50 Fun Facts About Downfall (2004 Film)

Which Swiss actor plays Adolf Hitler in Downfall, the 2004 German film about the dictator's final days in Berlin?

Bruno Ganz, born in Zürich, was the director's first choice but hesitated to accept, and many of his friends advised him against playing the dictator.

In Downfall's much-parodied bunker rant, Hitler erupts on learning which SS general never launched his attack?

Felix Steiner had warned that his force, outnumbered ten to one, could not attack. Eyewitnesses in the bunker recorded the real outburst of 22 April 1945.

Downfall parody videos keep the bunker scene's original German audio but change which part of the clip?

The subtitles are rewritten so Hitler seems to rage about football transfers, pop feuds or cancelled exams while the German dialogue plays on untouched.

To prepare for Downfall, the actor playing Hitler visited a hospital to study patients with which condition?

Parkinson's disease was his own diagnosis of Hitler, reached after watching wartime newsreels of the dictator's shaking body.

How did the director of Downfall react in a 2010 magazine interview to online parodies of his bunker scene?

He found them funny, saying he often laughed out loud at a scene he had staged himself and calling the spoofs a fitting extension of the film's purpose.

In Downfall, Hitler has a poison capsule tested on his German Shepherd; what is the dog's name?

Blondi was a gift from Martin Bormann in 1941 and stayed at Hitler's side in the bunker until the day before his own death.

In a 2010 BBC tally, the most-watched Downfall parody showed Hitler raging about being banned from which service?

Xbox Live was the grievance in a clip viewed more than 4.2 million times; a British student, Chris Bowley, claimed credit for making it.

Which Russian city doubled for the ruined streets of wartime Berlin during the filming of Downfall?

St Petersburg offered a run-down industrial district along the Obvodny Canal that could pass for the German capital under siege.

Downfall is framed by the memories of which young woman, hired as Hitler's private secretary in 1942?

Traudl Junge was the youngest of Hitler's private secretaries and stayed in the bunker to the end; Alexandra Maria Lara plays her.

Downfall's director later made a 2013 biopic starring Naomi Watts as which member of the British royal family?

Princess Diana was the subject of Diana, which followed the last two years of her life and her secret relationship with a heart surgeon.

During the bunker rant in Downfall, what does Hitler openly admit to his generals for the first time?

The war is lost, he concedes, before vowing to die in Berlin rather than surrender or escape the city.

Just before the rant begins in Downfall's bunker scene, what does Hitler order most of the officers present to do?

Leave the room is the order to all but his most senior generals, while the rest of the staff stand in the corridor outside, listening.

In Downfall, Hitler leaves the bunker to pin which medal on a Hitler Youth boy who destroyed two tanks?

The Iron Cross goes to a boy he hails as braver than his generals, in one of the dictator's rare moments above ground in the film.

Downfall's main story begins on 20 April 1945 as enemy shells first hit Berlin; what was Hitler marking that day?

His birthday, his 56th, also brought the real Hitler's last trip to the surface, to decorate boy soldiers in the ruined Chancellery garden.

In Downfall, whose telegram asking to take over leadership of the Reich makes Hitler order his arrest for treason?

Hermann Göring, the Luftwaffe commander, had asked for state leadership in case Hitler was no longer free to act; the scene is one of several reused in parodies.

In Downfall, news of whose secret surrender offer to the Western Allies reaches Hitler over dinner in the bunker?

Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, had failed to talk Hitler into leaving Berlin and then negotiated behind his back; Hitler orders his execution.

In Downfall, which minister confesses on a last bunker visit that he ignored Hitler's scorched-earth order?

Albert Speer, the armaments minister, had refused to destroy Germany's infrastructure; a shaken Hitler dismisses him unpunished and lets him go.

Which SS general, brother-in-law to Eva Braun, does Hitler have shot for trying to desert in Downfall?

Hermann Fegelein is executed despite Eva Braun's pleas, and the moment Hitler orders an adjutant to find him is another scene the parodies reuse.

In Downfall, what does Hitler dictate to his secretary shortly before marrying Eva Braun in the bunker?

His last will and testament is taken down first, and the wedding follows in an early-morning ceremony as the battle closes in.

At the end of Downfall, Hitler's secretary and a young boy slip out of ruined Berlin on what?

A bicycle, found abandoned, carries the pair away; the film closes with footage of the real secretary as an old woman, reflecting on her guilt.

What is the original German-language title of the 2004 Hitler film released in English as Downfall?

Der Untergang was also the German title of the 2002 history of Hitler's end in the bunker that inspired the film's producer.

Which German director, maker of the prison thriller Das Experiment, made the Hitler drama Downfall?

Oliver Hirschbiegel hesitated to take the job because, as a German, he had treated Nazism as a taboo; he had made his name directing television crime series.

Downfall's lead actor spent four months learning to reproduce Hitler's everyday voice with which regional accent?

Austrian inflections came from studying a rare recording of the dictator in private conversation, speaking without raising his voice.

Downfall's lead actor copied Hitler's private speaking voice from a tape secretly made in 1942 in which country?

Finland was where a radio sound engineer kept taping after the official speeches of Hitler's visit to its commander-in-chief, until SS guards noticed eleven minutes later.

Years before playing Hitler in Downfall, its lead actor starred in which Wim Wenders film set in divided Berlin?

Wings of Desire cast him as Damiel, an angel who falls in love with a lonely trapeze artist; he reprised the role in 1993.

Hitler's bunker was rebuilt for Downfall on a studio soundstage in which German city, far from Berlin?

Munich's Bavaria Studios housed the set, built by the film's production designer alongside a replica of Hitler's eastern headquarters.

Downfall's director said he found relief from the bleak mood of the shoot by listening to which composer?

Johann Sebastian Bach was his escape from the set's depressing atmosphere, while members of the cast lightened the mood with games of football.

Two days before opening in German cinemas, Downfall was shown at a film festival in which city?

Toronto's festival hosted the international premiere on 14 September 2004, two days before the film reached German cinemas and five months before its American release.

Downfall lost the 2005 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film to which Spanish drama starring Javier Bardem?

The Sea Inside tells the true story of Ramón Sampedro, left quadriplegic by a diving accident, and his long campaign for the right to end his life.

Which German production company had many Downfall parodies pulled from YouTube in 2010, only to inspire even more?

Constantin Film's takedowns prompted new clips of Hitler raging that his parodies were being removed, and an executive admitted the task could never be completed.

Which satire about Hitler has a furious television executive restage Downfall's bunker rant?

Look Who's Back, in which Hitler wakes up in modern Berlin and becomes a television star, has a network boss erupt over collapsing ratings before he agrees to finance a film.

A BP refinery worker sacked over a Downfall parody about pay talks won his job back in which country?

Australia's Full Federal Court ruled that the video was not offensive, and Scott Tracey was reinstated with A$200,000 in compensation.

A Hebrew-language Downfall parody caused a stir in Israel by having Hitler rage about a shortage of what?

Parking spaces in Tel Aviv were the complaint, a sign of how far the format travelled: versions appeared everywhere from Poland to Malaysia.

Downfall opens in 1942 with Hitler interviewing would-be secretaries at which Eastern Front headquarters?

The Wolf's Lair lay in the Masurian woods of what is now Poland, and Hitler spent more than 800 days there during the war.

Most characters in Downfall are real historical figures; which of these was invented for the film?

Peter Kranz, the Hitler Youth fighter, is fictional, though inspired by Alfred Zech, a 12-year-old who saved a dozen German soldiers from an attack on his village.

Which memoir by Hitler's last private secretary, written in 1947 but first published in 2002, helped shape Downfall?

Until the Final Hour was handed to the actress playing its author, who called the book her personal treasure and read it during filming.

After Downfall, which American director wrote a letter to the actress who played Hitler's secretary and cast her?

Francis Ford Coppola gave Alexandra Maria Lara a leading role in Youth Without Youth, his first film as director in ten years.

Which actor, who played the officer Wilm Hosenfeld in The Pianist, plays a doomed SS general in Downfall?

Thomas Kretschmann became known for playing military officers, and a year later he was the ship's captain in Peter Jackson's King Kong.

Götz Otto, who plays Hitler's towering adjutant in Downfall, was the henchman Stamper in which James Bond film?

Tomorrow Never Dies cast the 198 cm actor after he was given twenty seconds to introduce himself at the audition and needed only five.

Which British historian and Hitler biographer hailed Downfall in The Guardian as a triumph of historical drama?

Ian Kershaw singled out the lead performance, judging that it caught Hitler's voice almost perfectly and felt chillingly real.

In Downfall, which general reports to the bunker expecting a firing squad and leaves as commander of Berlin's defence?

Helmuth Weidling mutters in the film that he would rather have been shot; days later he is the officer who announces the city's surrender.

Which German historian wrote the 2002 account of Hitler's end in the bunker that inspired Downfall?

Joachim Fest had earlier been editorial aide to Hitler's architect on his autobiography, another book the screenplay drew on.

To convince himself Hitler could be played at all, Downfall's lead actor watched Albin Skoda in which 1955 film?

The Last Ten Days, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst with the novelist Erich Maria Remarque among its writers, put Hitler on screen in German just ten years after the war.

Downfall was shot over twelve weeks in the autumn of 2003 under which one-word working title?

Sunset was the name the production used while it moved between studio sets and street locations in Germany and Russia.

The real secretary's interview clips that open and close Downfall come from which 2002 documentary?

Blind Spot is a feature-length interview co-directed by the artist André Heller, members of whose Jewish family died in Nazi death camps.

Which German producer, who later brought the novel Perfume to the screen, wrote Downfall's screenplay himself?

Bernd Eichinger had wanted to make a film about Hitler for twenty years, and a newly published history of the bunker finally got him started.

Director Wim Wenders attacked Downfall in Die Zeit by comparing it with a film from which video-game franchise?

Resident Evil: Apocalypse at least told viewers which character was evil, he argued, while Downfall took no clear point of view on Hitler and so made him harmless.

Which actress, star of Aimée & Jaguar and Nowhere in Africa, plays Eva Braun in Downfall?

Juliane Köhler, the daughter of a puppeteer, trained in New York under Uta Hagen before making her name on the German stage.

Which actor plays Joseph Goebbels in Downfall, in the same year he played a priest imprisoned at Dachau?

Ulrich Matthes starred in The Ninth Day for director Volker Schlöndorff, and he is also a regular German dubbing voice of Kenneth Branagh.

Which former Hitler bodyguard and bunker telephone operator complained that Downfall was too loud and Americanized?

Rochus Misch recalled that most people in the bunker spoke quietly; he died in 2013 as the last surviving member of Hitler's entourage there.