Fatherland poster

Fatherland Quotes

1994 · 1h 46m 63 Audience
9 quotes
A Defection with High Stakes
Charlie Maguire What do you want from me?
Franz Luther I want - I want to defect. You will arrange this through the American Embassy.
[sees SS guard pass by]
Maguire Why should I do that?
Luther I have a story that will make you famous. The biggest secret of the war. Thousands have been killed to protect it.
Maguire So what is it?
Luther A terrible crime was committed. Since then, everyone with direct knowledge of it has been quietly killed by the Gestapo. Only I am left. I have proof of what happened, documents, papers, photographs, signed orders. They are the price of my mission to the States. You'll get your embassy to arrange transportation out of the country for two people. You will need this to prepare our travel papers. Nothing will because I'm here. Not for you or anybody.
[slips her an envelope.]
Confrontation and Disconnection Amidst Loss
Xavier March What? They're all dead.
[sees something in the paper]
Anna I want nothing more to do with this. Please, go.
[sees another fact in the paper and face changes, looks at March]
Reflections on History and Blindness
Paul "Pili" March I used to wonder why she never got out while she had the chance. But she and my father the first to see those images of horror. The first to know, and that somehow linked them forever with each other and the victims. So she sat on until the Gestapo came for her. Everything has changed. Without the American alliance, Hitler's Reich collapsed. Of course, there are some who say it never happened. Those who look and do not see. The years since have been difficult ones, but my father would be proud to know that no longer are we all living in the house of the blind.
[closing narration]
Alternate History of a World at War
Taglines It's 1964. What if Hitler had won the war?
A World Altered by War and Deception
Paul "Pili" March It has been 20 years since the ] ended with the failure of the ]. A triumphant ] declared victory over Europe and the ]. The United States withdrew from the conflict, listening to those like ], who had argued against a war with Germany. In the East, only the Russians fought on in a bitter guerrilla war. American efforts turned to retribution for ]. That came in the summer of 1945, with victory over Japan. By then, American ] returned to the United States and a humiliating retirement. In 1947, ] and ] assumed the British throne. ], who had barely escaped with his life after Normandy, died in exile in Canada in May 1953. In the years after the war, country after country of the old Europe had become part of the vast empire of Germania. The Fuhrer's architect, ], built a monument to the Thousand-Year Reich. Germania's capital, ], became a Nazi showplace. The ] became a peacetime police force, patrolling clean, orderly streets. As the 50s came to a close, Hitler was able to put a more civilized face on the Greater Reich, but news continued to be tightly controlled. The 60s began with the war with the ] still dragging on. Hitler desperately needed to conclude a formal peace with the United States and forge an alliance against the Russians, still led by the 85-year-old ]. Hitler saw signs of hope in late 1960 with the election of a new President of the United States. The Fuhrer believed with President ] in office, at last there would be someone with whom a deal can be struck. Now in 1964, for the first time in 20 years, Germania's borders are being opened to the Americans. The world press is being invited to cover the Fuhrer's birthday celebration on April 20. There are rumors that President Kennedy will attend a Germanian-American summit conference. An alliance with America would ensure Germania's invulnerability... but there are other more persistent rumors that could threaten Hitler's plans. There were stories that something terrible happened in Germany during the war. That the official Nazi story that Jews and other minorities were relocated to the East, wasn't true. There are also rumors that in the Greater Reich, terrible things are still happening. Television, radio, and newspapers are all controlled by the powerful Ministry of Information. Nobody, in a new Berlin, dares to ask awkward questions.
[opening narration; [World War II|Second World War; [w:Invasion of Normandy|Allied invasion in Normandy; [Adolf Hitler|Hitler; [w:British Empire|British Empire; [Charles Lindbergh; [w:Attack on Pearl Harbor|Pearl Harbor; [Dwight D. Eisenhower|General Eisenhower; [Edward VIII of the United Kingdom|King Edward; [Wallis, Duchess of Windsor|Queen Wallis; [Winston Churchill; [Albert Speer; [Berlin; [w:Schutzstaffel|SS; [w:Soviet Union|Soviet Union; [Joseph Stalin; [w:Joseph P. Kennedy Sr.|Joseph Kennedy Sr.]
Tension Between Characters Over Sensitive Evidence
Walther Fiebes You're not a friend to have right now. Get out of the car.
Xavier March I was thinking of asking Internal Affairs to audit the records of the Sexual Crimes Unit. I understand they will find a lot missing. Photographs, magazines, films, very interesting material... including child pornography.
[for emphasis]
Fiebes Whose file do you want?
[flustered]
March Franz Luther.
Fiebes Luther?! For God's sakes, Xavi-
March Get it!
Fiebes I'll get it for you tomorrow.
Transformation Through Perseverance and Imagination
Xavier March Let me tell you a story about a clockmaker. He was over a hundred years old. Wrinkled face, his hair was white as snow. He'd worked all his life, hunched over clocks like this. So, he was a hunchback. People thought he was ugly, people of the village, and they used to call him names. So, he lived on top of the mountain with all his clocks. And he worked day and night. While he was working all the time, he didn't notice that the hunch on his back started to grow. Bigger and bigger. And one day, when he went out for a walk, his nose almost touched the ground. That's how big it was. And that same night he was working, working away with little clocks, and they suddenly stopped ticking and he looked up. And he saw, in the mirror, two little feathers coming out of his coat and he started growing. And he looked in the mirror and he saw that he had these two big wings. And all the clocks starting singing. And he opened the window, looked at the stars, and flew up in the sky.
Pili March Then what happened to him?
Xavier He became an Angel.
Pili Will that happen to him?
Xavier Well. We can't kill angels can we?
Controversial Views on Jews and Career Aspirations
Charlie Maguire We'll send a car for you in a couple of hours.
Anna von Hagen America! Franz says you still have them in America. You didn't do anything about them? All that may change of course, now you have a ] who thinks like the Führer does ... It was a real problem for me, making a career in Hollywood.
[gives files; [w:Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr.|president]
Maguire Why?
Von Hagen Jews. They controlled all the studios, you know - they even tried to keep me out of Broadway. The public wanted me, you see ... and then "they" started the war. Ah, Berlin was beautiful before the war. The only thing that spoiled it was the Jews. I have no career left, but I would like to go to America just to upset the Jews! So what do you think, you think you can finally do something with your Jews just like what we did with ours?
Maguire What did you do?
Von Hagen We put them in cattle cars and shipped them East. Always East.
Maguire To the Ukraine, you mean, to the... the resettlement camps?
Von Hagen Ja, to resettle them ... in the air.
[twirls index finger]
Debate on Historical Interpretation and Responsibility
Charlie Maguire They killed all the Jews.
Xavier March No, we didn't. We resettled them. We gave them their own piece of land.
[offered some pictures]
Maguire Xavi, look at these.
March These are forgeries.
Maguire Forgeries?
March They must be.
Maguire So, Luther, Stuckart, and Buhler...they were killed for forgeries?
March Do you want this to be true? Do you think it's a good story?
Maguire It is true. LOOK AT THEM! You agreed to follow my lead wherever it took us. It's brought us here. We can't go back.
[pause; points to pictures; softer voice]
March My God..
[stands]
Maguire You knew...
March I was at sea during the war.
Maguire What does "necessity of removing the biological basis for Judaism once and for all" mean? What's "]" mean?
[[w:Final Soluion|Final Solution]
March I don't know.
Maguire It's a rail timetable, one train a day, 60 persons per car, 60 cars per train...that's 25,000 people a week. What happened at ] and ]?
[pores over papers; [w:Auschwitz concentration camp|Auschwitz; [w:Bergen-Belsen concentration camp|Belsen]
March I can't believe this.
Maguire What was ]?
[[w:Zyklon B|Zyklon B]
March I don't know, Charlie!
Maguire It's gas. Kill them with gas.
March Gas...
Maguire You took everything they own. You gave them as gifts to your troops. Jewelry, fountain pens, watches...
March After the war, I believed what everybody else believed. No reason not to. I am a loyal son of the Fatherland. I served murderers all my life. How do I explain that to my son?
[sits down in shock]