Is anyone going to see the CBS special on Sunday At 9:00 pm.I think th e previews are great and I will defintly will be recording it.Anyone have any opinions about it post them on
Monday.I hope to get a lot of feeback.

I am definitely goig to watch it. I have a feeling this is going to be one of those two-part movies with conclusion next weekend.

I'm going to tape it because I'm going to the States next week. I'll watch it when I get back.

Saw the first part of this last night. I found it disturbing how they are portraying Hitler as being genuinely mentally ill, including some very subtle twitches and eye movements (which I've seen on people with mental illness) thus reducing some of his culpability in the events he precipitated. Along the same lines, his being protrayed as more of a puppet being managed by the party leaders, again, minimizing his own guilt.

IMHO it sucked! The actor didn't even come close to looking like Hitler. I think Anthony Hopkins played a much more realistic Hitler, even in the movie..... I think it was called "The Bunker"

I really loved the part were ol Adolph called the guys that burned the Reichstag "terrorists" and used the "terrorist attack" as an excuse to turn Germany into a police state. Seemed like pretty obvious jab at George W Bush to me. Other than that, it pretty much sucked overall.

I just saw the second part of this "series" last night. Overall, I thought it was fairly well done although some of the Hitler cliche's were slightly overdone. I also thought some of the character, such as Eva Braun, had inaccurate portrayals.
Also, knowing a fair bit about early NAZI Party politics, I must say that a number of details and figures were omitted. This was expected though as the normal audience of this presentation is not as knowledgeable on the topic as myself.
Anyway, I do suggest watching it if you have a chance,

Andrew

I wouldn't say a movie sucked just because the actors didn't look like the real McCoy. The guy that played Ernst Rohm was probably the one that looked least like the real Ernst. I think a movie that did an amazing job in its portrayal of Hitler is Hitler: The Last Ten Days with Alec Guinness. It was entertaining and seemed to be fairly accurate. I was somewhat surprised that they gave more attention to minor players in the Nazi Party than figures like Hermann Goering, who obviously played an important role in those early years.

Nic

I was glad they didn't play loose and fast with this one like they usually do. It was close to historically accurate, a few minor "hollywoodisms" If anyone thinks Adolph wan't mentally ill, I don't know how you've missed that. It was certainly not a way to reduce responsibility for what occured afterwards.

I didnt watch it but I heard a joke about it on Jay Leno's Tonight Show :
"The acters were so good in this show, the French accualy surrendered!"
That one made me laugh (++) (++) (++)

if this topic interests anyone, may I suggest you pick up some books on the topic of Adolf Hitler, and german history from WW1 thru the end of WW2. I would bet that you will be suprised at all the change that Hitlers government brought around for the good of the german people and nation prior to WW2. as for "not playing loose and fast on this one" I cant imagine how they could have done a worse job of changing and erasing history, via the mass media. basically I thought they did alot of rewriting of how they want people to rember this man. Im not pro hitler or pro nazi, just think we need more facts in mass media. TV is a powerful tool.

Bender

Even Hitler wouldn't have stayed in power if he hadn't done some good for his people. How else did he get them to revere him so much? Unfortunately, there were 6 million Jews that he didn't consider his people.

Nic

anyone after books on Hitler,his rise to power and the consequences of his rule should check out Hitler:Hubris and Hitler:Nemesis,both by Ian Kershaw,well written and genuinely readable. They offer a great deal of insight into the situation of Germany after WW1,the circumstances which allowed Hitler into power and the consequences of political decisions based on Nazi philosophy.I wouldn't leave the job of education to a two part mini series aimed at pulling in the viewers

I don't think anyone here would do that, but unfortunately a good number of the less historically inclined Joe Public probably would. A good example is with the movie Braveheart, which doesn't come close to representing the real story. Apparently, before the movie came out, referendums in Scotland regarding setting up their own parliament were all negative. After the movie, things went the other way. For better or worse, historical movies aimed at drawing in millions of viewers do have an effect people's views on the past.

Thanks for the book titles, stufer.

Nic

apologies about the last remark in my last post,i didnt realise how bad that looked in print! After doing my final paper on Nazi Germany whilst at uni,and being interested in that period of European history i still like to keep up with the different interpretations of what is still a fiercely debated era.Anything that can stir up debate is fine by me :-)

One thing I found interesting was the way the series seemed to give Hitler an 'out' for some acts. For instance when his niece is killed. The movie made it plain that Hitler probably wanted her dead, but didn't show him actually giving an order to have it done. It left it up to the viewer to decide if he had ordered her death, or merely that an over zealous bodyguard took it upon himself to kill her. I seem to recall things like this happening several times in the movie, another example being the fire at the Reichstag (sp).

One could make the point that this was to relieve Hitler of the blame or that it was merely the producers being strickly factual when there wasn't any direct evidence of Hitler actually giving the orders to have such things done.