Some people who have viewed and commented on this documentary have suggested that it is a sign of residual sympathy for Hitler (and maybe even for "National Socialism")if Hitler is portrayed in a human light: his "fatherly" qualities, his personal "warmth" and "charm," etc. But it is a great mistake to insist that, for Hitler to have been responsible for the monstrosities of the Nazi regime, he must have been a monster in his personal relationships as well. This leads to the facile equation: monstrous man commits monstrous deeds. And, of course, this proposition is very satisfying for most of us, because we think we can tell who's a monster and who is not in the political arena (everybody, that is, except for those dopey Germans of the 1930s). But the great lesson of the 20th century is that regimes can arise which do not require monstrous humans to do monstrous things--they do just fine with the human material available next door to all of us. Which is not to say that Hitler was not a psychopath or a sociopath, but only to say that he needn't have been one to be at the helm of a regime responsible for unspeakable atrocities. And so Frau Junge's portrait of Hitler should be seen as a reminder not to be taken in by the folksy, good-ol'-boy qualities of leaders, for whatever their personal likability may be, they can still be responsible for monstrous deeds.
33 Reviews
8/10
desperateliving29 January 2005
Near the beginning of the film, Hitler's secretary tells a story of a concentration camp guard asked if he felt pity for the victims, and that he replied yes, of course he does, but that he had to get over it for the greater good. His sense of morality was still intact, just perverted. Like that line in "Rules of the Game," everyone has their reasons. The film forces us to humanize the "bad" guys -- this is an old woman, and, with the exception of Leni Riefenstahl, nobody wants to immediately hate an old woman, least of all one was never a member of the Nazi party and whose own husband died fighting. She got the job largely out of chance: during her typing test, which she was doing terribly on, a phone call (which would prove life-changing) came in for Hitler and she had time, while he was on the phone, to calm herself down and type properly.
The film isn't much as a film, but the director does something very smart in showing her watch the film herself. On the one hand, it allows her to go back and make an addendum should something seem incomplete or out of context, and on a subject as touchy as this that makes sense. (And it's something that allows her to remain dignified -- the aim here isn't to "catch" her admitting to something, nor is it to make her into a symbol we can feel sorry for: she cries only once, and even then it's brief.) But on the other hand, it could also be seen to be allowing her to backtrack on her own admissions. For instance, at one point she dismisses her descriptions of Hitler as being "banal," and with the exception of her description of the joy he took in showing off his dog's tricks (that's too obvious a comparison for it to speak of his manner in dealing with humans), the insight she gives is valuable because it explains her experience, how it felt at the time. The atrocious digital video is painful on the eyes, but the director's decision to cut to her watching the video herself has a secondary value; at one point as she is watching the video she adds a question, asking rhetorically if Hitler had found Jewish blood in him, would he have gassed himself? Because it is so casually interspersed with the interview proper, and because of the echo in the room, it's a haunting moment, and it adds an aesthetic dimension to the film that is otherwise lacking (and maybe rightfully so).
She describes her house as being one raised by a man (her grandfather on her mother's side; her father was absent) who favored ideals such as backing down and making sacrifices. That, and the fact that she openly admits to being endeared to Hitler based partly on a paternal image, partly explains her naivety, but even the background reasons for why she didn't understand who Hitler really was (or what he was really doing, as she had a closer understanding of "who" he was than those of us who pontificate from a distance) doesn't do anything to change the fact that she can't live with herself because of it. The film doesn't really take an in depth approach at that, at the nature of her depression; it more listens to her relay the information as she experienced it, which is an interesting perspective. We get a good sense of her guilt when she describes Hitler's private courteousness vs. his bombastic public persona. Which was the evil one? If he had ideals in his private life, they became evils in his public life. But his success could not have been achieved if it was not for the collective "us." THAT is a troubling thought, and it betrays the common image we have of Hitler as the great evil. It's no wonder she was so distraught that after years of silence (and disinterest in her story) she emerges to make this film -- and then die after its release.
As a woman she has certain insights into the Hitler phenomenon. She never understood why Hitler received so many fan letters from women, remarking that she didn't see him as a sexual beast (she only once witnessed him kiss his wife Eva Braun on the lips), and that he had relatively "primitive" views on women -- he could never understand that a man might cheat on his beautiful wife with a less attractive woman; after all, what else could he want aside from his wife's beauty? She also speaks quite eloquently about eroticism, and it might seem out of place to praise her for it (or to praise the filmmakers for including it), but just hearing her, a woman of a certain age, talk openly about giving yourself over to the erotic (and how Hitler never did) is a pleasure in itself.
Those looking for a revelation into the Holocaust's inner workings will likely be disappointed -- even though she was in the bunker, she doesn't solve the Hitler suicide question (she heard an officer claim to have burned the body post-suicide, but didn't go look). But it's fascinating regardless, and she finds it fascinating too -- it's interesting to watch her fairly calm and reserved demeanor grow more excitable in the last half hour as she remembers certain bits of information. Listening to her, we get a pretty full sense of the mania of the last days -- she recounts the story of a wedding going on and the party afterward with someone playing an accordion; this, as Russian artillery fires in the background. Then she finds a rather poignant Hitler quote when she and others, knowing what Russian soldiers do to the women they catch, ask for cyanide tablets and Hitler consents, saying he wishes he could offer a better farewell gift. 8/10
The film isn't much as a film, but the director does something very smart in showing her watch the film herself. On the one hand, it allows her to go back and make an addendum should something seem incomplete or out of context, and on a subject as touchy as this that makes sense. (And it's something that allows her to remain dignified -- the aim here isn't to "catch" her admitting to something, nor is it to make her into a symbol we can feel sorry for: she cries only once, and even then it's brief.) But on the other hand, it could also be seen to be allowing her to backtrack on her own admissions. For instance, at one point she dismisses her descriptions of Hitler as being "banal," and with the exception of her description of the joy he took in showing off his dog's tricks (that's too obvious a comparison for it to speak of his manner in dealing with humans), the insight she gives is valuable because it explains her experience, how it felt at the time. The atrocious digital video is painful on the eyes, but the director's decision to cut to her watching the video herself has a secondary value; at one point as she is watching the video she adds a question, asking rhetorically if Hitler had found Jewish blood in him, would he have gassed himself? Because it is so casually interspersed with the interview proper, and because of the echo in the room, it's a haunting moment, and it adds an aesthetic dimension to the film that is otherwise lacking (and maybe rightfully so).
She describes her house as being one raised by a man (her grandfather on her mother's side; her father was absent) who favored ideals such as backing down and making sacrifices. That, and the fact that she openly admits to being endeared to Hitler based partly on a paternal image, partly explains her naivety, but even the background reasons for why she didn't understand who Hitler really was (or what he was really doing, as she had a closer understanding of "who" he was than those of us who pontificate from a distance) doesn't do anything to change the fact that she can't live with herself because of it. The film doesn't really take an in depth approach at that, at the nature of her depression; it more listens to her relay the information as she experienced it, which is an interesting perspective. We get a good sense of her guilt when she describes Hitler's private courteousness vs. his bombastic public persona. Which was the evil one? If he had ideals in his private life, they became evils in his public life. But his success could not have been achieved if it was not for the collective "us." THAT is a troubling thought, and it betrays the common image we have of Hitler as the great evil. It's no wonder she was so distraught that after years of silence (and disinterest in her story) she emerges to make this film -- and then die after its release.
As a woman she has certain insights into the Hitler phenomenon. She never understood why Hitler received so many fan letters from women, remarking that she didn't see him as a sexual beast (she only once witnessed him kiss his wife Eva Braun on the lips), and that he had relatively "primitive" views on women -- he could never understand that a man might cheat on his beautiful wife with a less attractive woman; after all, what else could he want aside from his wife's beauty? She also speaks quite eloquently about eroticism, and it might seem out of place to praise her for it (or to praise the filmmakers for including it), but just hearing her, a woman of a certain age, talk openly about giving yourself over to the erotic (and how Hitler never did) is a pleasure in itself.
Those looking for a revelation into the Holocaust's inner workings will likely be disappointed -- even though she was in the bunker, she doesn't solve the Hitler suicide question (she heard an officer claim to have burned the body post-suicide, but didn't go look). But it's fascinating regardless, and she finds it fascinating too -- it's interesting to watch her fairly calm and reserved demeanor grow more excitable in the last half hour as she remembers certain bits of information. Listening to her, we get a pretty full sense of the mania of the last days -- she recounts the story of a wedding going on and the party afterward with someone playing an accordion; this, as Russian artillery fires in the background. Then she finds a rather poignant Hitler quote when she and others, knowing what Russian soldiers do to the women they catch, ask for cyanide tablets and Hitler consents, saying he wishes he could offer a better farewell gift. 8/10
Hitler as a person
blanche-23 August 2017
This is a fascinating interview with Traudi Junge, who worked as Hitler's secretary as a young woman. That's all it is - an interview - you can't really call it a documentary. It's just her talking in closeup.
There are some remarkable moments in this interview: First, Trudi's description of Hitler as a person, gentle, soft-spoken, even paternal, a man who adored his dog Blondchen, watched his diet but had stomach problems, and for whom human beings meant nothing. In his mind, it was the ideal of the Superman that he was striving for.
As far as political and military situations, Junge claims not to have known much. She was in a sense shielded from the outside world as she and the other secretaries worked at first in Berlin, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, and lastly back in Berlin in the Führerbunker. They often switched off having lunch and tea with him - Hitler apparently wearied of dealing with war conversation with his officers.
Her description of the last days is amazing - the bombs going off around them, a wedding taking place in the bunker, and everyone getting cyanide capsules. The secretaries asked for them because, as Trudi said, what would the world be without the National Socialism? The picture Hitler painted was bleak; it would be horrible.
Being out in the world, Trudi realized that Hitler was 100 percent wrong, and as she learned more about the goings-on during the war, she began to feel guilty that she had not done more investigation to find out what was really going on, and guilt that she had liked such a monster.
I have only one statement about that. If she didn't know he was a monster originally, when he tested the cyanide on his beloved dog, he certainly revealed himself. She was moved to tears talking about the Goebbels children, who were going to be poisoned. For everyone, suicide seemed the only way out. He had no respect for any life.
Traudi, and a lot of Germans, had a "blind spot" - the title of this documentary - as to what was going on. I know for myself, at Traudi's age, one tends to not go into things as deeply as one should and to be oblivious to certain obvious matters. And as one ages, like Traudi, you being to remember those matters, your own behavior, and feel guilty. So what she felt to me was entirely normal.
However, if you lived near Jews and saw them taken away, where did you think they'd gone? Many Germans hid their heads in the sand. The banality of evil.
A truly excellent interview, but despite the claims, it wasn't the first time Traudi spoke publicly. But it was the first I'd seen, and I found it compelling and excellent viewing.
There are some remarkable moments in this interview: First, Trudi's description of Hitler as a person, gentle, soft-spoken, even paternal, a man who adored his dog Blondchen, watched his diet but had stomach problems, and for whom human beings meant nothing. In his mind, it was the ideal of the Superman that he was striving for.
As far as political and military situations, Junge claims not to have known much. She was in a sense shielded from the outside world as she and the other secretaries worked at first in Berlin, the Berghof in Berchtesgaden, at Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, and lastly back in Berlin in the Führerbunker. They often switched off having lunch and tea with him - Hitler apparently wearied of dealing with war conversation with his officers.
Her description of the last days is amazing - the bombs going off around them, a wedding taking place in the bunker, and everyone getting cyanide capsules. The secretaries asked for them because, as Trudi said, what would the world be without the National Socialism? The picture Hitler painted was bleak; it would be horrible.
Being out in the world, Trudi realized that Hitler was 100 percent wrong, and as she learned more about the goings-on during the war, she began to feel guilty that she had not done more investigation to find out what was really going on, and guilt that she had liked such a monster.
I have only one statement about that. If she didn't know he was a monster originally, when he tested the cyanide on his beloved dog, he certainly revealed himself. She was moved to tears talking about the Goebbels children, who were going to be poisoned. For everyone, suicide seemed the only way out. He had no respect for any life.
Traudi, and a lot of Germans, had a "blind spot" - the title of this documentary - as to what was going on. I know for myself, at Traudi's age, one tends to not go into things as deeply as one should and to be oblivious to certain obvious matters. And as one ages, like Traudi, you being to remember those matters, your own behavior, and feel guilty. So what she felt to me was entirely normal.
However, if you lived near Jews and saw them taken away, where did you think they'd gone? Many Germans hid their heads in the sand. The banality of evil.
A truly excellent interview, but despite the claims, it wasn't the first time Traudi spoke publicly. But it was the first I'd seen, and I found it compelling and excellent viewing.
"Blind Spot" should be required viewing
Shakespeare-215 April 2003
The title of this German documentary ("Im Toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretarin") would be more accurately translated as "The Dead Zone: Hitler's Secretary". An even better title would be "Dead Calm", as in the eye of a hurricane. The narrator or interviewee, Traudl Humps Junge, maintains that -- far from being at the hub of the Nazi regime and privy to sensitive political and military information -- she was actually completely out of the loop in the splendid isolation of the Wolf's Lair.
But "Blind Spot" is an equally apt description of Frau Junge's vantage point on Hilter and the war years, especially at the beginning of her career. The Hitler she knew was partly a creation of her own mind. She admits that she was attracted to him as a benevolent father figure, one she needed to compensate for the shortcomings of her own parents. The Hitler she depicts in the first half of the documentary is light-years removed from the Hitler portrayed by Noah Taylor in the recent feature film "Max".Frau Junge's Hitler is almost endearing ("gentle" is her word), with his fondness for his pet dog Blondie, and his abstemious lifestyle as a vegetarian and teetotaller.
Yet, in retrospect, Frau Junge wonders why she did not see Hitler for the monster he turned out to be. If nothing else, he lived in total denial of the realities of global conflict and mass genocide. He preferred to eat with his secretaries and avoid the war talk of his male staff. When travelling through a devastated Germany by train, he kept the window blinds pulled down. He was careful about his diet, yet this did not prevent him from being dyspeptic and suffering from digestive complaints.
In the second half of the documentary, Frau Junge details Hitler's last days before committing suicide in his bunker. Over and over, she uses the same three adjectives like a refrain or leitmotiv: "nightmarish", "weird", "macabre". Her face shows little emotion, except when she speaks of the six Goebbels children who were injected with poison because their mother could not conceive of life after the Third Reich. Her voice is calm and strong. (Indeed, I found myself able to udnerstand much of the original German because her diction was so clear.) Her version of events does not sound rehearsed. Like anyone else recalling a distant past, she sometimes forgets to recount something and must backtrack. She is a credible witness to history -- and yet, at the same time, her story is that of someone wearing blinkers or with tunnel vision. As the old saying goes, "Hindsight is better than foresight", and "There is none so blind as he who will not see."
Hitler's denial of reality, and Frau Junge's "blind spot", are the reflection in microcosm of an entire nation's unwillingness, for decades, to acknowledge its responsibility for the horrors of the Nazi regime. Frau Junge says that even the revelations of the death camps, and the Nuremberg trials, were not enough to force the German people to look themselves squarely in the face. She herself did not tell her story for almost 60 years.
Just before the lights go up, we learn that Frau Junge died of cancer the day after the documentary premiered in Berlin. In her last conversation with the filmmakers, she confessed, "I think I am just now beginning to forgive myself."
But "Blind Spot" is an equally apt description of Frau Junge's vantage point on Hilter and the war years, especially at the beginning of her career. The Hitler she knew was partly a creation of her own mind. She admits that she was attracted to him as a benevolent father figure, one she needed to compensate for the shortcomings of her own parents. The Hitler she depicts in the first half of the documentary is light-years removed from the Hitler portrayed by Noah Taylor in the recent feature film "Max".Frau Junge's Hitler is almost endearing ("gentle" is her word), with his fondness for his pet dog Blondie, and his abstemious lifestyle as a vegetarian and teetotaller.
Yet, in retrospect, Frau Junge wonders why she did not see Hitler for the monster he turned out to be. If nothing else, he lived in total denial of the realities of global conflict and mass genocide. He preferred to eat with his secretaries and avoid the war talk of his male staff. When travelling through a devastated Germany by train, he kept the window blinds pulled down. He was careful about his diet, yet this did not prevent him from being dyspeptic and suffering from digestive complaints.
In the second half of the documentary, Frau Junge details Hitler's last days before committing suicide in his bunker. Over and over, she uses the same three adjectives like a refrain or leitmotiv: "nightmarish", "weird", "macabre". Her face shows little emotion, except when she speaks of the six Goebbels children who were injected with poison because their mother could not conceive of life after the Third Reich. Her voice is calm and strong. (Indeed, I found myself able to udnerstand much of the original German because her diction was so clear.) Her version of events does not sound rehearsed. Like anyone else recalling a distant past, she sometimes forgets to recount something and must backtrack. She is a credible witness to history -- and yet, at the same time, her story is that of someone wearing blinkers or with tunnel vision. As the old saying goes, "Hindsight is better than foresight", and "There is none so blind as he who will not see."
Hitler's denial of reality, and Frau Junge's "blind spot", are the reflection in microcosm of an entire nation's unwillingness, for decades, to acknowledge its responsibility for the horrors of the Nazi regime. Frau Junge says that even the revelations of the death camps, and the Nuremberg trials, were not enough to force the German people to look themselves squarely in the face. She herself did not tell her story for almost 60 years.
Just before the lights go up, we learn that Frau Junge died of cancer the day after the documentary premiered in Berlin. In her last conversation with the filmmakers, she confessed, "I think I am just now beginning to forgive myself."
She Seems Like Such A Nice Person
sddavis6318 February 2008
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
Fascinating.
Anonymous_Maxine17 February 2004
Traudl Junge, one of Hitler's personal secretaries, finally decides to come out and tell the story of working for Hitler during one of the most catastrophic and studied times in German history. You sort of have to get past the fact that the movie is literally nothing more than a camera pointed at her while she tells these stories, it's certainly not what I had expected when I rented the film, but with subject matter like this it really doesn't matter. In a sense, if they had dramatized her story with photos, archive footage or, god forbid, reenactments, I think it would really have diluted the potency and immediacy of what she had to say.
This is a woman who, at the time, was in her late teens and, like countless other people, she was intoxicated with the unnerving charm and determination and grand view for the future of the world. Yes, it's all told simply through the dialogue of this elderly woman talking to an interviewer, but this is a woman who met with Hitler face to face during his most powerful time, who watched him evolve from the dangerously charismatic leader with a master plan for the human race and into the darkly depressed visionary, fallen from power and overcome with defeat, faced with the crashing of his enormous ideals. She even tells the story literally of the last minutes of Hitler's life, during which he actually bid her farewell just before ending his own life.
One of the things that really struck me was the amazing detail of Junge's memory. Here she is in her 80s, and she remembers word-for-word conversations that happened decades earlier, as well as remarkable details of situations and events. The looks on people's faces, who was where and at what time, as well as what was happening at those times, smells, emotions, sounds, etc. These are all of the things that good novelists use to convey a compelling sense of atmosphere which is, I think, one of the most important things to be created for a novel to be effective. I don't think at all that Junge's memory should be called into question, even though she remembers such striking details of things that happened so many years ago (and I don't think that her age should be a factor in deciding how accurate her memory is, either).
This is a time in this woman's life that she has surely been going over and over in her head for decades, wondering how she could have been so fooled into thinking that she was working for a powerful, benevolent leader, and how she could not have seen what was really going on. She learns late in her life about a woman about her own who had been executed for opposing Hitler the same year that she herself came to work for him. It seems to me that a period in someone's life that has such a resonating effect of the rest of it is something that is remembered even more vividly than anything that happens later.
The stories about Hitler himself are probably the most compelling element of the entire film. Junge tells stories about him that I would never have imagined, since like many people (to which this film is mainly aimed, I think) know little about Hitler beyond the public speeches that he made about his grand vision, where he displayed his amazing speaking abilities and his shockingly effective ability to make his vision, while always destructive to the people that he viewed as inferior, sound appealing to so many people. Obviously, a person would have to have some earth-shaking motivational speaking abilities to make people on a large scale accept and support something so murderous and destructive to humanity in general.
Some of the things about Hitler that I was most surprised by were things like his pet dog, Blondie, and his affection for her puppies, the way he is described as soft-spoken and polite when speaking to the young women working for him as his secretaries, the total transformation in appearance that he evidently underwent whenever he stepped before the cameras and microphones in public, the fact that he didn't ever want flowers kept in his office because he `hated dead things,' etc. Junge expresses her own shock at that last point, which surely mirrors that of anyone else watching the film. Can you imagine someone like Hitler, who engineered millions of human deaths, uncomfortable with flowers in his office because he hated dead things? It boggles the mind, and is also reflected by other revelations in the film such as his total detachment from everything that was going on in Germany as a result of his leadership. He even traveled in a train with the blinds drawn and was taxied through the streets to his destinations by drivers who would take the routes with the least amount of war damage so that he wouldn't be made uncomfortable.
This is certainly not a traditional documentary, but the documentary genre is, I think, one of the most flexible genres in film. The subject matter is literally endless, and as this movie shows, even the simplest forms of the documentary can be enormously effective and moving. I think that the main purpose of a documentary is to provide information, not entertainment, and as long as it can do that I don't think that it really matters how intricate or complexly made the film itself is. Blind Spot provides plenty of information, and while the presentation is not exactly thrilling, it reminded me throughout of reading a book. One of the main reasons that I love to read (and, I think, also one of the reasons that people are so often disappointed with film adaptations of novels) is because it is always an individual experience. You create in your head the world that is described in the book, and film adaptations are someone else's vision of that world, which is pretty much invariably not the same as your own. This is why movies that are as closely faithful to the original material are so often the most critically and popularly successful ones. In Blind Spot, Junge tells her story in her own words without any kind of cinematic enhancement of them, allowing the viewer to create what it must have been like in his or her own head which, I think, makes the world and the events that she describes that much more vivid and immediate.
This is a woman who, at the time, was in her late teens and, like countless other people, she was intoxicated with the unnerving charm and determination and grand view for the future of the world. Yes, it's all told simply through the dialogue of this elderly woman talking to an interviewer, but this is a woman who met with Hitler face to face during his most powerful time, who watched him evolve from the dangerously charismatic leader with a master plan for the human race and into the darkly depressed visionary, fallen from power and overcome with defeat, faced with the crashing of his enormous ideals. She even tells the story literally of the last minutes of Hitler's life, during which he actually bid her farewell just before ending his own life.
One of the things that really struck me was the amazing detail of Junge's memory. Here she is in her 80s, and she remembers word-for-word conversations that happened decades earlier, as well as remarkable details of situations and events. The looks on people's faces, who was where and at what time, as well as what was happening at those times, smells, emotions, sounds, etc. These are all of the things that good novelists use to convey a compelling sense of atmosphere which is, I think, one of the most important things to be created for a novel to be effective. I don't think at all that Junge's memory should be called into question, even though she remembers such striking details of things that happened so many years ago (and I don't think that her age should be a factor in deciding how accurate her memory is, either).
This is a time in this woman's life that she has surely been going over and over in her head for decades, wondering how she could have been so fooled into thinking that she was working for a powerful, benevolent leader, and how she could not have seen what was really going on. She learns late in her life about a woman about her own who had been executed for opposing Hitler the same year that she herself came to work for him. It seems to me that a period in someone's life that has such a resonating effect of the rest of it is something that is remembered even more vividly than anything that happens later.
The stories about Hitler himself are probably the most compelling element of the entire film. Junge tells stories about him that I would never have imagined, since like many people (to which this film is mainly aimed, I think) know little about Hitler beyond the public speeches that he made about his grand vision, where he displayed his amazing speaking abilities and his shockingly effective ability to make his vision, while always destructive to the people that he viewed as inferior, sound appealing to so many people. Obviously, a person would have to have some earth-shaking motivational speaking abilities to make people on a large scale accept and support something so murderous and destructive to humanity in general.
Some of the things about Hitler that I was most surprised by were things like his pet dog, Blondie, and his affection for her puppies, the way he is described as soft-spoken and polite when speaking to the young women working for him as his secretaries, the total transformation in appearance that he evidently underwent whenever he stepped before the cameras and microphones in public, the fact that he didn't ever want flowers kept in his office because he `hated dead things,' etc. Junge expresses her own shock at that last point, which surely mirrors that of anyone else watching the film. Can you imagine someone like Hitler, who engineered millions of human deaths, uncomfortable with flowers in his office because he hated dead things? It boggles the mind, and is also reflected by other revelations in the film such as his total detachment from everything that was going on in Germany as a result of his leadership. He even traveled in a train with the blinds drawn and was taxied through the streets to his destinations by drivers who would take the routes with the least amount of war damage so that he wouldn't be made uncomfortable.
This is certainly not a traditional documentary, but the documentary genre is, I think, one of the most flexible genres in film. The subject matter is literally endless, and as this movie shows, even the simplest forms of the documentary can be enormously effective and moving. I think that the main purpose of a documentary is to provide information, not entertainment, and as long as it can do that I don't think that it really matters how intricate or complexly made the film itself is. Blind Spot provides plenty of information, and while the presentation is not exactly thrilling, it reminded me throughout of reading a book. One of the main reasons that I love to read (and, I think, also one of the reasons that people are so often disappointed with film adaptations of novels) is because it is always an individual experience. You create in your head the world that is described in the book, and film adaptations are someone else's vision of that world, which is pretty much invariably not the same as your own. This is why movies that are as closely faithful to the original material are so often the most critically and popularly successful ones. In Blind Spot, Junge tells her story in her own words without any kind of cinematic enhancement of them, allowing the viewer to create what it must have been like in his or her own head which, I think, makes the world and the events that she describes that much more vivid and immediate.
Remarkably straightforward
karn22 January 2010
This is quite possibly the most minimal movie ever made. Except for the opening and closing credits, all we ever see is an elderly woman in closeup, apparently in her own home, talking past the camera to an unseen interviewer. He's only heard a few times. He seems completely superfluous. The interview segments are punctuated with brief blackouts.
There's no score. No film cutaways or slow Ken Burns-style pans over countless still images of the Third Reich. She just talks for an hour and a half in her native German, so much of my attention was focused on the subtitles. A few segments show her watching her own interview and making additional comments.
After watching "Blind Spot" I found on Youtube a much earlier interview in which she speaks in English. Judging from her apparent age, it looks to have been made circa 1970, probably for the British "World at War" series. She recounts many things in much the same way in both interviews, so it's obvious she's spent much of her adult life reliving the events she's talking about and pondering her own role in them. She doesn't need much prompting.
Because of the minimal production values and the subtitles, I felt more like I was reading a book than watching a movie. But this was a very good book that really engaged my imagination. I'd seen the movie "Downfall", based in large part on her recollections, but her own verbal imagery would have been vivid enough.
When "Downfall" came out there was a lot of hand wringing about how it "humanized" Hitler, some from people I thought knew better. Similar criticisms have been leveled at Frau Junge, but they completely miss the point. Accuracy is what matters in a historical account, and I have no reason to doubt hers. Whether we want to admit it or not, Hitler was a fully human being. He wasn't a highly evolved space alien or a demon from hell with supernatural powers who took human form to enslave mankind from the outside. He was one of us. We have to deal with that.
As Junge explains so well, Hitler actually had many positive personal attributes. At one time it was her job to open his personal mail, so she saw the letters he received from the countless women who absolutely swooned over him. And the only time I doubted her veracity was when she claimed not to understand why. Her own story - that she so readily agreed to become one of his secretaries - shows that she understood his attraction all too well. Not just to women but to Germans in general.
And that's precisely the point! We don't want to believe that Hitler was anything like us "normal" people. We don't want to believe that a man who caused so much destruction and suffering could have any redeeming qualities at all, much less be perceived as highly attractive. We're much more comfortable putting him on a shelf and labeling him as something unique and different, an inhuman monster quite apart from us "ordinary" people. We do the same with the German people of that era. Unlike us noble Americans, with our humanitarianism and respect for personal freedoms and rights, the Germans of 1933-1945 were stupid, gullible, unthinking automatons, blind to the obvious evil of their leaders. Why, that could never happen to us!
It damn well COULD happen to us. That's why Frau Junge's story is so important. Watch this movie.
There's no score. No film cutaways or slow Ken Burns-style pans over countless still images of the Third Reich. She just talks for an hour and a half in her native German, so much of my attention was focused on the subtitles. A few segments show her watching her own interview and making additional comments.
After watching "Blind Spot" I found on Youtube a much earlier interview in which she speaks in English. Judging from her apparent age, it looks to have been made circa 1970, probably for the British "World at War" series. She recounts many things in much the same way in both interviews, so it's obvious she's spent much of her adult life reliving the events she's talking about and pondering her own role in them. She doesn't need much prompting.
Because of the minimal production values and the subtitles, I felt more like I was reading a book than watching a movie. But this was a very good book that really engaged my imagination. I'd seen the movie "Downfall", based in large part on her recollections, but her own verbal imagery would have been vivid enough.
When "Downfall" came out there was a lot of hand wringing about how it "humanized" Hitler, some from people I thought knew better. Similar criticisms have been leveled at Frau Junge, but they completely miss the point. Accuracy is what matters in a historical account, and I have no reason to doubt hers. Whether we want to admit it or not, Hitler was a fully human being. He wasn't a highly evolved space alien or a demon from hell with supernatural powers who took human form to enslave mankind from the outside. He was one of us. We have to deal with that.
As Junge explains so well, Hitler actually had many positive personal attributes. At one time it was her job to open his personal mail, so she saw the letters he received from the countless women who absolutely swooned over him. And the only time I doubted her veracity was when she claimed not to understand why. Her own story - that she so readily agreed to become one of his secretaries - shows that she understood his attraction all too well. Not just to women but to Germans in general.
And that's precisely the point! We don't want to believe that Hitler was anything like us "normal" people. We don't want to believe that a man who caused so much destruction and suffering could have any redeeming qualities at all, much less be perceived as highly attractive. We're much more comfortable putting him on a shelf and labeling him as something unique and different, an inhuman monster quite apart from us "ordinary" people. We do the same with the German people of that era. Unlike us noble Americans, with our humanitarianism and respect for personal freedoms and rights, the Germans of 1933-1945 were stupid, gullible, unthinking automatons, blind to the obvious evil of their leaders. Why, that could never happen to us!
It damn well COULD happen to us. That's why Frau Junge's story is so important. Watch this movie.
Historical masterpiece
Exor3 February 2003
"I'm starting to forgive myself", with those words Traudl Junge ends a documentary which for herself was very difficult to make.
Junge, who is obviously very sorry of here naive blind belief in a man that had blood of millions on his hands, tells us the story of how she came in contact with Hitler and starts working for him. Very intense she tells stories from the beginning of here career until the end...when she is typing Hitler's both political and private will.
We should thank André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer for making this great documentary, which came right on time because one day after the release of the movie, Traudl Junge died of cancer. Her testimony is of huge historical value and will now never be forgotten.
Must-see for everybody.
Junge, who is obviously very sorry of here naive blind belief in a man that had blood of millions on his hands, tells us the story of how she came in contact with Hitler and starts working for him. Very intense she tells stories from the beginning of here career until the end...when she is typing Hitler's both political and private will.
We should thank André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer for making this great documentary, which came right on time because one day after the release of the movie, Traudl Junge died of cancer. Her testimony is of huge historical value and will now never be forgotten.
Must-see for everybody.
Hitler Observed and Served: An Effective, Minimalist Documentary Approach
lawprof4 March 2004
Traudl Junge, one of the few young women who served as Hitler's secretaries during the war and through the cataclysmic demise of the Third Reich and its founder in a besieged Berlin bunker, died on the day this documentary was premiered. Junge was no stranger to interviews and the camera. In fact this articulate woman appeared in several documentaries long before this minimalist film in which she is the only person on screen and, in fact, is the sole speaker except for a few questions posed by an off-screen interlocutor.
Because of her typing skills she was offered the position of working directly for Hitler by the fuehrer himself. This brought her into close, indeed daily, proximity with high-ranking Nazis as well as characters such as Eva Braun and the family members and hangers-on of the regime. Junge herself maintains that she was apolitical and viewed the job offer as an exciting opportunity, not a chance to serve the Party or its ideology.
Junge frequently refers to Hitler as a criminal and ponders her own involvement and whether she is guilty of anything because of her association. She maintains she knew nothing about the extermination camps and remarks that Jews were rarely referred to in any context at Hitler's headquarters. Some have feared that her comments, clearly not disingenuous, will fuel revisionist Holocaust deniers in their sick quest to absolve Hitler and the Nazis. In fact, however, many other accounts have long supported Junge's statements that the fervent anti-Semitism of the Nazis wasn't on display for those visiting or working with Hitler. She recalls that one woman visitor asked Hitler about the cruel packing of Jews into trains for deportation and he angrily told her, basically, to mind her own business. She was never invited to his headquarters again.
The one-time secretary admits she initially much admired Hitler who often addressed her and the other female office workers as "my child ("mein kind"). She describes his manner as gentle and very different from the filmed rally and Reichstag harangues all today have seen. In fact Junge never attended any of the military conferences held near where she worked where Hitler's histrionic displays were always on offer and where his screaming, berating of generals was routine.
Junge was present on 20 July when the attempt on Hitler's life failed and she saw him in tattered clothes shortly after the bomb explosion. Her closest association with the Third Reich's leader came during the final days when the Red Army slowly encircled and then took Berlin. Her description of life in the bunker and Hitler's slow slide into defeatism is neither new nor analytical - there are many other accounts of Hitler and his entourage in the bunker. But she speaks with a clear memory, cogently and not unemotionally.
Junge is strong voiced and clear-minded and she betrays little deep emotion. The one point where she loses her composure is as she describes getting food for propaganda minister Goebbel's six little girls, the oldest only ten, while their parents prepared to murder them in the belief they would have no worthwhile life after the Nazi defeat. A microcosm of Nazi madness, the killing of these six innocent children has always disturbed me.
Directors Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer employed a wholly minimalist approach. Their subject occupies the screen entirely during the interviews which spanned a number of sessions. They decided, correctly in my view, to let her narrative totally dominate where many documentarians would have interweaved film illustrating the events she experienced. This approach may bore some but listening to Junge for eighty-plus minutes actually is a very absorbing and intense experience.
A book containing Junge's reminiscences has just been published.
Students of Nazism and the war won't learn anything new here but Junge's testament as a witness to Hitler in his headquarters is a valuable insight.
9/10.
Because of her typing skills she was offered the position of working directly for Hitler by the fuehrer himself. This brought her into close, indeed daily, proximity with high-ranking Nazis as well as characters such as Eva Braun and the family members and hangers-on of the regime. Junge herself maintains that she was apolitical and viewed the job offer as an exciting opportunity, not a chance to serve the Party or its ideology.
Junge frequently refers to Hitler as a criminal and ponders her own involvement and whether she is guilty of anything because of her association. She maintains she knew nothing about the extermination camps and remarks that Jews were rarely referred to in any context at Hitler's headquarters. Some have feared that her comments, clearly not disingenuous, will fuel revisionist Holocaust deniers in their sick quest to absolve Hitler and the Nazis. In fact, however, many other accounts have long supported Junge's statements that the fervent anti-Semitism of the Nazis wasn't on display for those visiting or working with Hitler. She recalls that one woman visitor asked Hitler about the cruel packing of Jews into trains for deportation and he angrily told her, basically, to mind her own business. She was never invited to his headquarters again.
The one-time secretary admits she initially much admired Hitler who often addressed her and the other female office workers as "my child ("mein kind"). She describes his manner as gentle and very different from the filmed rally and Reichstag harangues all today have seen. In fact Junge never attended any of the military conferences held near where she worked where Hitler's histrionic displays were always on offer and where his screaming, berating of generals was routine.
Junge was present on 20 July when the attempt on Hitler's life failed and she saw him in tattered clothes shortly after the bomb explosion. Her closest association with the Third Reich's leader came during the final days when the Red Army slowly encircled and then took Berlin. Her description of life in the bunker and Hitler's slow slide into defeatism is neither new nor analytical - there are many other accounts of Hitler and his entourage in the bunker. But she speaks with a clear memory, cogently and not unemotionally.
Junge is strong voiced and clear-minded and she betrays little deep emotion. The one point where she loses her composure is as she describes getting food for propaganda minister Goebbel's six little girls, the oldest only ten, while their parents prepared to murder them in the belief they would have no worthwhile life after the Nazi defeat. A microcosm of Nazi madness, the killing of these six innocent children has always disturbed me.
Directors Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer employed a wholly minimalist approach. Their subject occupies the screen entirely during the interviews which spanned a number of sessions. They decided, correctly in my view, to let her narrative totally dominate where many documentarians would have interweaved film illustrating the events she experienced. This approach may bore some but listening to Junge for eighty-plus minutes actually is a very absorbing and intense experience.
A book containing Junge's reminiscences has just been published.
Students of Nazism and the war won't learn anything new here but Junge's testament as a witness to Hitler in his headquarters is a valuable insight.
9/10.
Boring as cinema but thematically interesting
gridoon2 July 2005
As a piece of cinema, "Blind Spot" is a bold experiment that simply doesn't work; the filmmakers have one good idea - occasionally they show Traudl Junge watching her own interview and commenting on it - but for most of the film's 90 minutes they have the camera immobile and stuck on her face as she speaks, and although her face is expressive and her words are interesting, your attention can't help but wander on several occasions. But "Blind Spot" is also a remarkably truthful confession of a woman / portrait of a man. Junge says that she doesn't want to talk a lot about the "banal" incidents of Hitler's everyday life, but she keeps doing it instinctively, as you would expect from someone who lived so close to him for three years. She also expresses her guilt about not being able to understand what was really going on at the time ("unforgivable"), and at the end she admits that not even her young age is a good enough excuse for her ignorance. Note: "Blind Spot" may work best for German-speaking audiences, as small details of Junge's speech are probably lost in subtitles of any other language.
hype problem: Ms Junge had broken silence well before this film
leerssen9 May 2003
André Heller is one of the most original and daring artists of post-War Austria. Singer/songwriter, circus organizer, garden architect, multimedia artist and more, he has maintained a highly personal style (a postmodern baroque) which never slid into routine. This interview film sees him once again doing something quite unlike his previous projects, and the idea - to have Hitler's private secretary talk uninterrupted as in a solitary anamnesis - is valuable, remarkable, admirable. But why does everyone fall for the hype formula that this is the time when the film's subject, Traudl Runge, broke a silence kept for almost sixty years after the fall of the Third Reich? I have seen this Traudl Junge give inside views of Hitler's household staff in earlier documentaries on the top Nazi echelon and the Third Reich. They were made-for-TV documentaries shown on the National Belgian (Flemish) television, as well as Super Channel. So while the testimony given here is valuable, it is not totally new. The film over-sells itself on that score.
Astonishing and Simple
mcneil-88-59701822 June 2011
I viewed this movie a day after watching "Sophie Scholl: The Final Days." Both films are about young women caught up in a political movement that had swept war time Germany.
The complete simplicity of this film is remarkable. None of the tricks generally employed by documentary film makers are used. You never hear the questions of the interviewer; there are no cutaways designed to give the illusion of continuity. Every natural break point is clearly indicated with a simple dissolve to black. This unusual technique is what gives this film its authenticity. The subject matter is too important for "art" to interfere. There is no need for extraneous cover footage, or clever illusions. This is an historic document that will survive the test of time. There is no attempt to cover the fact that the film is made up from several interview sessions. There is no attempt to mask the subject's occasional forgetfulness or back-tracking. Traudl Junge's remarkable narrative taught me more about the psychology of Adolf Hitler than the dozen books and scores of movies I have read or seen on this subject over the past 50 years.
This is a stunning work - all the more brilliant for its honesty and adherence to journalistic integrity. One never gets the feeling that you are being pushed toward a particular point of view. Here is a woman who worked closely alongside a tyrant and - much to her later shame - admits to liking the man. We too are left to wonder how we might have responded if placed in a similar position. Traudl Junge does not attempt to white wash her own failure to perceive who and what Hitler really was. She recognizes her weakness and freely admits it.
The complete simplicity of this film is remarkable. None of the tricks generally employed by documentary film makers are used. You never hear the questions of the interviewer; there are no cutaways designed to give the illusion of continuity. Every natural break point is clearly indicated with a simple dissolve to black. This unusual technique is what gives this film its authenticity. The subject matter is too important for "art" to interfere. There is no need for extraneous cover footage, or clever illusions. This is an historic document that will survive the test of time. There is no attempt to cover the fact that the film is made up from several interview sessions. There is no attempt to mask the subject's occasional forgetfulness or back-tracking. Traudl Junge's remarkable narrative taught me more about the psychology of Adolf Hitler than the dozen books and scores of movies I have read or seen on this subject over the past 50 years.
This is a stunning work - all the more brilliant for its honesty and adherence to journalistic integrity. One never gets the feeling that you are being pushed toward a particular point of view. Here is a woman who worked closely alongside a tyrant and - much to her later shame - admits to liking the man. We too are left to wonder how we might have responded if placed in a similar position. Traudl Junge does not attempt to white wash her own failure to perceive who and what Hitler really was. She recognizes her weakness and freely admits it.
Disturbingly human
filmhistory20 May 2005
Frau Junge's story goes to back when she was in her early twenties. Like most of us, she had a story. But unlike many, the moment she met Hitler, history would entirely shape it.
The cinematic or technical merits of this visual testimony don't seem relevant to me. If it is more about an old lady trying to recall distance events or if it fails to provide a "shock of the new" angle of Hitler and the Nazis isn't crucial to me, either.
It's the title.
One thing I have learned about films is the defining and revealing nature of their titles, those who aim beyond being a mere synthesis of their plot to highlight the tensions, the atmosphere, the struggle that is carried throughout the film. But the titles I value the most are those which can have a strong metaphoric reading as the one I felt so present after watching this.
"Hitler's secretary," is an intimate account of one of history's "inmates," a young witness of our precarious existence. For me, this is an invaluable testimony of a woman who did what millions of others did for a number of years: they merely took dictation from a dictator. They reproduced without questioning, their hands triggered by a blind faith in their source.
For those who still think that only monsters can do monstrous things, welcome to planet Earth.
For those who deeply believe that only a simplistic, Nazy propaganda profile of Hitler can be an effective antidote for humans like him, bear in mind that, as someone wrote in another review, evil is never pure.
And that's the scary part: that we all are disturbingly human.
The cinematic or technical merits of this visual testimony don't seem relevant to me. If it is more about an old lady trying to recall distance events or if it fails to provide a "shock of the new" angle of Hitler and the Nazis isn't crucial to me, either.
It's the title.
One thing I have learned about films is the defining and revealing nature of their titles, those who aim beyond being a mere synthesis of their plot to highlight the tensions, the atmosphere, the struggle that is carried throughout the film. But the titles I value the most are those which can have a strong metaphoric reading as the one I felt so present after watching this.
"Hitler's secretary," is an intimate account of one of history's "inmates," a young witness of our precarious existence. For me, this is an invaluable testimony of a woman who did what millions of others did for a number of years: they merely took dictation from a dictator. They reproduced without questioning, their hands triggered by a blind faith in their source.
For those who still think that only monsters can do monstrous things, welcome to planet Earth.
For those who deeply believe that only a simplistic, Nazy propaganda profile of Hitler can be an effective antidote for humans like him, bear in mind that, as someone wrote in another review, evil is never pure.
And that's the scary part: that we all are disturbingly human.
Just in time
Mort-3123 January 2003
Traudl Junge is dead. She died in February 2002. In the 1940s she used to work as a secretary for one of the most cruel and most mysterious men of history: Adolf Hitler.
We are really lucky to be blessed with this film interview she gave a few months before her death. The filmmakers Heller and Schmiderer visited her just in time. It is inconceivable how much would be lost to us, if this important witness of history had not been interviewed.
Although 90 per cent of the time, there is nothing to see on the screen except Traudl Junge's face, the film is more thrilling than most so-called thrillers: I kept staring at the screen 90 minutes throughout. Not only because what Junge said was so unbelievable and I had never heard anything similar before but also because this woman was a genius in telling stories. She was able to remember and to talk. Old people can be wonderful storytellers.
On the one hand, the stories Junge tells, speaking of Hitler as having the appearance of a friendly elder gentleman etc, will not change history. They will not change the common view on Adolf Hitler, and, above all, they will not change anything about the fact that Hitler was a terrible criminal who killed lots of people for low reasons. But on the other hand there would be a huge hole in history if no one had told us these stories. It is okay to know and to believe that Hitler was kind to his personnel, his girlfriend and his dog. It is even necessary for understanding the whole dimension of what he did. Without these insights into Hitler's every-day life, one might think that the Holocaust was committed by some virtual monster. In fact, it was not a monster but a human being. This makes it, in my opinion, even more terrible and disturbing.
We are really lucky to be blessed with this film interview she gave a few months before her death. The filmmakers Heller and Schmiderer visited her just in time. It is inconceivable how much would be lost to us, if this important witness of history had not been interviewed.
Although 90 per cent of the time, there is nothing to see on the screen except Traudl Junge's face, the film is more thrilling than most so-called thrillers: I kept staring at the screen 90 minutes throughout. Not only because what Junge said was so unbelievable and I had never heard anything similar before but also because this woman was a genius in telling stories. She was able to remember and to talk. Old people can be wonderful storytellers.
On the one hand, the stories Junge tells, speaking of Hitler as having the appearance of a friendly elder gentleman etc, will not change history. They will not change the common view on Adolf Hitler, and, above all, they will not change anything about the fact that Hitler was a terrible criminal who killed lots of people for low reasons. But on the other hand there would be a huge hole in history if no one had told us these stories. It is okay to know and to believe that Hitler was kind to his personnel, his girlfriend and his dog. It is even necessary for understanding the whole dimension of what he did. Without these insights into Hitler's every-day life, one might think that the Holocaust was committed by some virtual monster. In fact, it was not a monster but a human being. This makes it, in my opinion, even more terrible and disturbing.
It's about the Secretary not Hitler.
blue__yoshi13 December 2004
If taken as a documentary about Hitler's Secretary then this is an interesting interview with someone who is trying to deal with feelings of guilt over her past ignorance and inability to think beyond her own situation.
If you think you're going to be getting a history lesson or find out lots of things about Hitler then you might be disappointed. The documentary is, as stated, about Traudl Junge not Hitler.
Unfortunately for me though I never really thought she opened up quite as much as you could sense she wanted to.
Interesting from a historical viewpoint but as Traudl herself points out during the first 1/2 hour - much of what she recalls sounds so trivial.
If you think you're going to be getting a history lesson or find out lots of things about Hitler then you might be disappointed. The documentary is, as stated, about Traudl Junge not Hitler.
Unfortunately for me though I never really thought she opened up quite as much as you could sense she wanted to.
Interesting from a historical viewpoint but as Traudl herself points out during the first 1/2 hour - much of what she recalls sounds so trivial.
BLIND SPOT and Junge's previous interview
davidnsmall28 January 2003
Much is being made by BLIND SPOT's producers that Junge has been silent all these years, never speaking on record until they interviewed her just before her death. Actually Junge was interviewed at great length for the epic documentary series THE WORLD AT WAR, produced for British television in the '70s.
Junge's english was excellent, and her original interview, conducted 30 years ago, was just as chillingly matter-of-fact as I hear the current one is. BLIND SPOT sounds very compelling, and certainly not in need of inacurate hype about its uniqueness.
The DVD of WORLD AT WAR contains an expanded version of Junge's interview in its extras section, along with an appearance by a then thirty-year-younger historian Stephen Ambrose - WITH LONG HAIR!
Junge's english was excellent, and her original interview, conducted 30 years ago, was just as chillingly matter-of-fact as I hear the current one is. BLIND SPOT sounds very compelling, and certainly not in need of inacurate hype about its uniqueness.
The DVD of WORLD AT WAR contains an expanded version of Junge's interview in its extras section, along with an appearance by a then thirty-year-younger historian Stephen Ambrose - WITH LONG HAIR!
a powerful 90 minutes
mollyshearergabel2 November 2007
I have seen a number of young people review this movie and go on endlessly about the lack of cinematography and whatnot. This is irrelevant. This is an hour and a half of the kind of soul-searching that, if you can let go of your desire to remain above and outside of it, will change you. Frau Junge tells us the mundane and then the mundane descends into the horror that we went in expecting, but yet when she tells of the horror, we are still unprepared. Movie after movie has been made about Hitler's last days, and some have been very good. But there is nothing like a first-hand account. This is not a movie to see if you don't like documentaries but kind of like to learn about Nazis, this is a movie to see if you want to learn about the dark nights of the human soul. Watching an elderly, grandmotherly woman go through the gamut of emotions discussing something that everyone born since then learned about from second grade on yet she was almost totally unaware of while in the midst of it
I found it stunning, devastating, and very, very touching.
Amazing Living History
bababear26 April 2006
First, I'll admit that unless you have an interest in history this won't have any entertainment value for you. It isn't a drama. The camera almost never moves. There are no special effects. Everything is in German with subtitles. It's one woman talking to an interviewer about world changing events that she was on the fringes of over half a century previously.
This is Hitler's secretary, who had kept her involvement with the Reich more or less a secret most of her life because of guilt. And even to this century she carries (and rightly so) a burden of guilt for what happened during the war although she never fired a gun in combat or visited a concentration camp.
What we see is a rich portrait of self deception. She admits that she was charmed by Hitler, how polite he was to women, how kind to children. She and those around her simply closed their eyes to what was really going on in the world.
She tells about riding the train into Berlin: the blinds were always pulled down in Hitler's car on the train so that he would not see the destruction to the countryside. When they would get to Berlin a car would take them to headquarters via a route very carefully mapped out so that scenes of destruction would be avoided.
She tells a strange tale of leaving the bunker in Berlin with Eva Braun and being surprised to discover that it was Spring. Flowers were blooming, there were green leaves in the trees. In the bunker there was literally no day or night. With 11 meters of concrete between those people and the outside world they lost all contact with the rest of humanity.
I noticed in the discussion boards that someone asked if she had been indicted in the postwar trials. Her guilt was moral, not so much legal. She would have been viewed as so small a fish that she would have been thrown back.
Every one of us watching this will at some point tell ourselves that I couldn't get caught up in such a thing because I am too good and moral a person. That, too, is self deceit.
It's shocking to think of someone carrying this around inside her brain all those decades. The conflict on her face and in her voice is sometimes painful to experience.
She died of cancer at about the same time the film premiered. I hope that at some point in her life she realized, or someone told her, that Jesus' blood was shed for her and would be enough to wash away her sins if she received Him as her personal savior. I hope and pray that at some point she did so.
This is Hitler's secretary, who had kept her involvement with the Reich more or less a secret most of her life because of guilt. And even to this century she carries (and rightly so) a burden of guilt for what happened during the war although she never fired a gun in combat or visited a concentration camp.
What we see is a rich portrait of self deception. She admits that she was charmed by Hitler, how polite he was to women, how kind to children. She and those around her simply closed their eyes to what was really going on in the world.
She tells about riding the train into Berlin: the blinds were always pulled down in Hitler's car on the train so that he would not see the destruction to the countryside. When they would get to Berlin a car would take them to headquarters via a route very carefully mapped out so that scenes of destruction would be avoided.
She tells a strange tale of leaving the bunker in Berlin with Eva Braun and being surprised to discover that it was Spring. Flowers were blooming, there were green leaves in the trees. In the bunker there was literally no day or night. With 11 meters of concrete between those people and the outside world they lost all contact with the rest of humanity.
I noticed in the discussion boards that someone asked if she had been indicted in the postwar trials. Her guilt was moral, not so much legal. She would have been viewed as so small a fish that she would have been thrown back.
Every one of us watching this will at some point tell ourselves that I couldn't get caught up in such a thing because I am too good and moral a person. That, too, is self deceit.
It's shocking to think of someone carrying this around inside her brain all those decades. The conflict on her face and in her voice is sometimes painful to experience.
She died of cancer at about the same time the film premiered. I hope that at some point in her life she realized, or someone told her, that Jesus' blood was shed for her and would be enough to wash away her sins if she received Him as her personal savior. I hope and pray that at some point she did so.
Astonishing film
hammy-314 October 2002
An amazing film which throws new light on one of the most written about figures in history. Silent for 50 years, Fraulien Junge's story will make the mouth's of even the most ardent Hitler scholar gape in astonishment. I don't want to spoil it too much by giving away any of her revelations, but it does more to humanise one of the great monsters of all time than any number of academic tomes, and an account of the last days in the bunker that will be hard to bear for many, ironic as it comes from such a gentle, urbane woman.
Essential viewing.
Essential viewing.
Straight from the horse's mouth
Bernie444415 October 2023
A documentary made by Andre Heller and Othmar Schmiderer. The target interviewee is Traudl Junge or Traudl Humps; she was Adolf Hitler's secretary from 1942 to 1945 and recorded Hitler's last will and testament.
My copy is in full-screen format color of Traudl sitting in a chair with some book shelving in the background. The focus is on her and not the books; however, one or two do come into focus. We do know that she claims to have read Vikto Klemperer's Books.
Some parts of the documentary have problems with synchronizing the voice with the picture.
She speaks German slow enough that I can almost keep up with her. There are some German silent inter-titles that help I had to pause long enough to read.) I went through it a second time with English subtitles. There are only English, French, and Spanish subtitles. German would have been a plus in keeping up with the real words and not paraphrasing. The length is one hour and 27 minutes.
Unfortunately, Traudl spends more time Pooh-Poohing Hitler and not enough time focusing on the details of what she was working on. She also accused Hitler of being a vegetarian that did not imbibe or smoke. He even had white knees.
We do get a good rendition of the attempt to dispatch Hitler with a hidden bomb. This is the basis of the film "Valkyrie" (2008.) "And the incident made him feel even more certain that he was on the right path..."
We get a general overview of the final days in the bunker where Blondie was dispatched.
My copy is in full-screen format color of Traudl sitting in a chair with some book shelving in the background. The focus is on her and not the books; however, one or two do come into focus. We do know that she claims to have read Vikto Klemperer's Books.
Some parts of the documentary have problems with synchronizing the voice with the picture.
She speaks German slow enough that I can almost keep up with her. There are some German silent inter-titles that help I had to pause long enough to read.) I went through it a second time with English subtitles. There are only English, French, and Spanish subtitles. German would have been a plus in keeping up with the real words and not paraphrasing. The length is one hour and 27 minutes.
Unfortunately, Traudl spends more time Pooh-Poohing Hitler and not enough time focusing on the details of what she was working on. She also accused Hitler of being a vegetarian that did not imbibe or smoke. He even had white knees.
We do get a good rendition of the attempt to dispatch Hitler with a hidden bomb. This is the basis of the film "Valkyrie" (2008.) "And the incident made him feel even more certain that he was on the right path..."
We get a general overview of the final days in the bunker where Blondie was dispatched.
Interesting topic, horrible execution.
brad_h5 January 2004
I would hardly call this a film. It is at best a book on tape. While the topic is very important and interesting, the filmmakers involved show very little respect. The entire video consists of about three shots, mundanely cut together in order to tell this woman's incredible story. I think this is probably the worst documentary I've ever seen. I've never seen such a shameless attempt by a director to capitalize off of an important historical figure. There was hardly any work put into this video. All they did was tape one (maybe two) sessions with Junge, slap some titles on it and call it a film. Not to mention the filmmakers also try to take credit by calling it the first time Junge went on record, when in reality she gave a much better account, on record, in the 1970's! It comes off as being very boring and lifeless, when the story itself is amazing. I call it, at best, lazy and shameful filmmaking. Would have been much better if it was a book.
Riveting
molefsky7 June 2003
The film consists entirely of headshots of Traudl Junge talking about her experiences as secretary to Adolph Hitler from 1941 to the end of World War II. The film is in German with English subtitles; at times the subtitles were hard to read because of a light background.
A slide at the beginning of the film said this was the first time Frau Junge had spoken about her experiences. I seem to recall she was interviewed in the 1970s television series, "The World at War."
The film starts slowly as Frau Junge tells about her background. Her parents were divorced when she was young and she was raised by her mother. She got the job working for Hitler through a family connection. Junge explains she was one of four secretaries who worked for Hitler.
When she starts talking about Hitler she notes that he never talked about Jews or the death camps. She claims not to have known of the Final Solution. I do not doubt Junge's veracity. I do worry this will give ammunition to Holocaust deniers. (How could the German government be perpetrating these murders and Hitler's secretary didn't know.)
The most interesting part of the film is Junge's recounting of life in the bunker at the end of the war. She said that they lost track of time and were, for example, eating at odd times. They had no idea of what was going on outside.
Hitller and the other officials in the bunker mad plans for suicide. Hitler had gotten some cyanide tablets from Himmler. After a rumor started that Himmler had opened negotiations with the allies, Hitler tested the cyanide on his beloved dog, Blondie. The dog died.
Junge was present at Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun. After the wedding, Hitler dictated his "political testament" to Junge. She said she had expected him to reveal what had gone wrong, instead, Hitler dictated his usual diatribes against the Jews and blamed the German people for being unworthy of his vision.
The film ends with Junge observing that Hitler was wrong about what would happen after the war.
Anyone at all interested in World War II should see this film.
A slide at the beginning of the film said this was the first time Frau Junge had spoken about her experiences. I seem to recall she was interviewed in the 1970s television series, "The World at War."
The film starts slowly as Frau Junge tells about her background. Her parents were divorced when she was young and she was raised by her mother. She got the job working for Hitler through a family connection. Junge explains she was one of four secretaries who worked for Hitler.
When she starts talking about Hitler she notes that he never talked about Jews or the death camps. She claims not to have known of the Final Solution. I do not doubt Junge's veracity. I do worry this will give ammunition to Holocaust deniers. (How could the German government be perpetrating these murders and Hitler's secretary didn't know.)
The most interesting part of the film is Junge's recounting of life in the bunker at the end of the war. She said that they lost track of time and were, for example, eating at odd times. They had no idea of what was going on outside.
Hitller and the other officials in the bunker mad plans for suicide. Hitler had gotten some cyanide tablets from Himmler. After a rumor started that Himmler had opened negotiations with the allies, Hitler tested the cyanide on his beloved dog, Blondie. The dog died.
Junge was present at Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun. After the wedding, Hitler dictated his "political testament" to Junge. She said she had expected him to reveal what had gone wrong, instead, Hitler dictated his usual diatribes against the Jews and blamed the German people for being unworthy of his vision.
The film ends with Junge observing that Hitler was wrong about what would happen after the war.
Anyone at all interested in World War II should see this film.
Downfall - the documentary
Horst_In_Translation14 April 2016
Warning: Spoilers
"Im toten Winkel - Hitlers Sekretärin" or "Blind Spot. Hitler's Secretary" is an Austrian German-language movie from almost 15 years ago and there is really not that much to say about it. The entire film runs for slightly under 90 minutes and is basically in its entirety interview footage with Traudl Junge, Hitler's personal secretary, Luckily for us, she lived long enough to join this project. The duo who wrote and directed here are André Heller and Othmar Schmiderer. This is really a priceless document of global (war) history. The information comes directly from the source as almost nobody got closer to Hitler, also as a private person, than Junge did. It is great that we do not see hear an interviewer talk except on very few occasions and only very briefly, but that the whole film is Junge talking. Her memories are entirely intact, even if more than half a century passed between what she tells us about and when she tells it. She even says at one point that she has problems remembering, which makes obvious that everything before that is exactly how it happened and I did not think for a second that she was telling something which is not factual. This is a must-watch with everybody who has an interest in German history or World War II. I highly recommend checking it out.
BLIND SPOT -- Breathless pin-drop silence at Berlin 2002
Barev201318 November 2014
BLIND SPOT -- HITLER'S SECRETARY", a new 90 minute documentary film from Austria by Andre Heller, is the ultimate statement on the 'banality of evil' and has created a minor sensation at the 52nd Berlin Film Festival. The film consists entirely of a monologue by 81 year old TRAUDL JUNGE who was Hitler's private secretary from autumn 1942, when she was 22, until the final days in the Berlin Bunker ending with Hitler's suicide and the debacle of April 30, 1945. Every normal human eye has a certain point (called in German the "Der Tote Winkel", or dead corner") where no image registers and it is this "blind spot" which Ms. Junge invokes as the metaphor for her own inability to see the incredible evil of the infamous man she was in daily contact with for two and a half years, perceiving him only as a kindly gentlemen and sympathetic employer, while all the time feeling herself privileged to be working for such a "great man".
What is striking in the film is the vividness of her memory, her near total recall, and total refusal to gild the lily or make excuses for the fact that she was entirely taken in by Hitler's personal charisma.
Among details she reveals are many which we would perhaps prefer not to believe -- In person Hitler was a man full of warm "Austrian charm", soft-spoken, polite and very considerate to the female members on his staff. He employed cute Austrian colloquialisms like 'nimmermehr' and never rolled his Rs stridently in private as he did in his public speeches. He was a strict vegetarian and didn't smoke or use alcohol, and in general presented a healthy, well-groomed appearance. Most of the dictation Ms. Junge took was personal including answers to love letters from Hitler's hordes of female admirers! Politics were never discussed in her presence, and the word "Jude" (Jew) was never mentioned.
She was with Hitler at his Wolf's Lair HQ in East Prussia at the time of the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. When Hitler miraculously escaped with only minor lesions from a bomb blast during a strategy conference at the lair. Traudl was greatly relieved for he had by this time become a complete father figure to her.
Convinced that the war was already lost and that Hitler was only leading them on to destruction, a group of his own officers hatched the plot and planted the bomb. The miracle was that the meeting was transferred at the last minute from a concrete bunker, where everyone in the room would have been killed, to a flimsy wooden barracks where the force of the explosion was dissipated. Moreover, the bomb was hastily placed under a heavy wooden table which further shielded Hitler from its effect. Instead of realizing that things were now going haywire, Hitler took this as a sign that he was under divine protection and was more convinced than ever of ultimate victory. It was at this point, observes Junge, that Hitler began to lose his grip on reality. "He no longer had his feet on solid ground" is the way she puts it.
The last third of the film is an hour-by-hour account of the mounting despair in the bunker as the Russians approach and all hope of escape evaporates. Watching this lovable elderly woman reliving the ghastly experience she went through 56 years before as though it were yesterday becomes a hypnotic ordeal for the viewer. The German audience I watched it with was totally entranced to put it mildly. Breathless pin-drop silence all the way.
Finally Hitler announces he is going to shoot himself and asks Eva Braun to leave but she insists on staying with him to the bitter end. He calls in a magistrate and officially marries her on the eve of destruction. She proudly walks before all remaining members of Hitler's entourage, and says, "Now you can call me Frau Hitler". Until then she had been addressed as "Fraulein Braun".
Cyanide capsules are distributed to all those who choose to remain, but Hitler has now become so paranoid that he doesn't even trust the poison -- thinking someone might try to drug him and deliver him to the allies -- so he tests it out on his beloved canine, Goldie. The dog dies immediately as the smell of bitter almonds fills the room. The atmosphere has now become surrealistic but a semblance of life goes on as the topic of conversation turns to the most effective and painless ways of committing suicide. To illustrate the changed atmosphere, Junge points out that people for the very first time began to smoke in the führer's presence. After Mme. Goebbels poisons her six children "to save them from the shame of growing up in post-Nazi Germany" Trudl's love for "father Hitler" suddenly turns to hate and she wanders out of the bunker into the hell fire of the final day. Immediately after the nightmare of the bunker she was briefly interned by the Americans but released when it was determined that she had no political leanings whatsoever.
Heller does not "embellish" the film with archival footage which only serves to make the confessional monologue even more powerful. What she is talking about is in itself so monumental it needs no embellishment. The only "device" he employs is to show Ms.Junge watching previously recorded segments of her interviews, which sets off additional commentary on her own original comments, but this effect is sparingly used and does not detract.
This is a mind-boggling story told by a magnificent old woman. Sadly, two days after the world premiere here in Berlin of "IM TOTEN WINKEL" Traudl Junge, terminally ill with cancer, died in hospital at age 82 -- the very last eye-witness to the incredible last years and last days of Adolph Hitler. We can only hope that she died finally at peace with herself. ALEX, BERLIN: FEB: 17, 2002
What is striking in the film is the vividness of her memory, her near total recall, and total refusal to gild the lily or make excuses for the fact that she was entirely taken in by Hitler's personal charisma.
Among details she reveals are many which we would perhaps prefer not to believe -- In person Hitler was a man full of warm "Austrian charm", soft-spoken, polite and very considerate to the female members on his staff. He employed cute Austrian colloquialisms like 'nimmermehr' and never rolled his Rs stridently in private as he did in his public speeches. He was a strict vegetarian and didn't smoke or use alcohol, and in general presented a healthy, well-groomed appearance. Most of the dictation Ms. Junge took was personal including answers to love letters from Hitler's hordes of female admirers! Politics were never discussed in her presence, and the word "Jude" (Jew) was never mentioned.
She was with Hitler at his Wolf's Lair HQ in East Prussia at the time of the failed assassination attempt on July 20, 1944. When Hitler miraculously escaped with only minor lesions from a bomb blast during a strategy conference at the lair. Traudl was greatly relieved for he had by this time become a complete father figure to her.
Convinced that the war was already lost and that Hitler was only leading them on to destruction, a group of his own officers hatched the plot and planted the bomb. The miracle was that the meeting was transferred at the last minute from a concrete bunker, where everyone in the room would have been killed, to a flimsy wooden barracks where the force of the explosion was dissipated. Moreover, the bomb was hastily placed under a heavy wooden table which further shielded Hitler from its effect. Instead of realizing that things were now going haywire, Hitler took this as a sign that he was under divine protection and was more convinced than ever of ultimate victory. It was at this point, observes Junge, that Hitler began to lose his grip on reality. "He no longer had his feet on solid ground" is the way she puts it.
The last third of the film is an hour-by-hour account of the mounting despair in the bunker as the Russians approach and all hope of escape evaporates. Watching this lovable elderly woman reliving the ghastly experience she went through 56 years before as though it were yesterday becomes a hypnotic ordeal for the viewer. The German audience I watched it with was totally entranced to put it mildly. Breathless pin-drop silence all the way.
Finally Hitler announces he is going to shoot himself and asks Eva Braun to leave but she insists on staying with him to the bitter end. He calls in a magistrate and officially marries her on the eve of destruction. She proudly walks before all remaining members of Hitler's entourage, and says, "Now you can call me Frau Hitler". Until then she had been addressed as "Fraulein Braun".
Cyanide capsules are distributed to all those who choose to remain, but Hitler has now become so paranoid that he doesn't even trust the poison -- thinking someone might try to drug him and deliver him to the allies -- so he tests it out on his beloved canine, Goldie. The dog dies immediately as the smell of bitter almonds fills the room. The atmosphere has now become surrealistic but a semblance of life goes on as the topic of conversation turns to the most effective and painless ways of committing suicide. To illustrate the changed atmosphere, Junge points out that people for the very first time began to smoke in the führer's presence. After Mme. Goebbels poisons her six children "to save them from the shame of growing up in post-Nazi Germany" Trudl's love for "father Hitler" suddenly turns to hate and she wanders out of the bunker into the hell fire of the final day. Immediately after the nightmare of the bunker she was briefly interned by the Americans but released when it was determined that she had no political leanings whatsoever.
Heller does not "embellish" the film with archival footage which only serves to make the confessional monologue even more powerful. What she is talking about is in itself so monumental it needs no embellishment. The only "device" he employs is to show Ms.Junge watching previously recorded segments of her interviews, which sets off additional commentary on her own original comments, but this effect is sparingly used and does not detract.
This is a mind-boggling story told by a magnificent old woman. Sadly, two days after the world premiere here in Berlin of "IM TOTEN WINKEL" Traudl Junge, terminally ill with cancer, died in hospital at age 82 -- the very last eye-witness to the incredible last years and last days of Adolph Hitler. We can only hope that she died finally at peace with herself. ALEX, BERLIN: FEB: 17, 2002
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