Oct - Old Ottawa South

Page 12 The OSCAR - OUR 31 st YEAR OCTOBER 2005
SECOND THOUGHTS
Downfall – The End of the Reich
Richard Ostrofsky
Second Thoughts Bookstore
quill@travel-net.com
A
few weeks ago, Carol
and I saw a German film
called Downfall (Der
Untergang) at the Mayfair – a reenactment
of the last weeks of
Hitler and his henchmen in the
Führerbunker in Berlin in March
and April, 1945. This article is a
response to the film itself, which
we admired, and to some hostile
reviews (amidst many favourable
ones) found afterwards on the
Web – particularly that by David
Cesarani and Peter Longerich, two
professional scholars of the war, in
a review called “The Massaging of
History” from The Guardian, April
7, 2005. (You can easily find this
C&L review with a Google search
on the keywords: “Cesarani,”
“Longerich” and “Downfall”).
As a movie, the film is visually
stunning, and superbly acted. The
role of Hitler, played by Bruno
Ganz, is altogether convincing.
Much smaller parts, notably those
of Joseph and Magda Goebbels,
are also very well done. As a
representation of history, the film
is questionnable – at least insofar
as Cesarani and Longerich are
able to question it. For example,
they complain that Traudl Junge,
Hitler’s private secretary through
whose eyes much of the story is
told, was not the political innocent
that the film asks us to believe.
They are astonished (though I see
no real contradiction here) that
Waffen-SS General Mohnke whose
unit massacred 80 captured British
soldiers outside Dunkirk in May
1940 and who later led a regiment in
Normandy that murdered more than
60 surrendered Canadian troops
is depicted “as a humanitarian
pleading with Hitler to evacuate
civilians and arguing with Goebbels
against the suicidal deployment of
poorly armed militia against the
Red Army.” Why a humanitarian?
Why not just a brutal, ambitious
general officer with enough sense,
by 1945, to see that the jig was up?
I am not competent to judge the
film’s historical veracity. Its sins, as
pointed up in the C&L review, are
of omission rather than fabrication,
as is not at all surprising. But
I don’t quite grant the review’s
charge that the film is slanted “to
depict the German people as the last
victims of Nazism” and to reinforce
“the sense of Germans as guileless
victims.” I think its message can
more fairly be read as a study in
political insanity. Indeed this is why
I found the film of interest, and why
I am recommending it: There are
only a few real crazies in this very
crazy situation. And even these few
are insane or evil in very different
ways, one from another. Most of the
characters in the Bunker itself, as in
the crumbling city above ground,
are relatively normal human beings
– doing desperate and horrible
things to be sure, but mostly swept
along by ambition, misguided
loyalty, respect for authority, fear,
desperation, or sheer force of habit.
To me, the “ordinary Germans”
in the film did not come off as
“guileless victims,” but mostly as
wretches and wretchesses who
chose willingly to follow insanity
and evil, made themselves its
By Richard Ostrofsky
One of the attractions
at Second Thoughts
Bookstore was Cayley, a
long-haired calico cat who used to
greet our customers by presenting
herself to be scratched and petted
before they were allowed to
browse the books. Most loved her
attentions, and more than a few
came to our store mainly to look in
on Cayley and play with her.
When the store was empty she
used to curl up with a book from
almost any section and ponder it
while awaiting her next admirer.
At night, weather permitting, she
used to range the neighbourhood
hunting for mice and sparrows and
bringing them home to play with.
It was a good life.
On Tuesday, September 13 th ,
at about 10PM, her luck ran out.
Crossing Sunnyside Ave. she was
hit by a car. Some people at Second
Cup saw it happen and called the
Humane Society, not knowing who
belonged to her. Meanwhile, four
Our Loss
willing instruments, and then, when
the end came, responded to the
collapse of their world in familiar,
pathetically human ways.
This re-enactment of the events
in Berlin in 1945 set me to musing
on ‘Dubya’s’ White House in
Washington, sixty years later. In
one case as in the other, we see a
weird combination of self-deceptive
idealism and cynical self-interest.
We see a bunch of arrogant little
men pretending to be masters of a
situation that is plainly beyond their
comprehension. We see a nation
over-reaching, squandering its
wealth and power, uniting a world
against itself, and wrecking its own
social fabric. We see a whole lot
of very large, infuriated chickens
coming home to roost.
Hitler, completely out of touch
with reality by March of 1945,
is counting on a few no longer
functioning army groups to relieve
the siege of Berlin, and win the
war in a final dazzling stroke.
One is prompted to wonder what
the American policy makers are
counting on today.
of our neighbours – Joyce, Fred and
Leah Cocolicchio and Curt LaBond
– recognized her, protected her by
diverting traffic around her, and
rang our doorbell to tell us what
had happened. Then they stayed
with Cayley, Carol and me until the
pet ambulance came – which was
and is greatly appreciated.
At the animal hospital, Cayley
was given anaesthetics, treated
for shock, and X-rayed. No bones
were broken, and she had no
obvious injuries, but she remained
unconscious from the anaesthetic,
if for no other reason. We brought
her home from hospital the next
morning.
On Wednesday the 14, she slept
all day in the store, in a box beside
my desk. Without really waking
up, she could drink water avidly
from an eye dropper, and lick a
little mushed chicken from Carol’s
finger. She seemed to be doing
OK when we went to bed, but died
during the night.
She will be missed.