Best movie ever!

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

The movie really just wants to entertain people.

Thank you for a documentary without the special effects and booming music that are so prevalent these days! The silence allows the truth and emotions to penetrate to the viewer. "Hitler's Children" is not unduly mawkish, avoids any exploitative tone, and ends on an uplifting note. Don't be afraid to watch it, whoever you are; you will learn something. This is not just about Germany, the Nazis, the Jews. Germany has been inoculated; young Germans I have met in my travels born well after the war still show shame when the subject comes up. We can find hate, intolerance, scapegoating, in many countries, including the United States. And to label these Nazis, monsters that they were, evil is to miss the danger that you or your neighbors might be capable of this, too, in similar circumstances. It is called "conformity."It takes courage to resist these forces. And it takes courage to confront your family's past. How many of us are descended from parents or grandparents who committed some heinous wrong? How many turn away from the truth? That's also who this documentary is for. If you had a parent who was a bad person, consider this. It is a bit glib to talk about "evil" and that these were evil people. Part of what this documentary shows us is that they had families, wives and children whom they loved. Is this the face of evil? No, this is the face of real people who committed horrible acts. In the immortal words of Gilbert & Sullivan:"When a felon's not engaged in his employment or maturing his felonious little plans, his capacity for innocent enjoyment is just as great as any honest man's."This documentary shows how people with feelings can dissociate those emotions from evil acts that boggle the imagination, somehow becoming routine and "normal." Raising a family in a home separated by only a wall and gate from an extermination camp, the ashes from the bodies landing on the strawberries they ate epitomizes this dissociation. For me, it was another leaf in trying to understand my unmet family's past. For my father's family died in the Holocaust, my grandfather, after whom I was named, in Auschwitz; his name and date of death is recorded online. I sometimes try to imagine what he saw on those last days, hours, moments. I don't think he would want to be mourned so much as remembered. These children's accounts help to keep that memory alive. My parents never taught me to hate the Germans. The worst outcome of the Holocaust would be to perpetuate hate. I have known Holocaust survivors. They loved life. They, more than most, were glad to be alive. Happiness is the best revenge, they sometimes say. This is good advice for Bettina Goering, Katrin Himmler, Monika Goeth, Rainer Hoess and Niklas Frank. I can't really forgive them because I have never blamed them. But I forgive you, anyway.Note that January 27 is Holocaust Remembrance Day; Auschwitz was liberated on this day 69 years ago. Please take a moment to remember the victims, Jews and non-Jews, those who died and those who survived; and to think about all the secondary victims, the relatives and even the families of the perpetrators. I wonder, which is worse: to die or to survive with the memory, with your family, your loved ones gone? What was it like to experience being torn from the arms or your loved ones by armed guards, desperately reaching out, looking into each others' eyes for the last time, knowing each of you will be taken to death camps, to die apart?The Holocaust was an attempt at genocide, of Jews and other groups. Please remember that genocide continues today, at this moment, somewhere in the world.The Nazi crimes against humanity extend far beyond the 6 million Jews who died; historians estimate 20,946,000 people died outside of battle:"The Nazi Body Count represents non-battle deaths caused by Nazi Germany between 1933 and 1945. This includes genocide, execution of civilians and POWs, forced labor that resulted in deaths, bombing of civilian populations, imposed famine and resulting diseases, and 'euthanasia.' These numbers do not include civilians who got caught in the cross-fire of battle." - R. J. RummelIt is not ancient history, not yet. Consider that someone who was 16 when Auschwitz was liberated is 85 today, with loved children and grandchildren. Those events had an impact upon my life, even to today, and so they also have had upon countless millions of relatives and descendants, still alive. It will takes decades until we all pass away, and it truly becomes ancient history. But even then it will touch countless lives of those yet unborn.

"Hitler's Children" is a documentary that interviews and follows a few family members of several evil Nazis--such as Goering, Hoess, Frank and others. The thrust of the film was showing these folks and letting them tell their stories about how they have coped with the evil their relative did. Interestingly, several indicated that they were in the minority--that the rest of their family either wouldn't talk about this evil past or denied that it even occurred.This film was interesting and is worth seeing. Is it a great documentary? Not really. While I am glad I saw it and think it had an interesting message, technically speaking it was occasionally poor--with some sloppy camera-work and some very slow portions. However, I am not sure how much the film can be blamed for the latter entirely, as the version I saw on Netflix was 82 minutes long. It was too long and could have used an editing. BUT, on IMDb, the film is listed at 59 minutes--and perhaps there is a shorter and more tightly constructed film.

A look into the lives of the descendants of the top Nazi officials who worked under Hitler's command.This is a rather interesting look at the children and grandchildren of some infamous members of the Nazi party. While we cannot blame them for what their parents did any more than we can blame anyone in Germany for what the generation before them did, these folks have an unusual level of guilt and shame to bear -- can anyone ever again have the surnames Himmler or Goebbels? I do like that one person pointed out how the Nazi label has tainted Germany. While Germany has been around in various forms for centuries, we now see the country as a former Nazi country and consider German culture through the lens of Nazi culture. Why are we all so obsessed with this one decade? Is it heinous? Beyond words... but it is a relatively small part of German history. When will it be a thing of the past?

Chanoch Ze'evi Has accomplished the near impossible: he has gathered the descendants of Hitler's regime. Placed them in front of his camera, let them talk, provided subtitles, and let the rest of the film work it's own insidious way into the psyches f all who watch it. Perhaps for the first time we are seeing a full picture of what life in and around Adolf Hitler was like as he terrified the universe with his megalomaniac plan for purification of the Aryan race – a plan that resulted in the deaths and tortures and cremations of millions of Jews, gypsies, criminals, homosexuals, and those who tried in vain to stop the atrocities.The cast then are the descendants of Hitler's murderous group – now adults, forever tainted by the sins of their forbears, who explaining to us in penetrating eye contacts what it was like to be around the monster's court. Bettina Goering, Katrin Himmler, Eldad Beck, Rainer Hoess, Niklas Frank, and Monika Goeth are the cast members in this unforgettable film.These six ordinary appearing people were not associated with Nazi leanings and they talk individually about what it is like to carry a name associated with the Nazi Party, being a blood relative to someone associated with hate and murder, being German at a time when that in and of itself was seen as being associated with Nazism, dealing with their family regardless of their allegiance to the Nazi Party, and if they feel any guilt associated with the actions of their infamous ancestor. Bettina Goering is the great-niece of Nazi official Hermann Göring shares her voluntary sterilization she underwent to put an end to her bloodline of horror (she now lives simply in New Mexico). Katrin Himmler is the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler, second in command of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler and has written copiously about the evils of the Nazi regime. Rainer Hoess is the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, creator and commandant of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Niklas Frank is the son of Hans Frank, Polish Governor- General during WWII, he who was responsible for the ghettos and concentration camps in Nazi occupied Poland. Monika Goeth is the daughter of Amon Goeth, commandant of the Plaszów Concentration Camp. In addition to these musings, Hoess and journalist Eldad Beck - a third generation Holocaust survivor - travel back to Auschwitz to revisit their shared ancestral past. And Frank tells in his writings and in public speaking engagements, most to school aged children, of his past of being the direct beneficiary to many of the Nazi Party's favors which in turn is partly the reason he denounces his parents.Many viewers will find hearing these tales (basically related in German) unsettling and that is the film's purpose. Never ever forget that period in history and yet realize the agony of the descendants of those beasts that hopefully will never be duplicated. Grady Harp