"Hitler Lives" is an American documentary in the English language from 1945, so this one is already way over 70 years old. As most other (somewhat known) films from around this time, it is in black-and-white, but it has sound already. Lots of sound actually. Fittingly with the year, this is a documentary that still deals with the events of World War II, the German crimes in particular, but it is also about the look into the future. But this is where the film really comes short. It is okay from a documentary perspective in terms of telling us the horrible crimes of the Nazi regime, but it basically also says that even with the ones responsible gone, the German people is still downright evil. This may be true to some extent as they voted the Nazis into power, but it is still not really acceptable. The documentary's title is also not to my liking telling people that Hitler lives on in the German people and that it is just a matter of (short) time until the next Hitler will arise. Luckily, this documentary was wrong. I think many documentaries do a good job in reporting accurately and fact-based about the years of WWII and Nazi Germany, but this one here does not succeed at all to that regard. Quite in contrast, it is propaganda on the level of Nazi Germany at times, with the only difference that it lacks the antisemitic messages, subtle or not. I am a bit shocked the Academy honored this movie, but I guess it also shows how Germany was seen around that time, especially by Americans. It is an interesting piece of history, to some extent, but content-wise (and not message-wise) it delivers almost nothing of quality. I give it a thumbs-down.
Review of Hitler Lives
