Hitler's children explores the themes of guilt, memory, family ties and identity with a profound simplicity that quickly gets very raw, at times overwhelmingly so.
Never ever forget that period in history and yet realize the agony of the descendants of those beasts that hopefully will never be duplicated.
Documentary is about the descendants of the most powerful figures in the Nazi regime: men and women who were left a legacy that permanently associates them with one of the greatest crimes in history. What is it like for them to have grown up with a name that immediately raises images of murder and genocide? How do they cope with the fact that they are the children of ... literally, not just metaphorically.
How these men and women have chosen to face this inherited burden directly or flee from it creates a fascinating spectrum the film explores via quietly intimate interviews.
Perhaps for the first time we are seeing a full picture of what life in and around Adolf Hitler was like as he terrified the universe with his megalomaniac plan for purification of the Aryan race – a plan that resulted in the deaths and tortures and cremations of millions of Jews, gypsies, criminals, homosexuals, and those who tried in vain to stop the atrocities.
The cast then are the descendants of Hitler's murderous group – now adults, forever tainted by the sins of their forbears, who explaining to us in penetrating eye contacts what it was like to be around the monster's court. Bettina Goering, Katrin Himmler, Eldad Beck, Rainer Hoess, Niklas Frank, and Monika Goeth are the cast members in this unforgettable film.
These six ordinary appearing people were not associated with Nazi leanings and they talk individually about what it is like to carry a name associated with the Nazi Party, being a blood relative to someone associated with hate and murder, being German at a time when that in and of itself was seen as being associated with Nazism, dealing with their family regardless of their allegiance to the Nazi Party, and if they feel any guilt associated with the actions of their infamous ancestor.
Bettina Goering is the great-niece of Nazi official Hermann Göring shares her voluntary sterilization she underwent to put an end to her bloodline of horror (she now lives simply in New Mexico). Katrin Himmler is the great-niece of Heinrich Himmler, second in command of the Nazi Party under Adolf Hitler and has written copiously about the evils of the Nazi regime. Rainer Hoess is the grandson of Rudolf Hoess, creator and commandant of the Auschwitz Concentration Camp. Niklas Frank is the son of Hans Frank, Polish Governor- General during WWII, he who was responsible for the ghettos and concentration camps in Nazi occupied Poland. Monika Goeth is the daughter of Amon Goeth, commandant of the Plaszów Concentration Camp. In addition to these musings, Hoess and journalist Eldad Beck - a third generation Holocaust survivor - travel back to Auschwitz to revisit their shared ancestral past. And Frank tells in his writings and in public speaking engagements, most to school aged children, of his past of being the direct beneficiary to many of the Nazi Party's favors which in turn is partly the reason he denounces his parents.
