Deliberate slaughter of innocent people. Mass murder of Jewish civilians. Ultimate horror, inconceivable to us today.
How can a human being become radically evil? How could death squads and soldiers in World War II commit mass executions and then just go on with their lives? How could they return to their families as fathers and devoted husbands, knowing they had killed women and children?
These are the questions Stefan Ruzowitzky looks into in „Radical Evil“. He bases his search for answers on diaries, letters and court statements by German policemen and soldiers, absolutely normal men, who belonged to death squads. These young men will be given a voice when their texts are read by the actors Alexander Fehling and Devid Striesow. For the visualization Ruzowitzky has decided to use unknown extras, and reduce the scenes with soldiers, concentrating on close-ups of the faces.
Biographies and lives pass by in photographs and texts, like strange stories only dimly seen and half-understood. They tell the fate of the perpetrators, who gave in to the pressure of the group, who were infected with hatred of the supposed enemy, and thought it was their duty to commit these deeds.
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