Diary inspired film personalizes Hitler's rise & fall

[Kyt]

Diary inspired film personalizes Hitler's rise, Germany's fall

A poignant documentary on the diary of a German civilian, chronicling his nation's descent into the madness of Nazism, is making its Canadian debut at a Jewish film festival in Calgary.

My Opposition: The Diaries of Friedrich Kellner, will screen at the Beth Tzedec Congregation Jewish Film Festival on Sunday.

Kellner was a middle-aged administrator in the German justice system when he faithfully began recording a secret diary after Adolf Hitler's troops stormed into Poland in September, 1939.

An activist in the left-of-centre Social Democratic Party before it was banned by Hitler, Kellner saw his journals as a legacy which could warn future generations of the dangers of political fanaticism in all its disguises.

The Canadian-made film is also the very human story of the family ties between Kellner and his American grandson Scott Kellner, who inherited the journals and has made promoting their message his adult life's passion.

"It's kind of a sad story, so bring some Kleenex," suggests Kellner, a retired professor, from his home in Texas. "But the film is everything I hoped it would be. It captures the spirit of my grandfather's mission very eloquently."

After a troubled childhood, Scott Kellner first met his grandparents in Germany in 1960 while serving in the U.S. Navy.

"My first great relief was to find he hadn't been a Nazi, that he'd opposed them in the best way he could," said Kellner, who was given the 860-page, 10-volume diary by his grandfather in 1968.

"He told me at that time what he witnessed in Germany in the 1930s and '40s was happening again with the totalitarian regime of the Soviet Union," said Kellner. "He wanted people to recognize and oppose tyranny wherever and whenever it happened."

Kellner said his grandfather was no armchair pacifist: he had fought for Germany and been wounded in the First World War. Born an Evangelical Lutheran, Friedrich grew disillusioned with the church leadership's support of first the Kaiser's, and later Hitler's, propaganda machines.

The entries include this passionate plea dated June 25, 1941: "Only a tremendous force and the commitment of all war material can bring the German wild steer to reason ... Mankind awake! ... Attack together with all your might against the destroyers of peace!"

Scott Kellner studied German and began painstakingly translating his grandfather's exhaustive work into English. Convinced the message needed to be heard in the wider world, he approached the Asper family, founders of the CanWest media empire, in 2003, for their support. That eventually lead to a partnership with Fern Levitt and Arnie Zipursky, co-directors of My Opposition. The 65-minute documentary was primarily filmed in Germany.