The Meaning of Hitler

This was a rather lame attempt to vilify Adolf Hitler and his personality. A documentary should at least make a cursory attempt to present both sides of the coin. Instead we get a hodgepodge of Hitler haters and ill-equipped pseudo historical speculators. The non-credential talking heads they used to justify the points they unconvincingly spewed out discredited the documentaries dubious message.

Anyone with any actual historical knowledge of the title character gets mocked and libelled. There was nothing mentioned about how Hitler became so enormously popular among the German people; nor any mention of his many accomplishments. Since his time frame in history is mainly focused around the Second World War, perhaps something should have been mentioned about the numerous battles his military engaged in; both successful and unsuccessful.

It should also be noted that no one has yet to lay claim to the cash award offered by the British historian David Irving.

This is an odd enterprise that seems to be an endless series of prefaces without a main analytical claim or narrative. Initially, it purports to shine new light on the relevance of the myth of Hitler and the fissures or wounds in a social culture that make fascism seductive for many people, but despite lining up some famous historians, these experts are never allowed to shape a coherent argument or narrative, but are often edited to speak in gnomic, mysterious sound-bytes that the documentarians use to launch, free-associationally, to literally some other person, place and a new set of observations. The documentary also clutters its path with the voguish but already tedious convention of lavishing screen-time on the clap-board apparatus of each interview. This is telling, as the documentary is more obsessed with its appearances and its mechanics than in being insightful or explanatory. It changes locales and interviewees about every 90 seconds, yet the film spends over ten minutes with a dull, clownish anti-historian notorious for claiming Hitler had no role in the Holocaust and was a "friend to the Jews." The documentarian says "how could we make a documentary about Hitler and not talk to" this guy? Uh, they could/ should have, and stuck to their original claim. Due to the experts it does allow to speak, the whole film is still interesting, but it tantalizes and torments more than it informs and spends too much time recycling known iconography, film clips (I bet you never saw clips of "Triumph of the Will" before), and familiar biographical and historical material, thus evading the promise of the film, which was to explain the appeal of fascism, which is now tormenting the West again, as many politicians in the first decade after the war were terrified it eventually might. They merely needed to live long enough to see a culture filled with apocalypse-courting, nationalistic, conspiracy-minded, half-educated truth-deniers with cheap, online broadcast opportunities. The moment 1940s experts feared is here. How our moment apparently resembles the 1930s in key ways, despite obvious economic differences, and how and why Hitler, a failure at everything but hypnotizing a nation of 80 million people into joining him in a suicide pact, appealed to Germans in the 1930s, is not made a coherent argument. The best thing the film may do is advertise the 1978 book by Sebastian Haffner, "The Meaning of Hitler"--that is a compact book-length argument (though it is itself debatable and odd in several ways--neither the film nor the book explain how German plutocrats and even aristocrats c. 1933 thought they could use Hitler as a simple tool, and then discard him). Though the film borrows some chapter titles from the book, it doesn't really reveal Haffner's analysis.

"The Meaning of Hitler" (2020 release; 93 min.) is a documentary about the long shadow of Hitler, now 75+ years after his death and the demise of the Nazis. As the documentary opens, we see a New York train commuter reading reading the 1978 book "The Meaning Of Hitler" by Sebastian Haffner (the original book was in fact titled "Anmerkungen zu Hilter", meaning "Notes on Hitler"), and the documentary makers take that book as a starting (and at times resting) point to muse about Hitler. We join the film makers as they travel to Austria to look at Hitler's birth place and upbringing, and his eventual failure as a painter. How could such a man become what he became? There is no single black and white answer... At this point we are 10 min. Into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from co-directors Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker. Let me state upfront that this isn't just another documentary on Hitler. It's a complex film that borders on a college class in character studies, with lots of talking heads making psychiatric and philosophic points about the rise and fall of Hitler. And yes, the parallels between Hitler and Trump are made in a chilling way. But it's not just Trump of course. Watch how the film makers trace the rising nationalism in various parts in Europe, notably Poland and Hungary. But plenty of other interesting points are made about the concept of was and peace. A tour guide in Berlin is asked "how did the Nazis invade Germany?". No, really. But here is the most chilling point: when asked if "it" can happen again, the 80-something professor and authority on the Holocaust responds simply "yes" (and then explains why--just watch!).

"The Meaning of Hitler" premiered on the film festival circuit in the Fall of 2020, and it opened out of the blue this weekend at my local arthouse theater here in Cincinnati. The Friday early evening screening where I saw this at was attended so-so, exactly 9 people including myself. If you have any interest in understanding how Hitler rose to power in Germany, and why something like that could happen again in the West, I'd readily suggest you check this out, be it in the theater, on VOD, or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray, and draw your own conclusion.

This was a much needed documentary on how society is slowly rewriting the events and facts of Hitler and the consequences of fascism in the 30s and 40s , however the message being relayed was far to complex and interlinked for an average viewer to absorb.

Very good points were made in this film but framed in a way too intellectual abstract manner that resembled more of a masters thesis study in videotape rather than a story to tell to the masses (which is clearly needed).

I hope other filmmakers take on this subject as it is so important for the young, disaffected and non political people in our societies to understand the risk as we head into voting in political parties verging on neo fascist ideologies especially in Europe.

This movie I'm afraid is not one to reach out and get the message out , unless you are studying politics at university.

The plus side the filmmaker traveled to many locations, talking head interviews from a good number of respected people from all sides, historians, victims, political etc.

10 out of 10 for research effort and subject matter but unfortunately 5 for script and delivery of message.

"The Meaning of Hitler" tries to do a lot of things. It broadly succeeds in some of them. But what was this documentary actually trying to do?

Well, let's first look at what it does succeed with:

It draws our attention to the fact that Hitler was initially just a regular guy. However, Hitler was very unusual for the fact that he had no friends, no family, had no children, was socially "outside". These would seem to be the symptoms, not causes, of his delusional megalomaniac rise. Also apparent through the documentary, is the observation that Nazism and its monstrous crimes are things that really happened because humans are capable of it.

Where "The Meaning of Hitler" loses its message a little is (perhaps) in looking at the recent return of the hard-right ultra-nationalist movements. These dangerous developments should give us cause for concern that the lessons of history have not been learned. Today's younger generations know nothing of war. We need to work to make sure they never do.

"The Meaning...." deals summarily, severely and correctly with anti-Semitic Holocaust deniers.

Overall, this documentary does succeed in pointing out and attempting to rectify and remove the strangely attractive characterisations that Hitler has been given in some parts of modern culture. We must learn the lessons of history and not repeat the mistakes. A little incoherent, but necessary watching.