Frederick Bruckmann (Dirk Bogarde) is a rising figure in a steel business owned by the aristocratic von Essenbeck family in Nazi Germany. Goaded on by his Lady-Macbeth-like lover Sofie (Ingrid Thulin), daughter of the family patriarch, he seizes control of the business by killing her father (on the night of the Reichstag fire) and his thuggish SA rival (on the Night of the Long Knives). Sofie thinks they can control her depraved son Martin (Helmut Berger), heir to the business, who seems far more interested in sexually abusing little girls. But Martin, goaded on by his SS cousin, takes matters into his own hands, imprisoning the couple in the family mansion. Things takes on a hellish red tint as Martin, in full SS uniform, presides over a descent into orgies, rape, murder, incest, paedophilia, homosexuality, cross-dressing etc. It's all very hysterical, all very symbolic, all very unenlightening, and all very wrong.
Whether it intends to or not, in drawing an allusion between Nazism and sexual and moral perversion, the film puts Nazism on a plane outside conventional morality and human experience. The watching Texan can place a comfortable distance between himself and the proceedings. Nazism is portrayed as an inexplicable, monstrous, almost inhuman evil; a portrayal which does humanity something of a disservice. Nazi Germany was not a country taken over by sexually deviant psychopaths, but by Daily Mail readers. The outlook of the Nazi was the outlook of the shopkeeper, the Rotarian, the Sunday school teacher. As evil goes, Nazism is as banal as it gets.
Far from being a decadent pervert, a good Nazi was your typical pillar of the community, as outraged by paedophilia, incest and the like as any good Christian. He was not immoral, but resolutely moral, even moralistic; as convinced of the obvious moral truth of Aryan superiority as a bible-belt Christian is convinced of the Ten Commandments, as convinced of the 'Jewish problem' as the Christian is convinced that God hates fags. Nazism did not appeal to the dark side of human nature, but to 'self-evident', 'common sense' principles: work hard, earn your money, obey the law, don't rock the boat. It was not the case that law and order broke down under the Nazi regime: rather, 'law and order' was and is the fascist obsession. It was not open season for criminals: in Nazi Germany, more things became crimes.
Initially, the film seemed to be making this point: the mundane, communal, state-sanctioned evil is more dangerous than any evil that is purely individual. Martin's very unusual depravity makes him seem less tainted than the Nazis; in defying moral convention so blatantly, he even seems an oppositional force. (It's worth mentioning that in Nazi Germany someone like Martin would have ended up in Belsen.) So it was a pity the film ended up taking the line of least resistance. Ultimately, The Damned says little of interest, says it too loudly, and takes far too long to say it.