Watch What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy For Free

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

A Disappointing Continuation

The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

This documentary follows two different men who were sons of prominent figures during WW2. The person who does the interviews had several relatives who died in the war. This leads to an obvious bias on the part of the interviewer, but nonetheless it manages to reveal a sense of complication - both mental and emotional - created by such extreme events of the past. If your mind and heart are open, you will get much more out of this documentary.Some people say this has a political message / bias to it. But to me, the fact that real people were asked to encounter questions the enormity of which the world has never seen, and hopefully will never see again, negates any sense of intentionality of a "take away" message. In the end, it's left up to the viewer to decide - and that may be the most difficult part, realizing that a "decision" in terms of right and wrong are not always as clear as they seem. Not when it's personal. Not when it's your own father who was involved in such atrocities as this.

The film description tells you more than I can. However, I watched this not so much with interest for the 2 men, but for the story of their fathers and the occurrences they showed and the whole family perspective. The visits to the ghettos by the men as children said a lot to me. I mean, their fathers, dealers of death, took their kids to work. Incredible. They point out in the film the contradiction between these father's work and their ability to go home to their families to lead normal lives. It is inconceivable. All of the Nazis truly convinced themselves that their victims were not human. They had to have to look at everyone, their children victims and then go home to their own children. I cannot really grasp this which is why I watch films like this. I have never really come to an understanding of this and I probably never will.I did not expect the men to accuse their fathers or to convict them in front of the audience. I am not sure one should expect that. Both men acknowledge to different degrees what their fathers did. Are their fathers actions their actions? Should we expect them to vilify their fathers? I guess acknowledging who and what their fathers were and did is something I expect. Should they be blamed in a sense for their fathers actions if they do or do not blame or accuse their fathers? I think to a certain degree, people want to blame the children for their fathers crimes against humanity. By asking these men to vilify their fathers, they then would disown the crimes of their fathers....well this is the expectation of the filmmakers. I am not sure it is what should be expected. Their fathers were evil men who performed horrible evils, we all know that. Now if the children believed those actions were justified or if they believed their fathers were good men for those actions, then you could throw them in with their fathers actions. One man disowns his father and hates him as a father, for the father he was, as much as his Nazi actions in my opinion. He hated his mother too. That is some burden to carry. I think he carries it as a burden, truly.One man believes his father was a good man stuck in a bad circumstance. I don't believe that, I don't think anyone believes that. Should he vilify his father? He could say his father was kind to him but he knew his father did so much evil....but that didn't come out in the film to me.Watch this for the story of how human beings can lead 2 lives. Watch it to understand the horrors of the Nazis. Watch it to remember and ensure we don't see the rise of this again. We are seeing the rise....everywhere in the world. Watch this film to see where you stand, to judge your own beliefs. This film forces Introspect in my opinion.It is not about me, but it forces me to look at these people and my beliefs. I have strong Polish heritage so maybe that pushed my interest in this film too.

This documentary focuses on Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter, both born in 1939, and both being the sons of high ranking officers in the Nazi regime, who were directly involved in the mass murders of Jews, and other citizens, during WWII. However today, Niklas and Horst are near polar opposites in how they view their fathers. Niklas abhors and detests everything about his father Hans and what the Nazis did, and how, although he was only a young child during that period, his father's actions have haunted and plagued him his entire life.On the other hand, Horst, at least in the film, shows no real emotion for those persons that were exterminated, but states that his father Otto was of good character who protested what was happening, and was only part of the Nazi system carrying out his duties.One of the filmmakers Philippe Sands, an international lawyer specializing in genocide, is also a major participant in the movie. He is the chief interviewer of the two men, and also serves as narrator. We learn he's also directly linked to the story, as his grandfather was the only survivor of his 80 relatives that were killed by the Grossaktion in the Ukraine in 1942, where 3500 Jewish citizens of that area were exterminated. This was an area that was run by Otto von Wachter, under the command of Hans Frank.There are a number of things in this documentary that I found very chilling and disturbing. To mention just a couple, one was how Niklas recalls his father coming home from another day of mass murder, and acting like a "normal" dad at home. Another was some of the Ukranians, during the 2014 uprising and civil strife, welcoming Horst, while wearing a type of Nazi paraphernalia, and telling him what a good man his father was, with seemingly no regard for those that were exterminated there.Overall, I thought this was a well presented documentary, with fascinating film clips of the Nuremberg Trials and the prison there. I thought this movie presented a different angle to the infamous Nazi history as well, with the focus on two sons of Nazi officers and how they felt today some 70 years later about their fathers.

Philippe Sands lost nearly all of his ancestors in Ukraine at the hands of Nazi's and their sympathisers. He became a barrister and specialises in human rights violation cases and war crimes. He met with two men who both owned up to being the sons of prominent Nazi's during WW II and he set out to make a film about them now and what the sins of the fathers mean to them.This film was made for the BBC Timewatch programme and has all the hallmarks of a high quality production. What makes this so watchable is the fact that the two men are at either end of the spectrum when it comes to blame. One hating his father for his crimes and the other claiming his papa did nothing wrong despite the evidence. He is not even using the 'he just followed orders' excuse as his father was the one issuing those self same orders.I found this to be a difficult watch in places even with the desensitising nature of modern TV it is still hard to contemplate the mass murder that Hitler and his acolytes carried out. Things here are generally balanced though and to say it was engrossing is an understatement – I would go for a rental if you can as you may not gain more on subsequent viewings.