Hitler

When I was a kid, I was obsessed with Hitler and all things Nazi. TV was exploding with war movies and "historical drama" especially during late night Tv programming. I first saw Hitler on the "Late show" when older movies were shown. As a kid, I completely missed the plot of the movie being about Hitler's sexual hang-ups. For instance his devotion to his dead mother(Which never left him) Sado-sexual desires, controlling all aspects of a woman's life. Which led to the still unsolved case of Geli Ruebal's suicide (The movie gives an obviously fictional account of Geli being murdered by Emil Maurice and Himmler) Hitler, supposedly could only be aroused by being humiliated and urinated on by a partner.(According to Dr. Walter C. Langer's psychological assessment of Hitler published under the title "The Mind of Adolf Hitler) Homosexuality is alluded to (this was 1962) by Roehm's suttle attraction to an SA trooper. In one scene that could be viewed as homoerotic, a group shirtless, muscular men are seen being hanged on the gallow. Roehm alludes to a homosexual relationship with Hitler, although couched in vague terms.. Maybe not 100% accurate, (What movie really is) I think this movie deserves a view.

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Richard Basehart is OK as Hitler, even if a bit over the top. The rest of the cast is horrible, frankly. The film is an attempt to render Hitler from a psychological perspective, but the insights it offers are cartoonish oversimplifications at best, and can't make up its mind what Hitler's "problem" was. At one point it is implied he was impotent, at another point it is suggested he was homosexual. And always the business about his mother. The film offers more speculation than fact. The time frame of the film is a bit skewed too. Nothing of Hitler's youth is presented for a supposed psychological study. The year 1934 takes up nearly half the film; World War II gets at most ten minutes start to finish. In the end you have no more understanding of Hitler's personality, or his appeal to Germans, than you did at the outset. Which marks the film as a failure.

I was very excited to see the film being a History Major in college and somewhat of a World War 2 buff , but I found the movie to be slow and silly. Eva Braun was nothing like the portrayal of her done in this film. She was a silly, and light hearted girl who laughed a lot. This movie portrays Hitler as a sexually frustrated weirdo who is obsessed with his mother, when those who lived around Hitler swear that he had a healthy sexual relationship with Braun. The acting was good, but the script was just not even close to accurate. Also, Stauffenburg was not hanged..he was shot. The film takes to many liberties with the historical record in my opinion.

The character of Adolph Hitler will fascinate historians for more than the thousand years he wanted his Reich to last and for psychiatrists even more than that. The folks who are schooled in both disciplines get something to analyze with this film Hitler and Richard Basehart's performance in the title role.

As for performance the reason for Hitler being the nasty dude that he was that the Fuehrer was a dud in the bedroom. That was something Geli Raubel played by Cordula Tantrow said and signs her death warrant in saying same. In fact she more than hints at the reason, possible incest with his mother. Something that Hitler himself would reject after all psychiatry was simply "Jew science".

Eva Braun portrayed here by Maria Emo is another ill defined role. If we believe Albert Speer's memoir Eva was basically a nice girl without a political thought in her head, but was simply a power groupie and a celibate one at that.

Such familiar faces as Hogan's Heroes Sgt.Schultz played by John Banner is Gregor Strasser, John Mitchum is Hermann Goering, and the obligatory Martin Kosleck is Joseph Goebbels. Berry Kroeger is Ernst Roehm with barely a hint of the homosexuality that later offended Hitler so mightily after when he had to make a deal with the army. The Code was still in place, but you'll spot it in the film.

Richard Basehart gives a sincere portrayal of Hitler. But the film is badly written and directed.

In what's without a doubt the best interpretation of Nazi Dictator Adolph Hitler, until it was eclipsed by Bruno Ganze portrayal of Hitler in the 2004 WWII classic "Downfall", Richard Basehart gives the performance of his life as the psychotic and later suicidal German Fuhrer who at one time was the most powerful man on earth. That's until the roof and walls caved in on him and his so-called "Thousand Year Reich" that came apart in the spring of 1945.

The film "Hitler" goes mostly into Adolph Hitler's very personal life that had to do with his relationships with his teen-age niece Gila Raubal, Curdula Trantow, and later his personal photographer's young assistant Eva Bran, Maria Emo. The two women who most reminded Hitler of his late mother Klara Hitler who died of cancer when he was still a teenager back in the winter of 1907. The movie brings out that Hitler had a very strong attachment to his mother that kept him from having any kind of serious relationship with women in his future years as both an adult as well as German Dictator.

The film "Hitler" starts out with the 1923 failed Beer Hall Putch in Munich that turned out to be a godsend for Hitler who besides having some two dozen of his fellow Nazis killed by the local police was himself captured tried and convicted of high treason and sent to Lansberg Prison where he ended up serving only a year behind bars! If anyone else would have tried to do the same thing when Hitler was in power he or she wouldn't have gotten off so easily. It was while in Lansberg Prison that Hitler wrote what was to be the Bible of the Nazi Party "Mein Kampf". In fact "Mein Kampf" was a blueprint for Hitler's future plans when he took control of Germany! But no one took it seriously until it was too late which eventually lead to WWII and the loss of over 50 million lives!

Between Hitler's steamy and odd-ball affairs with Gila Raubal and Eva Braun we also see his climb to the leadership of he German Nation in becoming it's ultimate and all powerful leader or Fuhrer but at the price of hundreds if not thousands of fellow Germans. Many like his good friend and WWI army buddy the commander of Hitler's dreaded Brown Shirts the SA Ernst Rohm, Barry Kroeger. It was Rohm's misfortune to stand in the way of the German General Staff who felt him to be a threat to their power with his two million strong army of Brown Shirts. It was the German Army General Saff that got Hitler, who at the time was only the German Chancellor, to do Captain Rohm in together with his top lieutenants on "The Night of the Long Knives", June 30-July 1,1934, in order to gain their support. With the German Army now solidly behind him Hitler now had the means to accomplish his goal of conquering the entire world or end up dead, which he did, doing it!

We get to see Hitler go from almost conquering all of Europe only to end up some 100 feet under the streets of Berlin in his reinforced steel and concrete bunker with only a few loyal Nazis like Propaganda Minster Joseph Goebbles, Martin Kosleck, and soon to be wife-"The Bride of Adolph Hitler"-Eva Braun at his side. With death staring him in the face Hitler rewards Eva Braun in becoming his wife as the two end their lives, with bullet and cyanide capsule, as their world, the Third Reich, goes up in flames together along with them. The film ends abruptly without the usual "The End" or closing credits implying that Adolph Hitler, and his many crimes, are somehow still with us.

Remarkable performance by Richard Basehart as the Nazi Dictator Adolph Hitler that has been almost forgotten over the years by the movie going public with the film almost never being broadcast on TV or available on VSH tapes or DVD disks. Now with the film being shown on TCM on what turned out to be the 65th anniversary of Hitler's death people will finally be able to see just what a buried gem it was all these some 40 years that it was kept from the public and laid on the shelf collecting dust.

P.S Despite his notorious and racist reputation especially in his dislike of those not being like himself, of the white Aryan race, Adolph Hitler's autobiography "Mein Kampf", which has been banned in both Germany and his native Austria, has become one of the biggest best sellers in Third World country's like India China, where its only available for research purposes only, as well as the Muslim World! In fact even here in the West, Europe and the USA, more books and movies have been published and made about Adolph Hitler then those of his WWII adversaries British Empire Prime Minster Winston Churchill US President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Soviet Primer Joseph Stalin combined!