Downfall

Details

Release year: 2004

Storyline

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator's final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

Top credits

Awards

0 wins & 1 nomination

Did you know

• Also helping Bruno Ganz in preparing for the role was the unique, only known recording of Adolf Hitler when he held a private conversation with Field Marshal Gustaf Mannerheim of Finland; at that time, he was a World War II ally of Germany against the Soviet Union. Hitler unexpectedly showed up to congratulate Mannerheim on his 75th birthday on June 4, 1942. Finnish intelligence agents secretly made the recording in a train wagon, as Hitler did not allow recordings nor photographs to be taken in private. Some eleven minutes of the recording feature relaxed, normal-tone talk in which Hitler generally describe his views about the war. One of two copies of the tape was discovered in 1992 and has since been studied by scientists and historians.

• Most of the outdoor city scenes for the movie were filmed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This was for two reasons: one, the architecture of the city has many Germanic aspects, and two, there are plenty of streets with little or no modern advertisements and other commercial aspects.

• Bruno Ganz studied Parkinson's disease patients in a Swiss hospital to prepare for his role as Adolf Hitler.

Box Office

Gross (Domestic): $5,509,040

Opening Weekend (Domestic): $18,195 (2005-02-20)