That was literally what kept going through my mind as I watched this documentary: "she seemed like such a nice person." Frankly, she looks like she could have been my (or anyone else's) grandmother. But therein lies the mystery of the Third Reich: how so many otherwise nice, decent people got caught up with and even became passionate supporters of perhaps the greatest evil in the history of humanity: Hitler and National Socialism.
The film is nothing more than a series of interviews with Gertrude Junge, who was Hitler's personal secretary from about 1942 onward. The camera is pointed at her and she talks about what it was like to work for Hitler. Dealt with at some length are the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, and the last week in the Fuhrerbunker. She was around during important times, but there's nothing of great historical interest here. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Third Reich will know pretty much everything she says, and even her personal anecdotes about Hitler are pretty well known. The only things I had never heard before were his aversion to flowers, and his kissing of Eva Braun on the lips after their marriage. Aside from those relatively unimportant points this is pretty standard stuff. But to be disappointed by the lack of original revelation would be to miss the point of the movie.
This isn't a historical documentary, and its purpose isn't to shed light on Hitler. What we're studying with this film is Junge herself, and, by extension, the many other decent Germans who got caught up in Hitler's madness. The title of the movie makes the point. Although the phrase "blind spot" is used by Junge, it's used in the context of the atmosphere after the German defeat at Stalingrad. To her, that was the point at which unreality set in. Defeat was looming, but no one acknowledged it. It was a blind spot. I don't think that was the point that directors Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer were making though. Repeatedly, Junge fell back on the line so many Germans have used since 1945: "we didn't know what was happening." It's hard enough to believe for your average, everyday German, but here was a woman who was daily in Hitler's presence, who took his dictation, who read his correspondence, who had access to State documents - and yet she says "I didn't know." This post 1945 "mass denial" is one of history's real dilemmas. You want to believe it, because you don't want to believe that decent people would have known and not done or said anything, and yet it's hard to believe. This was the "blind spot." It's not so much that people like Junge couldn't see what was happening - they chose not to see. Even the matter of fact way that Junge relates her story (although there are a few shows of emotion) seems to confirm that. (It reminded me a bit of the movie "Conspiracy" when the details of the Final Solution are worked out at a very routine meeting.) To me this film felt like Junge's death-bed confession. Here was a woman who - whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not - had known and had been involved. She hadn't loaded Jews on to the trains, or turned on the gas showers, or thrown corpses into the ovens - but she was there with the evil mastermind behind it all. How could she not know? The "death bed confession" aura became real when she acknowledges having felt guilty all her life, and then we discover at the very end of the film that Junge died of cancer the day after the film was released in 2002.
It's a very simple film, and in it's simplicity is its strength. It won't keep you on the edge of your seat, but it will keep your eyes glued to the screen and your ears listening for every word. 7/10
The film is nothing more than a series of interviews with Gertrude Junge, who was Hitler's personal secretary from about 1942 onward. The camera is pointed at her and she talks about what it was like to work for Hitler. Dealt with at some length are the July 20, 1944 attempt to assassinate Hitler, and the last week in the Fuhrerbunker. She was around during important times, but there's nothing of great historical interest here. Anyone with a basic knowledge of the Third Reich will know pretty much everything she says, and even her personal anecdotes about Hitler are pretty well known. The only things I had never heard before were his aversion to flowers, and his kissing of Eva Braun on the lips after their marriage. Aside from those relatively unimportant points this is pretty standard stuff. But to be disappointed by the lack of original revelation would be to miss the point of the movie.
This isn't a historical documentary, and its purpose isn't to shed light on Hitler. What we're studying with this film is Junge herself, and, by extension, the many other decent Germans who got caught up in Hitler's madness. The title of the movie makes the point. Although the phrase "blind spot" is used by Junge, it's used in the context of the atmosphere after the German defeat at Stalingrad. To her, that was the point at which unreality set in. Defeat was looming, but no one acknowledged it. It was a blind spot. I don't think that was the point that directors Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer were making though. Repeatedly, Junge fell back on the line so many Germans have used since 1945: "we didn't know what was happening." It's hard enough to believe for your average, everyday German, but here was a woman who was daily in Hitler's presence, who took his dictation, who read his correspondence, who had access to State documents - and yet she says "I didn't know." This post 1945 "mass denial" is one of history's real dilemmas. You want to believe it, because you don't want to believe that decent people would have known and not done or said anything, and yet it's hard to believe. This was the "blind spot." It's not so much that people like Junge couldn't see what was happening - they chose not to see. Even the matter of fact way that Junge relates her story (although there are a few shows of emotion) seems to confirm that. (It reminded me a bit of the movie "Conspiracy" when the details of the Final Solution are worked out at a very routine meeting.) To me this film felt like Junge's death-bed confession. Here was a woman who - whether she wanted to acknowledge it or not - had known and had been involved. She hadn't loaded Jews on to the trains, or turned on the gas showers, or thrown corpses into the ovens - but she was there with the evil mastermind behind it all. How could she not know? The "death bed confession" aura became real when she acknowledges having felt guilty all her life, and then we discover at the very end of the film that Junge died of cancer the day after the film was released in 2002.
It's a very simple film, and in it's simplicity is its strength. It won't keep you on the edge of your seat, but it will keep your eyes glued to the screen and your ears listening for every word. 7/10