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3) Most Nazis Were Good Guys - Learned from: The Reader, Valkyrie

Or at the very least confused. You see, the Nazis were a jovial bunch, good at following orders, but not so hot at thinking on their feet. They didn't want to execute a plan to exterminate the Jews, but when a short, angry guy with a funny mustache yells at you to do something, it takes you a while to realize you shouldn't do it. Just ask Hanna Schmitz, AKA the German Mrs. Robinson. Yes, she was a bit befuddled by the idea that it was okay to leave a group of Jews in a burning barn, but who was she to disregard orders? After all, she couldn't even read. We can give Claus van Stauffenberg a little bit more credit. Eventually, he realized that the plans of this Hitler guy were a little fishy, and he decided to do something about it. Nobody tries to exterminate the Jews on this Nazi's watch. You see? Nazis were trying to look out for the best interests of my ancestors, it's just that Hitler kept on getting in the way. In fact...

4) Germans and Jews Were Actually Best Friends - Learned From: The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

It's not just the Nazis who were big fans of the Jews, it was pretty much every levelheaded German. Sure, a couple of them were a few fries short of das happy meal, but on the whole, in Germany during World War II, the Christians and the Jews got along like bratwurst and Becks. Even the son of a prominent Nazi became BFFs with a Jewish boy who was actually in a concentration camp at the time. Now that's some serious commitment. His mother was kept in the dark about this budding friendship, but clearly she would have been fully supportive of it. After all, she spent most of her time taking care of the Jewish servants and arguing with her husband, one of the rare Germans who actually agreed with Hitler. And as for the Jews themselves, were they bitter about their impending extermination? Apparently they were just happy to help and eager to provide some entertainment to their captors.

5) Studios are Willing to Forgive Anyone if it Makes for a Good Story - Learned from: All Three of These Movies

The Nazi party committed some of the worst atrocities of the 20th Century, rivaled only by the Soviet army, the Rwandan Hutu extremists, and Celine Dion. For some reason, in 2008, studios in both the Hollywood and the Independent systems decided to focus on loopholes, grey areas, and other ways to explain away the actions of the people responsible for the Holocaust. They didn't know what they were doing, they were following orders, they were swept up in the fervor of the times, they had an eye patch and only one arm... I mean, they tried to rectify their mistakes. Do these filmmakers really believe that it is time to look past the wrongdoings of these people and try to see the bigger picture, or are they just looking for juicy stories guaranteed to tug at the heartstrings of viewers? There might come a time when we can move past these events and forgive, even if we can never forget, but this decision should not be influenced by movie studios still looking to use tragedy to make a quick buck and earn critical acclaim.

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