The Victim in Hangmen Also Die

Who is the victim in "Hangmen also Die"?

When I first read this question, I thought that answering it would be quite easy. With so many characters in the film, it should be simple enough to pick at least one of them as the victim and make my case for that person. However, I find it to easy to simply say that "character so and so" is the victim because I don't entirely think the point of the film is to get you to make that move. Clearly, it could be argued that the 400 men who are arrested after Heydrichs assassination, in the film, are the victims...yet, Lang made sure to show that these men, for the most part, stood by their convictions to face Nazi brutality head on and accept their fate. This is no more evident than with Prof. Novotny who is prepared to face death for the principles he believes in, even though his family wants to save his life. Ultimately, it seems as though this film, in clearly distorting the events that happened in the wake of Heydrich's assassination, was trying to get the audience to recognize the need to stand up to the brutality of the Nazis at all costs. Even though the film may not be historically accurate, it still presents an obvious reality...the Nazis are brutal, and if someone does not stand up to them, there will simply be more innocent victims who have to suffer at their hands. I would argue, then, that the victim of the film is unnamed but clearly alluded too...the victim(s) are all of those people who have suffered and will continue to suffer at the hands of men like Heydrich and the Nazis. The "good guys" in the film are not victims because they are standing up to the Nazis. The "bad guys" are not victims because they are brutal killers who have total disregard for life. The victims are the people who suffer at the hands of the Nazis whom the Resistance is trying to protect.

I do feel the need to point out, though, that there were an incredible amount of victims who suffered as a result of the assassination of Heydrich. If one looks up the death of Heydrich (and I checked a few sources) they find that the Nazis went ballistic in the wake of his death, even murdering an entire Czech village...men, women, and children. Although this film may represent the need to stand up to the murderous regime of the Nazis, in doing so (assassinating a top SS official), thousands of other innocent people had to die.