Movie "Rommel" reaction

In 2012, a movie dedicated to the great General Erwin Rommel "Rommel" was released. Producer Nico Hofmann and director Niki Stein decided to present the general as a tragic hero, for which the magazine "Spiegel" called the article on the movie "Hitler's Hamlet".

The movie caused a wide discussion, since the film crew intentionally tried to move away from the one-sided image of Hitler and his closest associates as inhuman villains. The image of Erwin Rommel has undergone a particularly serious transformation. The hero of the Third Reich is depicted as a weak, indecisive character.

Director Niki Stein German journalists repeatedly asked the expected question: is it possible to shoot a feature film based on the biographies of the Nazis? According to the director, the time has come when in Germany you can make movies about the Nazis from an objective point of view in order to try to understand the people who lived and acted alongside Hitler. In this case, according to Stein, not every hero of the Third Reich is suitable for filmmakers in the foreground: "Himmler is not worth it, but Rommel is, yes."

The reaction to the film in the German social networks, where the topic became the most popular on the day of the premiere, was not enthusiastic. Many perceived Stein's work as a costumed performance with emasculated heroes in perfectly fitting uniforms and always in sunny weather. The audience appreciated the plan, idea and scale of the project, but the final version seemed to many to be false: they imagined this war from another side. Some did not understand what the creators wanted to say with their movie - that there were also good people among the Nazis? Others felt that with this movie, General Rommel was actually casting the foundation for a posthumous monument.

The Rommel family did not like the project at the stage of writing the script. The son and granddaughter of General said that in fact he played a much more significant role in the resistance movement than shown in the film. In her only comment, which the media managed to get, granddaughter Catherine Rommel said: "There are a lot of movies, good and bad, about Erwin Rommel. Here comes another one." Relatives refused to give a full interview on this topic. It is also known that the researcher of the biography of Rommel Cornelius Hecht refused to participate in the project, since, according to her, the script was written according to the book of the British historian David Irving, who discredited himself by denying the Holocaust.

However, immediately the premiere of the movie in Germany, the hashtag (#rommel) became the most popular on German-language Twitter on the day of the premiere. Bloggers explained: "Do not be alarmed, dear Europeans. It's just a movie." And the next morning, they spread on Twitter the social network logo that had been converted to Hitler.