Originally published January 20, 2016. Updated January 18, 2020.
My Nazi Legacy, 2015.
Directed by David Evans.
Featuring Philippe Sands, Horst von Wachter and Niklas Frank.
SYNOPSIS:
A human-rights lawyer conducts conversations with two men whose fathers were indicted as war criminals for their roles in WWII as Nazi Governors and consultants to Adolf Hitler himself.
This captivating documentary film traces the personal histories of two men whose fathers were high ranking Nazis in a gripping, eloquent and challenging manner. At the crux of the film is an emotive, existential plea for personal responsibility and freedom. The true enemy of the film – despite the obvious ones with funny moustaches and military outfits – is an understandable human tendency to bury one’s head in the ground when the unwelcome truth of a situation shows itself in unarguable clarity and definition.
Bringing together international lawyer and author Philippe Sands, activist and writer Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter, My Nazi Legacy is a fascinating dredging of memory, guilt and philosophy. The film is superbly paced and handled and takes unpredictable twists more familiar in a political thriller than a documentary.
Sands conducts this look into the sins of the fathers with considerable dexterity and flair. Taking on the central role between two conflicting points of view – essentially confused denial in the case of von Wachter and Frank’s angry acceptance of the facts – Sands also brings his personal story of his own family into play. The inter-crossing of the three men’s shared ancestral histories is just one of the impressive things about this poetic piece. The most memorable, and heart-breaking of all, is the thought of von Wachter – clearly a man who still has a son’s love for his father no mater what orders he sent out – struggling with the nature of identity and, in essence, reality.
The two men, both of whom had high ranking Nazi officials as their fathers, were friends at the start of the film. Sadly, during the making it seems that they no longer can be. As a stark reminder of how the worst excesses of human oppressive belief systems can poison and dissolve, this tells the story better than many a history book. Essential.
My Nazi Legacy is out now to own on DVD.
Also screening at cinemas across the UK for Holocaust Memorial Day January 27th 2016
For further details: http://www.mynazilegacy.com
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★/ Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert W Monk is a freelance journalist and film writer.
https://youtu.be/vDx6g5ua25E?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
