Der Held

I think that Don Pedro has all the outward appearance of a certain brand of hero - the impeccable dress, the clean trimmed hair, his head held high, a charm for the damsel in distress before Happily Ever After. The focuses in his own small regime are on his people and their protection, even regardless of the final success, realized or not. However, the tables turn as the film progresses, as Don Pedro is the one who is seen in a negative light, with his world slowly breaking apart and his shameful demise of metaphorically digging his own grave, while Dr. Nagel's image rises up as the new hero. Though he has a less impressive outward portrayal in the film, Nagel is a hero who resisted the wrong and unreasonable choices in order to save a people who were no longer in the right hands, and his deeds redeem what is otherwise unheroic about him.

Perhaps Don Pedro really is the Nazi regime's hero in at least all of his heroic appearance and adamant nobility. Politically, it could be said that Juan, the Aryan Hitler Youth so subtly slipped into the course of the film, is the ideal heir of the future of the Nazis. Perhaps it is then in Juan's responsibility to extract all of the heroic qualities of his father while at the same time leaving the land of his birth, along with all of its faults and undesirable qualities. He leaves it all for a country that is both part of his roots and is also portrayed in the film in its own admirable way for producing the medical breakthrough that would play such a critical role to the saving of a society.