What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy (2015) User Reviews

Rather Chilling Documentary

[larrys3 · 8/10 · 9 June 2016]

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.

Introspect

[steven98664 · 8/10 · 18 June 2016]

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.

Moving and at times uncomfortable story of two sons of Nazi's

[t-dooley-69-386916 · 7/10 · 31 January 2016]

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.

Good documentary

[info-33216 · 9/10 · 28 December 2016]

Saw this film last night on UK TV. I can add little to the reviews already given but would like to comment on Michael Wehle sour remarks.

Yes, not everything is explored, such a Fascism in the Ukraine. Can it be in the time given? Personally I had not problem with the one son seeing his father as a loving man etc. What else would a very young child think? The issue is the refusal to admit that his father was personally responsible for the crimes and, I think, that is what Sands is trying to do, namely to get him to concede when faced with the facts.

The documentary also indirectly alludes to the problems in many German families when the younger generation found out about the crimes of their parents.

An honest first-hand look at a very, very difficult subject.

[honest_reviews17 · 9/10 · 22 July 2017]

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.

Great documentary about two old men who had Nazi fathers, but with differing views.

[rchosen-193-5535 · 10/10 · 31 January 2018]

While a few reviews across the internet have said this is not a good documentary because of the bullying of the one elderly man, I beg to differ.

This documentary is about showing how two elderly men who had fathers in power that were nazis. One elderly man is fine accepting that his father was horrible. The other elderly man refuses to accept his father was horrible. Its meant to show us how strong people can be about their views on both sides, especially when confronted with the truth.

The one man that that kept defending his father is the one some people support because, as the man says, his father did not kill anyone. He did not fire a gun. He did not do anything. He was simply the "ruler" and had to follow orders or else he would be killed. If anything this man tells us his father tried to help the Jews. Despite having no evidence of that really.

Even when shown documents that his father gave orders and paid the people under him to kill jews, he still denied that his father was to blame. And in reality that is not how things work. If I hire someome to kill someone else, I may not do the killing. But I am responsible since I hired someone to kill someone else.

The elderly man doesn't realize the point the other elderly man (and the third man) was trying to make was that his father would have been a truly good man if he refused the orders and let himself be killed. But because he didn't want to die, he instead did what he was told and thus passed on the orders too. Which made him part of the killing of the Jews.

A TINY part of you can almost understand why he defends his father. Its his father, despite not knowing him really as a child, you don't want to live in shame of knowing your father was bad. However, most of you realizes its just how things are. You have to accept your father did what he did. You as his child do not have to live with that guilt because you were a child at the time. Your father my have been a horrible person, but you are your own person and have your own legacy.

Which is why the other elderly man was someone I agreed with on everything. He didn't have any pride in being his fathers son. He didn't make excuses for his father. He accepted his father was a bad man, a nazi.

And while the documentary doesn't really end on any sort of resolution, it does however leave you thinking about how people think in these situations. And it also makes you realize just how much nazism is still out there today. You see a event going on at which the elderly man (in denial) seems to almost enjoy where people are dressed up in nazi gear. Even with kids with shaved heads are at it. It is scary to think these sort of people still exist and are teaching their kids such things.

You almost feel as if the eldery man is not really in denial, buy maybe a nazi sympathizer. Which he could very well be.

Manipulative Documentary about the Legacy of Nazism

[l_rawjalaurence · 5/10 · 29 April 2016]

MY NAZI LEGACY (using the UK television release title) is a straightforward documentary in which human rights lawyer Philippe Sands confronts two elderly Germans (Niklas Frank and Horst von Wachter) with evidence of their fathers' involvement in the "Final Solution" during the Second World War. Together they travel to the city of Lviv, now in Poland, where thousands of Jews were sent to their deaths, and Sands interviews the two men as to what their feelings are about their fathers' behavior.

Frank is, to coin a phrase, brutally frank, about his father, a high-ranking officer in the Nazi hierarchy who willfully believed in the justice of the "Final Solution." One sequence taking place in an historic city building, which once served as the Nazi meeting- place, is especially gruesome, as Sands reads out the transcript of a speech given by Frank's father where he made a macabre joke about the number of people being sent to their deaths.

Von Wachter's reaction to his father's role in the war is a lot more complex. While acknowledging the Nazi Party's cruelty (which encourages him during his life to collaborate in any way he can with Jewish people), he does not believe for one moment that his father was culpable; rather he was a fundamentally good man forced to carry out his duties within a sadistic organization on pain of death. Despite all the evidence presented in front of him, Von Wachter remains resolute - so much so that the long-standing friendship between himself and Frank is put in grave danger.

Our reaction to this documentary is a complex one: while we understand and empathize with Sands's determination to make Von Wachter acknowledge his father's complicity (most of Sands's family had been wiped out as a result of the killings), we do get the feeling that he is putting undue pressure on an elderly man without acknowledging the complexity of Von Wachter's feelings. Having spent seven decades harboring a particular image of his father, it is obviously difficult for him to change it.

In the end we wonder what the purpose of the documentary actually is: were the filmmakers hoping for a Hollywood-style happy ending in which Von Wachter would break down and undergo a change of heart, thereby proving the justness of Sands's cause? Or did they deliberately manipulate the emotions of an old man so as to emphasize the fact that there were still neo-Nazis around, seven decades after the Second World War had ended? I am not condoning Von Wachter's responses in any way; but I do believe that the more pressure Sands put on him to change them, the less he was willing to do so.

MY NAZI LEGACY is a harrowing piece, but perhaps a little manipulative in its structure.

Another memorable doc about Nazis.

[JohnDeSando · 9/10 · 18 November 2015]

Good documentaries about the Holocaust, such as the harrowing Night and Fog, are impossible to forget. In a less visceral way, but still memorable, What Our Fathers Did: A Nazi Legacy explores in an interview style two sons of high-ranking Nazi officers. The low-key three-hander, moderated by Jewish lawyer Phillipe Sands, exemplifies the difference between acceptance of the horror and denial, both still active points of view.

Horst von Wachter believes his father was blameless because he was following orders with no alternative but death for anyone who disobeyed. Yet, he signed orders to build Dachau, the notorious death camp. On the other hand, Nicklas Frank completely accepts his father's responsibility and shoulders the shame courageously and with an equanimity that contrasts with Horst's defiance.

Because Niklas's father was convicted at Nuremburg of murder and hanged for "command responsibility" and Horst's escaped, it's probably why Niklas thinks Horst is a Nazi, and why Horst calls Niklas an "egoist maniac." The filmmaker is on Nicklas's side.

Director David Evans smoothly intercuts old footage, much about family outings, whose joy contrasts starkly with the murder going on in the background. His emphasis on the humanity of his interviewer and the contrast between the two subjects is unwavering. Yet the filmmaker's opinion, evidenced in the closing voice-over, is apparent, some might say to the detriment of the doc's objectivity.

As for me, I don't know how a decent human being could hide sympathy for the victims and survivors of the world's most heinous crime. Although What Our Fathers Did presents the two enduring attitudes toward Nazis and their shame, the outcome is as it will always be--outrage and a lingering sadness for the entire human race.

uncomfortable but important

[CacahuateAT · 17 September 2019]

I don't think I have to recount the events of what's going on - a human rights lawyer with personal investment in having the sons of former Nazis admit their father's guilt - is interviewing two elderly Germans who recount their personal and their fathers' history with Nazism and the relationships they had with their respective fathers. Niklas is of course a former journalist and has been outspoken about his hatred towards his father and his role within the Nazi machinery since the '60s. It is revealed (and everyone who's familiar with his work, knows this already) that he comes from a more or less loveless home. His parents hated each other, his mother didn't know what to do with the kids, and his father was even less affectionate. His father was tried and hanged in Nuremberg. Add to that Niklas' own political leanings and long journalistic history and you can see how he has found refuge in absolute condemnation of his father.

Horst is the more interesting subject. He hasn't made a career out of speaking out against his family's personal history. So, he's unfamiliar with constantly being asked questions about this issue and probably hasn't looked at the issue from different people's perspective. He does seem to understand the gravity of the atrocities that happened and doesn't shy away from conemning what happened. But he doesn't admit to the role his father, a prominant Nazi in his own right, even if not as high-ranking as Niklas' father, had in the grand scheme of things. His personal history however is much different from Niklas'. He loved his family, by all accounts his father was a good father, his parent were devoted to each other. Horst's father did not stand trial and died in exile in the Vatican/Rome. Given his personal memories of his father and the lack of public condemnation for the man (as he did escape justice), for the last 70 years, he has painted a picture of his father in his head that resemebles maybe the Speer myth of the "Good Nazi", that only wanted the best for the people he was "responsible" for and got caught up in a political avalanche that he didn't actually identify with.

All of this is of course nonsense. Both Niklas and Philippe know this. And while it is extremely uncomfortable to see them imploring Horst to acknowledge his father's guilt by presenting them with horrific evidence, taking him to the Ukraine and just hammering into him what an idiot he's being for not understaning the gravity of the personal guilt his father was carrying, I do think it's important that they aren't really giving up. There has repeatedly been the debate about whether or not really old Nazis should still be held accountable for their actions.. be tried and sent to prison. The answer is a resounding YES! And we can't shy away from having the public ackqnowledge this guilt either. Even the guilt of dead people.

In this day and age, when far-right populism is on the rise everyhwere, it's more important than ever to understand that this isn't ever going to go away. The stench of what the Nazis did is going to cling to their names for all eternity. No happy family photographs are going to change what he did.

Hannah Arendt wrote about the banality of evil. Niklas Frank has been writing about the cowardice of evil. And Horst von Wächter should become the face of the undeniablity of evil.

Last 30 minutes .... powerful

[woodvillelite-1 · 8/10 · 2 September 2022]

I would like to know how Phillipe Sandes got these two men together and too talk about their family lives and their father. The old footage of their home lives, the trial and historical sites such as their family homes, photos and videos really brings you into THIS IS REAL LIFE. Seeing how different each mans persepective is on their fathers involvement in the genacide that took place. Hearing one person say in current time that growing up in that town they were never told of what happened in their country during WWI and then finding out was beyond belief and many even today do not believe it and that the world made it all up. WOW.

Two Nazi Fathers Seen through the eyes of their sons.

[timetraveller8 · 9/10 · 3 July 2021]

This is a documentary following on Philippe Sands book. East West Street. I read the book first which I found extremely interesting and saw the documentary afterwards.

Philippe Sands an international lawyer meets with the sons of one of the two highest ranking Nazi Officer Hans Frank and Otto Wächter. Their perspective is completely different from one another regarding the crimes their fathers committed. As they revisit Poland it is fascinating to see how all three react to the murder ground of their father in front of Sands whose entire family was wiped out during the war as they were Jews.

How I Feel About What Your Father Did

[mlwehle · 3/10 · 9 October 2016]

Manipulative, simplistic documentary which adds to the pantheon of works positing the acceptability of but a narrow view of Nazism. The film opens with international lawyer Philippe Sands seemingly astonished to learn that Niklas Frank, son of Hans Frank, Governor- General of occupied Poland, is interested in discussing the architecture and furnishings of an Austrian castle. Philippe's confusion deepens when Niklas produces photo albums showing smiling family members and childhood birthday pictures along with photos of Adolph Hitler. Can Philippe's surprise be genuine? Is it so unimaginable that a family album might include pictures of a man the father worked with? Happily for Philippe, Niklas insists he had little love from his parents. We learn that his mother was remote and narcissistic - Niklas refers to her several times as Queen of Poland - and his parents' marriage was unhappy, with his father trying to get a divorce. Niklas is presented as fairly single-minded throughout the film, relentlessly condemning his father along with swipes at his mother. Philippe, and the BBC viewer, can relax. They were nasty people, these Nazis.

Unfortunately for Philippe and Niklas, Horst von Wächter, son of Baron Otto Gustav von Wächter, apparently loves his father, and has only fond memories of both his parents. His father was a good man, we are told. He loved his wife and his children, and while he was an SS Gruppenführer and Governor of Kraków under Hans Frank, von Wächter never whole-heartedly supported the Final Solution. Horst maintains throughout the film that his father never once signed an order to transport Jews to death camps, and in fact suggests that he remained in his position from noble motivations, especially to support Ukrainian independence. Niklas and Philippe are exasperated with Horst, and the dynamic of the film is set.

For the remaining hour and a quarter we see Philippe and Niklas, supported by a studio audience in London, struggle to convince Horst that his father was culpable in genocide. The battle becomes personal when Philippe reveals that under Frank and von Wächter 79 of 80 Sands family members died in Lviv, Ukraine. Philippe and Niklas argue with Horst in various venues, from an administration building where Frank delivered orders, to the site of mass executions, to a present day Ukrainian commemoration of the sacrifice of Ukrainians who fell fighting for independence. Philippe's alternately legalistic and quasi-therapeutic berating of Horst becomes a conspiratorial discussion with Niklas of whether Horst "is a Nazi" and what it will take for Niklas to sever his relationship with Horst.

Horst a number of times attempts to communicate a context for how he sees his father's actions, but Philippe irritatedly rejects that there might legitimately be any context other than that of the BBC television audience. Horst references the First World War and the number of Austrian dead on the eastern front. A Ukrainian asked about the presence of modern day fascists replies that the question is complex, but this goes unexamined.

The film closes with a rather excruciating imagining by Niklas Frank of his father's dishonest plea for absolution before his execution. For Niklas and Philippe, Niklas and Horst's fathers were beyond understanding and without redemption. Nazi crimes took place in a past disconnected from the time before Niklas's birth and events after Hans Frank's capture.

In the end What Our Fathers Did is a self-satisfied voyeuristic pummeling of one old man by two other old men in the name of a justice which recognizes complicity in Nazi murder as more evil than acquiescence and complicity in other mass murder.

Very one sided and manipulative

[gonnahearl · 27 June 2017]

Sands seems hell-bent on destroying Horst. Sands obviously is on a mission to bring the guy down. I find it very ironic that Sands uses bullying tactics that the Nazi's used to push Horst into saying things or admitting things that he simply doesn't believe! Nik Frank is almost pathetic as Sand's lacky running around denouncing his father at every opportunity. There were many people involved in the running of the system then and I sympathize with Horst when he is trying to say that things were more complex than we can understand being removed by so many years. Everything is rarely as black and white as some people would like to believe. I was left with a very unsettling feeling after it was over. I don't like all the assumptions that are made and I especially don't like that Nik Frank says the day of his father's execution is a happy day for him. Regardless of what his father was accused of I find that very disturbing. Having said all that the film still gives insight into a very important period of history and some unique perspectives that are important to understanding the time period.