Downfall: The Nazi Genocide as a Natural Disaster

This essay describes how the cinematic style, form and narrative of Oliver Hirschbiegel’s film Downfall (2004) convey a particular interpretation of history: one that is at odds with the schema of descent signified by its title. For as well as charting the disintegration of Hitler’s Germany, the film is equally concerned with the country’s moral regeneration, exploring and celebrating its capacity for reintegration with social norms. This affirmative counter-narrative rests on specific interpretations of perpetrator testimony and a Darwinian conception of social growth by way of natural cycles of destruction, with a generation of young and morally rehabilitated Germans outliving the weakened and morally decrepit Nazi regime, and specifically the virulence of Hitler. This essay worries about the fact that this view of history is not all that far removed from the pseudo-philosophy of Hitler himself and calls for a more critical and sceptical engagement with perpetrator testimony.