Hitler's S.S.: Portrait in Evil

This was a rather good film. It artfully tells the story of the days just after the Nazi "Machtergreifung", and the power struggle between Himmler's SS (with Heydrich's SD an important part) and Ernst Röhm's SA, through the Hoffman family. Karl, a seeming true-blue National Socialist, joins the SA. His brother Helmut, an opportunist, joins the SS for career advancement, and deluding himself into believing that by being in the SS, he could "Do good on the inside".

This film does an excellent job in examining the motivations of Nazis, and of human feelings through Karl and Helmut's sibling rivalry. The acting was excellent, featuring Jose Ferrer as Helmut's old teacher, who is a Jew. However, I found the actress playing Mitzi to be repulsively vacuous. Tony Randall's cameo appearance was brilliant, among others.

Where this film fails is that it tries to do too much. Ity tries far too hard to address every issue involved in discussing the Third Reich, from Anti-Semitism, to the cause of the war, to the Hitler Youth, to propaganda, and so forth. This causes much superficiality, so that none of these topics is thoroughly addressed. The largest strength to this film, is that it so bravely and accurately portrays a historic episode, known as the Night of the Long Knives, in which Hitler has Röhm, and his SA leadership killed, presumably because they were planning a Putsch against Hitler. It re-examines an old issue, and it does it cunningly.

What I particularly liked about this movie was the fact that it showed a view of the Nazi regime from a different perspective, that of two young German brothers.

In the beginning when the Nazi party is first coming to power we see the life of two young German men. Like everyone else in Germany at that time they too are caught up in Hitler's fanaticism. One brother joins the S.A. and is chided by the other for going along with that "rubbish". But he ends up getting caught up in the S.S. when he is confronted by Heydrich at his university who then persuades him to join not for his beliefs in politics but for his intelligence. Neither knew what they were getting themselves into.

What's most interesting about this story is the emotional aspects. Seeing how the brothers reacted to things that were starting to happen in the Third Reich. It was all minuscule all first. Seeing S.A. officers push an old man down some stairs. The noble but innocent younger brother tries throughout the war to change the evil that was happening all around him but finds that he is blatantly overwhelmed by opposition from his fellow Germans. While the older brother accepts what he cannot change and tries to help his younger brother into being smarter about his actions. Both are forced along a path that is becoming increasingly harder to follow. It definitely shows how some Germans were forced to go along with what was happening or be killed themselves.

The acting in this movie was really well done. My only gripe was that the actors had British accents all throughout the movie which made you wake up from the story and detract from the realism. Some parts I busted up laughing seeing these guys in Nazi uniforms talking in thick British accents. But the acting by the two brothers was very good and believable. It was very emotional to see what they were going through and felt as they watched people die and the world change around them.

Handsomely produced TV film is an ambitious project in that it follows the rise of the Third Reich while telling the story of a German family, in particular, two brothers (BILL NIGHY and JOHN SHEA) who are swept into the wartime problems when the oldest joins the SS in 1931 and becomes a good Nazi (until he sees the scope of the horror) and the other eventually joins because he's under the illusion that he can change things from the inside.

Although it covers a span of '33 to '45, none of the actors age noticeably, the one weakness in an otherwise carefully detailed production.

This is not the first time this sort of subject has been handled. A less epic, more narrowly focused melodrama of two brothers with opposing viewpoints was made in the 1940s (UNDERGROUND - 1941) with JEFFREY LYNN and PHILIP DORN as German brothers taking opposite viewpoints of the wartime philosophy and directed by Vincent Sherman. Although it was a well done melodrama, it did not attempt to get the full flavor of the Third Reich and its various operations as this film does.

JOHN SHEA is especially impressive as the brother who speaks his mind against some of the Nazi practices and at one point even ends up for awhile in Dachau, the concentration camp. The other brother manages to get him released but there are still many trials and tribulations for both of them before the film reaches a dramatic climax. CARROL BAKER does a nice job as a worried German mother.

David WARNER is impressive as Reinhard Heydrich, the sarcastic and brutal Nazi officer who gets his comeuppance before the war is over. All of the performances are first rate and the story covers a good deal of actual history without ever losing track of its main characters.

Absorbing stuff, lengthy, but well worth watching.

This is a splendid drama set on Nazi time with thoughtful plot and slick direction by Jim Goddard . The tale of Helmut (Bill Nighy) and Karl Hoffmann (John Shea) , their turbulent relationships , brotherhood , their loving with same girlfriend , a nightclub Singer called Mitzi Templer (Lucy Gutteridge) and final confrontation . Both come of age at the start of Hitler's power in Germany and experience misfortunes , pains and sufferings . Helmut joins the ¨SS¨ commanded by Heinrich Himmler (John Normington) and eventually becomes a successful flag rank officer thanks to Heydrich . Karl (John Shea) joins the SA commanded by SA Chief Ernst Röhm (Michael Elphick) and suffers the darker side of Nazism after the SA is disbanded and Karl is thrown into prison and later conscripted into the German army. Helmut meets Heydrich (David Warner reprised his role of SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich , whom he previously portrayed in Holocausto ,1978) and appoints him as second-in-command . The story also deals with a family formed by father (Robert Urquhart) , mother (Carrol Baker) and their three sons . Brother is pitted against brother under the shadow of the Third Reich until their relationship finishes at the end . As in 1945 Berlin stands in ruins staying both brothers battling against Russian invasion .

The movie talks about various historic events , such as the confrontation between ¨SA¨ and ¨SS¨ , taking place ¨The Night of the Long Knives¨ , it was a purge that took place in Nazi Germany from June 30 to July 2, 1934, when the Nazi regime carried out a series of political murders. Leading figures of the left-wing Strasserist faction of the Nazi Party, along with its figurehead, Gregor Strasser, were murdered, as were prominent conservative anti-Nazis . Many of those killed were leaders of the Sturmabteilung (SA), the paramilitary Brownshirts . Adolf Hitler moved against the SA and its leader, Ernst Röhm, because he saw the independence of the SA and the penchant of its members for street violence as a direct threat to his newly gained political power . At least 85 people died during the purge, although the final death toll may have been in the hundreds, and more than a thousand perceived opponents were arrested. Most of the killings were carried out by the Schutzstaffel (SS) and the Gestapo (Geheime Staatspolizei), the regime's secret police .Röhm was held briefly at Prison in Munich, while Hitler considered his future. In the end, Hitler decided that Röhm had to die . On July 1, at Hitler's behest, Theodor Eicke, later Commandant of the Dachau concentration camp, and SS Officer Michel Lippert visited Röhm and killed him . Furthermore , ¨The night of the broken glass¨ , as the night of November 9, 1938, when terror attacks were made on Jewish synagogues and stores. Two days earlier, Vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris , had been assassinated by Grynszpan, a Polish Jew. In retaliation, Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD, ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany and Austria . The assault had been long prepared , the murder provided an opportunity to begin the attack. In fifteen hours 101 synagogues were destroyed by fire and 76 were demolished . The pillage and looting went on through the night , streets were covered with broken glass , hence the name Kristallnacht . Reinhard Heydrich artificer of the meeting of senior officials of Nazi Germany, held in the Berlin suburb of Wannsee on 20 January 1942. The purpose of the conference, called by director of the Reich Main Security Office; RSHA, SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich, was to ensure the cooperation of administrative leaders of various government departments in the implementation of the final solution to the Jewish question, whereby most of the Jews of German-occupied Europe would be deported to Poland and murdered . Later on , Heydrich leaves Berlin to take up a new posting as Nazi Governor of Bohemia and Moravia (Czechoslovakia) and there happens Heydrich's assassination, which being well recreated . Other events being finely narrated are the followings : Destruction radio station incriminating Polish rebels and subsequent Poland encroachment (1939) , siege and defeat Stalingrado (1943) , battle and fall Berlin (1945) .

Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil tells the story of this para-military force. the personal enforcement arm of Adolph Hitler in the Nazi movement and the Hoffman brothers and their connections.

Bill Nighy is the cleverer of the two brothers, recognizing the Nazi Party as the coming force in Germany in 1931 and decides to join this elite group. His brother John Shea likes a good time which includes a brawl every now and then. The SA under Ernest Roehm seems like his place in the Nazi movement.

Well we all know what happened to Roehm as his ambitions began to exceed even Hitler's. Shea gets himself tossed into Dachau for a little Nazi style rehabilitation. During the Thirties before the war, places like Dachau were not yet the systematic slaughter camps they later became. Shea eventually is released and is drafted into the army.

In the meantime Nighy becomes an upwardly mobile guy in the S.S. and a special favorite of Reinhard Heydrich, very chillingly played by David Warner.

Through all this Carroll Baker their mother worries about her boys. She's never been crazy about the Nazi movement, she sees what it's doing to Germany and her family. She's most of all concerned with her youngest son who is played by three different juvenile actors who is an enthusiastic member of the Hitler Youth.

What becomes of the Hoffman family is a tale tragically told many times over in Germany of that period. In this most British cast film, Tony Randall as a German comedian with trenchant observations of the time and Jose Ferrer as a Jewish professor have two excellent cameo roles.

No new ground is broken here, but this is a story that deserves retelling thousands of times over.