The Reality of War

Move over Private Ryan. This 1993 German made war film beat you to the punch of portraying the gruesome truth about war and it’s effects on those who must take part in it. In the tradition of Das Boot we get to see the Second World War from the perspective of the German soldiers who were often no happier about their plight than their Russian, British, or American counterparts. They aren’t monsters (though we do see some of those); they are men trying to survive.

This is no candy-coated version of war. Limbs are blown off, children shot, people made refugees. The story starts out with a group of German soldiers fresh from victorious combat in North Africa and sent off to the Russian front, more specifically Stalingrad. They soon learn things are much different there. The first battle scene we see is for an old factory that “must be taken”. Lives are sacrificed, and soldiers are killed by friendly fire. Again, more of the reality of war as opposed to the romanticism we often see in war films.

The battle scenes are authentic, as are the costumes and equipment. We don’t see German tanks, but we do see authentic looking German half tracks, 75-mm anti-tank guns and Russian T-34 tanks. No modern equipment with an iron cross or red star slapped on here.

The best part of the film for me is the interaction between the German characters. At some points the film does go overboard in my opinion trying to cast the Wehrmacht as evil (there’s a scene where a German doctor is berating a soldier with a serious wound who is then shot for treason; I find such scenarios unlikely). As the saying goes not all Nazis were German and not all Germans were Nazis. The latter is pointed out in the film when a captain declares, “I’m no nazi.”

Certainly however, atrocities were committed against civilians in the course of the war, and we see this. A group of civilians is lined up before a firing squad manned by our main characters. There’s a young boy among them, and the soldiers vouch for him to try to save his life, to no avail. The soldiers must face a choice of either executing the civilians, including the boy, or being shot themselves and having another squad execute the civilians. This is a moral dilemma that can’t really be judged by anyone who has never been in such a position.

This is the DVD version I’m writing about, and there are a few drawbacks to it. The picture is crisp and clear, but unfortunately the movie is not divided into chapters, which makes it a pain to navigate from scene to scene. You can watch the film in English or German, with English subtitles displayed on both. One of the curious things about the disc is how different the dubbing and subtitles are from each other.

In my opinion this is a must-see film for anyone interested in history, or just good filmmaking. It reminds us of the ugly side of war, and also that our pre-conceptions of good and evil are not so black and white as we would like to believe. It can be easier to dismiss the enemy as evil. It’s easier to kill him that way. In reality, he’s often a lot like us, just trying to survive in a world he never made.

Other German cinema of note:

Das Boot

Downfall (Der Untergang)

Goodbye, Lenin

Das Leben der Anderen (The Lives of Others)