David Crown
Nutting
GPS 315
5/17/13
Peace, War, and Art
In this assignment I watched the movie “Downfall” Directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel. This movie follows Adolf Hitler, his Secretary Traudl Jung, and Joseph Goebbels during WWII as the war was ending. I took in this movie as a historical representation of what happened, and also took into account the dialogue the director emphasized in order to paint the picture he wanted to create. I find it important to point out that though the movie was told in the perspective of hitler and the German force, there was no agenda or bias in support of the nazi effort. In fact, the movie pointed out exactly what was wrong with the war effort and how the war convention really does work. Which leads me to my point, in this film I recognized many things that we discussed in the classroom, such as direct/indirect violence, the war convention, violence through a system and much more.
At the start of the movie Hitler’s actual secretary, Traudl Jung, who lived on through the war, spoke about exactly how she feels stating, “I’ve got the feeling that I should be angry with this child(herself), this young and oblivious girl. Or that I’m not allowed to forgive her for not seeing the nature of that monster. I didn’t realise that fate would lead me somewhere I didn’t want to be. But still, I find it hard to forgive myself.” This being the very first line in the beginning of the movie sets a strong tone as to the direction of the film. Looking back at the bigger picture Jung realizes the wrong of what she was doing, being the accomplice to Adolf Hitler and that his goal was wrong. Upon being hired Jung had no idea that she would be working for a monster and just thought she was getting a secretarial job with the leader. In her perspective I can see how she is just the victim of a system, that she just happened to have a job that caused her total grief, trauma and suffering. This bringing me to my point about violence through a system. Young Traudl was working to support herself and to live her dream, and in efforts to do such she was the victim of something much worse. In this semester we talked about less extreme cases about getting carpal tunnel in our hands from typing so much from the needs of the job, and how that was the violence that we were receiving, however in the case of Traudl, there was much more than indirect violence, and that there was a great deal of direct violence from the war.
The Essay on Does Human Nature Cause War And Violence
Does human nature cause war and violence? What has the world come to these days? Its very complicated question and it often seems like everywhere one looks, violence rears its ugly head. In our life, the streets, back alleys, school, and even at home we see the violence. But I agree with Ellen Goodman that to have a discussion about violence without talking about war is like talking about war ...
Hitler’s political objective was to just push his power onto the other nations that he was seizing whilst pushing his agenda of an all Aryan race. Though Hitler was a strong dictator and was excellent at getting what he wanted, he did not do as much work communicatively with other nations. At the beginning of the movie there is a change in plans for Hitler, the Russians were closing in on Berlin and he was not ready for such. He speaks with his commanding officers about what to do and the only answer that they had was to be political about these strikes and Hitler was not compliant and ordered to just send more Nazi forces in to take down the Russians. This brings me back to what Schell had to say about power, politics and war. Schell states that power is defined by the ability to wage war, “a monotonous record of one-side slaughter.”, and through that one’s political agenda shall be achieved, however, in this account hitler used just blunt war force as opposed to communicative political strategies. “Violence has now become dysfunctional as a political instrument”, says Schell in his response to WWII. WWII is the prime example and is used in Schells writing of “The Unconquerable World”, as war being the extension of political power.
The Essay on World War Party Hitler Nazi
The philosophical traditions of racism in Europe, the economic catastrophes of the late 1920's and 1930's, and the social attitudes following the end of World War I all led to the rise of the Nazi regime. Beginning in the 1880's Social Darwinism-the belief that certain races are better inclined to rule-became a commonly accepted doctrine supporting imperialism by Europeans. Two champions of this ...
The movie itself does not focus on much more than the brutality of war and the effects of war itself. So, in efforts to connect it to the course I can also see that in Walzers writing of “Just and Unjust Wars”, he states, “those who resist aggression are forced to imitate, and perhaps even to exceed, the brutality of the aggressor”. With this in mind, there would be no winning or losing the war until someone is able to outdo the other. With each power trying to overcome the nazi force there would be only total destruction in order to achieve their goal. This being because Hitler would not give up unless there is total and absolute defeat. Those who are affected by this are those that live in the surrounding areas, families of soldiers and many more. The harder the the national powers fight the more violence and destruction there is.
The movie ends with Adolf at his lowest point and going through depression. The war has taken a toll on his mental stability, leading to him taking his life. The movie does a great job at truly showing how Hitler was truly hurt and affected by his goals not being met. As strange as it is, this movie has really brought light to the truth and that there really was a “monster” within Hitler, however he was just another man with a misguided goal. The movie was brilliantly produced and directed and I HIGHLY recommend it. It is a two and a half hour long movie and adds in real life victims of the war. Overall I feel that the artistic value in the movie only highlighted what Schell, Walzer and many other writers we studied in this class had to say about war and it’s reflection to peace.
