MOVIE REVIEW : The Crisis of ‘Conscience’ in Hitler’s Third Reich

There have been so many fine, profoundly moving documentaries over the decades on the evils of the Third Reich that it has become a very real challenge for filmmakers to equal what has already been done.

In “The Restless Conscience” (at the AFI USA Independent Showcase at the Laemmle Grande downtown), documentarian Hava Kohav Beller breaks some ground in her comprehensive survey of the often-overlooked resistance to Hitler and Nazism within Germany itself, but her method is so academic that not until she outlines the various plots to kill Hitler does the film come fully alive. “The Restless Conscience” is invaluable as a painstakingly made historic record, but much of it, especially the first half, which deals with the 1930s when resistance was not as focused and organized, is tedious.

Perhaps we’ve just seen too many middle-aged and elderly Germans sitting in their tasteful antique-filled, book-lined studies, talking about the bad old days, their sad and tragic reminiscences inevitably intercut with archival footage. Almost all of Beller’s subjects fit this description. Virtually all of them are aristocrats, with vons before their surnames and even some with titles.

Many are fluent in English, and they are all individuals of character, elegance and candor--many admit they were initially impressed by Hitler. They are the wives, sisters and children of that handful of brave military men, diplomats, civil servants and important civilians who helped Jews escape and came to the conclusion that Hitler must die. There are even a couple of men who resisted Nazism and who are still alive to tell their own stories--stories of guilt over the fate of the Jews, stories of how they were prepared to sacrifice their own lives in order to assassinate Hitler.

A lot of the witnesses’ views are familiar, but some of the details are surprising, such as how difficult it was to get Great Britain and other major nations to take the efforts of the resistance seriously.

Beller, who spent nine years on this project, hits her stride when she starts taking us step by step through the various assassination plots; not only was Hitler well-guarded and shrewd enough to change his scheduled itinerary constantly but he also was infuriatingly lucky. These efforts culminated in the famous July 20, 1944, coup attempt, in which Col. Claus Schenck Graf von Stauffenberg was to play the leading role.

In this instance Hitler’s life was saved when, during a meeting, an officer moved a briefcase containing a British plastic bomb that had been placed near Hitler by Von Stauffenberg. When it exploded Hitler suffered only minor wounds. The failure of this plot resulted in many executions, and in “The Restless Conscience’s” (Times-rated Mature) most ironic moment, a frail, shaky but resolute old woman recalls how her sister-in-law was billed 150 marks for the cost of her husband’s execution.

‘The Restless Conscience’

A Direct Cinema Limited release. Writer-producer-director Hava Kohav Beller. Consulting historian Professor Peter Hoffman. Key cinematographers Volker Rodde, Martin Schaar, Gabor Bagyoni. Editors Tonicka Janek, Juliette Weber, David Rogow. Narrator John Dildine. Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes.

Times-rated Mature (too intense and complex for children).