User reviews

As has been noted, this is unmitigated propaganda. As with all good propaganda, there are elements of truth sprinkled throughout.

Fact is, there is a part of the German character that (not unlike "patriotic" Americans) believes in racial or societal or cultural superiority.

Totally unaware of the irony, this film attributes to Germans many of the same threats to society that 1930s Nazi propaganda assigned to Jews, gypsies, and gays. This film was made a decade before Brown v. Board of Education, two decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, more than half a century before 9/11.

"Others" are to blame, you know. They always are.

This film won an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short in 1945, and I believe it is the worst film ever nominated for an Oscar. This was a War Department film produced for our occupation troops in Germany, at a time when they were not allowed to even speak to a German. The premise is that there are still thousands (millions?) of Nazis out in the population, and we must keep them from letting another Hitler lead Germany. With a message like that for our troops, it's a wonder that the(West)Germans were our allies in the cold war. The film is available on videotape, under the title "Your Job in Germany", from International Historic Films in Chicago and is very rarely shown on Turner Classic Movies..

That's Benjamin Franklin's response to people who asked him, as he left the Constitutional Convention, what sort of government we had. In the same way, this short subject at the end of 1945, answers the question about what's the state of the world: a peace, if you can keep it.

Of course this short focuses on Germany, warning its audience that Germany had been a threat before, and could be a threat again, if we weren't careful. There's a tendency for people to see the past repeating itself.

As Mark Twain noted, history does not repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Two months after this short was released, Churchill made his "Iron curtain" speech and the Cold War was on.

Considering that this film was made just after WWII, the virulence of this documentary isn't all that surprising. The folks who made this truly hated the German people and don't want the audience to forget that this nation is just plain evil!! The problem is that to do this, they must twist history to make their point--such as ridiculously claiming WWI was all Germany's fault and that Allied leaders apparently had nothing to do with it! You also are told that 'they' are ALL born liars, manipulators and underneath their nice exterior, they are ALL uncivilized monsters! Again, considering the millions that were butchered by the Nazis in WWII, this outright hatred isn't surprising--but it is pretty disturbing when seen today. Overall, a nasty little film that won the Oscar for Best Documentary Short! Had it simply stuck with the facts, it would have been a very potent film, but the tone and style of the film is very problematic.

"...the problem isn't the FEW but the MANY" and "...they ALL have the conquest disease"--need I say more?!

The 1945 winner of Best Documentary Short Subject is intended as an indictment of Nazism, but goes overboard in demonizing Germany. "Hitler Lives" would have been better had it looked at the roots of Hitler's rise to power. I will give the documentary credit for noting that there were people in the US who wanted to use racism as a wedge issue, and that there were those who wanted to have even more wars (it's worth noting that Franklin Roosevelt was negotiating with the Soviet Union to ensure that there would be no future wars, but then he died and Harry Truman ditched that prospect; as a result we've had a near continuous state of war ever since). The documentary also says to beware of people who don't believe in the American ideals of freedom (i.e., it predicted McCarthyism).

So, "Hitler Lives" is OK but very much an example of wartime propaganda. The director was Don Siegel, later the director of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" and "Dirty Harry".

Narrow minded and positively worthless, the short "Hitler Lives" is the kind of piece of filmmaking that shouldn't exist at all, and not even get an Oscar with such miserable remarks.

End of WWII, Germany defeated and it's all quiet on the front, right? Wrong, according to this documentary. The danger now is the countless Nazists hidden amidst the German people, painted here as evil people, everybody had the same goal. It's too easy to beat up someone who's down and this thing makes it perfectly by quoting that Germans are a line of people who always needs blood and conquer lands, from Bismarck to Hitler. Sure, their leader at the time said things about them being of a superior race but that didn't mean all Germans agreed with such statement and his politics.

Often sarcastic and extremely filled with some prejudice, this propaganda made by the American government isn't different than the one famously known in the world in "Triumph of the Will". Its purpose is to explain why U.S. forces had reasons to stay in Germany to make it a safer place and to impeach that new radical movements rise up to surface to cause more damage to the world, that's the idea the film promotes by stating that Germans never know how to be and stay peaceful ("War. Phoney peace. War. Phoney peace." says the narrator). One can argue that the film's message of alerting people about the possibilities of a Nazi threat born again is useful, relevant but the problem is that it does that by generalizing that all Germans were favorable, supported the regime and they're all evil.

Good and informative archive footage is intertwined with some poor segments with actors. Thankfully this is short, never getting near the epic, boring yet important Riefenstahl film and those long marches and speeches. Worths a view for the presentation, the images and the way they sell an idea. The picture as a whole it's ridiculous. 4/10

...........Nothing About The Versailles Treaty.

OKAY, WE GET it. The War in Europe was over. "The Fuhrer", Adolf Hitler was now history. But we all must be vigilant in seeing that the ideas promulgated by the German Nazi Party, the Italian Fascist Party, the Imperial Japanese or any of the other groups advocating such political systems anywhere and everywhere are held in check. The film gets on to that idea very early on and continues so for the duration of the approximately 17 minutes on the screen.

WHEREAS WE DO understand that we must view a picture like this through the prism of time that was another period. The autocratically crafted narration by then famed newsman, Knox Manning, was appropriate at this time; what with World War II in Europe now just ended and Japan still fanatically fighting for the Land of the Rising Sun and their Emperor.

BUT STILL WE find that the story line (scenario or plot if you will) was just a little too heavy handed with its indictment of the German people as being inherently warlike. While we concede that the militarism of the Kingdom of Prussia was solely responsible for so many past wars.

THIS CONVENTIONAL WISDOM about the cause of World War I was the fault of Germany is flawed and biasedly thought out at best. Although the Imperial German government of Kaiser Wilhelm II would share in the blame, the other major powers of Austria-Hungary, Italy, France, Great Britain and Russia were certainly far from innocent. And we mustn't forget Serbia, whose people had a widespread case of nationalism; which led to the April 28, 1914 assassination of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, which in turn was the start of the First World War.

AND THAT EVENT brings us down to the end of hostilities on the 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month or November 11, 1918. In turn, the Treaty of Versailles was negotiated between the Allied Powers and Germany on June 28, 1919. But rather than restoring a true state of peace, the aim was to punish Germany; as the Versailles agreement would testify to. With about 420 ordnances in the document, 400 were designed to punish Germany.

SUCH A DOCUMENT would surely lead to widespread suffering and resentment among the German people. In turn, one would expect that a radical political party and leader would emerge seeking revenge.

AND WASN'T THAT just what Hitler and thed Nazi Party were ?

After years of war and deaths, feelings were strong against Germany and Japan. For most people, at that time, this film was not too graphic and it's likely children were not permitted to see it. Thousands and thousands of families lost sons and daughters in that war and the many refugees coming from Europe lived there to see these things first hand. Fear that the Germans would resort to a warlike stance again were well founded, like they say, you can't teach an old dog a new trick. In 1945 there still were many Nazi adherents in Germany and right here in the USA too, as there are even today. If there's fault in this presentation it is due to the profound bitterness generated by the atrocities witnessed by our fighting men. Especially notice, the curious fact, that with all those bodies shown, and the ovens too, none were identified as Jews.

An extraordinarily powerful and deeply moving condemnation of Nazism and the threat it still represented among the German population following WWII. Beautifully directed by Don Siegal and featuring a stunning script by Theordore Geisel, this short film delivers a profound message in our own time. It is a sharp warning indeed to our own republic as it endures leadership that is pure demagoguery, authoritarianism, and dishonesty. The Germans bought the Big Lie Hitler was selling and now, an incredible number of Americans are doing the same. This film is a must see and should be shown in every theater and on television nightly for the next few years.

Hitler Lives (1945)

** (out of 4)

Stupid yet very strong propaganda film made by the War Department warning U.S. soldiers still in Germany not to trust their people even though the war is over. The documentary short tells us why German's are such evil people without holding back any punches. This type of thing certainly isn't going to sit well when viewed today but I suppose it did have a purpose in 1945 but even then this thing just goes way too far. The film preaches a lot of hatred while at the same time telling us that German people are wrong because they hate others. This film preaches that Americans are better yet it puts Germans down because they think they are better. This film preaches that German's hate other races and that American's "can love all races" yet I guess that didn't includes blacks considering how they were treated in our country in 1945. This film goes even further about shaking hands of German people because those same hands are the ones that killed women and children. We get some very graphic photos of various dead bodies being burned, buried or hung. There are some really ugly images here that many are going to turn their head away from but in the end it's all to throw fear at Americans. While this film is rather unpleasant to watch there's no doubt it's rather original as I can't recall too much preaching this much hatred.