Rotation (1949)

This is an East German movie made only 4 years after the war ended. It attempts to show why ordinary Germans became Nazis and why they allowed things to happen that the world has since found them collectively guilty of allowing to occur. One scene in the movie that I thought was interesting is when the son comes back to his dad at the end of the war (and after the son had his dad arrested and imprisoned by the Gestapo for resistance work) and the dad basically says "it's in the past." I don't know if I would be so forgiving. This movie doesn't have any overt Communist themes (it is East German and so it could) but it is one of the first German-made movies that tries to look at the war and the role of the German people in it.