Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil
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Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil is a 1985 TV movie about two German brothers, Helmut and Karl Hoffmann, and the paths they take during the Nazi era of Germany. The movie was directed by Jim Goddard.
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[edit] Plot
Hitler’s S.S. was a 1985 film staring John Shea, Bill Nighy and Tony Randall. The film also stars British actors David Warner and John Woodnutt, among others.
Helmut and Karl Hoffman are two brothers who grow up in the depression of the Weimar Republic and witness the coming to power of the Nazi Party and the establishment of the Third Reich. Karl is enthusiastic about the Nazis and joins the SA as soon as he can, Helmut is reluctant and thinks the Nazis are simply another political party.
Helmut, who is a university student in Munich is eventually talked into joining the SS by Reinhard Heydrich. Helmut is commissioned an SS officer right before Hitler comes to power, whereas Karl has already been an SA member for a good year before. Karl is distressed due to tensions between the SA and the SS and claims that the SS is trying to make it look like that the SA is the “party’s garbage collector”.
The entire first half of the film leads up to the Night of the Long Knives, in which Karl is arrested and sent to Dachau Concentration Camp and it is up to Helmut to get him out. Using his connections in the SS, Helmut gets Karl freed but Heydrich cautions that Karl had better behave himself or else Helmut would find himself “running short of friends yourself”.
The film then moves into World War II, glazing briefly through Crystal Night without much discussion and then focuses on Helmut becoming involved in the paperwork of the Holocaust. In many ways, his character is similar to Eric Dorf in the Holocaust mini-series. Karl meanwhile becomes an anti-Nazi and is drafted in the Wehrmacht.
Helmut eventually becomes an SS-General, but is extremely disillusioned with the SS by the end of the film. Karl deserts from the army around the time of the assassination attempt against Hitler and wanders Germany seeing the war torn rubble of several German cities. Helmut then deserts from the SS as well, but is killed by an Orpo patrol while fleeing Berlin. The film ends with Karl and his lover Mitzie (who at one point also slept with his brother Helmut) standing in the ruins of Stuttgart learning that Helmut, their parents, and Karl’s younger brother are all dead.
[edit] Cast
| Actor/Actress | Role |
| John Shea | Karl Hoffmann |
| Bill Nighy | Helmut Hoffmann |
| Lucy Gutteridge | Mitzi Templer |
| David Warner | Reinhard Heydrich |
| Warren Clarke | Becker |
| Michael Elphick | Ernst Röhm |
| Stratford Johns | Uncle Walter (bartender) |
| Robert Urquhart | Albrecht Hoffman |
| José Ferrer | Prof. Ludwig Rosenberg |
| Caroll Baker | Gerda Hoffman |
| Tony Randall | Putzi (comedian) |
| John Normington | Heinrich Himmler |
| Derek Newark | Theodor Eicke |
| Paul Brooke | Gen. Josef Biegler, SA |
| Colin Jeavons | Adolf Hitler |
For the full cast list, see the Internet Movie Database (IMDB).
[edit] Plot
Helmut Hoffmann (Bill Nighy) and Karl Hoffmann (John Shea), two brothers from Berlin, are young adults during the rise of Hitler and Nazi Germany in the 1930s. In 1931, Helmut, a bright college student, joins the SS after being persuaded by Reinhard Heydrich. He becomes one of Himmler's assistants. Karl joins the SA (storm troopers).
After the SA is disbanded, Karl is sent to the Dachau concentration camp. His brother uses his influence to get Karl out of the concentration camp.
Later in the movie, Karl, who is now in the German army, ends up fighting in Russia. Karl becomes an officer but eventually deserts.
At the end of the movie, Helmut and Karl, who have both lost faith in Nazism and realize Germany will be defeated, try to help their younger brother, Hans, who is a member of the Hitler Youth. Hans still believes strongly in the Third Reich and refuses to go home with his brothers. Helmut is shot when he tries to get out of Berlin and Hans is killed attempting to fight the Soviet Red Army during the Battle of Berlin.
[edit] Trivia
The movie shows the Katyn forest massacre as being caused by the Nazis, when currently it is even acknowledged by the Russian government that the Soviet NKVD were the purpetrators and a document signed by NKVD leader Beria ordering the deaths of the Polish intelligentsia was released by them in the early 1990s.
