History, as a discipline, is often as much a product of interpretation as it is of fact. The 2004 German period docudrama *Downfall*, directed by Oliver Hirschbiegel, is a case in point. This film, which chronicles the final days of Adolf Hitler in the Berlin bunker, has become one of the most iconic, recognizable, and, in a strange and semi-perverted way, the most popular films of the 21st century. While it was lau…


