Hitler's Early Years Coming to Theaters: APPARENTLY, THIS IS NOT A JOKE

Fox News ^ | Monday, May 20, 2002 | By Roger Friedman

[Cinnamon Girl]

This is no joke. Adolf Hitler, the lighter side, the early years, is coming to movie theaters.

It's "Springtime for Hitler" without the jokes or the songs. Or the irony.

Max, a movie written and directed by Menno Meyjes, is scheduled for release on Dec. 27 by Lions Gate Films. The film, which takes place in post-World War I Munich, stars John Cusack as Max Rothman, a German Jewish art dealer who takes a young artist named Adolf Hitler (played by Noah Taylor) under his wing.

[Cachelot]

Thank for the link on nizkor. Didn't know that was there.

Lots of stuff on nizkor, probably the best resource site around. They seem to have got hold of that thing quite early, which leads me to believe that they probably got it from the Brits. The American copy was declassified just very recently (last year, i think) and is supposedly available via FOIA, but there's so much red tape that getting it out of there is for all practical purposes impossible. That declassification may be a reaction to the fact that the British have already had it released for some time.

For one of the psychiatric evaluations, see the Langer stuff. But there's much more on Hitler's background which tells you that he was never even close to normal.

[driftless]

I agree that there are many average people who would be monsters if given too much power but who are now laboring in circumstances where they cannot do much harm. But real monsters like Hitler also are far more assertive in seeking the power that would allow them to pursue their criminal dreams on a grander scale. You'll never know about certain persons unless of course you give them the kind of power Hitler had.

I would say that less than one percent of the population would do what Hitler or Stalin did. But these people also have the outsized drive to get that power which makes them different from the ones who dream of doing evil things on a grand scale but do not have the great drive or evil intelligence to realize it.

However they could very well be the ones "just following orders" or like Himmler, Eichman, Beria, etc. need the evil genius leader to put them in circumstances where they too could realize their warped fantasies. By themselves they could not achieve the level of evil that Stalin and Hitler did.

[aristeides]

Nothing here about what I thought was Lothar Machtan's well-argued case (in The Hidden Hitler) that the young Hitler was a practising homosexual.

[1234]

...young Hitler was a practising homosexual.

the book is convincing; and the angle of the 'fruity' young artist would seem perfect. Probably this angle isn't taken, in deference to the homosexuals in the entertainment industry: a homosexual portrayal of young "Wolf" would be counter-productive to their quest to further enter the mainstream.
However this homosexual HITLER plot deserves its own movie-let's see when the movie rights are picked up!

[steve-b]

But what may cause concern down the road is its humanizing of Adolf Hitler

It may be comforting to suppose that Hitler and other murderous tyrants are a breed apart, but it's a dangerous illusion. An honest look at their differences from -- and similarities to -- ordinary people makes it easier to nip them in the bud.

[Petronski]

If historically accurate, I would be very interested in this film. However, the screenwriter has a daunting task, as he must EXPLAIN the psychology of Hitler without appearing to JUSTIFY it. Anything that inspired sympathy, or even appeared to empathize, would be a big problem.

[Billthedrill]

I am of the opinion that far more people than we would ever wish to believe would, if given the power Hitler acquired, match or exceed his crimes.

I quite agree. There is often a tone of stridency in the description of Hitler - "hideous and reviled historical figure" for example - that strikes me more as an attempt to distance the speaker from Hitler than an attempt to understand what made him tick. That, in part, is the motivation for this film if I understand it correctly. Of course, it is easy to err in the opposite direction - Hitler was just a regular guy who is misunderstood, mistreated as a child, etc, etc, you know the drill.

There is no better way to get inside the guy's head than to read Mein Kampf - the answers to many of the questions asked in the article above are there in Hitler's own words. What develops is a picure of obsessive victimhood, scapegoating, projection of personal failings, and determination to lump opposition into a conveniently discrete group and make it pay dearly. And so he did. Unfortunately, that description also matches a good deal of today's radical leftwing politics, and guess what? We're the opposition. No one who has seen Stalin through Pol Pot can doubt the truth of your assertion - yes, there are many who would do precisely as Hitler did given the chance.