The Last Nazi (review)

FILM REVIEWS The Last Nazi (Learning Corporation of America, 1977) color, 72 min. The Last Nazi is an extremely valuable cinematic document: a 1976 interview between the Canadian journalist, Patrick Watson, and Hitler's ex-master builder and Minister of Armaments Albert Speer. Speer tells of his youth in Heidelberg, how he first heard Hitler in Berlin, and how, within a short time, he was drawn into the "Fuehrer's" intimate circle. Speer designed the backdrop for a Nazi rally shortly after Hitler came to power and advanced to architect of the annual Nuremberg rallies. Early in 1942 Speer assumed the position of Minister of Armaments which he held until the German surrender in 1945. Included in the film is stock footage from Leni Riefenstahl 's documentary of the 1934 Nuremberg rally film The Triumph of the Will, World War II newsreels, and some remarkable color sequences of Hitler's mistress Eva Braun and SS general Sepp Dietrich taken by Speer at Berchtesgaden shortly before the outbreak of the war. There are some minor errors. A picture of Hitler's adjutant, Bruckner, is falsely identified as Martin Bormann; Speer is not (or was not at the time the film was made) the "only living link with the Nazi past," as Watson claims. Former Grand Admiral Karl Doenitz was still alive in 1976 and granted at least one filmed interview at about that time. Contrary to the film, by 1925 the German currency had been stabilized and Berliners, for the most part, no longer worried about inflation. But it would be pointless to cavil at these trifles. The Last Nazi is the best post World War II interview I have seen about the Third Reich, and it deserves to be widely exhibited. It should be seen by scholars with an interest in twentieth century history, those who attempt to understand the relationship between technology and politics, and by those attempting to understand how a great and cultured people could be subverted by a demonic mediocrity. Richard S. GeehrBentley College, Waltham, Mass. ...