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.

Selling Hitler: Episode 4 (1991)

 

Now that the drama is on the downslope, the plates have begun to wobble.  Handwriting analysis is all well and good, but forensic tests are called for, and the age of the paper doesn’t hold up to initial scrutiny.  Reassurances are quickly passed around, and excuses are heartily made, but there’s a whiff of desperation in the air.  Even Thomas refuses to believe the evidence, because he’s gone too far down the rabbit hole for it not to be true.

 

After all the time and money sunk into obtaining the diaries, the mere possibility of them being forged is disastrous.  Gerd and Thomas both pull a Vizzini-in-The-Princess-Bride and call it inconceivable, agreeing to keep the matter between the two of them until the nonsense is cleared up.    PC does a nice job playing Thomas’s sheer terror at the idea.  He’s at an office party when he gets the call from the forensics lab, and you’d swear someone let the air out of him.

 

Meanwhile, the higher-ups at the magazine, having been briefed on the possession of the diaries, are keen to turn a profit.  Dueling publishers are brought in to bid on the rights to the story, including newspaper magnate Rupert Murdoch.  (Whatever real-world knowledge I have of Murdoch is overshadowed by the hilarious Fry & Laurie sketch giving him the It’s a Wonderful Life treatment; Hugh Laurie was fantastic there.  As such, it’s hard for me to think about anything else whenever Murdoch is onscreen in this episode.)

 

Conclusion tomorrow – we’re just waiting for the hammer to fall.

Selling Hitler: Episode 3 (1991)

 

I know it’s a comedy, but this episode has the feel of the climax in a classical tragedy.  The fight between Mercutio and Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet, Polonius’s death in Hamlet… As the characters are flying high and feeling invincible, that first catastrophe occurs, and it sets off the chain reaction that will topple all their hopes.

 

My, but that’s a bit dramatic, isn’t it?  Gerd, Thomas, Manfred, and the gang couldn’t be more excited about the diaries.  Everything’s been absolute secrecy up to this now – the forger who’s selling the diaries has fed them the line that his brother is smuggling them across the East German border, so discretion is paramount – but whisperings and rumors start to circulate when a page is brought in to analyze its authenticity.  It’s not the analysis that’s worrisome; in fact, the expert brought in is 100% certain that the diaries were from the hand of Hitler.  Rather, it’s the gossip that begins swirling through academic and publishing circles.  Someone has let the diaries’ existence slip, and the scavengers are eager for a piece of the action.

 

The doubters have started to circle as well.  Gerd and Thomas’s chief rival, historical expert David Irving, has caught wind of the diaries’ existence.  He’s determined to get a look at them, and his eyes are far less clouded than Gerd’s.  With David, Roger Lloyd-Pack joins the cast (John Lumic from the Cybermen two-parter in the second series of Who.)

 

Very little for Thomas to do in this episode.  All I can really say is that he’s completely changed his tune from the start of the miniseries.  Gone is the cautious Doubting Thomas (see what I did there?) that thinks the myths were too juicy to be true.  He’s fallen for it hook, line, and sinker, and his and Gerd’s hubris is another thing reminiscent of a tragedy.

 

As a side note, I like the way that the entries in the forged diaries are so utterly mundane.  Gerd is practically wetting himself with excitement over a matter-of-fact catalog of Hitler’s meals, health problems, and day-to-day comings and goings.

 

Warnings

 

A disturbing scene of a group of Americans discussing Hitler’s supposed good qualities.  In a way, it reminds of a scene in The Thick of It where Glenn and Ollie compare Malcolm to Chairman Mao and applaud “the evil” for their amazing work ethic, but given the subject matter, it’s more troubling than anything.

Selling Hitler: Episode 2 (1991)

 

Well, it turns out that Thomas isn’t quite the skeptic he purports himself to be.  Once Gerd has one of the forged diaries in hand, Thomas is positively beside himself with excitement.  The history buff in him is chomping at the bit to have his name attached to such a rare find.  It’s too bad he’ll just wind up having his name attached to a colossal failure.

 

In this episode, Gerd and Thomas are chiefly concerned with acquiring the cash for the diaries’ ever-increasing price tag.  They busily scintillate and schmooze men with sufficiently-deep pockets, inviting them to share in the secret.

 

There’s not enough focus on Thomas for me to have a great picture of him, but he’s entertaining enough.  He’s ambitious and excitable, and he clearly revels in the hush-hush nature of the whole affair.  He delightedly talks around the subject in unvetted company and drops winking hints of the “oh, if only I could tell you; just you wait” variety to his coworkers.

 

One amusing thing to note:  PC is in a few lengthy scenes with Manfred Fischer, Tom Baker’s character, in this episode.  However, most of his lines in them are off-camera and he’s only onscreen for a handful of brief reaction shots.  Now, I understand that it’s probably because he’s one of the less important characters in the scenes, but I like to think that PC just couldn’t contain his Whovian glee for more than a few seconds whenever he was in Tom Baker’s presence.    Can’t you just picture it, him standing out of frame grinning like David Tennant in “School Reunion”?

Selling Hitler: Episode 1 (1991)

 

I’m all for a good biopic or major historical drama.  It’s interesting to see historical figures and events dramatized, and to contemplate how the real deal was truncated, expanded, or sugar-coated for cinematic purposes.  But I also really enjoy films (or in this case, TV miniseries) about historical subjects I know very little about.  Case in point:  Argo. 

 

But today’s post isn’t about Argo.  Fine film though it is, PC isn’t in it, and we’re still in Capaldi Winter.  No, today we’re beginning with the first episode of Selling Hitler, a five-part miniseries about the 1980s hoax of the “Hitler diaries.”  At the heart of the story is Gerd Heidemann, a German magazine writer and collector of WWII paraphernalia.  Hearing whispers of Hitler’s long-lost journals, Gerd sets out on a consuming mission to recover the books.

 

The boss, sick of Gerd’s perpetual Nazi stories, isn’t keen to put up any time or money toward the search.  Instead, Gerd is helped by PC’s Thomas Walde, from the magazine’s historical department.  With Gerd providing the legwork and Thomas procuring the funds, the two pursue their white whale for very different reasons.

 

I don’t have too much of a feel for Thomas yet.  So far, the most interesting thing about him is the fact that he doesn’t actually believe in the diaries’ existence.  While Gerd can barely contain his excitement at the mere thought, Thomas thinks the whole business is just a legend.  He intends to be the man to refute all the nut-jobs when he follows the trail to a dead end.  Given what actually ends up happening, it seems he has the right idea.  We’ll see whether or not he gets sucked into the hoax in the coming episodes.

 

Alexei Sayle, who we saw recently, has a featured part in the series.  More importantly, it stars Jonathan Pryce and also includes Tom Baker.  If we count David Tennant in “The Fires of Pompeii,” that makes four Doctors PC worked with before being cast as Twelve; he gets around!

 

Accent

 

Everyone in this piece speaks the Queen’s German, so we have U.K. accents all around.  PC, however, is the only Scot so far.

 

Recommend?

 

In General – Maybe.  It’s very clearly a product of its time, but the story is interesting and there are some good performances.  I’ll keep you posted.

 

PC-wise – Quite possibly.  Thomas seems poised to be a major character; let’s see what he gets up to in the days to come.

 

Warnings

 

Gerd meets a number of men from “the old days,” (i.e. former Nazis,) and their party talk is rather discomfiting.