"The Counterfeit Captain"
In Germany in the 1940s and 1950s, it was not unusual for anything to happen in this land.
A 19-year-old German deserter, after inadvertently getting a captain's uniform, is like opening Pandora's box, releasing all the evilst parts of human nature: he pretends to be a captain and recruits his younger brother all the way to burn and loot, and directly kills the fugitive base camp in the wrong way, becoming the executioner who holds the power to kill all the fugitives. In the face of his former compatriots, he did not relent, but played a game of torture and killing, allowing deserters to die one by one in torture and fear.
This is both the plot of the movie Captain Fake and the real events that took place in Nazi land in 1945. A teenager, a dress, an aphrodisiac of power, shaped this absurd and cruel story.
It was April 1945, the Second World War was nearing its end, Germany was losing ground on the battlefield, deserting was increasing, and there were deserter concentration camps in the movies. The defeat on the battlefield did not make the soldiers slacken, and they still chanted "Long live the Fuehrer", killing the deserters while engaging in a final desperate struggle. The 19-year-old male protagonist Herold is the epitome of these people. He went from a deserted deserter to a murderous officer, turning his gun on the German people of the same race at the moment when the tide was over.
The protagonist was once a deserter who was hunted down and cornered
Herold represents a very typical "evil of power": through the blessing of that military uniform, he tasted the sweetness of abuse of power, which is more delicious than all the fine wine in the world. So the first person he killed after the change of clothes was a deserter who stole something, and the other party represented his past self, a surviving lost dog. The shot went on, and Herold died with him, and now he really transformed into a captain.
Man must have swelled up when he gained unlimited power, not to mention this young Nazi soldier who was not yet twenty years old. After putting on the uniform, Herold's move was logical, showing his authority through the killing in the desert camp. At a celebration banquet, he even instigated two deserters to shoot other deserters in order to enjoy the fun of cannibalism.
It is also in this plot that the director focuses the camera from the "evil of power" to another kind of evil - the evil of mediocrity. The two deserters escaped death because they had a performance, and performed at the officer's celebration banquet. After the banquet, because of some trouble, Herold ordered the two deserters to shoot and kill the other deserters. Without hesitation, one of them took up a gun and pointed it at the back of his companion, while the other pointed the muzzle of the gun at himself and ended the absurd performance with suicide.
For the surviving deserter, he had a thousand reasons to justify himself: he was forced to shoot; he would have to die if he didn't kill those people; even if he didn't do it himself, those deserters wouldn't live long, and so on. Yes, when he is forced to do evil, the subject of evil is Herold, who gives the orders, and he is the initiator. But in this case there is no other choice? Of course, another deserter who committed suicide proves that one can choose not to do evil, even at the cost of one's life.
This banal evil was even more vividly demonstrated in the German slaughter of Jews: I simply sent the Jews into the bathroom; I simply transported poison gas; I simply took off their clothes; I simply pressed the switch. These people make up every link of evil, but no one wants to take responsibility and admit that they are murderers.
Movie "The Pianist"
If Herold's transformation was due to the sweetness of power, why were thousands of germans brainwashed into willingly participating in the hunt for and murder of the Jews? And why do they do the evil of mediocrity without resistance? In the book "Nazi Doctor", the whole process of ordinary people becoming demons is described in detail.
The book interviews dozens of Nazi doctors and medical aides who were involved in the genocide of Jews, including injection deaths, medical experiments, euthanasia, and more. Some of them, like Herold, are keen to control the taste of his life's killing power. But more often than not, there are ordinary people who study medicine, who are good fathers and husbands on the one hand, and who are the murderers of Jews on the other. The transition between these two roles is not easy, and they must actively put on a mask, strip away the "everyday self", and integrate into the huge collectivist machine to keep themselves mentally normal.
First of all, these Nazi doctors had to brainwash themselves. The doctor's vocation is to save lives and help the injured, which is completely contrary to their actions. In order to rationalize their own behavior, they claim that the Jews are the cancer of Germany and that only extinction can save Germany, so the massacre is completely correct.
The second is role switching. The key to transformation is the collectivization of the individual self and the other, which means that the individual gives up his integrity and becomes a member of the collective, thus achieving minimal psychological cost of evil. The process of collectivization is also the process of anonymity, which means that there is no need to be responsible, similar to the "law does not blame the public" in the law.
The other means transforming oneself into a functional part of a huge system, such as a policeman or a doctor, to accomplish what should be done. At this time, "I" is no longer "I", no longer a specific name, but a policeman, a doctor. It is other people in uniform who are doing evil, and what does it have to do with "me"?
This absurd role reversal is even unconscious, and many Nazi doctors do not perceive anything wrong, so they do not admit their evil, as the so-called "snowflake admits that it is an avalanche of their own making." But in the trial of history, the Nazi doctors who entered Auschwitz chose to switch roles, which meant choosing evil.
Although more than half a century has passed since World War II, and the German people have been reflecting on various literary and artistic works, will history really not come back? In the easter egg at the end of "Captain Fake", several protagonists dressed in Nazi uniforms roam the streets of modern Berlin, Germany, searching and even robbing passers-by. This section is a real shot, and passers-by are also unaware. Surprisingly, most people did not resist, but chose to obey.
Maybe it was because of the prop gun in their hands, or maybe it was because of the Nazi uniform, the Nazi squad that crossed did not encounter any obstacles. A girl with her hands held high on the glass is searched, which is probably the most frightening scene in the whole movie. Because it reminds the audience that the film is about seventy years ago, but the Nazis are never far away.