Customer Reviews

Nazi Hunters: The Real Story

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While this footage is tough to watch for even a hardened veteran of gruesome images, it is essential viewing for anyone who wants to understand why it is so important to take a hard line against the forces in the world which seek to pull their fellow man apart with emotionless abandon, simply to see how she/he will react to the dismemberment. While scholars fetishize the term "banality of evil", what's on display here is the full gamut of evil from banal to stark raving horror-cakes and folks, it ain't pretty.

Possibly the most difficult footage for me to watch was a silent film clip of an S.S. doctor handling a child of around five or six years old, in a way that mimicked a father tossing his child around playfully. In fact at first it seems as if this child is laughing, but after a few moments you realize that the child is actually screaming in terror. This footage goes on and keeps getting worse. It was literally blood chilling for me and was terribly effective at communicating how morally bereft the people who committed these crimes were.

This DVD is not a solid wall of gore and horror. It is interspersed with trial footage and some interesting ephemera like several angles of Goring's post-capture press conference, including one in color. It curdles fascination to see him (and others) so pompous and at ease with themselves, freshly in Allied custody. When inter-cut with the reactions of the war criminals to John Ford's concentration camp footage, you get a bit of a window into these spoiled visages of monsters who think themselves heroes. As they avert their eyes in the group witness box, pretending to be shocked but somehow just not really being able to pull it off... you can tell that they actually approve of the horrors on screen. You realize, if they weren't in that prison they would be doing everything they could to keep that horror going as long as possible. That's why this documentary is important. That's why it's important to never forget.

It's hard to say why people with no guilt or emotions inside them also sometimes have world beating drive and determination, but it happens. The weird thing is, once that snowball starts rolling downhill into hell, it can be extremely difficult to stop. Momentum is a b*tch, especially when it is gobbling up everything in its path. There can exist things SO huge that when you're standing right beside them, you can miss that they are even there. In this way the human mind can avoid things or try to blend them into the background because they are too difficult to deal with in the moment. That's what this footage is like. You will want to push it out of your brain after you see it and tell yourself "Not here. Not in MY house." But that's what people always think b/c it's a self defense mechanism. Sort of like finding a lump while you are in the shower and convincing yourself it's nothing. Maybe. But every once in a while it can turn malignant so you better check it out and/or cut it out before it starts rolling down that hill.

It wouldn't be good to immerse yourself in something as foul and soul crushing as this footage on a regular basis, but knowing HOW far down a human being can go, morally, spiritually and mentally can be a great reset button for your sense of urgency against intolerance, prejudice and hatred. Dissension and debate are essential to free society, so room should be made for all opinions. One epic reason for this is that you NEED to know who is piping up with ideas about eradicating entire groups of people based on irrationally drilled-down specifics of things like race, religion, creed, color, sex or any other kind of diversity that unifies the race of (wo)man. When anybody begins to express the opinion that diversity occupies a function of division or subtraction for humans, rather than a function of addition or multiplication, then you know they're full of crap and you need to raise your voice a little louder.

The DVD itself is a standard Mill Creek Entertainment release, with the disc packaged inside a black paper sleeve and then enclosed in a thick, clamshell case. All the footage itself, while eye-averting in nature, is almost all super clear and very well presented. Not sure how much restoration went into this but it is great quality, picture wise.

If you are at ALL easily disturbed by graphic images, then you might want to give this one a pass, but really I would encourage you to at least try to watch as much as possible. Hearing about things like this and SEEING them are two totally different things. Seeing it bypasses all emotional filtering or pre-judging. It is just there in all its stark reality, staring you in the face and you can't do anything about it because most of the people on screen are already dead and gone. All you can do is look forward and move through every day with a light to push back the darkness and the humility and confidence to believe it will make a difference. It also doesn't hurt to remind yourself exactly what is in that darkness you're pushing back. It steels the soul against the iniquities that await it. Many don't have the guts. They prefer to take the easy way out... they ignore and exclude rather than implore and include. We all have that choice to make and the truth is we never stop making it. Watching this footage, that fact has never been more clear to me.

This is the best nazi hunter documentary I have ever seen, hands down! The footage is incredible (and often poignant and sad of course), and of high quality. There is actual footage of the many nazi hunting trials, as well as with Simon Wiesenthal and Serge and Beate Klarsfeld, who are the most famous nazi hunters to have existed. The producers/directors did a great job documenting how many of these WWII criminals went into hiding, and how they were ferreted out. Absolutey RIVETING, to say the least! This is a 'must own' if you are a 'WWII buff', and/or wanting to add to your knowledge or collection of 'nazi hunters'.

This DVD is an intersting doc, but is way too short, and covers very little of Weisenthal's, or other nazi hunters adult life's work, nor the Odessa file, or really much of anything regarding the 50-60 odd year hunt for Nazi war criminals. It did mention Sophie Scholl, I'm glad to say. Buy that DVD(Sophie Scholl). Not all German were in love with the Meth- Maniac. I admittedly didn't note the length before buying, but it just leaves way too much of the story untold.
Nevertheless, it does tell, in brief, a take on the situation I didn't previously own.

As time goes on, more and more info about the Nazis is coming out. Anyone who was/is involved in crimes against humanity should be held accountable. I wasn't aware that there were some really evil Nazi women. After seeing this, how can anyone deny the Halocaust?

This is a very good book if you are interested in History. People need to remember what has happened in order to prevent bad things happening again.