Hitler

I borrowed my copy of "Hitler: The Rise Of Evil" to Weida, one of my camp mates who was struck by a sudden curiosity in that time of history. After watching the show he told me that he was amazed at how talented a speaker Hitler was, how he was such a genius to be able to manipulate people to do his bidding, able to make people see his point of view as the correct one. Stanley, after watching "Downfall" told me he how people shooting themselves for their beloved "Fuhrer"during the closing days of World War 2 was quite disturbing.

There was a side story in the movie "Downfall" about two children (not older than 13 or 14 I think) manning a Flak 88 with which they managed to take down a few Russian tanks with. Hitler heard about them and decided to go out of the safety of his bunker to present them with iron crosses for their bravery. At the end of the movie, those two children decided to shoot themselves when their position was being overrunned. One of them pointed the pistol at the other and pulled the trigger before turning the gun on himself, both of them doing the Nazi salute as their last act before dying.

There is no question what Hitler did was evil beyond compare. Millions died in concentration camps and the gas chambers. But there is also no questioning the genius that is Hitler, he was able to take control of Austria and Czechoslovakia without firing a single shot. There is no question about the hold he had over the people of Germany at that time, every man, woman and child look to him as a hero, messiah, superstar, they only fall short of giving him God-like status. They were willing to die for him like the two children mentioned in the previous paragraph.

"Downfall" caught a lot of flak from people who think the show makes Hitler look too human, there are scenes in the show where he is kind, he jokes and shows affection. But I think that is the point the makers of the show (who are all German by the way) wanted to put across. HE IS HUMAN! Modern history has done much to make Hitler look like the very personification of evil, the devil incarnate. But you can be assured that he is as human as human can be.

The decisions that Hitler made (right or wrong) made him the person he was and affects the way we remember him today. But there is no denying the bottomline. He is like us, capable of extreme affection or extreme evil and if we are not careful, we might become like him or worse. The choice is yours.