Trivialidades for
Untergang, Der (2004)

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• Bruno Ganz practiced Hitler's unusual accent with the help of a young actor from Hitler's area.
  
  
• Bruno Ganz studied Parkinson's patients in a Swiss hospital to prepare for his role as Hitler.
  
  
• Also helping Bruno Ganz in preparing for the role was the unique, only known recording of Adolf Hitler when he held a private conversation with Field Marshal Gustaf Mannerheim of Finland (WWII ally of Germany against Soviet). Hitler unexpectedly showed up to congratulate Mannerheim on his 75th birthday on June 4, 1942. Finnish intelligence agents secretly made the recording in a train wagon (Hitler did not allow recordings nor photographs to be taken in private). Some 11 minutes of the recording feature relaxed, normal-tone talk in which Hitler generally describe his views about the war. One of two copies of the tape was discovered in 1992 and has since been studied by scientists and historians.
  
  

• At the Palm Springs International Film Festival in January 2005, Bruno Ganz stated that, at first, he didn't want the role of Adolf Hitler. After viewing the film Letzte Akt, Der (1955) and Albin Skoda's portrayal of Hitler, however, Ganz realized the role could be played with some depth; he then accepted the part.
  
  
• Karl Richter, a member of the German NPD (a national party which was almost banned by the Federal Constitutional Court and is a political refuge for skinheads and neo-nazis), managed to get into the movie via the normal way of being cast. He plays the (uncredited) part of Generalfeldmarschall Keitel's Adjutant (assistant). He later expressed his pleasure and satisfaction when the casting crew asked him to try on the uniform, lift his right arm and shout "Heil Hitler." The filmmakers did not know who he was and that he actually was quite experienced in performing the asked task.
  
  
• The portrait Hitler is staring at in one scene is that of Frederick the Great.
  
  
• The featured interview samples of real Traudl Junge are taken from the documentary "Blind Spot" recorded in April and July 2001. Due to serious health problems Junge wasn't able to attend the film's premiere on the 9th of February 2002. The premiere had been a great success and the camera man went to hospital to inform Junge whereupon she is said to have answered "My lifework is accomplished. Now I can release." Just hours later she died aged 82 after a long fight against cancer.
  
  
• Based on the books "Der Untergang" by historian Joachim Fest and "Bis zur letzten Stunde" by Traudl Junge, Hitler's last private secretary from 1942 to 1945.
  
  
• In the movie, Magda Goebbels is seen writing a letter to her son, Harald Quandt, (there is a picture of him in front of her), from a previous marriage. He was her only child to survive the war. In 1944, as a Lieutenant in the Luftwaffe, he was injured and captured by the Allies, in Italy.
  
  
• Of the thirty-seven named real life people featured as characters in the film, Rochus Misch was the only one who was still alive when the film was released. As of 2006, he is one of the last remaining survivors of the Führerbunker.
  
  
• Most of the outdoor city scenes for the movie were filmed in Saint Petersburg, Russia. This was for two reasons, one the architecture of the city has many Germanic aspects. Second, there are plenty of streets with little or no modern advertisements and other commercial aspects.
  
  
• Many of Hitler's lines are historically accurate, based on account of Albert Speer and Traudl Junge, most of them however are from earlier date
  
  
• The Goebbels children are reading a German translation of the "Sam Pig" stories by popular English children's author Alison Uttley when Magda Goebbels arrives with Dr. Stumpfegger.
  
  
• The button that Hitler removes from his jacket and gives to Magda Goebbels is the Gold Nazi Party badge, awarded to high-ranking party members who had constant membership from 1925. Hitler gave himself Badge No. 1 when he authorized it in 1933, even though he was not the first party member. The Soviets found the badge in the bunker and it was stored in a vault at the Lubyanka, the KGB headquarters. In 1996 the FSB, the Russian Federation successor to the KGB, revealed that it had the badge and in 2005 put it on display. On November 18, 2005, it was stolen in a brazen smash-and-grab raid. The burglar escaped even though he triggered the display alarms. As of August 2006, it had not yet been recovered.
  
  
• Corinna Harfouch stated that she nearly broke down when filming the scene in which Magda Goebbels gives her children their "medicine" to put them to sleep before poisoning them. Bruno Ganz felt similarly when he held the girl playing one of the Goebbels' children in his lap as they sang, because he knew that these children were soon to be murdered by their parents.
  
  
• Christian Berkel, who portrays Schenck, stated his own background is not too far from his character. His father was also a doctor during the war, arrested by the Russians afterward, then released. His mother's side, however, was Jewish. Almost all of his relatives on her side, save his grandmother and two cousins, were lost in the camps.
  
  
• During the war, the majority of the cyanide capsules produced were made in the concentration camps, which made sabotage a real problem. This is one of the reasons why many Germans who committed suicide by cyanide also shot themselves to make sure they would die. This is also the reason why Hitler's beloved dog Blondi was poisoned; he wanted to make sure his batch of cyanide was not fake.
  
  

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