Max (2002)

With the Great War finally over, artist Max Rothman comes home to Munich in the Fall of 1918. Because he has lost an arm in the war, his career as a painter is over, so he opens an art gallery where he sells the works of other artists. He meets a loner, a corporal in the army with big dreams, but little money, who worms his way into Max’s life. This loner is also an aspiring artist, and his name is Adolf Hitler. As a Jew, Max is dismayed by Hitler’s ideas about the purity of race, but gives him money to pursue his painting, thinking that Hitler will then abandon his new ideas. Unfortunately, Hitler is a failure as an artist and is wracked by self-doubt and bitterness. He launches himself as a rampant promoter of the new hatred of "others" growing among Germans. He tells Max his new art form is politics, and shows him his plans for a new society. Max agrees to show the work at his gallery.