DailyView: Day 312, Movie 444

Morgan Spurlock shot a documentary that looked at certain individuals who had a name of Hitler. There were a few that were related to Adolf Hitler, one who claimed to be the nephew of Hitler, a neo-Nazi who named his son Adolf Hitler, one guy whose first name was Hitler, a young teen girl whose last name was Hittler, and another man who was o relation but still had the last name.

I’m torn on this documentary. Honestly, the stories were not that fascinating with the exception of the neo-Nazi. Most of them were basically “I have the name Hitler, people look at me funny” and “I ignore the name.”

The film showed the man whose first name was Hitler asking his father on the phone why he named him Hitler. The man said that he did not like to use a name that anybody else was using. What? The son then told him that he liked the name and it made him who he was, but that felt like he was placating his father despite what had to be a tough first name.

The most intriguing one was how the neo-Nazi, who had swastikas tattooed on his neck and with him sporting a little Hitler mustache, had his children taken away from him. He had named his one son Adolf Hitler. This was the most conflicting part of the doc for me. The kids were taken away for some other reasons but it is hard to believe that it wasn’t connected to the name. The father was in a Nazi organization and had gone to a court date in a Nazi uniform. While he has a complete right to believe anything that he believed, the idea of children in this place is a challenge for me.

I believe that the Neo-Nazi loved his children. I’m not sure the doc gave us a full picture of the situation.

Morgan Spurlock had approached a Holocaust survivor at the end of the film and asked him what he thought of the idea that the remaining descendants of Hitler lived near him and the man gave a wonderful answer about not blaming someone for what their parents/ancestors had done. He implied that he came across this philosophy as he grew older. It was a nice ending to the so-so doc.