Product Details

• Actors: David Ritchie (II), Reinhard Appel, Arnold Arluk, Maria Bonmann-Lau, Winrich Behr
• Format: Box set, Black & White, Color, NTSC
• Rated: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 6
• Studio: A&E Home Video
• VHS Release Date: January 15, 1998
• Run Time: 300 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 076700258X
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #266,013 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Typical Hitler biographies start either at his birth or at his appointment to chancellor in 1933, and follow events through 1945. Not so here: ZDF and A&E's psychological biography The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler manages to give us something new. Each of the six tapes in this set starts with Hitler's youth and ends with his suicide but focuses specifically on only one archetype in his personality: "The Private Man," "The Seducer," "The Blackmailer," "The Dictator," "The Commander," and "The Criminal." Rather than present the historical events moment by moment, this documentary delves into normally unresearched areas and offers a behind-the-scenes psychological perspective on the 20th century's greatest criminal.

A component of the production that disappoints, however, irregularly displays Hitler's citations between segments, accompanied by disharmonic music. The point is here perhaps too heavy-handed, even trite, in an age today when so many are desensitized through overexposure to Nazi rhetoric. The intent of these citations thus falls flat. Another unfortunate though common misjudgment in this English-language edition of the A&E production is the failure to translate Nazi concepts, imbuing them with a mystical feel that is totally absent in a German-language context. To an English-speaker's ears, such terms as Führer, Lebensraum, and Einsatztruppen seem abstract, even magical. It would be helpful if producers of Nazi-era histories could show how concrete, how base, such terms really are: Führer means simply "leader"; Lebensraum, "room to live"; Einsatztruppen, "commandos." Nazism is not a high-brow ideology, and there is no need to enhance National Socialism by inadvertently mystifying it this way.

These shortcomings do not dominate, however, and ZDF and A&E's huge effort at integrating oral history with film footage is praiseworthy. Enhanced with rare color footage and compelling interviews of those closest to Hitler, this biography is truly something unusual among hundreds of otherwise similar Hitler biographies. An informed recommendation for any history or psychology buff. --Erik J. Macki

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Definitely not worth it, what a disappointment, December 8, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Rise & Fall of Adolf Hitler [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Entirely apart from incorrect facts and dates, this documentary has very poor picture quality and is obviously extremely biased. Whenever Hitler speaks, they put it into slow motion so he sounds like a monster. Do we really need this kind of propaganda? All the quotes are taken out of the context for which they were intended. Much seems to be lost in the translation as well, especially in quotes. Any serious WWII fanactic will hate this box set.

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Uneven and poorly paced, July 18, 2000

By 

Candace Scott (Lake Arrowhead, CA, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rise & Fall of Adolf Hitler [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Though there are some elements of this documentary that are stellar, ultimately it falls flat. The tinny and irritating music which accompanies various Hitler quotes (some of them translated incorrectly) begins to jar on the nerves after episode one. The interviews with various Hitler intimates are interesting, though none of them say anything new.

The highlight of the entire five hours is great film discovered of Hitler in 1914, standing on the Odeonsplatz in Munich. There is also new film of Hitler marching with the Freicorps in 1919 and some rare footage of him again in Garmisch in 1920. At least the same old dreary stock footage of Hitler is supplemented with some interesting, new footage.

A note on the film and sound quality in this package: it's substandard. When I've seen the series on the History Channel, the quality is superior to this VHS version.

This is probably still the best attempt made to document Hitler's life and times, but there is still ample room for improvement in the future.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Hitler (sort of...), April 5, 2003

By 

Tim Hitchner (Vancouver, British Columbia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Rise & Fall of Adolf Hitler [VHS] (VHS Tape)

The best thing about this series is having the majority of all the best Hitler film footage in one collection. But its not exactly a completely neutral re-telling of the story, so beware. Using a combination of many interviews with elderly Germans who say - in effect with 20/20 hindsight - "we knew he was evil, we just couldn't put our finger on it at the time" - and the technique of slowing Hitler's own recordings down to half speed to make him sound like Satan himself. This is really a piece of propaganda no less than anything Goebbels ever produced.