Selling Hitler: Episode 5 (1991)

 

The last episode of Selling Hitler brings the story to its disastrous conclusion, as the inauthenticity of the diaries becomes too evident to ignore.  Thanks to a great deal of hubris, greed, and obsession, a lot of people are made to look incredibly foolish.

 

It’s interesting to watch how far Gerd, Thomas, and company go with their denials.    The paper contains chemicals that weren’t invented in the ‘40s?  Must have spilled on them in the intervening years.  Other documents from the same collection are no-question-about-it forgeries?  Well, that doesn’t mean the diaries themselves are forgeries.  Pages from the diaries are definitely fake?  Maybe some of it is still genuine.  And on and on it goes – it’s like a sickness.

 

While Gerd takes that last word pretty literally, going off the rails in a rather spectacular way, Thomas practically shuts down.    He’s the first to receive the news of the diaries’ unavoidable falsity, and he’s the one who has to interrupt the bosses’ celebration over the lucrative publishing deal and the forthcoming special edition of the magazine.  Entering the room with such a grim expression, you’d think he’d been made to deliver a death warrant to his own puppy, he breaks the news.    He spends the resting of the episode presumably probably cursing himself for not sticking to his original skeptic guns.

 

In all, it’s an unusual little miniseries.  The subtly of the humor fluctuates pretty significantly, and PC doesn’t get too much more than scraps to work with.  Still, the story itself is an intriguing nugget from history, and my fascination re: everyone’s denial has already been noted above.  Glad I watched it, anyway.

 

Last thoughts:

 

Accent Watch

 

Scottish.  Still not sure why he has the odd accent out compared to all his English-sounding German compatriots.  He’s not quite the only one; Alexei Sayle’s character speaks with a Northern accent, but with the class connotations that it suggests, it’s not quite the same situation.

 

Recommend?

 

In General – A modest maybe.  Far from perfect, but the subject matter’s interesting, and there are some good performances.

 

PC-wise – Not necessarily.  While Thomas is an enjoyable enough character whenever he pops up, he doesn’t get much focus, and a decent chunk of his screen time is single lines or brief reaction shots in group scenes.

 

Warnings

 

Nothing new to report.