The Himmler Project
The Himmler Project (2000) Romuald Karmakar dramatizes SS-leader Heinrich Himmler’s secret 1943 speech to SS troops. It refers to “Slavic sub humans” and mentions the annihilation of the European Jews. The speech was recorded on record and transcript by the filmmakers. The German actor Manfred Zapatka reads the Himmler speech in a neutral manner. He wears no costume and stands in a film studio which is unlike the hall in Posen (Poland) where the speech was originally delivered. Karmakar seeks to put the spectators into the position of the SS-men in order to confront them directly with the paradox of the brutal Nazi ideology. He uses the same technique in his later documentary, Hamburg Lectures, about the ideology of Islamic fundamentalism. Tobias Ebbrecht, Film and Television Academy ‘Konrad Wolf”, mediacritique@web.de
