Humanizing Hitler

A new film focusing on the life of Adolf Hitler is roiling the European continent, and causing the German people to question whether it is ever acceptable to humanize such a monstrous figure. But humanizing the Führer is exactly what this movie is about, “a Hitler of failed dreams amid a collapsing empire, a man who at turns is delusional, hardhearted, vicious, but also tender, caring, despairing… Downfall cuts an accurate but narrow-gauge path through the historic moment, transiting between the claustrophobic choke of Hitler’s underground bunker and the raging slaughter in the streets of Berlin, avoiding the suffering of all but the Germans.”