Dennis Gansel
Napola - Elite für den Führer

Ultimately, this is a film about Nazism, but not necessarily limited to the historical context of Hitler's Germany in 1942, where the director chose to set the story.

Dennis Gansel, born in Hannover on October 4, 1973, is a young German director known for having directed the 2008 film 'Die Welle' ('The Wave'), based on a novel by Todd Strasser, which received numerous awards and sparked much debate due to its content.

Loosely inspired by the real 'Third Wave' sociological experiment that took place in Palo Alto, California in 1967, the film revisits the concept and tells the story of a teacher who, to explain how Nazism could have come about, founded a movement that he led in an autocratic manner with the strict discipline of the Nazi regime.

From his perspective, the experiment was a success because the young participants showed incredible enthusiasm in taking part, and the students developed a strong sense of belonging, until the teacher (Ron Jones) abruptly ended the 'game' and invited the students to compare their conduct with that typical of Nazi youth organizations.

The film, which was clearly much debated for its content, especially in Germany, revisits the story (certainly with dramatic modifications and twists) from the viewpoint of a German born in the seventies, who had been extensively informed about the history of German National Socialism from a young age, eventually developing a kind of rejection and, by his own admission, rediscovering its importance only in adulthood.

The content of this 2004 film, 'Before the Fall' ('Napola - Elite für den Führer'), in some ways mirrors those of 'Die Welle'. It seems almost as if the film anticipates the content of the later 2008 film, which somehow constitutes an evolution, a next step of 'Before the Fall', while expanding and involving more characters and offering a different time setting since it is set in the present.

'Before the Fall' tells the story of the young Friedrich Weimer, seventeen years old, who is recruited into the prestigious NaPoLa (National Political Institute of Education), an elite academy during the years of Nazism tasked with training cadets destined to become prominent members of the German army leadership, particularly the Waffen-SS. The program was inaugurated in 1933. By the war's end, there were 43 such academies throughout Germany.

Coming from a particularly poor family, Friedrich willingly accepts the assignment despite his father's disapproval, as it would allow him to build a career and access high positions within the social hierarchy of Nazi Germany. He quickly becomes one of the standout students at the school, particularly due to his boxing abilities.

During his time at the school, however, he encounters the harsh and frightening reality of NaPoLa's training methods, which aim to ideologically indoctrinate students according to Nazi principles and educate them through methods requiring clear hierarchical structures, rigidity, and intransigence in thought and harsh judgment, including punishments ranging from humiliation to outright violence.

Over time, the unfolding events lead him to reconsider his attendance at the school and also to give up what could be a brilliant career, refusing to be part of the elite of that terrifying machine that was National Socialism.

The story told in the film (music by Angelo Badalamenti) is very simple. It particularly focuses on the friendship between Friedrich (Max Riemelt) and Albrecht (Tom Schilling), the son of the local 'Gauleiter' (practically the head of the local party section), who possesses a particular sensitivity and is seen by his father as weak. But rather than developing the relationship between the two, the film focuses on Friedrich's emotional reactions, which seem more to be driven by a genuine emotional response and personal sensitivity, ultimately forcing him, motionless, to refuse the situation.

A kind of passive opposition that makes one reflect on its 'effectiveness' on a larger scale regarding the history of Nazi Germany, which was ultimately entirely insignificant, but on a personal plane it constitutes, evidently, a form of self-defense and preservation of one's moral and intellectual integrity. Although, it's clear, this alone is probably not enough either on a broader 'social' plane (understood as the context in which the individual acts and operates) nor on an emotional level. How can an individual, even if they have morally and ethically taken a positive stance, live happily in an inherently unhealthy context?

Gansel's film does not provide answers to these large questions, and perhaps there are no defined and definitive answers that could constitute any universal law.

After all, the central theme is related to the field of training and education, concerning both the individual, in Friedrich's case, and what can be a community.

Like 'Die Welle', the film refers to what the methods and systems of education might be and how and which are the most suitable to educate and at the same time cultivate a critical sense in students, providing them with these tools and such awareness to disengage as thinking and critical individuals, and simultaneously preparing them as individuals with social consciousness who are part of a more or less extended community, starting from the school environment to the broader society in which we live.

It is evident that the issue is wide and open to various interpretations and perspectives.

It is certainly interesting in the film to consider the different attitudes of the 'adult world', both those who are educators and those who serve as role models (in this particular case: Albrecht's father), towards Friedrich and his friend Albrecht, and how these different attitudes determine their fate with judgments that are inevitably 'conditioning'.

Perhaps underlying it, regarding the youth, there is a sort of social struggle, summed up in the 'gap' between generations, where the adult world always emerges victorious, already possessing the knowledge of the 'rules' that determine relationships between different human beings and the workings of society.

A conflict that is inevitable and, as such, repeats and will repeat from generation to generation, often seeing young people - rightly oppositional - failing to make a united front, in a situation that frequently results in marginalization and unresolved internal conflicts for the individual.

It may seem paradoxical, yet perhaps one of an educator's tasks should be to promote confrontation between these generations in a conscious and aware manner, without degenerating into the aforementioned rigidity and severity, but instead fostering unity and ideal cohesion among students and youths, which could eventually lead them to be the protagonists of their own lives in a cooperative and collaborative manner.

Ah, how wonderful it would be if all the young people in the world united and told us old folks to go to hell!