Lone Pine, Downfall

7 May
Brisbane
Sunny, mild
4560 steps

Today was our day to visit the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, via the Mirimar Cruise. The weather was wonderful, most sunny with a few clouds, mild temperatures and a gentle breeze. It had rained overnight, so we were worried, but it turned out quite well.

The cruise goes about 15 kilmoeters down the Brisbane River, a tidal river that changes course four times a day. It comes with a full commentary about the city of Brisbane and its history, the boat, and the Sanctuary. The Brisbane river floods once in awhile; I suppose it happens in conjunction with a typhoon. The flooding in 1974 submerged 75% of the city; the commentatior asserts that it would have been possible to use the Mirimar to navigate the local country club.

We arrived at the Lone Pine Koala Sanctuary, where a BBQ lunch was waiting for us. We had grilled beef and chicken, rice, salad, and fruit. It was all pretty good -- the beef was a little chewy, but it had a good flavor. The students were free to explore on their own, until a bus picked us up at 2:15.
I went to the snake show, which was very low-key. A tour guide came out with a carpet python, and talked about snakes and their life cycles. It was more for children, I guess, but I still enjoyed it. The snake was frisky -- it crawled into the tour guide's shirt, and she had to call over a fellow worker to coax it back out again.
I also went to the sheep dog show, which does not compare with what we will see on Monday at the Australian Woolshed. I fed kangaroos; they always seem so grateful -- the wallabies are more shy. And I wandered about seeing the other animals, such as the birds, the wombats, the lizards, and the dingoes.
We took a bus home, a different process from other years, when we rode the boat back. It was faster, and actually a little less expensive.

I went to the 3pm showing of Downfall, a German movie about the very last days of the Third Reich, as Berlin was falling. The actor Bruno Ganz played Hitler, and while he certainly turned in an excellent performance, there were many other strong points to the movie, as well as other story lines:

• We see a lot of Hitler's and Goebbel's final days through the eyes of Hitler's personal secretary, Frau Trandl Lunge. She was a loyal secretary, perhaps naive -- but as the real-life Frau Lunge says at the end of the movie, "being young was no excuse. I should have known." The story of her escape from the Russian forces is another part of the movie.
  
• We see a young boy who fights against the Russian tanks, and earns an Iron Cross for destroying a couple. His father does not want him to fight, but he does, only to have a change of heart after his friends die and he sees the horrible violence of the Battle of Berlin up close.
  
• It's conflicting to watch the German people as they suffer at the end of the war -- you feel terrible that they are going through this, yet at the same time, you cannot forget the concentration camps, the imperialist policy, Stalingrad, and all the other crimes for which they had to answer.
  
• It is even more disturbing to hear Hitler and Goebbels both make essentially that point -- that the German people are getting what they deserve, that they (Hitler and Goebbels) had no compassion for the people as Germany fell around them, that the people elected Hitler and swore allegiance to him, and that the people let Hitler down.
  
• The movie is hard to dismiss, at least in part because it refuses to make any of the Nazis into caricatures, as we so often see in wartime movies and cartoons. There are people who are heroic, such as the Nazi doctor who works feverishly to save as many soldiers as he can, and who stands up to the last remnants of the Brownshort thugs. There are nuanced debates among the generals about Hitler's sanity. Hitler himself is seen at times as a gentlemanly towards his personal staff, including Frau Junge.
  
• Eva Braun and Frau Goebbels were really quite insane. Frau Goebbels in particular should be judged as harshly as possible by history. It is a horrible mother that nurders her own children.
  
• The ultimate point of the movie may be that Hitler did not die alone because he did not rise to power alone. There were plenty of people around him who fed his ego and galvanized the support of a nation that, in the final analysis, wallowed in his madness.
  

The movie is in German with English subtitles, and runs for over two hours. I hope you get a chance to see it, though you should expect it to be difficult to watch.

Tomorrow is Mother's Day, and is a free day for the students. Monday, we go to the Australian Woolshed for a look at Australia's sheep industry.