Surviving Hitler: A Love Story

[mrs_emma_peel]

Surviving Hitler: A Love Story
Repeated ... BBC4 ... Friday 19th August 2011 ... 12.00 midnight - 12.55am

I’ve just watched this incredibly powerful and poignant story of love and war ... an absolutely superb, meticulously well researched, multi-award winning documentary using skilful and sensitive reconstructions and very rare and very graphic archive footage ...
Emma

A stunningly beautiful young Jewish woman (with a beauty echoing that of Ingrid Bergman) and a German injured soldier join the doomed Valkyrie plot to kill Hitler at the Wolf's Lair, in the woods near Rastenburg in East Prussia (now Poland). The couple face a certain and brutal death ... yet through ingenuity, incredible luck and an indomitable intense love ... they escape the Nazi terror and become the first couple to marry in post-war Berlin.

The documentary is quite brilliantly and movingly narrated by the former young woman herself and featuring the original (never seen before) archive footage shot by her lover, their story would sound like a pitch for a Hollywood blockbuster were it not all true. Surviving Hitler is a harrowing tale of war, resistance, love and survival ... with a quite miraculously ... happy ending.

Source: DigiGuide/Radio Times/Mrs Emma Peel

This compelling love story provides an engaging, fresh angle on life in Germany during the rise, reign, and fall of the Third Reich. Despite the menacing political and social forces that were looming at the time, a romance blossoms between Helmuth, a German soldier, and Jutta, the magnificently lucid central narrator, who as a teenager is shocked to learn that she is half Jewish. Helmuth, realizing the implications of Hitler’s plans, joins the Valkyrie plot to assassinate the F�hrer.

With the failure of the plot comes a series of harrowing events as the couple and their associates are brutally pursued by the Nazi machine. Narrated in vivid detail and supported by fascinating archival footage that has never been seen before, this documentary grips our attention with its perfect confluence of simple romantic narrative, tense wartime story, and eye-opening links to monumental historical events.

Source: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival … New York … April 2012.




The documentary was immediately followed by an equally powerful, very moving and harrowing Emmy Award winning documentary ... but with no happy ending ... My Father Was A Nazi Commandant ... available to view on BBCi Player ... the programme contains some extremely graphic, very rare archive footage of the hanging of Amon Goth and a clip from Schindler's List.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode...zi_Commandant/
Source: BBC4/Radio Times/DigiGuide

[mrs_emma_peel]

Apologies ...
the source should have read: Full Frame Documentary Film Festival � New York � April 2011
Emma

[Steve Crook]

Thanks Mrs Peel, I'll try to catch the repeat.

BTW I do like it when they say things like "archival footage that has never been seen before".
If nobody's ever seen it before it's shown in the documentary, was it just luck that they happened to choose an appropriate piece of footage?
Do they blindfold the editor while they are making the selection and putting it all together?
Or am I taking it too literally?

Steve

[jimw1]

Thank you Mrs Peel....I watched it this evening on BBC iPlayer........Wonderful Documentary.......

[batman]

I watched both of those programmes and echo Mrs Peel's views. The second one was not easy to watch at times but was very rewarding. Later this week there's an interesting looking drama called The Man Who Crossed Hitler. It's a true story about a young lawyer who, against the advice of virtually everyone he knew, called Hitler as a witness in the trial of some early 30s Nazi thugs. Ian Hart plays Hitler.

[Freddy]

Saw this on i player, reminded me of Dennis Potter's drama 'Christabel' based on Christabel Bielenberg's book on how she, an english girl, married a German lawyer in pre war Germany and who was later involved in the Von Stauffenberg plot to kill Hitler. She went to the Gestapo headquarters not knowing what would happen but managed to secure the release of her husband.

[Moor Larkin]

Thanks for pointing out the "My father was a Nazi Commandant" documentary. I watched it on iplayer last evening. Not much romance there..... Only victims. I couldn't help but reflect on the biblical stuff about the sins of the fathers.....

[mrs_emma_peel]

Thank you everyone
Emma

[Heinrich]

Indeed, it is a touching story about love and heroes.