I've been familiar with Der Untergang for a decade now, and was familiar with the rants as early as 2006-07 when they were first being made. Having some experience with video editing tools I decided to have a go at the parodies as well! I've made three so far and all of them feature Goebbels as the main character, I've planned to make them similar to the "Hitler is informed..." style videos right now. I hope to make more in the future!

A Galveston city councilman said Thursday he intended no offense when he used a movie scene depicting a tirade by Adolf Hitler to parody the city's slow-moving bureaucracy, but neither will he apologize.

"No, I have nothing to apologize for," Councilman Norman Pappous said of the five-minute video he showed at the end of a council workshop Wednesday on rewriting the city's land-use rules.

Pappous added subtitles in English over a segment from a 2004 German movie titled "Downfall," in which Hitler rants in German. The subtitles lampoon the planning process as well as several council members, including Pappous himself.

The video was broadcast on the municipal cable television channel and on a live video stream of the meeting. After a barrage of complaints, the video was erased from the city website. It remained on the councilman's Facebook page Thursday evening.

Council members said that several callers complained that the video was insensitive because it was shown publicly the day after the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, an infamous Nazi death camp where thousands of Jews, Gypsies and other minorities were put to death as part of Hitler's extermination program.

"I thought it was pathetic and I thought it was offensive to anyone who lost family during the Holocaust," said former Galveston Mayor Lewis Rosen, who is Jewish.

'Spoof' slammed

Mayor Jim Yarbrough said he would apologize at the next council meeting for allowing the video to be shown in its entirety. "I truly believe it was just a spoof and a parody on our (planning) process and our City Council," Yarbrough said. "But pictures of Hitler and his inner circle group is something that shouldn't have continued."

Pappous, a businessman elected in 2012, maintains he did nothing more than thousands of others who have used an Internet program allowing the creation of YouTube videos based on the same movie scenes.

"The reaction by the people who are offended by what I did is way over the top when you look at the context and that this has been shown thousands of times," he said.

Pappous said he's not anti-Semitic and that his father in fact witnessed Nazi atrocities when living in occupied Greece during World War II. Pappous said he wasn't likening anyone to Hitler.

Other council members agreed with the mayor that the video should not have been shown at a public meeting.

"He was doing it in jest, to have fun, but it is a video that should not have been aired at our council on TV," said Councilwoman Terrilyn Tarlton, who was mentioned in the video.

Blamed on enemies

Councilman Craig Brown said that the video "was a surprise to council when it was shown."

"It was offensive and it was inappropriate," he said, adding that irate callers wanted to know why the video was shown.

"They felt that it was the use of a time in history that was so devastating to humanity and the actions of that group was so offensive and horrific," Brown said.

The movie has been the inspiration for years of so-called "Downfall parodies," and an Internet tool allows users to "Make your own Hitler video." A web page devoted to the videos shows the actor who played Hitler purporting to rant about everything from entertainer Justin Bieber to baked beans.

In at least one case, the use of a "Downfall parody" against a political opponent backfired. In 2012, a British Member of Parliament resigned as the Labour party's new media advisor after producing a spoof comparing Hitler's final days with a Scottish politician's moves regarding the referendum on Scottish independence.

In fact, Pappous believes the entire controversy over the video was concocted by his political enemies. "The only people who don't want to show it are people who spend their life figuring out how to stab me in the back," he said.

 

http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/texas/article/Galveston-councilman-says-he-meant-no-offense-6049635.php

 

Probably not wise to make a rant for work related things. xD

The member of the month is decided by how much a member positively participates on this forum.

The member of the month will be announced here and on my channel.

No member can win the member of the month twice in a row.

http://www.downfallparodies.net/forum/member-of-the-month/