Red Cushion

Jewish Holocaust
(Assignment: In Class Film Review)

This is a summary of the film, The Architecture of Doom, shown in class on September 21, 2000. This film places a focus on the structure underneath the Nazi organization, and Adolf Hitler’s rise and fall from power. This film also shows the great significance of art, and the role that it played in Hitler’s life as well as how it affected his decisions.

The film begins with a couple of preludes to Hitler and the Nazi party. The film tells of how Hitler first sketched the Nazi symbol in 1923. The film tells of how Hitler’s interest in art and architecture provided the guidelines of how many buildings were built, bombings were planned, and what countries were invaded first. It is noted that the mass rallies held by the Nazi party were to represent the people as one body and one system leading to Nazi purification.

The film suggests that art held a first priority among the Nazi’s. It also provides a great contrast in which art was viewed by the German people and the Nazi’s. The film states that to the Germans, Jewish art was inferior, mongrel art that represented the doom of the German and Nazi nation. The film suggests that the modern German art showed the madness of a people and nation obsessed with the achievement of racial purity and perfection. The purification goals of the Nazi have come to life in the film when, on July 13, 1933, Hitler mandates the sterilization of the mentally insane.

The German view of art is further evidenced in the opening of the art exhibit “Celebration of Life” in May of 1935. The following a day, and exhibit of Jewish art, intent of the defamation of the Jewish culture is opened, and burned shortly thereafter. Hitler promotes the first principle of beauty is health. The film notes that the physicians now began to serve a new role of purging society of “impurities.” The film notes that for this reason (among others), all Jewish doctors in Germany were stripped of their medical licenses. The film then quotes German artist, and Nazi supporter Waldner as stating, “We will create the new German man, and fulfill (Hitler’s) will.”
The film shows how in 1935, Hitler began the process of creating a massive art collection. It is felt that this collection portrayed the Hitler’s limited comprehension of the world. The film shares how the Nazi’s stress that “Cleanliness in work and among the people would eliminate class structure and eliminate ugliness, creating a handsome and unified people. The Film then illustrates the Nazi view of genetic purification in focusing on Hitler’s fascination with the Greek sculpture of the discus thrower. In this sculpture, Hitler found his vision of the beauty of the man, “before it’s racial corruption.” The Jews are then portrayed as a parasite that had come upon Europe and destroyed its thousand-year-old culture.

The film shows that after ordering the death of boy, born without vision and a leg, establishes his action as a policy to be followed in like situations. In October of 1939 came the start of the German Euthanasia program. This came after Hitler’s invasion of Poland, in which he established the conquered nation as the testing field in which his “purification” programs would be tested. The film notes that at this time, German medicine was one of the best in the world. The film shows how Hitler’s plans for the rebuilding of Berlin was to build a city that would surpass the greatness and beauty of Paris, with Athens, Sparta, and Rome serving as model for his greet city. The film notes that the March Field was inspired from the Roman coliseum with a capacity exceeding over Five hundred thousand people.

The film feels that Hitler was fighting a modern war, with ancient war objectives. Hitler’s objective lacked material support. The film also shows the lack of moral as Hitler viewed the entrance of the United States into the war as the turning point of the conflict. In the autumn of 1941, over Seventy Thousand mental patients were gassed to their deaths. The film also points out that in 1941, the German SS began the final stage of the final solution in the creation of the Concentration camps. The film also notes that the “pursuit of a beautiful Germany” was used to further mask the true intents of the Nazi’s. In 1943, the Nazi’s “speed up and expedite “the purification of Germany from the Jews by replacing mass shootings with gas chambers. The film notes that throughout this process, Hitler used art as an emotional and mental escape from the realities of war.