[lit-ideas] Downfall (Movie)

I saw Downfall last night.  It's German, English subtitles, and is about the 
last days of WWII before Germany surrendered, including Hitler and Eva's 
suicide.  It's based on the recollections of Hitler's personal secretary.  The 
impression I got from this movie is that the German people were in the grip of 
some sort of mass hypnosis or mass hysteria.  The cliche is that Germans only 
followed orders.  There is one scene where Hitler is raging about the war going 
badly (it's a few days away from surrender) and scapegoats one of the generals, 
orders him to be shot.  The general reports to the bunker, and the guard asks 
him his business.  He replies, I'm here to be shot.  Mrs. Goebbels has a near 
nervous breakdown, begging Hitler to not commit suicide.  She literally 
(literally) is unable to picture life without the Nazi regime.  And she is 
hardly alone.  Eva goes to her death willingly, happily might not even be too 
strong a word.  All told, 50 million people were killed in WWII
 , including 6 million Jews and not counting the maimed and wounded and 
psychologically damaged.  50 million people.  And for what?  So senseless, so 
pointless.  Staggering stuff.

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