Over the decades, World War 2 films have explored various aspects of Adolf Hitler’s life and reign of terror as the leader of Nazi Germany.
Now, a new movie, out in cinemas this weekend, focuses on the German women who were forced to be his food tasters at Nazi Headquarters, the Wolf’s Lair.
Hitler survived a number of assassination attempts, and the possibility that his food would be poisoned was taken very seriously, as is not unusual for dictators throughout history.
The Tasters is a new German-language Italian film based on the 2018 novel At the Wolf’s Table by Rosella Postorino and is set from Autumn 1943 to the end of the war.
The book was based on the true story of Margot Wölk, who only disclosed in a 2012 interview marking her 95th birthday that she was one of Hitler’s food tasters.
The fact that Hitler had food tasters was not publicly known until Wölk spoke out almost 70 years later out of fear of being associated with the Nazi regime. She recalled: « Some of the girls started to shed tears as they began eating because they were so afraid. We had to eat it all up. Then we had to wait an hour, and every time we were frightened that we were going to be ill. We used to cry like dogs because we were so glad to have survived. »
She was one of 15 young women selected as human guinea pigs for Hitler and spent two and a half years tasting his food at the Wolf’s Lair in East Prussia. She claims to be the only one of the 15 to survive World War 2, while some historians dispute her testimony because of a lack of evidence beyond her own. However, director Silvio Soldini stated: “If it wasn’t [true], it doesn’t make much difference to me. The film and the book say something important about power, dictatorship, violence and their impact on women.”
The Tasters is out now cinemas.
Source link
