Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin

The title of this German documentary ("Im Toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretarin") would be more accurately translated as "The Dead Zone: Hitler's Secretary". An even better title would be "Dead Calm", as in the eye of a hurricane. The narrator or interviewee, Traudl Humps Junge, maintains that -- far from being at the hub of the Nazi regime and privy to sensitive political and military information -- she was actually completely out of the loop in the splendid isolation of the Wolf's Lair.

But "Blind Spot" is an equally apt description of Frau Junge's vantage point on Hilter and the war years, especially at the beginning of her career. The Hitler she knew was partly a creation of her own mind. She admits that she was attracted to him as a benevolent father figure, one she needed to compensate for the shortcomings of her own parents. The Hitler she depicts in the first half of the documentary is light-years removed from the Hitler portrayed by Noah Taylor in the recent feature film "Max".Frau Junge's Hitler is almost endearing ("gentle" is her word), with his fondness for his pet dog Blondie, and his abstemious lifestyle as a vegetarian and teetotaller.

Yet, in retrospect, Frau Junge wonders why she did not see Hitler for the monster he turned out to be. If nothing else, he lived in total denial of the realities of global conflict and mass genocide. He preferred to eat with his secretaries and avoid the war talk of his male staff. When travelling through a devastated Germany by train, he kept the window blinds pulled down. He was careful about his diet, yet this did not prevent him from being dyspeptic and suffering from digestive complaints.

In the second half of the documentary, Frau Junge details Hitler's last days before committing suicide in his bunker. Over and over, she uses the same three adjectives like a refrain or leitmotiv: "nightmarish", "weird", "macabre". Her face shows little emotion, except when she speaks of the six Goebbels children who were injected with poison because their mother could not conceive of life after the Third Reich. Her voice is calm and strong. (Indeed, I found myself able to udnerstand much of the original German because her diction was so clear.) Her version of events does not sound rehearsed. Like anyone else recalling a distant past, she sometimes forgets to recount something and must backtrack. She is a credible witness to history -- and yet, at the same time, her story is that of someone wearing blinkers or with tunnel vision. As the old saying goes, "Hindsight is better than foresight", and "There is none so blind as he who will not see."

Hitler's denial of reality, and Frau Junge's "blind spot", are the reflection in microcosm of an entire nation's unwillingness, for decades, to acknowledge its responsibility for the horrors of the Nazi regime. Frau Junge says that even the revelations of the death camps, and the Nuremberg trials, were not enough to force the German people to look themselves squarely in the face. She herself did not tell her story for almost 60 years.

Just before the lights go up, we learn that Frau Junge died of cancer the day after the documentary premiered in Berlin. In her last conversation with the filmmakers, she confessed, "I think I am just now beginning to forgive myself."

André Heller is one of the most original and daring artists of post-War Austria. Singer/songwriter, circus organizer, garden architect, multimedia artist and more, he has maintained a highly personal style (a postmodern baroque) which never slid into routine. This interview film sees him once again doing something quite unlike his previous projects, and the idea - to have Hitler's private secretary talk uninterrupted as in a solitary anamnesis - is valuable, remarkable, admirable. But why does everyone fall for the hype formula that this is the time when the film's subject, Traudl Runge, broke a silence kept for almost sixty years after the fall of the Third Reich? I have seen this Traudl Junge give inside views of Hitler's household staff in earlier documentaries on the top Nazi echelon and the Third Reich. They were made-for-TV documentaries shown on the National Belgian (Flemish) television, as well as Super Channel. So while the testimony given here is valuable, it is not totally new. The film over-sells itself on that score.

6 out of 10

A pure interview movie if ever there was one. There are no effects, no cutaways, photographs, or anything else resembling anything of cinematic value. The picture merely focuses on Traudl Junge talking and recounting her years as Hitler's secretary. It is shot on videotape an almost looks like someones home movie. The subject is captivating enough, but calling this an actual film is a real stretch. Even a TV interview have better visuals.

In some ways this is good and almost a novel idea because it avoids the distractions that come about when too many visual 'enhancements' are thrown in. It allows the viewer to totally focus in on what the subject is saying and allowing them to create their own mental pictures. However the framing, setting, and editing all look horribly amateurish. The editing is especially a problem. Black frames pop up to cut from one interview segment to another and it gets distracting even a bit disconcerting. It also hurts the flow of the picture although this seems to happen more at the beginning and by the end pretty much drops off.

Content wise the stories are interesting, but really don't offer any major revelations. Junge seems to be given free rein to talk about anything she likes in anyway that she wants with no direction. A more crossfire type interview may have allowed it to be better structured and more of a impact. At best her stories can be described as being revealing and even slightly amusing. If anything her portrait of Hitler is different from anyone elses. His comments towards her during her interview for the job is down right stunning and memorable. Her accounts of his actions and reactions to things during the last weeks of the war will really surprise some people. In fact some of it seems so weird that it is almost too hard to imagine.

Overall despite it's humble production values it still has some good elements. Those that are interested in history and psychology should find this the most interesting. Junge seems a very affable and unpretentious individual that displays some amazingly good insight. Her accounts of the final days of the war are the most vivid and captivating part of this picture. The only thing that is missing is a little more on Junge the person especially with her adjustments after the war ended.

Much is being made by BLIND SPOT's producers that Junge has been silent all these years, never speaking on record until they interviewed her just before her death. Actually Junge was interviewed at great length for the epic documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR, produced for British television in the '70s.

Junge's english was excellent, and her original interview, conducted 30 years ago, was just as chillingly matter-of-fact as I hear the current one is. BLIND SPOT sounds very compelling, and certainly not in need of inacurate hype about its uniqueness.

The DVD of WORLD AT WAR contains an expanded version of Junge's interview in its extras section, along with an appearance by a then thirty-year-younger historian Stephen Ambrose - WITH LONG HAIR!

The film consists entirely of headshots of Traudl Junge talking about her experiences as secretary to Adolph Hitler from 1941 to the end of World War II. The film is in German with English subtitles; at times the subtitles were hard to read because of a light background.

A slide at the beginning of the film said this was the first time Frau Junge had spoken about her experiences. I seem to recall she was interviewed in the 1970s television series, "The World at War."

The film starts slowly as Frau Junge tells about her background. Her parents were divorced when she was young and she was raised by her mother. She got the job working for Hitler through a family connection. Junge explains she was one of four secretaries who worked for Hitler.

When she starts talking about Hitler she notes that he never talked about Jews or the death camps. She claims not to have known of the Final Solution. I do not doubt Junge's veracity. I do worry this will give ammunition to Holocaust deniers. (How could the German government be perpetrating these murders and Hitler's secretary didn't know.)

The most interesting part of the film is Junge's recounting of life in the bunker at the end of the war. She said that they lost track of time and were, for example, eating at odd times. They had no idea of what was going on outside.

Hitller and the other officials in the bunker mad plans for suicide. Hitler had gotten some cyanide tablets from Himmler. After a rumor started that Himmler had opened negotiations with the allies, Hitler tested the cyanide on his beloved dog, Blondie. The dog died.

Junge was present at Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun. After the wedding, Hitler dictated his "political testament" to Junge. She said she had expected him to reveal what had gone wrong, instead, Hitler dictated his usual diatribes against the Jews and blamed the German people for being unworthy of his vision.

The film ends with Junge observing that Hitler was wrong about what would happen after the war.

Anyone at all interested in World War II should see this film.