The Architecture of Doom

This documentary explores the fixation Hitler had with what he considered as aesthetic and how he applied his notions while heading the Nazi state. He opposed any form of artwork made by Jewish and Soviet artists as “degenerate and avant-garde”, while praised expression of physical beauty and health as “pure”. Hitler is shown here as an amateur architect who spends a lot of time planning designs of future buildings for the 3rd Reich and acquiring paintings and sculptures that reinforce his vision. At one point in the film, director Peter Cohen questions Hitler's grasp of reality. Cohen, an award-winning filmmaker born in Sweden of parents who fled from Nazi Germany and Austria, believes that the Nazi horror can be comprehended as an expression of a perverse aesthetic doctrine: to make the world beautiful by doing violence to it. This thesis is explored here by the use of archival footage and documents. Narrated by actor Bruno Ganz.