I wanted to reply to a thread referring to the trailer of that film and praising it. Therefore I watched it- unfortunately the thread is not there any more. I was quite disappointed. The idea of the story is good, but the figures are exaggerated in clichees. Colonel Hans is a diva living in luxury and simply giving weird propaganda comments without any leadership qualities or ordering crazy war crimes and Hauptmann Kahn (not the famous goalkeeper : )) who is only interested in his rape- food donating relationship to a Russian girl, sacrificing his (not warrior like) men with boredom and without military skills on a house manned only by a handful Russians with light weaponry. The address to his soldiers before the assault is silly, talking about the Gott mit uns buckle and the Indian six armed whores waiting for them behind Stalingrad- which Landser would be motivated by such an indifferent superiour talking such a crap? In the end a giant armada of tanks and men attack the house with the last survivors and after a stupid reciprocal pistol duell the dying Hauptmann watches the radio operator giving orders to the airforce to annihilate his men. Having his gun in the hand he dies as stupid as he lived.
Of course war crimes were committed and horrible deeds were done but I miss a depiction closer to reality.
I came across a report of the NKWD in an article:
After the battle of Stalingrad the NKWD Woronin section compiled a report on the German- Russian fraternisation in the battle period on the 15.4.1943. They lamented that the Fascist occupiers were able to positively influence the attitude of a huge proportion of the Stalingrad youth- men and women- towards them- even many Komsomolz members. There were many established friendships and even cooperation with the Germans. The reasons mentioned were the high German discipline and impressive technical equipment of the German soldiers. This doesn´t rule out events but the general relationship between ordinary Russians and ordinary Germans Landsers wasn´t that bad as the film depicted it. My grandfather often told us how grateful they were for the hospitality of the Russians, giving them favours in return and how much they hated their special execution squads who turned the attitudes of the affected.
Of course this won´t be shown in a Russian film but all in all it wasn´t really new what was shown.
Of course war crimes were committed and horrible deeds were done but I miss a depiction closer to reality.
I came across a report of the NKWD in an article:
After the battle of Stalingrad the NKWD Woronin section compiled a report on the German- Russian fraternisation in the battle period on the 15.4.1943. They lamented that the Fascist occupiers were able to positively influence the attitude of a huge proportion of the Stalingrad youth- men and women- towards them- even many Komsomolz members. There were many established friendships and even cooperation with the Germans. The reasons mentioned were the high German discipline and impressive technical equipment of the German soldiers. This doesn´t rule out events but the general relationship between ordinary Russians and ordinary Germans Landsers wasn´t that bad as the film depicted it. My grandfather often told us how grateful they were for the hospitality of the Russians, giving them favours in return and how much they hated their special execution squads who turned the attitudes of the affected.
Of course this won´t be shown in a Russian film but all in all it wasn´t really new what was shown.
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