This thread rocks!! A German struggles for support in making a RPG, and quickly the discussion turns to the real issue, the question of German guilt in WWII!
Das Boot had the commander whining about the Nazis again and how they are losing the war despite the film being set in 1941 when Germany was still on the ascendancy. I would expect the bitterness and defeatism to show up in a movie set in 1943 or 1944 but not 1941.
Are you aware that Das Boot is based on a novel, which is based on real people? The movie is one of the greatest ever made, and it was very true to the novel, even if they invented some things. And it was not so far from reality, there were so many different characters, not just the ones you picked. There was for example the 1WO, a pretty accurate portrayal of the typical German who empowered the Nazis.
Stalingrad was a shit movie, and Der Untergang was embarassing to watch, so diligently deconstructing Hitler at the moment when he was nothing but a wreck, and not the charismatic person that he was in his better times. A movie dealing with Hitler when he was still functioning would have been so much more interesting and would have allowed people to actually think for themselves.
I never got why the movie was so successful, I couldn't stand it. It did not give the least insight into the question why this man could set in motion a world war, and why so many people simply gave up rational thought in his present, when he was so psychologically instable.
In last free elections Nazis got ~33% votes with a turnout of ~72%. Which means that they were elected by ~24% of Germans with voting rights. They took over, banned all other parties and started doing not so nice things to people who opposed them.
Still, I've read a diary of an anti-Nazi German soldier (who died during the war) and he still described how they (Germans) murdered and robbed their way through soviet union because they had poor logistics and had to live from the land - which meant taking away people's all means of survival and killing anyone who even annoyed them.
Thanks, I was going to mention the election results, that gives a good picture how many Germans were really in favor of Nazism, and how many were just dragged into the thing. A large part were communists and social democrats. Ironically, even Jews voted for the Nazis. Of course the population as a whole cooperated too much, did not have a firm democratic base, and it was not just Nazis who commited crimes. Blind obedience and conformism was a always a negative German streak, and the nation payed for it.
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