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Putting on my own amateur psychologist's hat, I can understand the impulse, when confronted by evil, to deny that the perpetrator is fully human because that would make him, in some sense, like us.

However, it is profoundly dangerous to label people as non-people. That's exactly what Hitler and Stalin did. A person can be incredibly destructively evil and at the same time a fully human being who shows us how low a human being can go. To fear that I too could wind up in such a hell is not the same as sympathy for such devils.

And what we've done, lest we forget.

Actually, done AGAIN, AFTER seeing what happened when we did it the first time (slaves), then what happened when Stalin and Hitler did it.

Will we ever learn? How can you all take the moral high ground when three blocks from your house a doctor is taking the life of a baby?

You people make me sick - passing judgement on Germans when in your own backyard the SAME THING IS HAPPENING. At least the termination camps were where the Germans couldn't see them - we drive by abortion clinics every day.

tSG

Let's see, on this thread it appears that knee-jerk peacenick Germans are once again invading France and moving forward with plans for world domination.

A lot has happened right under my nose in the last year and a half. Apparently their meagre defense budget has been secretly increased and the entire population has been re-educated solely based on a movie that has not yet been released and no one on this thread has ever seen.

For those of you who do not currently live here, let me clarify a few matters: First of all, at most 4% of Germans are racist facists - which is probably a much lower percentage than Freepers and maybe even Americans as a whole. Secondly, any neo-Nazi rally is generally countered by a rally 5 to 10 times the size. There are always more police than Nazis. Thirdly, there are currently demonstrations taking place every Monday (by the left and on a huge scale) to stop the reform of the world's most generous unemployment system. Fourth, as far as Hitler being facsinating is concerned - of course he is facsinating. As has already been pointed out, that was his power and his appeal. There are people all over the world - including in the US - who remain enthralled by his image and deeds - regardless of whether they seek to emulate or condemn them.

Germany is such a pacifist country that it should be the poster child for an American occupation. If Iraq is a modern economy full of girlymen who refuse to fight alongside us in 50 years, we have done a great job.

Lastly, my guess (since I have also not seen the film) is that Hitler is being portrayed as a banal, although insane, human being and not as a demigod-like figure as Goebbels and Reifenstahl's propaganda tried to portray. His followers want to see a god, the movie portrays him as merely a human being and even a pitiful one at that. By doing so, the blame for the crimes committed cannot rest squarely on his shoulders, but rather on the German people who made his rise and crimes possible.