Downfall

Year:

2004

Duration:

156 min | 178 min (extended version)

Genres:

Biography | Drama | History | War

IMDB rate:

8.3

Director:

Oliver Hirschbiegel

Awards:

Nominated for Oscar. Another 24 wins & 21 nominations

Details

Country: Germany

Release Date: 2004-09-16

Filming Locations: Bavaria Studios, Bavariafilmplatz 7, Geiselgasteig, Grünwald, Bavaria, Germany

Earnings

Opening Weekend: $18,195 (USA) (2 November 2013)

Gross: $5,509,040 (USA) (2 November 2013)

Cast

Actor

Character

Heino Ferch

Downfall

Bruno Ganz

Adolf Hitler

Alexandra Maria Lara

Traudl Junge

Corinna Harfouch

Magda Goebbels

Ulrich Matthes

Joseph Goebbels

Juliane Köhler

Eva Braun

Christian Berkel

Prof. Ernst-Günther Schenck

Matthias Habich

Prof. Werner Haase

Thomas Kretschmann

Hermann Fegelein

Michael Mendl

General Weidling

André Hennicke

General Mohnke

Ulrich Noethen

Heinrich Himmler

Birgit Minichmayr

Gerda Christian

Rolf Kanies

General Hans Krebs

Justus von Dohnányi

General Wilhelm Burgdorf

Dieter Mann

Feldmarschall Wilhelm Keitel

Christian Redl

General Alfred Jodl

Götz Otto

Otto Günsche

Thomas Limpinsel

Heinz Linge

Thomas Thieme

Martin Bormann

Alexander Held

Walter Hewel

Donevan Gunia

Peter Kranz

Bettina Redlich

Frl. Constanze Manziarly

Heinrich Schmieder

Rochus Misch

Anna Thalbach

Hanna Reitsch

Dietrich Hollinderbäumer

Ritter Robert von Greim

Ulrike Krumbiegel

Dorothee Kranz

Karl Kranzkowski

Wilhelm Kranz

Thorsten Krohn

Dr. Stumpfegger

Jürgen Tonkel

Erich Kempka

Devid Striesow

Feldwebel Tornow

Fabian Busch

Obersturmbannführer Stehr

Christian Hoening

Reichsarzt SS Grawitz

Aleksandr Slastin

General Tschuikow

Aline Sokar

Die Goebbels Kinder

Amelie Menges

Die Goebbels Kinder

Charlotte Stoiber

Die Goebbels Kinder

Gregory Borlein

Die Goebbels Kinder

Julia Bauer

Die Goebbels Kinder

Laura Borlein

Die Goebbels Kinder

Andrey Blagoslovenski

Soldat im Ruinenkeller

Dirk Borchardt

Panzerkommandant (as Dirk Borchard)

Elizaveta Boyarskaya

Schwester Erna

Michael Brandner

H. Fritzsche

I. Bubenchikov

Schädle

Leopold von Buttlar

Sohn Grawitz

Martin Butzke

SS-Soldat 1

Dmitriy Bykovskiy-Romashov

Soldat 2 (as Dimitry Bykovsky)

Sergey Evseev

Adjutant 2 von General Mohnke (as Sergej Evseyev)

Mathias Gnädinger

Hermann Göring

Bohdan Graczyk

Oberst Clausen (as Boghdan Graczyk)

Sergei Halturin

SS-Adjutant

Norbert Heckner

Standesbeamter Wagner

Enno Hesse

Oberleutnant

Yevgeni Ilovaiskij

Älterer Zivilist 1 (as Eugene Ilovaisky)

Julia Jentsch

Hanna Potrowski

Oleg Khoroshilov

Henker

Michael Kind

SA-Mann / Ruinenkeller

Elisabeth von Koch

Margarete Lorenz

Marie Sarah Linke

Hedwig Brandt

Michael Lippold

Junger Offizier 1

Konstantin Lukashov

Älterer Soldat (as Konstantin Lukashev)

Stefan Mehren

Verwundeter Soldat

Ilya Mozgovoy

Soldat 1 (as Ilya Mozgovoi)

Silke Nikowski

Frau Grawitz

Alexei Oleinikov

SS-Offizier Brauerei

Oleg Piminov

Adjutant von General Mohnke

Katerina Poladjan

Russische Arzthelferin

Oleg Popov

Adjutant von General Weidling

Silke Popp

Ursula Puttkamer

Vasiliy Reutov

Adjutant von General Krebs

Igor Romanov

SS-Offizier Högel

Tanja Schleiff

Russische Ärztin (as Tanya Schleiff)

Christian Schmidt

SS-Mann Greifkommando

August Schmölzer

Baur

Jurij Schrader

Dolmetscher

Boris Schwarzmann

Matwej Blanter

Maria Semenova

Rothaarige Frau

Igor Sergeev

Russischer Soldat (as Igor Sergeyev)

Valeri Slavinski

Mann

Valeriy Solomakhin

Älterer Zivilist 2 (as Valeri Solomakhin)

Hans H. Steinberg

General Koller

Klaus-Jürgen Steinmann

Offizier 1 (as Klaus Jürgen Steinmann)

Oliver Stritzel

Maschinist Hentschel

Veit Stübner

Obergruppenführer Tellermann

Mikhail Tryasorukov

Adjutant Müller

Vsevolod Tsurilo

Russischer Adjutant

Klaus B. Wolf

Junger Marinesoldat

Yelena Zelenskaya

Inge Dombrowski

Tatyana Zhuravlyova

Alte Frau

Aleksandr Styopin

HJ Führer

Thomas Franke

Wachsoldat vor der Wolfsschanze (uncredited)

Traudl Junge

Herself (archive footage) (uncredited)

Henning Peker

Wachsoldat vor der Wolfsschanze (uncredited)

Dieter Rupp

Mohnke's Adjutant im Bunker (uncredited)

Did you know?

Trivia

Hauptsturmführer Hans-Gösta Pehrsson was Swedish. He tried to get out of Berlin through the Swedish embassy but failed. He survived the war after being captured by the Red Army and died in Stockholm 1974. The dead soldier lying in front of the half track in the famous picture is another Swede, Arvid Johansson from the city of Skövde.

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During the letters montage, Magda Goebbels is seen writing a letter to her son, Harald Quandt (there is a picture of him in front of her), by her first husband, industrialist Günther Quandt. He was her only child to survive the war. In 1944, as a Lieutenant in the Luftwaffe, Quandt was injured and captured by the Allies in Italy. He was released in 1947 and later died in an air crash in 1967.

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During the war, the majority of the cyanide capsules produced were made in the concentration camps, which made sabotage a real problem. This is one of the reasons why many Germans who committed suicide by cyanide also shot themselves to make sure they would die. This is also the reason why Adolf Hitler's beloved dog Blondi was poisoned; he wanted to make sure his batch of cyanide was not fake.

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Goofs

When the drug for the Goebbels children is mixed, the Erlenmeyer flask is postwar as you can clearly see from the logo (Schott Mainz). The company moved there in 1951/2.

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In the scene where SS officer Fegelein is executed for treason and desertion, no bullet wounds or blood appear on his uniform when the machine pistol's bullets hit him. Also, the weapon does not eject any empty cartridge cases while it is being fired.

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During the flight from the bunker, Müller (Schenck's adjutant) is shot. When the camera cuts to his body on the ground there is a bullet wound in his right cheek. But no wound is seen on his face in the previous frames as we hear the shot and see him falling.

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Quotes

Martin Bormann: [reading folder in hand] My Führer, following your decision to stay in Berlin, do I have your approval as Vice Chancellor to immediately take charge of the entire Reich with the necessary power and authority? If I receive no answer by 10 p.m., I will assume that you have been incapacitated. I will serve the well-being of our people and fatherland.

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Adolf Hitler: General von Greim, I appoint you to Commander in Chief of the Air Force and General Field Marshal. A large responsibility rests on your shoulders. You must shake up the entire air force. Many mistakes have been made, so be ruthless. Life never forgives weakness. This so called humanity... is just priests' drivel. Compassion is a primal sin. Compassion for the weak is a betrayal of nature.

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Adjutant SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Günsche: He is not in the bunker.

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Faq

Q

Who is in the portrait that Hitler is sitting alone and looking at when his secretary enters his room?

A

Frederick II, King of Prussia (1740-1786), aka Frederick the Great. Prussia was a German kingdom with Berlin as its capital. It achieved many military victories, which inspired Hitler. About 200 years before (during the Seven Years' War) Frederick the Great was in a very similar situation as Hitler. Frederick was fighting a war against an overwhelming coalition of great powers - Austria, Russia and France - with Great Britian as his only ally. He was on the edge of total defeat, until suddenly the empress of Russia died and the anti-Prussian coalition collapsed. The US President Roosevelt also died when Germany was on the the edge of defeat. When Hitler looked at Frederick's painting, he was probably hoping for the same kind of miracle.

Q

Any recommendations for other movies about famous dictators?

A

Viewers who have seen Der Untergang have also recommended Stalin (1992) and The Inner Circle (1991), both about Stalin, and The Last King of Scotland (2006), about Idi Amin.

Q

What are the differences between the Theatrical Version and the Extended Version?

A

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