Actor who played Hitler in Downfall passes away at 77

Los Angeles: Bruno Ganz, who played Hitler in the 2004 film Downfall, has died aged 77, BBC reported. The Swiss actor died at home in Zurich on Friday night, his management said.

Ganz was well- known in German- language cinema and theatre and also had roles in English- language films including The Reader and The Manchurian Candidate.

His most famous role, however, was as Adolf Hitler in Downfall. One particular scene depicting Hitler in apoplectic fury became a meme and spawned thousands of parodies online.

The film, called Der Untergang in German, told the story of Hitler’s final days in his Berlin bunker. It grossed $ 92 million at box offices around the world when it was released.

It was named winner of the BBC Four World Cinema Award and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but since then it has become almost as famous for a wave of internet parodies of its final scene, poking fun at numerous news events.

An NYT reviewer called Ganz’s performance “intriguing” and “creepily charismatic”. In 2005, Ganz told the Guardian

newspaper that he spent four months preparing for the role, studying historical reco- rds including a secretly- recorded tape of Hitler and observing people with Parkinson’s disease, which he came to believe the dictator had.

But he said: “I cannot claim to understand Hitler. Even the witnesses who had been in the bunker with him were not really able to describe the essence of the man.

“He had no pity, no compassion, no understanding of what the victims of war suffered.” Ganz, the most famous Swiss actor, had a rich and varied career.

— AFP A man carries beers during a gathering of people dressed as smurfs ( small blue fictional creatures created by Belgian cartoonist Pierre Culliford) to be counted as part of a world record attempt in Lauchringen, Germany, on Saturday.

Bruno Ganz◗ Ganz had spent four months in preparing for his role in Downfall in studying historical records including a secretly- recorded tape of Hitler and observing people with Parkinson’s disease, which he came to believe the dictator had.