Hitler in private

BAILA LAZARUS EDITOR

In Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary, 81-year-old Traudl Junge talks on camera for the first time about her life as one of Adolf Hitler's private secretaries.

One would think that such a movie would be full of emotional revelations and disturbing accounts, but if there's one thing that characterizes this movie, it is a supreme lack of feeling. Junge speaks matter-of-factly about practically everything she describes, demonstrating sentiment in only a few instances.

Even when she acknowledges, despite her early admiration for him, that Hitler was "an absolute criminal," she does so with hardly a change in her voice.

Another surprising fact is that there is actually very little that Junge reveals that is of great interest. For much of the first half of the 90-minute film, for example, she describes her early life and the events leading up to her encounter with Hitler. In mind-boggingly tedious detail, she talks about typing tests and what the chairs looked like – minutiae that will test any viewer's patience. And, while it's true that life is told in the details, in this case the life described is not that about which we are curious. Ultimately, we want to know about Hitler through the voice of his secretary.

Unfortunately, by Junge's own admission, most of those in Hitler's inner circle were not privy to his political thought processes. They were, in fact, kept protected from the actual events going on outside the chancellory.

"I was in a blind spot," admits Junge, thus giving rise to the film's name.

Once one has separated the wheat from the chaff in this film, however, there are a few facts that might garner some interest, especially in the description of the final days in Hitler's bunker before he committed suicide. And there will certainly be viewers who actually do want to know Hitler's theory about marriage and how he felt about his dog.

Blind Spot opens at Tinseltown on March 7.

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