenes of ordinary Germans doing mundane things especially Bavarian farmers who look like Appalachian hillbillies. There is some interesting footage of German kids going to summer (indoctrination)camp and it looks like everybody in Germany wore a uniform. Look at the faces of the people in the huge crowds and you can see and feel the hysterical "fatal attraction" Hitler had over these people. This film is an excellent slice of German life from 1933 to 1939. The ironies...

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