Jojo Rabbit (2019)

Johannes "Jojo" Betzler (Roman Griffin Davis) is a 10 year-old German boy who is proud to be in the Hitler Youth.  On this day, he is leaving for training.  The leader of the training camp is Captain Klenzendorf (Sam Rockwell), an experienced soldier who has been demoted to this menial task.  Jojo does not do as well as he hoped and is soon marked by the trainers for special attention.  They give him a live rabbit and demand he wring its neck.  He can't do it and is soon called Jojo Rabbit for his cowardice.  To try to reverse his fortunes, he grabs a grenade and throws it; he blows himself up.  Back home, he now has a scarred face and a bum leg.  His mother, Rosie (Scarlett Johansson), dotes on him.  Now spending a lot of time at home, Jojo discovers a Jewish girl hiding in the attic: Elsa (Thomasin McKenzie).  Though he naturally hates and fears her, he also realizes that her discovery would be dangerous to his mother.  To top off Jojo's problems, Adolf Hitler (Taika Waititi) is his imaginary friend.  Whenever Jojo doesn't know what to do, Hitler is at his side to give horrible advice.

The movie is a funny and tragic story told in the last months of the war.  Jojo is a lovable kid who is just following the trends of his time and place.  That he eventually sees that such beliefs were wrong even given his youth makes for a good character arc.  The imaginary Hitler is mostly a goofball, an almost Monty Python-like version of him.  Sam Rockwell is a soldier but not a Nazi.  Rosie clearly does not approve of what has become of Germany and, much to Jojo's consternation, roots for the allies and an end to the war.

A surprisingly good film that is sometimes a knee-slapper, other times a tear-jerker, and overall good popcorn fun.  Highly recommended.

Hitler was NOT Elected

Then there's the notion that winning an election automatically makes a candidate the right/correct choice. If that were true, everyone today owes Hitler an apology.

Robert Kirby, Salt Lake Tribune

 

Adolf Hitler was Austrian and never won an election to a German political office.  He had renounced his Austrian citizenship in 1925 but did not gain German citizenship until 1932.  He could not legally run for office in Germany throughout the 1920s and instead became a party boss.  In 1932, he ran for president and lost.  However, the lead vote winner, Paul von Hindenburg, only received 49% of the vote, leading to a run off.  In the runoff, Hitler lost again but his strong showing led President Hindenburg to reluctantly appoint him as chancellor.  Hindenburg was in his 80s and died in August, 1934.  During his time as Chancellor, Hitler had already set about intimidating and crushing opposition parties.  With Hindenburg's death, there was nothing to stop Hitler from declaring himself Fuhrer of Germany.  Later elections offered only Nazi members as candidates for the Reichstag.  Hitler was not elected, and not re-elected.  At best, prior to his seizing power, his party held 43% of the seats in the Reichstag and made common cause with other parties to get legislation to further empower Hitler.  The other parties were abolished once Hitler had the powers he needed.

 

Enough with the Hitler nonsense.  There are plenty of American Presidents that took actions that Trump is taking.  How about comparing him to them?  Obama banned travel from Iraq, Carter banned travel from Iran.  It was okay then but wrong now.  Truman and Eisenhower deported lots of illegal immigrants.  FDR had Russian agents throughout his administration!  President Tyler had a wife who was 30 years his junior.  No need to make a Hitler analogy when past president's fit the bill.