Victims

While I think there are a variety of victims in the movie, they also work to better their situation, therefore displacing their victim complex. The Czech people, especially the ones held hostage, are victims of Nazi control, but together the barracks we become close with work to band together and fight Nazi power. So in this case, while victims in the beginning, they gain power as the movie progresses. The Novotny family are also victims, not only to the Nazis, but also to the secret they hold. They end up in a sticky situation when Professor Novotny is taken hostage, but again, in the end they work together along with the assassin to trick the Nazi's. Even though they Nazi's know the man the capture is not the true assassin the Nazi's choose to just accept what has happened rather then cause more issues. In some way you could say the Nazi's were victims the movie in the sense that their power was weakened and they were out-smarted by those who they believed to be inferior. If anything, I think I would look at it from this perspective because the other victims find ways to get out of a victimized state.

equal opportunity victimisation

Most everyone in the film is victimised by someone else. The Czech people are victimised by the Nazis, the Nazis are victimised in turn by the Underground resistance. The Resistance is victimised by Mr. Czaka, and Czaka is victimised by everybody. Most everyone is taking advantage of someone else. The Czechs are seen as more justified in their counter victimisation, though, and the Nazis more tyrannical.

Hangmen Also Die!

The obvious victims in Hangmen Also Die! are the Czech people.  They are brutally controlled, hundreds of them rounded up and summarily murdered to try to extract information about the murder of Heydrich.  However, for the American audience, I believe that the true victim is Freedom.  Americans have an intrinsic connection with the idea and symbol of Freedom, which is obviously lacking in every sense in the film. The actors, due to their very clear American accents, also seem very familiar to the audience, while the Germans retain their “other” ness.  This Americanization of the Czechs, the victims, reminds the audience of what could (would) happen if the Nazis were not defeated.  While the United States had the protected barrier of the Atlantic Ocean, the audience member would have a difficult time not thinking of the dangers to the US due to the victimization of the Americanized Czechs.

The American People as (Pseudo) Victims

I think it is possible to identify more than one victim in Hangmen Also Die. However, one must take into consideration the aims and context that the film was made in, in order to understand who the audience is supposed to consider the victim. From a different point of view, one could say that the Nazi's, who are tricked by swarms of wily Czechs, or even the Hangmen himself, who is, after all, assassinated, are the victims of the film. However, the film was not made to appease Germans or Nazis, it was made to emotionally engineer the American audience into sympathizing, if not identifying , with the victims. I think that the victims who are most instrumental in achieving this are the Czechs who willingly die for other Czechs. The hostages who are taken as ransom for the assassin come in two distinct varieties: those who proudly die for the principles and ideals of their country and countrymen (even though they are not really involved in the primary situation), and those who do not. The latter is group that the audience is not made to feel sympathetic with. These men are taken to their deaths, whimpering, whining, and trying to negotiate with the enemy in order to save their own skin. The true victims of the situation are heroes – they stand up for what they believe in, freedom, without it being required of them. I think that is what the movie is trying to tell the American people. They have just entered a war, not because it was their war, but because it was the right thing to do, and their principles and ideals against “evil” demand it of them.

Victims in Hangmen Also Die

There are many victims in this film: the Czechs, the Novotny family, Czaka, the hostages, and the Hangman himself. Although we are made to feel most sympathetic to the Novotny family, the greatest victims are really those who died due to the timidity and inaction of Nasha, Doctor Svoboda, and other Czechs. For example, the hostages who were killed before they could be saved did not need to die. They did not die in vain, as their fates motivated the whole town to rise up and save the rest of the hostages, included Professor Novotny. In a way, though, this is almost worse. Sure, we feel good when Professor Novotny is returned to his family, but should we still feel good when we consider that all of those hostages died so that an innocent man could be persecuted? They were victims not only of the Nazis, but also of the film's treatment. Even if we were able to see the importance of Doctor Svoboda to the resistance following the assassination of the Hangman, the deaths of the poor hostages would be better avenged.

Victims of hangmen also die

Who the victim in Hangmen also die depends largely on one's perspective and the scale to which we are applying the term. In broad terms, the most obvious and clear victim are the czechs as a community. The hundreds of them that died were clearly victimized. Who then are the ones doing the victimizing, well the nazis of course because they are doing the killing right? Or are they really, the nazis as horrible as what they are doing is are to at least a certain degree having their predictability taken advantage of. In this sense we can argue that they are the victims. Additionally if we choose to micromanage the plot then the victims can more accurately be described as the novotnys who are dragged into the altercation by svoboda and circumstance. Brechts film has so many different levels that discerning the actual victim is relatively difficult.

What is interesting about "Hangmen Also Die" is that the generally victimized people are not necessarily the most prominent victims in the film. Clearly we are supposed to sympathize with the Czech people, but in fact they come out as better off in many ways in the film-- the main protagonist family, despite being suspects, manages to shift the blame by the end of the film. The victims in this film seem like they are 1) "The Hangman," who was shot (definitely something that he can't overcome), and 2) Czaka. Czaka is actually THE one blatant victim at the end, since everyone frames him in a beautiful show of cooperation. However, in both of these instances, you get the feeling that these victims "got what was coming to them," i.e. that they deserved it. In that way, the film seems to communicate that even victimized people can act assertively and succeed, and that oppression can be overcome; it is empowering.

Hangman Also Die

After viewing “Hangman Also Die,” I think it is clear that the Czech people were the victims. The film allows American audiences to fully grasp the struggle against Hitler and the Nazi regime by showing people in their own country being persecuted. The anticipation of the concentration camps of ordinary citizens separates the preconceived idea that all that faced execution and torture were Jewish. While a right-minded person would not care about the ethnicity or religion of innocent victims, American audiences, whether anti-Semitic or not, were able to view a regime that encapsulated abusive power that was capable of committing horrifying atrocities. The portrayal of the Nazi’s in “Hangman Also Die” as unbelievably immoral and inherently evil contrast sharply with the innocent Czech victims that were captured and assassinated. Placing Czech women and children in concentration camps convince the viewer of the psychotic minds of the Nazi regime, while also shedding light on the ability of the Nazi party to brainwash their soldiers into unthinkable acts. The film “Hangman Also Die” is a terrifying glimpse into the control the Nazi party had on Europe during the early 1940’s. This sentiment is rooted in seeing everyday Eastern Europeans having no control over their lives due to the takeover of the Nazi regime.

It's the Hat

Okay... I just had to post this hat advertisement again after the discussion/film clip on Tuesday...

Victims by choice

Are the Czech people victims in Hangmen Also Die? On the one hand, even though they are being tormented and executed, they seem to be willing to accept it as long as they stick together and refuse to reveal the identity of their hero. Victims are generally people who are suffering and miserable, who demand sympathy from the audience. Even when they are being beaten, they maintain their pride and accept the punishment. On the other hand, they are being killed for no reason and chosen at random.

Ultimately, I think that they are the victims in the film. Even though they are willing to die and turn the tables and become a sort of aggressor at the end, the Czech people are still relatively powerless and can never feel safe from random acts of violence and persecution. They also could be seen as victims of their own pride. Had they given up the one assassin, they could have saved hundreds of lives, but they are compelled to stick together and allow their peers to pay the price. Czaka is also a victim, even though he “deserved” what he got for being a traitor.

In the end, all of the Czech people are victims, even though they did have some sort of control over their destinies. If they are not victims in terms of being terrorized for no reason, they are victims of their own decisions and sacrifices.

Hangman Victims

I think that it goes without saying that at first glance the Czech's as a people are the true victims. Since they are under the rule of the Third Reich, they really have no choice but to e victims since many of their freedoms have been taken away. When you look into this movie a little bit more I think the second choice in terms of who was victimized was the Novotny family. You feel very sorry for them when Nasha is taken into questioning all because she helped Dr. Svoboda. This family is truly in a bind, because if they betray Dr. Svoboda the family will be possibly killed by the Nazi's or worse by the Czech people. If they don't tell then Mr. Novotny awaits his death as a Nazi prisoner along with hundreds of other men. Nasha always seems so stressed because her options are so limited. Should she let her father die or condemn her whole family to save him? I would also say that there is one more victim within this movie. I don't really want to call him a victim because I think he deserved what he got, but still found myself feeling a little sorry for him at the end of the film. The character I am talking about is Emil Czaka. Czaka is clearly in the wrong for being Czech born and a slimy spy for the Nazi's at the same time, he is clearly betraying his country. The way that Czaka is set-up though, it's hard not to consider him a victim. There is so much comedy in this whole proceeding, because every-time Czaka thinks he is out of trouble another twist is thrown in that makes it evident to the Nazi's that he is the assassin. 

Victorious Victims

It is hard to say that there is a clear "victim" in Hangmen Also Die! The Czech people are clearly targeted, rounded up, oppressed, and killed by the Nazis. However, the Czech people overcome all of this to achieve their own means of victory in the end, even if it is not absolute. As a result, the Nazis end up looking foolish in not being able to weed out the true murderer and place the blame on the man the Czech people framed, fully knowing it was not him. So on one hand, you have the Czech people, oppressed and murdered as victims of the German Occupation, and on the other hand you have the Nazis, outsmarted by the same everyday people that they are supposedly ruling over. I would say that the Czech people suffered both the greatest losses and engineered the most meaningful victory in Hangmen Also Die! In essence, you could say they were the victims, but they had a clear moral victory as well.

In Hangmen Also Die, I think it is quite obvious to note that the Czechs prove to be the true victims. Following the assassination of Heydrich, they are captured, but not because of anything they have personally done. I think it was a wise propaganda choice to Americanize the Czech and also make them very intellectual. Usually referring to Europe as a far away land- the choice to make the Czechs so similar to Americans was very effective. It illustrated that horrible things could happen to the 'wealthy and educated' and not just the poor, minimum wage worker. This proves to be a bigger threat to those sitting in the audience. If the audience could look at the film and see harm being done to poor, uneducated people, they can remove themselves & think..that could never happen to me. In order to justify the true terror of the Nazi regime, Hangmen Also Die target people who pose a striking resemblance to the middle and upper class American.

The Victims in Hangmen

The “victims” intended by the filmmakers in Hangmen Also Die are unique because we, as Americans, so often are presented with anti-Nazi propaganda films that focus on the Nazi victims as the victims of racial stereotypes, as well as the Allies. However, in this film we are presented with Eastern European victims of the Nazi occupation. While the film definitely attempts to prove to audiences that all members of Czech society were victims of oppression under the Nazi regime, I thought that there seemed to be a particular emphasis on the suppression of intellectuals and professionals. This victimization in the film would have been particularly compelling for American audiences in 1943, a time at which Allied victory in the war was definitely not certain, for it reminded audiences that if the Nazis were successful in the war effort, the entire world would be subjected to their occupational terror. Instead of focusing on more lower-class or unfortunate victims of the Nazis, the filmmakers choose to present characters that are obviously members of the upper-middle class, and well respected in society. The occupations of Novotny and Svaboda, as a professor and a doctor respectively, would have resonated with Allied audiences due to the fact that these are generally two highly respected occupations within Western culture, and the individuals who hold such occupations are usually well-respected and leaders in society. By confronting the audience with two likable characters who would have appeared to be likely leaders within a community as direct victims of an unjust Nazi occupation would have furthered hostility towards the Third Reich as an irrational and backwards system, and would have instilled fear of a possible takeover from the Nazis on Allied soil, further bolstering support for the war effort on the home front.

Hangmen

A rather interesting dichotomy is created regarding the “victim” in the Hangmen also Die. While it is pretty apparent that the literal victims are the people of Czechoslovakia, figuratively thanks to an interesting portrayal of the Prague’s citizens Americans too appear to be victims of Nazi oppressors, inspiring a sentiment in US audiences that if the Nazis are not stopped this could easily become reality here. It is certainly clear that the Nazi occupying force is oppressing the people. The Nazis, rightly so, are unmerciful and ruthless, taking lives as if it were nothing. In this capacity the Czech people become martyrs for the cause of freedom. Individual characters like Professor Novotny are clearly victims, but they are made to be emblematic of the whole of society. The Czechoslovakians impressively do their best to fight back in any way possible, resistance lead by the underground movement is indicative of that. Moreover, very literally the idea of a “resistance” makes them by definition victims of an attack. Within the film there are evidently individualized victims like the Novotnys, but there is also the collective victim of the unnamed Czechoslovakina people (typified by the men executed from the barracks).

However, while this is easily readable by viewers it quickly becomes evident that the Czechoslovakians are entirely Americanized. Whether it be the “Czechoslovakian” cab driver speaks with a quite thick New York accent or the younger brother who might as well be a character on Leave It to Beaver, these people are personified not as European but as American. The purpose of this clearly to make the audience feel akin to their Eastern European counterparts, who prior to the war most in the United States likely felt little connection to. Additionally, by characterizing the Czechoslovakians in such an American way it evokes a feeling of personal attack for theatergoers. The Novotnys might as well be the family down the street. The lack of an effort at mimicking accents on the part of the people of Prague made it so that what was Prague in the movie could just as easily be Chicago or Atlanta. The personalization of the victims during the time likely proved more effective in stirring up the desire to fight back against the oppressors.

The Dangling Chain of Hangmen

The victim? Hangmen also Die is one big, tumbling merry-go-round of victims, each doggedly in pursuit of the next, no one safe from any other and no one breaking free of the vicious cycle. All is set in motion by the death of the original "Hangman", the very first literal victim of a crime. Contrary to their typical image as the relentless, watching predator, the Nazi party becomes the next victim. They become a victim of fear: Fear from the authorities within their ranks, and fear for their own skins, for any Nazi could just as well be the next assassination target. As a result, these fears funnel the Nazi force in Prague into a rash, desperate hunt in rder to find a new scapegoat to be the new victim as they try to remove themselves from the position. Their urgency descends upon the entire city, and it is clear that they have made the following hasty decision. If there are no victims to be found, they will create victims. To be precise, 400 first-hand victims.

The rest of the film simply continues with this attempt to hand off the victim role. Each party, whether a single individual or a collective group, is forced into such a corner that defense is no longer an option. There is only the choice to unleash offense on someone else. Even when Czaka meets his cold end and it appears that the Czechs are successful in framing him, the movie shows that the Nazis have only allowed this fake conclusion in order to break the cycle, which in spite of it still remains unbroken. In the end, they surrender just as well as victims to this struggle, having no escape themselves but to call out a fake case closing in order to cover things. The Czechs, despite their terrible struggle as well, find their efforts ultimately to be in vain. When both sides are unable to successfully stick the victim position on the other, they both turn and prosecute the man in between the two as the final resort.

What is a “victim”?

In my opinion the obvious victims of Hangmen Also Die are the 400 Czech intellectuals that are arrested after Heydrich’s assassination. They are victims to the Czech traitor Emil Cruka’s random decision of who has to go to the camp and who not. And just as this decision has been random, the decision of who has to die in which order was pure random. The arrested men had no influence on any of these decisions and therefore are in my opinion the clear victims of the movie – they are punished for something they are not responsible for.

But the Czeck people turn the table and make the hunter become the hunted: the final victim is Emil Cruka. Thinking of victim in the way that you are punished for something you haven’t done, it becomes obvious that he, too, is a victim as he is punished for killing Heydrich even though it wasn’t him. But still most people would tend to see him not as a victim but see his death as the moral ending of the movie as he was not only a traitor but did not even show remorse for his actions and was not sorry for seeing all his comrades being murdered. But still he is a victim of the Czech people and he, too, is murdererd for reasons he is not responsible for.

Wide-Spread Victimization in Hangmen Also Die

Throughout the entire film, Hangmen Also Die projects the Czech people as victims of the Nazi regime. From the hundreds of hostages that are taken away and systematically executed, to the innocent Masha whose love life is thrown into jeopardy due to the world of lies she creates to protect Dr. Svoboda (not to mention her inner-family turmoil which occurs as a result of her father’s unjust imprisonment), examples of victims in the Czech population suffice to allow for the general and all too vague conclusion that all non-Nazis are presented as victims.

One Czech that does not appear entirely victimized by the Nazis is the brewer, Emil Czaka, who is instead presented as a traitor who goes behind the backs of his family and friends to profit by their misfortune. This argument, however, may not be enough to entirely validate the accusation that Czeka was not at all victimized, because it can be argued that he only did what he did to protect himself from the oppressive force controlling his surroundings. In this regard, perhaps, he can be seen as one of the film’s greatest victims, being forced to sacrifice his respectability to avoid impending troubles. His “victimization” is realized as his fellow Czechs catch on to what he has been doing and frame him for the assassination, thereby forcing him to pay for a crime he had nothing to do with. Again, this argument may be considering unconvincing due to Czeka’s role in the hostages’ arrests.

Regardless of how one views Czeka, the film has countless victims, many of whom are nameless characters simply recognized as individuals with little to no freedom and a constant threat looming over them. This allows for the assertion that the film suggests victims beyond the filmed plotline, simply presenting one example of the many populations being victimized by Nazi rule. With this in mind, it may be easier to reach a conclusion by plainly stating that the Nazis victimized everyone in their vicinity, and arguments can be made to include countless names on the list of the film’s victims.

Victims in Hangmen Also Die

The obvious answer is the Czechoslovakian people as they have the Nazis come into their home and take over. Their home becomes a place filled with fear, fear to live their lives as normal because of a people who come in and instill new rules, punishable by death. Looking deeper into it, the Nazis are seen as a people obsessed with personal indulgence. Their wants are satisfied almost as soon as they come about and this can be seen in the scene with the Nazi officer who chews on the sausage during his interrogation of an elderly woman. One would think his focus would be on his questioning of the grocer rather than his "need to feed" at that moment. The Nazi's are victims of themselves, unable to see a broader spectrum of life and deny themselves their every need, they become vicious predators killing thousands and leaving a people in utter despair. They become victims of their leader, a forceful tyranny that sweeps the nation and it seems as if all mental clarity has alluded them. Their own minds have been taken over by the ideals and policies of the Nazi party, and each member succumbs to "group think" and they become a mob of vengeance.

So in all, yes, the Jews of Czechoslovakia are the victims the audience readily identifies with, however the Nazi's are the unseen victims as they have fallen prey to themselves.

A Victimized National Identity

The victim of Frtiz Lang's film, Hangmen also Die, is the Czech people. The director portrays the Nazis in a very xenophobic manner while illustrating the Czechs as semi-American. The initial text during the introduction concludes by calling the Czechs unhappy but not unbeaten, giving a resonance with American feelings about the war at the same time. Another way that Lang causes audiences to sympathize with the Czech people is by printing many of the signs in the town in English. The background is full of signs in Czech and English, thus demonstrating a synthesis of the two languages. This unification can then be translated into a relationship between the two peoples of those languages, causing the audience to further side with the Czechs. Aside from signs that American audiences are able to read, Lang films the Nazis speaking only in German while the Czech citizens speak in English. The audience is led to believe that in the world of the film Czech equals English as German equals something foreign and unrecognizable. German speaking antagonists further alienate audiences from the Nazis as cause them to view the Czechs as victims in the film. Additionally, Lang shows Heydrich as a feminine, gaunt, evil man. Albeit, he was a monster, but he was an administrative one, not the visible epitome of rage that the actor portrays. Also, he was not as ugly as the American actor with sunken eyes and sickly makeup. Yet, this version fits Lang's work very well; audiences have very little sympathy for the androgynous Heydrich while feeling the pain of the Czech people. As this film demonstrates, through Fritz Lang's artful use of propaganda American audiences see that the Czech people are the victims of Nazi oppression.

Possible Victims

One group of victims in Hangmen Also Die was “the Czech people.” This may sound unremarkable at first, but there are some complications to this namesake, as there are with any name defining a nationality. It is interesting to note that although there were conceptions of a Czech nationality dating back to when the region known as Bohemia and Moravia was under the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a Czech state did not exist until 1992. From 1918 until then (excluding German occupation, of course) the state was Czechoslovakia. Thus, when characters in the film said they were on the side of the Czech people (rather than, say, “for Czechoslovakia”), they were making a statement about seeing the war as a struggle between nations, not states. This is interesting, because despite Hollywood’s efforts to portray the struggle with Germany as a struggle against Nazi-controlled Germany, rather than against the German people, the language employed to describe the victims was still that of national self determination. Although Nazism was a radical nationalist movement, the basic idea of nationalism was not under attack here.

Another victim was the patriarchal family. The Novotny family is ripped apart by the crisis, and we are left uncertain (as far as I can tell, although some people may have seen it differently) as to whether Professor Novotny survived in the end. The central problem for Nasha Novotny is whether it is more important to save her father or to save a Czech hero in order to lift the spirits of the resistance. Indeed, the marriage plans of Nasha and Jan are destroyed or at least delayed by the crisis, meaning that the Nazis have attacked not only the Novotny family but this potential new family. There is also some tension about fulfilling bourgeois family norms, like making sure a man doesn’t sleep over so the neighbors won’t gossip.

Who is the Victim? Well, it depends...

If the question is who was victimized in "Hangmen" the answer is clearly the Czech, afterall, some 300 hostages were killed on top of the deaths of countless of its people before the death of the Hangman. Yet, in the film, while the Czech are the ones who have the most deaths, they go to death honorably, (apart from the one man who ran out of the barracks screaming) which questions the idea of victim. Afterall, can they really be victims if they accepted their deaths as martyrs? Instead, I think that the Germans were the victims. They were afraid of the Czech. The people weren't cooperating, officers were taking bribes, the systematic death of the hostages wasn't producing results of exposing the underground so much as a greater resistance to their movements. Though they were still effective as an occupational army, they allowed their victims to gain control over them. This reaction is what causes them to be labeled as victims. They lost control and were seemingly afraid of the people. The reactions of the NEED to get the assassin of the Hangman drove them to seeming paranoia, and it is this over reaction in comparison to the "No surrender" of the Czechs that leads me to say that the Germans were the victims in "Hangmen also Die."

Victims, Plural

I would conclude that there are multiple victims: those Czechs that were rounded up following the assassination of Heydrich and used as hostages to draw out the assassin. Although there are other characters that could be considered victims, the hostages were victims of random violence. Their capture was not a response to anything the hostages did; rather, it was the result of Dr. Franticek Svoboda’s (aka Karel Vanek’s) murder of “The Hangmen”.

I think it is easiest to point to the Czech’s held hostage as victims once other characters have been eliminated as possible victims. Svoboda is one character who suffered under Heydrich; however, Svoboda seemed relatively passive about preventing the deaths of the hostages. Although a victim at one time, Svoboda can no longer be classified as such following recklessness with the lives of others.

Another character who could be considered a victim is Emil Czaka, who is framed by the Czech public for the assassination of Heydrich. It is difficult to label Czaka as a victim, however, because of his role as a traitor for the Nazis. Rather than support his Czech comrades, Czaka turns on the citizens and provides names of those to be taken hostage. He is not deserving of the audience’s sympathy and thus cannot be considered a victim.

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.

November 10-12: Hangmen also Die

Who is the victim in "Hangmen also Die"?