Ich klage an

Banned? How about studied to understand how it was effective, so we can protect ourselves from having our buttons pushed in the future? The actress was beautiful, and of an opinion very different from the handicapped activists in groups like 'Not Dead Yet'. We are being pushed and pulled by media and society every day. Let's wake up by studying and learning from the tricks of the past. Banning it will only leave us blind to newer tricks. Insight and awareness are the cure for propaganda in any age. In our age we see the same arguments raised, that some life is not worth living. Sometimes the life in question can argue in its own defense, sometimes not.

This film is a premier example of what a dangerous weapon the cinematic arts can be. _Ich klage an_ was a propaganda piece, carefully constructed by the Nazis, to persuade the viewing public how reasonable it would be for euthanasia to be first legalized and then state run. The sentimentality with which the relationship between the husband and his terminally ill wife is portrayed is brilliant. The debate in the jury room (the debate is over the euthanizing of the wife and the guilt of her murderer) is indeed one of the shrewdest pieces of propaganda in cinematic history. Germans in the Nazi period had great sympathy for the film and with few exceptions accepted the reasonableness of its arguments about "quality of life". We know where that led. If dead Nazis could vote on IMDb, they'd give _Ich klage an_ nines and tens for sure. Never again, dear friends, never again.

This film was made to justify the killing of disabled Germans in the so-called Nazi euthanasia program, properly known as Aktion T-4. It's not about choice. It's not about euthanasia. It's about marginalizing persons with disabilities -- and justifying their deaths in a murder machine which was the dry run for the Final Solution. The previous writer didn't mention this in his/her review. This "film" must be viewed and reviewed from its true historical perspective. There was no sort of moral "choice" involved in Aktion T-4.

I chose purposefully not to comment on content. The only reason to seek out this thing is for the study of Nazi propaganda -- and not very successful propaganda at that. And as Aktion T-4 and history proves, being "put to sleep" has nothing to do with disability rights or choice.

As the first comment writer explained, this film was Nazi propaganda that helped lead to the Euthanasia movement of the Reich. Over 70,000 men, women, and children were killed as a result of this movement. If you have any ounce of a conviction to follow a moral standard, the purpose of this film should outweigh intellectual recognition, that is, the fact that this film furthered darkest era of the 20th century should *alone* ban it from viewers. If anything, it should be kept in storage as a reminder of the kind of propaganda that manifests itself during similar movements. To conclude, one should pay close attention to more recent cinematic developments, particularly movies like Million Dollar Baby, The Sea Inside, Sin City, and many other movies released recently praised as "good" movies. If you're not frightened, you should be.

Intended as a propaganda movie , the audience did not react to it as Goebbels expected ;in fact taken in isolation of its historical context -that made it an accursed movie- succeeds measurably well ;it should be pointed out that,in Nurnberg ,the movie was considered " a "not quite nazi propaganda " film.

A person who would not know the film was released in 1941 could easily be fooled and Liebeneiner 's movie looked upon as an intimate tragedy ,what the film actually was: the German audience was deeply upset by Hanna 's and Pr Heyt's terrible fate; a professor with good prospects and his wife ,proud of his husband, who has just be appointed to an important post in Munchen ;thus the first twenty minutes are essentially a celebration ,the wife believing she's pregnant to boot.

The medical exams and the wife's despair are treated with a great modesty ; the illness (multiple sclerosis) and the desperate research of a distraught husband are shown in parallel ;it should not be lost on anybody that there was a woman among the scientists whereas they were at best nurses at the time ; it's the female researcher who puts an end to a lab mouse's sufferings .Heidemarie Heyer is a strong actress,playing a terminally-ill woman ,hoping against hope ; matching her all along the way is Paul Hartmann's researcher ,facing the worst dilemma ;his final speech is impressive in his "judge not lest you be judged " ; the ending is daring for the time (and the historical context :one should note that there're no real hints at the political situation of the -then- triumphant country )

It must be the subject: in 2013, a terminally -ill girl in her twenties was compelled to leave her homeland for Switzerland to get assisted suicide: "und Morgens bin ich tod" ;that was then ,but this is now.