Cinemas across Germany began showing the controversial World War II film "The Downfall" on Friday amid a raging debate about whether the dictator Adolf Hitler can be portrayed as anything less than the world's greatest evil.
The film shows Hitler on his last birthday as a bent, ashen- faced man holding a garbled speech in the garden of the old imperial chancellory and a rare public kiss with Eva Braun, his girlfriend, after she insists on staying by his side until the end.
In this film, Hitler showed his charming side when he was with his secretaries, and was an indulgent uncle when he was with the children of his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, sitting on his knee.
Many applauded its gory depiction of the final 12 days of the Nazi regime, while others objected to some scenes showing Hitler's human side.
In a cinema in the center of Berlin, Mr Drewell, a pensioner, said after he saw the film: "I think it's good that a German filmmaker is confronting Hitler, but I don't like the way Adolf comes off like such a human being.
"It was too much to take. They should have showed more of his evil side, his fanaticism, and not so much of this human side."
The two and a half hour film describes the period from April 20, Hitler's last birthday, until May 2, 1945.
The Soviet Red Army was fighting at the city gates to gain victory over the Nazi regime while Hitler and his closest followers battled against fear of the Third Reich's collapse in their bunker.
Though the film is based on historical fact and eyewitness accounts, some scenes and dialogues have been invented.
The producer, Bernd Eichinger, who spent more than two years shooting the film in St Petersburg, said the film was an attempt to "break the taboos and demonisation" surrounding Hitler by showing his human side.
"My challenge was to do something that nobody has so far dared to do, and that is to give the people who were central protagonists of the Nazi regime three-dimensional characters," Eichinger said.