Being a parent myself, this scene left me completely broken... I went to hug my baby right away after watching that!
That's a complete brainwash to make a parent to kill his/hers infants for a political extremist cause...
I especially felt bad for the reluctant daughter who suspected the worst. Blondi too.
He killed sixteen Czechoslovakians. Guy was an interior decorator.
I wondered about the authenticity of that. The movie seems very carefully researched, with reliable sourcing for much of it.
I hope it was just dramatization. Bad enough even if the kids cheerfully sipped it down.
Horrible, horrible thing, in life and onscreen. Unthinkable.
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Nothing to see here, move along.
"I wondered about the authenticity of that. The movie seems very carefully researched, with reliable sourcing for much of it.
I hope it was just dramatization. Bad enough even if the kids cheerfully sipped it down."
No it's very accurate to what really happened in the bunker. But two things were left out. The poison turned the children's skin light green. And when the Russians entered the bunker the next day. Even they and their commander were shocked to find the dead bodies of the Goebbels children.
Since you know that part was authentic, do you happen to know if the instant-death crunch-pills were real? It's strange, as they look like metal but make a crunch sound like candy and then death comes within seconds, it seems. Didn't come across as believable, but I know nothing about such things. I'm curious.
shareIf memory serves, the metal part was just a sleeve over a small glass-like capsule.
shareI was wondering if she'd knock the flask out of his hand, and it'd break, but that would've just delayed the inevitable. They'll just make another, and really force her to take it.
shareIt's semantics, but Joseph and Magda Goebbels were not brainwashed. Brainwashing means a person is indoctrinated through various methods of manipulation with a radically different set of beliefs than what they fundamentally believe by someone else.
In this case, the parents were ideologues. They were zealots for National Socialism, a belief they came to on their own, not one forced on them.
The children were brainwashed, the parents were committed to a cause, though clearly one of the worst causes that man has developed.
As harsh as it may sound, she was doing what's best for her children. The Russians would have tortured and done unspeakable things to Goebbels kids if captured.
shareYou don't know that. While there were rapes and murders when the russians conquered the Nazi occupied zones, many many many many people was liberated without getting any harm.
Plus, there was countless ways that they could get out... And why the hell they went to the bunker in the first place? Their inner paternal instinct sure knew that the war was lost.. Plus, they had n opportunities to get out of the bunker in relative safety. And when mixed between the refugees or the germans, no one would knew that those were Goebbels kids.
Nor do you know they would not have been mistreated. It is impossible to know. Yes, many people were liberated but you had thousands of German soldiers held in Soviet gulags years after the war. Captain Wilm Hosenfeld, for example, the German officer that helped Wladyslaw Szpilman survive was hauled away by the Soviets died in a Soviet prison in the 1950s. The KGB had Raoul Wallenberg murdered well after the war.
There is literally no way to know one way or the other what would have happened to these children. Their parents could have left but didn't. The mother could have kept them alive, but didn't. Anything past that is speculation with what ifs that can't be viewed as fact.
Very well said.
shareThey should have made provisions for their kids' survival outside of Berlin. They are no different from the religious fanatics who decide for their children what medical care they should or should not receive in life-threatening situations. No parent has the right to do that, "sacred National Socialism" or not. The kids should be given excellent care until they are of age to choose the parent's religious - or political - fanaticism. Only when they are young adults should they be allowed to make the decision to "die for the Faith" or "die for the Reich".
And it is likely that the Russian brutes would have raped, tortured, killed, and/or abducted the Goebbels kids. As helpless kids, they were automatically subject to Red abuse. As children of one of the Nazi kingpins, they may have been worth a ransom or worse, as future mouthpieces for Marxist propaganda. Neither is a pleasant alternative.
Lay off the Kool-aid!
shareThis scene is always very hard to bear
shareHaunting scene it gives me the shivers Everytime I think about it.
shareIt wasn't a matter of brainwashing for the political cause that made the Goebbels give their kids poison. As children of a member of the Nazi High Command, taking poison was probably a very humane death compared to what would have happened if the Russians had captured them.
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