Downfall (2004) quotes

Director
Oliver Hirschbiegel.

Cast
Bruno Ganz.
Alexandra Maria Lara.
Ulrich Matthes.

Traudl Junge, the final secretary for Adolf Hitler, tells of the Nazi dictator’s final days in his Berlin bunker at the end of WWII.

 

In a war as such there are no civilians.
– Adolf Hitler

All these horrors I’ve heard of during the Nurnberg process, these six million Jews, other thinking people or people of another race, who perished. That shocked me deeply. But I hadn’t made the connection with my past. I assured myself with the thought of not being personally guilty. And that I didn’t know anything about the enormous scale of it. But one day I walked by a memorial plate of Sophie Scholl in the Franz-Joseph-Strasse. I saw that she was about my age and she was executed in the same year I came to Hitler. And at that moment I actually realised that a young age isn’t an excuse. And that it might have been possible to get to know things.
– Traudl Junge

When I meet Eisenhower, should I give the Nazi salute, or shake his hand?
– Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler

You must be on stage when the curtain falls
– Albert Speer

That was an order! Steiner’s assault was an order! Who do you think you are to dare disobey an order I give? So this is what it has come to! The military has been lying to me. Everybody has been lying to me, even the SS! Our generals are just a bunch of contemptible, disloyal cowards.
– Adolf Hitler

I can’t permit you to insult the soldiers.
– General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf
They are cowards, traitors and failures!
– Adolf Hitler
My fuhrer, this is outrageous!
– General der Infanterie Wilhelm Burgdorf
Our generals are the scum of the German people! Not a shred of honour! They call themselves generals. Years at military academy just to learn how to hold a knife and fork! For years, the military has hindered my plans! They’ve put every kind of obstacle in my way! What I should have done… was liquidate all the high-ranking officers, as Stalin did!
– Adolf Hitler

He is not in the bunker.
– Adjutant SS-Hauptsturmführer Otto Günsche
What do you mean you can’t find Fegelein? Keep searching for him! I want to see Fegelein at once! If he goes AWOL, that’s desertion. Treason! Bring me Fegelein!
– Adolf Hitler
Fegelein! Fegelein! Fegelein!
– Adolf Hitler

I feel no sympathy. I repeat, I feel no sympathy! The German people chose their fate. That may surprise some people. Don’t fool yourself. We didn’t force the German people. They gave us a mandate, and now their little throats are being cut!
– Joseph Goebbels

Between us, I’d say he’s had it.
– Reichsführer SS Heinrich Himmler
Yeah? What do you expect from a teetotal, non-smoking vegetarian?
– SS-Gruppenführer Hermann Fegelein

The war is lost… But if you think that I’ll leave Berlin for that, you are sadly mistaken. I’d prefer to put a bullet in my head.
– Adolf Hitler

I always make mistakes when I’m dictating.
– Adolf Hitler

I hate those two-faced sods who say ‘Sieg Heil’, but behind their backs say, ‘Kiss my a… aunt’.
– Constanze Manziarly

I won’t use my final hours as Reich Chancellor to sign a statement of surrender!
– Joseph Goebbels

Sleep tight, children.
– Magda Goebbels

My Führer, I beg you to leave Berlin! My Führer, please. Don’t leave us! What will become of us?
– Magda Goebbels
Tomorrow millions of people will curse me, but fate has taken its course.
– Adolf Hitler

I am to be shot.
– General der Artillerie Helmuth Weidling

It seems he doesn’t want anyone to see inside him. I mean deep inside. In private, he can be such a caring person. But then he says… such brutal things.
– Traudl Junge
When he’s the Führer?
– Eva Braun