Der Untergang

Synopsis

Berlin, April 1945. A nation awaits its downfall. House-to-house fighting rages in the streets of the capital. Hitler, along with several of his generals and closest confidants, has barricaded himself in the Fuehrer's Bunker under the Reichskanzlei. Among them is Traudl Junge, Hitler's private secretary, who doesn't want to abandon him. While the situation outside escalates — the Red Army is advancing, and in the city's bomb-scarred districts desperate scenes are unfolding — Hitler experiences the downfall of the Third Reich behind thick bunker walls. Although Berlin can no longer be held, the Fuehrer refuses to leave the city. He wants, as the architect Speer puts it, "to be an stage when the last curtain falls." But Hitler is not an stage. While the full force of the hopelessly lost war crashes down over his people, the Fuehrer stages his final departure. Only hours before their joint suicide, he marries Eva Braun. Instead of the final victory comes the final defeat, but that has also been planned down to the last detail. After Hitler and Eva Braun have taken their lives, their corpses are burned so that they do not fall into the hands of the enemy. Many of his faithful also choose suicide. Goebbels and the remaining generals refuse to comply with the Russians' demand for unconditional surrender As the situation becomes ever more hopeless, Magda Goebbels poisons her six children before she and her husband take their own lives. Shortly thereafter Traudl Junge and several others manage to escape at the last minute...
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Cast & Crew

Directed by: Oliver Hirschbiegel

Written by: Bernd Eichinger

Produced by: Bernd Eichinger

Cinematography: Rainer Klausmann

Editing: Hans Funck

Original Score: Stephan Zacharias

Cast: Bruno Ganz (Adolf Hitler), Matthias Habich (Werner Haase), Alexandra Maria Lara (Traudl Junge), Thomas Kretschmann (Hermann Fegelein), Corinna Harfouch (Magda Goebbels), Ulrich Noethen (Heinrich Himmler), Ulrich Matthes (Joseph Goebbels), Alina Sokar (Helga Goebbels), Juliane Köhler (Eva Braun), Heino Ferch (Albert Speer), Christian Berkel (Ernst Günther Schenck)

Nominations and Awards

  • European Actor 2004