Führer und Verführer

I had the opportunity to sit down and watch "Führer und Verführer" (aka "Führer and Seducer"), and I needed no persuasion to watch this movie from writer and director Joachim Lang. If you have but an ounce of historical interest, then this is a movie that you would want to watch.

Sure, most of us are familiar with the basic events of World War II and the outcome of the war, but writer and director Joachim Lang offers sort of an insight to the machinery behind the man in charge. And it is a rather memorable and impactful insight. While the events and the characters portrayed in the are indeed atrocious and vile, then it is a crucial part of the history of the world, and thus is something we cannot and must not ignore. And on that account alone, "Führer und Verführer" is a movie that dictates it worthy of watching.

I have to say that I was genuinely entertained throughout the course of the 135 minutes that the movie ran for. Partially because of the storyline, but most certainly also because of some very imposing and impressive performances by the cast.

Leading actors Robert Stadlober and Fritz Karl, portraying Joseph Goebbels and Adolf Hitler respectively, might be portraying some of the more infamous persons in the history of the world, but they do so in very compelling and impressive ways, very realistic ways I would say. They really carry the movie quite well with their performances and I sincerely hope they get some acknowledgement for their performances in this movie. While Fritz Karl does portray Hitler disturbingly well, it just wasn't as impressive as Bruno Ganz did in the 2004 movie "Der Untergang". Regardless, the entire cast ensemble in this 2024 movie delivered great performances that most definitely brought not only the storyline to life on the screen, but most certainly also the characters they portrayed.

"Führer und Verführer" is a movie that might not be fitting for just about everyone in the audience, as it is an emotionally strong and moving movie, and the fact that writer and director Joachim Lang included actual footage from World War II makes it all the more hard-hitting, especially since there are some very hard to watch scenes included. But again, just as the movie closes off with saying, "it happened... and it can therefor happen again.", which resonates very true, despite the fact that it is a hauntingly scary sentence.

I was not prepared for the movie to be as gripping and compelling as it was, but that just made sitting through it all the more of a memorable experience. And thus, this is without a doubt a movie that I will recommend you to sit down and watch.

My rating of writer and director Joachim Lang's 2024 movie "Führer und Verführer" lands on a seven out of ten stars.

The film sets out to offer an ambitious portrait of the Third Reich's propaganda machinery, with a particular focus on Joseph Goebbels. It ventures into dense and complex terrain and, although it does so with seriousness and technical polish, its narrative choices prevent it from reaching the level of depth it seems to aim for. The result is uneven: at times intriguing and powerful, at others distant and disjointed.

Visually, the atmosphere is impressively rendered. The period reconstruction-costumes, sets, props, lighting-recreates the oppressive mood of 1930s and 1940s Germany with care and effectiveness. The offices of the Propaganda Ministry, the corridors of the Führerbunker, the streets of Berlin under the regime-all of it is constructed with striking precision, producing an environment that feels both real and suffocating. Still, that rigor isn't consistent throughout. There are historical inaccuracies that are hard to ignore, such as the anachronistic use of "Saint Petersburg" instead of "Leningrad," or the omission of well-documented symptoms of Hitler's final days, like the tremor linked to his Parkinson's disease. These details undermine the credibility of a film that leans heavily on its supposed historical accuracy.

The main cast carries the weight of difficult roles with solid performances. The actor portraying Goebbels offers a restrained, composed interpretation that avoids caricature. His calculated coldness conveys a particularly unsettling kind of fanaticism. The film distances itself from more theatrical portrayals of the figure, and this works in its favor. In contrast, the portrayal of Hitler falls short. The character feels too clean, too subdued; it lacks the madness and physical deterioration one expects to see rendered with more force. The portrayal strips the figure of his most disturbing aspects, weakening his dramatic impact.

One of the film's most questionable choices is its use of real archival footage. While the images are powerful, their integration into the narrative is clumsy. Instead of enriching the story or adding context, they disrupt the dramatic flow and break the rhythm. The editing fails to fuse fiction and documentary into a unified language; rather, it feels like the two are simply placed side by side, without clear intent. This stylistic indecision-somewhere between documentary, historical drama, and docudrama-undermines the coherence of the entire project.

The cinematography, while effective overall, suffers at times from a visual coldness. The tight framing and muted tones do reinforce the ideological claustrophobia the story conveys, but some scenes lack expressive lighting that might have added emotional texture. The music is discreet and functional, serving its purpose without drawing too much attention to itself.

The central issue is structural. The script tries to cover too many layers in too little time: Goebbels' personal trajectory, his relationship with Hitler, the inner workings of the propaganda machine, the historical context, the collapse of the regime. Each narrative thread feels underdeveloped. There are interesting moments, but none go deep enough. What emerges is a fast-paced sequence of disconnected scenes rather than a sustained dramatic arc. Episodes accumulate, but tension does not.

The film approaches horror with restraint-perhaps wisely, avoiding sensationalism and refusing to trivialize suffering. But that same choice also keeps the viewer at a distance from the human consequences of what's being depicted. Genocide, pain, and dehumanization appear more as background than as emotional core. As a result, when the film attempts in its final stretch to underline a contemporary message about media manipulation and the fragility of democracy, that message lacks weight-it hasn't been built up to with sufficient emotional grounding.

There's no lack of intention here, nor of commitment to historical memory. The theme is relevant, urgent even. The technical craft is more than adequate. But the film is weighed down by its ambition, by a format that doesn't allow enough room for its ideas to breathe. It lacks focus, time, and a clearer narrative direction. Important questions are raised, but rarely explored with the care they deserve. The film doesn't leave the viewer indifferent, but it does leave behind a sense of frustration-a sense that what could have been a disturbing, revealing piece ended up as an interesting exercise that never fully finds its voice.

The production is a hybrid between documentary and a drama. Apart from minor errors the story appears faithful to what we know about the facts but fails to explain the motivations of the principle charecters.

Goebbels was a cynical intellectual, making jokes about Hitler in the early days. We get no explanation what turned him into one of Hitler's most faithful follower. Was it because he really believed in him or because he promised a key to power for both of them. May be nobody will ever know but if one decides to retell the story at least a hypothesis should be provided.

In spite of all the acting we are left with just another documentary.

German director Joachim Lang directed this film concerning the last years of the master manipulator Goebbels, the propaganda minister of Nazi Germany. A chilling biopic that practically covers almost the entire period in which the swastika ruled in that country. Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels is in charge of building public support for the Holocaust and for the war that Hitler is about to start. Goebbels accompanied Hitler for seven years from March 1938 until his death. The film also recreates some passages and dialogues of the story in which there are no images, also adds documentary footage to clarify the facts, and sometimes adds e in May 1945, and after the defeat of Stalingrad in 1944 came his best moment.

This is an acceptable drama set on Nazi time with thoughtful plot and slick direction. The director tried to capture as a starting point the answer to the question: how was it possible to commit the atrocities of the Holocaust? The end recreates passages and dialogues in which there are no images, according to the director: It is important to be careful when handling documentary material. That's why you have to deconstruct and decode it to get behind the curtain and to reality as it was.

The picture deals with Joseph Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda, well played by Robert Stadlober and his relationsip with Hitler, adequately performed by Fritz Karl, during the seven years from the "Anschluss" of Austria in March 1938 to the murder and suicide in the Führerbunker in May 1945. While Hitler is at the height of his power, Goebbels is the creator of the pictures of the flag waving crowds and of the anti-Semitic films "Jud Süß" and "Der ewige Jude", that prepare the people for the mass murder of the Jews. He delivered an eloquent speech on total war at the Berlin Sports Palace, just as the initial successes of the Third Reich during World War II gave way to successive defeats that led to the fall of the regime. After the defeat at Stalingrad in 1944 came his best moment, but the situation becoming increasingly hopeless in late 1944, Goebbels plans the most radical propaganda act, his last staging, with Hitler's suicide, the murder of his family, and his own suicide. It's a decent biographical film, however most of the actors who played the famous evil Nazi roles don't bear much physical resemblance to the real characters, and sometimes they seem to be playing their roles in a somewhat ironic way. In the film there is a long succession of historical Nazi characters parading throughout, played by good German actors, which will delight lovers of Nazi history, including: Magda Goebbels, Eva Braun, Hermann Göring, Heinrich Himmler, Otto Dietrich, Alfred Rosenberg, Martin Bormann, von Ribbentrop, Albert Speer, Otto Dietrich, Fritz Hippler, Leni Riefenstahl, Heinz Rühmann, Veith Harlan, and Lida Baarova. The latter had an long term affair with Joseph Goebbels. This liaison, for a while, did her career no harm. According to popular legend, Baarova's then-lover, the actor Gustav Fröhlich, slapped Goebbels in the face after catching the two in flagrant. Hitler, in order to salvage the marriage between Magda and Joseph Goebbels and to circumvent a scandal, effectively ordered Goeebels to give up his mistress. In 1938, Baarova was forbidden to make any further films in Germany.

Goebbels suffered from "a narcissistic personality disorder that caused him to addictively seek recognition and praise", which would explain his "almost absolute devotion to Hitler, his obsession with his own image and the fact that he spent a considerable amount of time engaged in long battles with his competitors in Hitler's entourage."Goebbels was one of the main instigators of antisemitic acts and one of the few Nazi leaders to publicly mention the Jewish genocide. His political opponents considered him a feared demagogue and mass agitator. This reputation began after the refoundation of the NSDAP, when Goebbels organized riots and street clashes against the communists in Berlin.

The movie talks about various historic events just like the ¨fire in the Berlin parliament, Reichstag¨ and ¨The night of the broken glass¨ well re-enacted in the film, as the night of November 9, 1938, when terror attacks were made on Jewish synagogues and stores. Two days earlier, Vom Rath, Third Secretary of the German Embassy in Paris , had been assassinated by Grynszpan, a Polish Jew. In retaliation, Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich, chief of the SD, ordered the destruction of all Jewish places of worship in Germany and Austria. The assault had been long prepared , the murder provided an opportunity to begin the attack. In fifteen hours 101 synagogues were destroyed by fire and 76 were demolished. Bands of Nazis (one of them is our starring Viggo Mortensen, though unaware) destroyed 7.500 Jewish-owned stores. The pillage and looting went on through the night. Streets were covered with broken glass , hence the name Kristallnacht. Three days later Hermann Goering along with Dr. Paul Joseph Goebbles called a meeting of the top hierarchy at the Air Ministry to assess the damage done during the night and place responsibility for it. Goebbles proposed that Jews no longer be allowed to use the public parks. It was decided that the Jews would have to pay for the damage they had provoked. As the war drew to a close and Germany faced defeat, he moved with his wife Magda and their children to Berlin. Following the events of the Wolf's Lair attack on July 20, 1944, Hitler appointed Goebbels "plenipotentiary for total war" On 22 April 1945, they moved into the underground Vorbunker, part of the Führer's air raid shelter. Hitler committed suicide on 30 April, and in accordance with his will, Goebbels succeeded him as Reich Chancellor (Reichskanzler). The following day, facing German defeat, he and his wife committed suicide after poisoning their six children.

This movie is based on true facts, which are historically very relevant. Focus is thereby put on several important events that took place during WW2.

The acting was pretty good. I must say though that the actor that plays the role of Hitler, unfortunately does not come close to what we have seen in the movie "Der Untergang".

The props, costumes, buildings etc. All made it look like it is taking place during the 1930's and 40's. One can clearly see that much effort has been put in this.

Mistakes have also been made. Basic mistakes are made like using both the names Saint-Petersburg and Leningrad, whilst they only should have used the latter. Other mistakes are e.g. Adolf Hitler showing no signs of having Parkinson's Disease - i.e. A trembling hand - in the bunker scenes.

Overall, I found the movie a bit underwhelming. I personally think it may have to do with a too short of a time and a low budget for depicting so many impactful historical events. I therefore can only score this movie 6.3/10, resulting in a 6-star IMDb rating.

I however advise anyone with an interest in what happened during WW2 to watch this movie. Until there is a better alternative, it is still the best way to get an idea of the importance of Joseph Goebbels - and his use of propaganda - during WW2. I hope though that we will see in the future a mini-series, which gives the viewer a better insight on the use of propaganda during WW2. Because a movie of 2 hours seems to be really too short when you want to cover a topic like Goebbels during WW2.