Because WWII is a specialty of mine,
I’ll review cable’s Nazis: Evolution of
Evil on the American Heroes Channel.
Nazis seem to be everywhere today on television; maybe it has to do
something with our upcoming Memorial Day and those who sacrificed to defeat
them. However, I think the Media is openly fascinated with Hitler and this show is an indication. It characterizes him as the most feared
dictator in history. (My ears perked up.) What about Stalin or Mao? Why don’t they make specials on them and why
make Hitler a media cult figure? Perhaps
it’s just money, but the program did have its positive aspects.
The program contained many original
film clips I’ve never seen. That was the
best part and why the writers detracted from its documentary appeal with
then-and-now scenes of buildings, people, and places in Germany is beyond me. I know it was a made for TV thing, but why
put a cheap frame on good painting? The
producer’s did a good job of describing the terrible events that enable the
Nazis to come to power: the Great Depression and inflation, territorial losses,
foreign occupation, chaos in the streets, hunger, and the threat of the Red
Front. Oddly, I detected no mention or
examples of Germany’s moral decline: homosexuality or cocaine use, or how the
Nazis were funded.
The program’s re-en-actors didn’t help the show. Not one
looked remotely like any of the Nazis.
Hitler didn’t look like Hitler – face too narrow like a fox and his
haircut was tapered on the back of his neck giving him a shaggy appearance. Ernest Röhm was so fat that he had a penguin’s
gait. Check out the guy on the general
staff who wore the black plastic 1960s glasses frames. It’s like the Roman soldier at the
crucifixion who wore the watch. Was it in
the movie El Cid or Ben Hur? I can only guess that the
staffing was made by a university’s actors troop. Speaking of university - apparently, the
show’s script was influenced by an all British collection of professors who can’t
resist a re-introduction of Churchill’s name calling (guttersnipe.) Everybody knows Himmler was a chicken farmer.
The only class card they didn’t play was that fact that Hitler was a corporal.
The Führer’s picture behind the
Führer’s desk was a little too much. Maybe
I’m wrong, but it would have been an embarrassing narcissism Hitler would never
have allowed in his own office.
Frederick the Great’s picture was the norm because Hitler admired him. The professors should also know that when they
claimed Kristallnacht was just an
implausible pretext for Hitler to persecute Jews, they should mention that
Herschel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew, did shoot and kill a Reich’s
official in Paris.
I’d give the show three stars out of
five. The new film clips are appreciated,
but there seemed to be a hasty amateurish attempt to produce something for mass
consumption, a soap opera. That rush
only makes the educated part of the public reach for the remote. Even the titles of the shows now don’t seem fit
the name of the channel. Remember the
travel Channel? Now, it’s about food and
what does the American Heroes Channel have
to do with Nazis?
