Der Untergang, a new film about the last 12 days of the Third Reich, has made cinematic history. For the first time in Germany, Hitler and other leading Nazis have been depicted fictionally. A fierce debate has arisen about the rights and wrongs of such a depiction. Is it another sign of Germany's much coveted "return to normality"? Or does it instead mark the loss of some kind of historical and moral sensitivity? Will the Third Reich eventually become, like ancient Rome, so much fodder for the entertainment industry?
As so often happens, the film itself has almost disappeared beneath all the polemicising. It is not particularly bad, but neither is it particularly good. Its chief flaw is a slavish subservience to the historical record. Hitler's conversation, in particular, is lifted directly from eye-witness accounts. The result is an aesthetically stifled production, more "faction" than fiction. Even in its cinematography, Der Untergang lacks boldness. The battle scenes, with their combination of melodrama and hi-tech, hardly venture beyond the conventions of Hollywood epic. Such extraordinary events cry out for a more extraordinary treatment. What, one wonders, would Eisenstein have made of this material?
Der Untergang has, however, one redeeming merit - Bruno Ganz's superb portrayal of Hitler. The Swiss-born actor has clearly made a thorough study of the old footage, and the result is a miracle of mimicry. The thick, spluttering Austrian accent, the rage, the expressionistic hand gestures that verge on comedy (for English viewers at any rate) - all this is rendered to perfection. And Ganz also convincingly portrays something for which there exists no footage, namely Hitler's dawning awareness of defeat. He roars and bellows, shifts divisions around the map, but cannot halt the Red army's advance. His monologues trail off into silence, as if in recognition of their futility. He is a magician reciting spells that have long since lost their magic.
Ganz succeeds, above all, in making real one of the best documented yet strangest facets of Hitler's character - his likeability. Many visitors to Berchtesgaden reported back on the Führer's charm; even George Orwell confessed that he found it hard to dislike the man. That someone so wicked could be at the same time so likeable is a mystery, and one which this film, to its credit, does not shirk or gloss. Ganz's Hitler is kind and attentive, especially to women. With his ministers he is trusting to the point of naivete; he gazes deeply, imploringly, almost piteously into their eyes. Watching the film, I was reminded of Albert Speer's admission that he felt "protective" towards Hitler. This remark had always struck me as odd; how could you feel protective towards someone with absolute power? Ganz's achievement is to show just how Hitler might have inspired such feelings. He shows that this was a man who ruled through love, not fear.?
This portrayal of Hitler has attracted most criticism in Germany itself. It is condemned as trivial and sensationalist; it is accused of substituting personal drama for collective processes. "In order to proceed from astonishment to understanding," writes Jens Jessen in Die Zeit, "we require not only facts but also historical narration... the reconstruction of political structures and social mentalities." Hans Mommsen, the doyen of German historians, agrees: "The reduction of history to pure biography is totally unsuitable for transmitting an understanding of great historical processes." Behind such remarks lies the traditional Hegelian or Marxist view of history as a vast, autonomous movement, sweeping individuals along in its wake. But during the Third Reich, the whim of an individual did decide the fate of millions. Even in the last 12 days covered by Der Untergang, we see Hitler make a decision - not to surrender - that cost thousands of lives and shaped the future political map of Europe. If ever the biographical approach had a legitimate right, it is here.
But this insistence on great historical processes conceals something more deeply felt, namely a suspicion of fiction's power to upset moral judgement. This is the root cause of the German intelligentsia's dislike of Der Untergang. It fears that any attempt to portray Hitler directly, without the usual panoply of moral censorship, may awaken something like sympathy. And how can we be permitted sympathy for the devil? The debate recapitulates, in a weirdly inverted form, traditional theological arguments about the representation of God. Graven images are forbidden by Judaism, Islam and certain strands of Christianity on the grounds that they humanise God, compromising his absolute transcendence. Precisely this same charge of humanisation is now raised against Der Untergang. It seems that Hitler, like God, must be held at an abstract distance, unredeemed by any trace of humanity. Otherwise, we are on the slippery slope to relativism and moral chaos.
But the point is that Hitler, unlike God, was a human being. There is therefore no exemption from the duty of comprehending him as such. Nothing human lies outside the scope of art, for the depiction of humans as humans - that is to say, as complex, multi-faceted, less than absolute - is what art is all about. And history too is compounded out of the complexity of individual lives; it cannot be dissolved into impersonal structures or processes or subsumed under tidy moral judgements. Yet it is precisely a close, imaginative engagement with Hitler that Germans fear and mistrust. "Naturally one feels unwell when obliged to come close to a monster," writes Andreas Borcholte in Der Spiegel. "Yes, Hitler occasionally scolds fearsomely and vents enough antisemitism to inspire hate. But then Ganz lets him bill and coo tenderly with Traudl [his secretary] or imprint his Eva with a heartfelt kiss on the lips. Here there stirs a willingness at least to understand this figure. But does one want that? Of course not."
The implications of this remark are extraordinary. Borcholte seems to be suggesting that the record be doctored so as to ensure that viewers arrive at the "correct" conclusion that Hitler was indeed a monster (as though this were ever in doubt; as though any sensible viewer could weigh Hitler's kindness to his secretary against his murder of millions). Such an attitude spells the death of art, and indeed of thought in general. But it is typical of the political correctness that pervades all aspects of German culture. Not only Hitler, but many other subjects are simply off limits. They are too fraught with painful memories to risk frank discussion. Jokes are especially problematic, particularly when they concern nationalities. And on the political level, it is clear that any way out of the current economic impasse would require a degree of toughness impossible for most Germans to contemplate. Germany is still, to this extent, living under the shadow of Hitler; it is still a self-gagged, self-censored nation. The question raised by Thomas Mann in his postwar novel Doctor Faustus still awaits an answer: "How can 'Germany,' whatever form it takes, ever again venture to open its mouth in human affairs?"
