Representation of Adolf Hitler
Since the years of a bloody WWII, media and historians were engaged in the disclosure of the ideology and personality of the leader of Third Reich due to the atrocities he had committed such as the Holocaust. This figure was a founder of the Nazi party and Nazi Regime itself – Adolf Hitler.
Most written and visual texts on WWII represent Adolf Hitler in a dehumanised manner – obscuring historical fact and inflating his evil to mythical proportions – making his personality appear to the audience as a pure evil. On the other hand, while humanising his figure would more accurately expose the realities of this era and disempower him for good. It seems like the modern media is trying to convince the audience to hate Hitler even though Second World War ended 70 years ago. So why is the media so desperately trying to demonstrate the Fuhrer from the only one side of the coin?
Firstly, let’s have a closer look at the ideology of the modern media might give the right answer to this question. There are 3 main purposes of the media: entertain, persuade and educate. Considering the theme of the following article, it is reasonable to claim that purposes which play key roles in constructing visual and written historical texts are to educate the audience past history or to persuade viewers and readers to buy a product or think a certain way. But all of these purposes are hidden under the real goal of the media – make as much money as possible. And to achieve this goal, they are trying to position the Fuhrer to the audience in the way the audience wants to see him.
Mass murderer, tyrant, pure evil, dictator and many more, only those terms are foregrounding Hitler in the most of the modern media. The humiliation of 7 million Jews that is also known as the Holocaust – is one of the biggest arguments in representing Adolf Hitler in a very frank dehumanised manner. One of the most explicit examples of this genre is the American docudrama “Hitler: Rise of Evil”.
“Hitler: Rise of Evil” directed by Canadian director Christian Duguay demonstrated to us the most obvious one-sided, misleading and historically disrespectful representation of Hitler you can imagine. The growth of Adolf Hitler as an evil figure is presented throughout the film, since his tough childhood when even at that time the authors are desperately trying to set us up against the baby Hitler, to the rise of his dictatorship and the humiliation of the Jewish race.
The film has tried to implicate the ‘Hollywood style’ storytelling into the film, meaning that the drama, emotions and the action are prior to the historical accuracy. And no wonder that Ian Kershaw, British historian who is well known for his multiple Adolf Hitler biographies, who was a scientific consultant for this docudrama, dissociated himself from the film due to the disagreement between him and the authors on the basis of the truthfulness of the representation.
Without a doubt the performance of the actors is peerless, especially the role of Robert Carlyle’s Adolf Hitler is inimitable. By making the Carlyle’s character skinny, unattractive and sort of a rat-looking the authors are positioning the audience to treat him On the other hand, how could he perform his character knowing that his representation is mendacious?
Furthermore, scenes of his childhood where Hitler is represented as a ruthless, spoiled and cruel little devil are trying to represent him in a very unfairly dehumanised perspective. This is when a Biographical Power Discourse appears. Similarly, scenes throughout the film are increasing Hitler’s appearance as a stubborn, sexually as well as mentally immature and maniacally mannered persona. A personal favourite scene when Hitler, in order to prove to other soldiers that he is capable to command others, starts to beat a dog he recently saved for its disobedience. What were screenwriters thinking when they came up with the idea of a dog beating?! As can be expected, by using a very popular Hollywood technique, that is known as compassion to the animals, authors made the absolute majority of the audience start hating Hitler. And surely it does not matter that he killed 7 million of Jews, he beat a small and innocent doggy! How silly did that scene look? It is a well-known fact that Adolf Hitler was a true animal and especially dog lover, sometimes it seems like he loved dogs more than any other person in the world. Therefore, just by making the world’s most famous dog lover beat a dog, it makes any representation of Hitler in this particular movie historically incorrect and untruthful source of historical context.
By trying to reach a larger audience authors of this visual text were forced to represent Hitler in a dehumanised manner due to the fact that it easier to reinforce the established opinion rather than to refute it. On the contrary of dehumanising Hitler, written texts are more