Search - Hitler's Diaries, Starring Adolf Hitler. The Rise & Fall & Mind & God of Adolf Hitler on DVD

Truly awful, abysmal.

J. O'Kelly | Paris | 12/10/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Where do you start on a DVD like this. ?
I will start with the better part on side B dealing with Japanese atrocities in Asia & in particular with the Nanking massacres.
The film is graphic, shocking & based on facts with a scholarly / historical approach. There are extensive eye witness accounts of the most appalling brutality not just from Chinese surviviors but also Western journalists & even a genuine German Nazi whi tried to shelter some of the Chinese. There are also eye witness accounts from Japanese soldiers, officers, journalists & even from contemporary Japanese newspapers with photographs.
The massacres were sustained (c 8 weeks in Nanking alone), widespread & sanctioned from the very top as a war tactic aimed at cowing resistance to Imperial Japan.
This movie is not for the squemish or the faint hearted.

That's the (relatively) good part. The Hitler diaries is just the opposite. It is full of action shots of explosions, deaths, atrocities, mass murder etc but it jumps around in a bizarre manner. The film follows the conventional chronology starting with Hitler's early years, his brutal childhood & teenage poverty in Vienna. Then on into the 1st World War thru to the end in 1945.
There are glaring errors, Hitler did not conceive of & begin the Autobahn construction, he accelerated it after he came to power. He did not design the Volkswagen, he commissioned Ferdinand Porsche to do it.
As we get to the war years the film becomes increasingly muddled with continuous flashbacks to the 30's newsreels & Triumph of the Will. This is not only inaccurate, it is confusing. Do we really need to see the Leibstandarte marching in the Triumph sequence three times but with different music ? Why do we get to see Hitler's 1930's Newsreels in the middle of the war footage ? Why put Hitler descending the steps at Berchtesgaden to the Badenweiler march ? This is just silly.
Why is the Holocaust dealt with twice but with much of the same footage ?
We are told early on that Hitler was guided by something called "the voice". This told him all sorts of things incl that he must slaughter the Jews. There are other continous pseudo-magic / paranormal claims throughout. Indeed if this film has a central theme it could be said to be "blame the voice" ! If this is true it presumably means that Hitler was what would now be called a schizophrenic, insane which lets him off the hook for any guilt or blame.
The film does not explicitly make this claim it only implies it but without anything like enough evidence for such a conclusion.
I am inclined to think that without such evidence that "the voice is innocent".
A truly awful, pointless movie.
Lastly, despite the title, there is no mention anywhere of Hitler's diaries."

Artistic, Mesermizing, Horrifying, Shocking.

Tiger Wolf | California | 12/18/2007

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Hitler's Diaries is like Felini on acid. Very stream of consciousness. Hitler's Voice forms the soundtrack. Several of Hitler's speeches are presented. Hitler is like a shaman, a preacher at a revival meeting, and everything is very gothic, like a Wagnerian opera. We see two Hitlers. The super-madman, and the feminine hysteric.

Side B presents us with the Rape of Nanking. The style is similar to Hitler's Diaires, except now there is narration and the story is told in a straightforward chronological order using archival photographs and film-footage. This is a rather shocking film, not because the pictures are so terrible, but because the brutality of the Japanese Imperial army is so stunning and horrifying, soldiers laughing while they burn people to death, with beheadings, bayonneting, live burials going on for weeks.

Most Westerns are aware of what the Nazis did. Few have actually seen anything on film about Japanese atrocities. This DVD presents both sides of WWII, its really two DVDs in one."

What a waste!

Arne Fagerholt | Norway | 12/06/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Waste of money! This DVD is just a collection of footage and text on the screen with excerpts from a diary. With no narrator or dramaturgic variation or story line, this seems like a cheap spin-off product just made fro making a profit. There are many other GOOD movies and documentaries in the same category that are far more recommendable! Save your money and shelf space on this one..."

Mind of The Madmen, Hitler & Hirohito

Ronald Becker | USA | 05/24/2006

(5 out of 5 stars)

"If you are looking for your standard PBS- style documentary, these two movies, Hitler's Diaries is side A, The Rape of Nanking side B, are not for you. If you hate reading, or if the mere mention of the name "Hitler" makes your blood boil, then you will hate Hitler's Diaries.

Presented from Hitler's point of view and of his followers, this film is a dark journey into triumph and abyss. In Mein Kampf Adolph tell of the saviour "voice" which protected him from immolation; his boyhood friend, Kubicek, tells us of a Hitler possessed by a demonic force; his early followers and Goebels the Nazi propaganda minister compare Hitler to Jesus and god. The religious, demonic qualities of Nazism were well known in the late 1930s until the mid 1950s, when for reason I'll never understand revisionist historians began presenting us with a sanitized, albeit still very evil Hitler, with all references to Nazi-Hitler fascination with the paranormal and other-worldly phenomena excised from history. Not so this film which turns to the ultimate source, Hitler and his followers.

I watched this film with a non-gentile friend who became angry at the glorifying Nazi-imagery incorporated into this film and the presentation of Hitler's anti-semitic views. This is the point, the Nazis were pioneering experts at using symbols of god-like greatness to inspire the masses. The mass murder of Jews is also historical fact and we see, and then see again, Jews and non-Jews shot, gassed, starved and murderered.

Hitler, who may have been 1/4 Jewish, whose father may have been 1/2 Jewish, who was brought into this world by a Jewish doctor who also treated his mother's breast cancer, hated the Jews. This film, splashing Hitler's own irrational words upon the silver screen provides a window into this irrational, genocidal madness. We see again and again, archival film footage of Jews marched into ditches and shot.

Another unique feature is the clever use of Hitler's own voice as the musical soundtrack. Those who have listened to father/son presidents Bush mangle the English language or the uninspired prose of most every modern day politicians, can only be amazed at the demonic power of a Hitler speech. What a showman, pure theater. Every Hitler rally and speech a Wagnerian opera. Watch and listening to Hitler giving a speech and we begin to understand how this man could mesmerize, inspire, and hypnotize an entire nation, whipping the masses with a voice that scolds, mocks, and yes, even makes love to the listerner.

Hitler's Diaries is a psychological study into the mind and actions of an evil genius, and that mind
twists, turns, contradicts, repeats, and ultimate, destroys itself and much of Europe. Warning, not for the faint hearted. Men and women are hanged, shot, beat, and gassed to death, by the millions, and the gory images are rubbed right into your face.

The Rape of Nanking. Most Westerners think Hitler was the worst mass
murderer in the history of the world, and the Nazis the cruelest. Not so. Stalin,
Mao, and Japan's Emperor Hirohito take the honors, with the Japanese Imperial Army winning 1st prize
as equals before Satan and his devils. Most modern-day westerners know nothing of
the nightmarish atrocities committed by the Japanese during WWII. Japan's image has been wholly
sanitized and the Japanese are often thought of as innocent victims of
America's cruel use of the atomic bomb. Yet, Japan's war time image was little different from the denizens of hell. Nazi soldiers often became sick and vomited when ordered to shoot innocent women and children. Japanese soldiers enjoyed it. They tortured people for fun! Side B documents these horrific atrocities committed during an 8 week period in the then capital of China, Nanjiing. Men, women, children were raped, beheaded, bayonetted, set on fire, and tortured to death for fun. The Japanese military called it "killing practice" and thought the raping, torture and murder of Chinese women was good for morale! They also murdered and tortured to honor their god, Emperor Hirohito, who, according to Japanese military-religious belief, was destined to rule over the entire world. To aid Hirohito in fulfilling his divine destiny, the Japanese tortured for pleasure and for science, establishing the infamous unit 731 where innocent people including American soldiers, were infected with horrible diseases and dissected alive. Most viewers will find side B, the Rape of Nanking, to be extremely informative and interesting; its a side of history the Western world has ignored."