Howard W. Campbell Jr. : The Last "Free" American

"What froze me was the fact that I had absolutely no reason to move in any direction." The moment I chose is this moment where he is standing still and alone in the dark for hours along with the following scene where he is sitting in his wrecked apartment playing with the chess piece he made.


Howard Campbell is trapped at the end of the film. He spent his entire adult life pretending to be something that he wasn't. He joined the Nazi regime in order to spy for the American government and through his radio program and adamant support for the Nazi cause, he became one of the most famous Nazi leaders in Berlin. However, only three Americans actually know that he is actually a spy, one of those being the president, Franklin Roosevelt. Howard sacrifices his entire life for the sake of the American government and while he was one of the most crucial American agents, the majority of the world believes him to be a Nazi. This serves to ruin him at the end of the war. There is no public announcement that he was really an American spy, no coming home party, no reward for his sacrifice because it is much too confidential. He is forced into solitude and hiding essentially. He is hated by Americans and is forced out of his home because his life is being threatened. It is ironic hat the only people he can find safety with is with a American Nazi group, the very thing he isn't.
When the war ended, he was frozen. He couldn't find refuge in the American government because they were required to keep his role in the war a secret. However, he also could not find real refuge with the German government or even American Nazi's because that was not where his true loyalty resided. This is where the significance of the chess pieces come into play.  Like a pawn, he was tossed back and forth by higher forces and once the "game" or war was over, he was of no use to them anymore and he remained trapped in this false Nazi identity that he and the government created.

Q: Since, only 3 other people knew about Howard's secret identity a a spy, do you think its possible that Howard could have imagined his "blue fairy god mother" and the entire espionage mission? Do you think he could have imagined that he was an american spy while in reality he had become one of the most prominent Nazi leaders of the war?