World War 2 was one of the most bloody conflicts in the history of the World. Millions died in the six years of conflict and a whole generation of young men left America and returned home scarred by their experiences. American cinema and literature are full of references to American experiences during the war. Band of Brothers, and Patton Saving Private Ryan are just a few programs that aim to show how Americans lived, fought and died in that war. However, this results in an unfortunate bias. All we are exposed to is the American perspective. American soldiers are always noble, patriotic saviors of the free world, while Germans and Japanese are always nefarious, evil imperialists bent on world domination. In other words, our perspectives on World War 2 are unfairly biased against the other participants in the War. In order to help balance this unfair bias the films Stalingrad (1994) and Downfall (2003) along with the memoir The Forgotten Soldier (1967) will be reviewed in order to expand our understanding of history from the perspective of Nazi and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.). These works will be reviewed with a view towards piercing the veil of our stereotypes about Germans and revealing the human aspect of the common German solider.
The Battle of Stalingrad, fought between Fall 1942 – Spring 1943, was no doubt one of the cruelest and traumatic episodes, from the German perspective, of World War 2. What began as a grand campaign to finally knock the Soviet Union out of the War turned into a tragic rout that resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of men and the destruction of an entire German army. The Movie Stalingard by Joseph Vilsmaier is a noble attempt to depict the horrors of the Eastern Front from a real world perspective and removes the romanticism and noir normally associated with war movies.
The movie follows the lives of a German Wehrmacht infantry platoon as they are shuttled from the North African front to Italy and finally to the Russian front where they find themselves part of the Sixth Army when it launches its campaign to conquer Stalingrad. This film is not the first German portrayal of Stalingrad it is predated by the 1959 movie Hunde, wollt ihr ewig Leben or Stalingrad: Dogs, do you wish to live forever?
The movie begins with the men in the assault engineers better known as Pionere who are enjoying much deserved leave in Italy after campaigns in Italy. The three main characters are introduced Lieutenant von Witzland, the idealistic platoon leader, Unteroffizier “Rollo” Rohleder, who was denied his award because he arrived at the parade with an unbuttoned tunic collar and finally Obergefreiter Fritzi Reiser who rarely hides his true opinion.
This early on the movie is already contradicting the stereotype of Nazi soldiers. They are not mad, brain-washed fanatics who believe entirely in the Nazi cause. Instead they are largely sympathetic characters who go through the motions of allegiance to the German cause, they are not rabid Nazis. Just helpless pawns of the egotistical monsters who feast on elegant cuisine and fine wine while their troops nearly starve. Perhaps the basic goodness of the German foot soldier but the antiwar message already rings true this early on (Holden 1995).
The exception to this is Rollo who easily fits the stereotype of a fanatical, die-hard believer who is willing to fight to the death and thirsting for medals. A pep talk from the officer in charge is the last thing they are told at the parade before they are instructed that they will soon head out to the Eastern Front. The next scene finds the soldiers on a train where they are happily greeted by the Italian as the leave only to find themselves deep into desolate and unwelcome Russia. It is here that the human aspect of the soldiers is again revealed. They talk about what they plan to do after the war. Rollo even makes a cruel be that he will survive the war while Von Wtizland will not. Finally they arrive at the outskirts of Stalingrad where preparations for war are rife.
The scene is dark and rainy, already ominous signs of the fighting. There are soldiers seriously wounded from the battles. Russian POWs are being mistreated by German field police. When one of the POWs collapse from exhaustion the field police beat cruelly. The idealistic Von Witzland tried to protest this cruelty but is knocked to the ground and forced to watch while the POW is beaten to death. Witzland gets up and protests to captain Haller, the Feldgendarmarie captain. The captain responds: “You wish to protest? Tell the Fuhrer.” He then walks off, laughing cruelly. This scene suggests that not all Germans consented to the atrocities that the Nazi regime. Some protested, but those who did so too vocally wound up six feet under.
The next scene is another one that is atypical of war movies about the German Army. A field service by chaplains is performed and two more characters are shown. Feldwebel Pfluger, a veteran who has served at Voronezh, and Hauptmann Musk, another veteran who has lost an arm and who claims to have “absolutely no luck with my right side”. All these preparations show the humane side of the German solider. He is also a human being with a soul that will be sorely tested in the days to come. They are not merely evil animals who are out to kill others and dominate the world.
The actual war is soon in full force as the Germans approach Stalingrad under heavy cover from their artillery. The battle is absolutely feral as both sides are unwilling to give ground. Rollo displays his glory seeking heroism in overcoming the Russians but the dogged defenders show no sign of letting up. After they succeed in driving the Russians out they listen to Hitler over the radio justify he chose to send them to Stalingrad. Out of an original 450 men the battalion has been reduced to just 62 men. Sixty-two men who are now surrounded by Russians and after a short ceasefire they are attacked and overwhelmed by the Russians. The only way the Germans are able to escape is by fleeing into the sewers which are full of dead from both sides. In the tunnels they encounter Edgar Emigholz who was suffering from a serious wound from a booby trap. They try to bring him to a hospital while being hunted down by Russian soldiers. Unfortunately Emigholz dies in the hospital waiting in vain for medical assistance. While trying to help Emigholz the main characters make a ruckus at the hospital and they get arrested by Hauptmann Haller for their efforts.
As a result of their actions they are condemned to a “Strafbattalion” or a penal battalion together with others whose conduct has merited their punishment. In the deep snow they are forced to dig for mines and are mistreated by other soldiers. It is here that the turning point of Stalingrad starts. The Russians have broken past the Romanian flank guards of the Sixth Army and are threatening to surround them. In exchange for reinstatement the penal troops are told to hold off the encirclement force at Marinovka, a task they succeed in doing albeit temporarily. The battle sequence is well defined as the Russian tanks are repelled by German anti-tank gunners in a desperate action. A broken penal solider named Otto spreads his cynicism by telling his fellow soldiers to write home to their families that they are already dead. At this stage it is shown that the fighting has taken its toll. The German grand army of 1939 is quickly dissipating. The men who have been fighting for years are beginning to show the strain. No longer uber-idealistic fanatics, many are starting to feel reality sink in, that they are likely to die far from home.
The major German base is a Russian village. Despite the snowy weather, it is teeming with activity. They are taken out of the shed they are taking refuge in, and earn the right to return to their unit. They are reinstated and given an unsavory mission – forming an execution squad against alleged civilian “saboteurs”, to prove their loyalty. General Hentz passes rank insignia to them, saying “In the name of the Fuhrer” to each one, then leaves in his staff car, having given the responsibility of carrying out the killings to Captain Haller. However, they discover that among the civilians is Kolya, the same Russian boy they had met before. Despite their efforts to convince Haller to spare the boy, they are ordered back in line and threatened with execution if they fail to carry out the killings. The movie is not purely an anti-war absolution of the German solider. It is shown here that Hauptman Haller is forcing them to execute alleged saboteurs. As if to transfer the blame on the officers the cruelty that Germans are known for.
The execution of Kolya is the straw that brakes the camel’s back. They go from dedicated and determined German soldiers fighting for the Fatherland, back in Italy, to desiccated husks of men just doing their duty to avoid punishment. Now they have totally lost morale and want to desert. Reiser hatches a plan to escape Stalingrad by faking wounds and boarding a medical flight. But this ploy ultimately fails as the cordon around Stalingrad grows tighter. On the way there they resort to looting corpses for bandages and bribing civilians with bread to get directions. Musk gets sever frostbite on his foot and like all the others is now suffering severely from the unyielding cold. Hauptmann Haller shows up again and kills Muller accidentally after they make a play for some goods airdropped by the German Air force and he is also killed by the men in revenge. Ultimately the main characters are shocked when they see a long column of defeated German soldiers marching to surrender to the Russians in stark contrast to the brave and eager men who marched to Stalingrad in the fall.
This is a picture of defeated German soldiers marching into captivity. They are no longer proud conquerors. Instead they are shadows of men, faithless to their cause and instead desiring to preserve their lives a little longer despite the loss of their honor as soldiers. Few of the men who surrendered at Stalingrad made it back to Germany alive.
In summary, Stalingrad belied the idea that all German soldiers were cruel, heartless fanatics who were only bent on world domination. They are even counter points to the idiotic Sgt. Schultz from Hogan’s heroes. They are ordinary people thrust in extraordinary circumstances and they have limited capacity for suffering and hardship. Some are indeed motivated by less than noble causes such as Rollo’s desire for medals or Haller’s brutal adherence to discipline. But ultimately the men of the German army were doomed by the whims of a dictator hundreds of miles away. At the end of the Stalingrad Campaign more than Six hundred thousand Germans, Romanian and Italians were dead, captured or missing and the myth of German invincibility in the east was irretrievably lost.
Yet for all the suffering the Germans endured the world condemned them and considered their annihilation justified. After all they were the aggressors, evil invaders who deserved what they got. Russians too suffered terrible losses and committed many atrocities against the German prisoners. In fact, of the hundreds of thousands of prisoners only 6,000 eventually return to Germany. But the world justifies their actions because they were the injured party and its was only right that they try to take revenge for the atrocity they suffered. Personally, I would have held the same view until I saw this movie and its images of Germans trudging in the snow lugging heavy weapons, of men dehumanized by the barbarism around them and most of all the human face of the German solider making him out to be more than just a cog in an evil machine.
Downfall is the Oscar nominated drama about the last twelve days of Adolf Hitler in his bunker as Nazi Germnay, his grand empire, is in its death throes. It was based on the book by historian Joachim Fest (2004) known as the Until the Final Hour portions of Albert Speer’s memoirs Inside the Third Reich; Hitler’s Last Days: An Eye-Witness Account, by Gerhardt Boldt; doctor Ernst-Günther Schenck’s memoirs; and the memoirs of Siegfried Knappe.
It is the spring of 1945 the dying days to the Third Reich. The German army has been utterly beaten and the Red Army is advancing towards Berlin. Deep within his bunker Hitler has utterly lost it. He is ordering counter attacks that will never happen for armies that no longer exist. The Russians are rampaging across the country amidst crumbling resistance. But he has not yet been abandoned by his clique. Joseph Goebbels, Albert Speer and Heirich Himmler are still within him holed up in the bunker.
As the movie revolves around the dying days of the Reich from the perspective of the German leadership the mood is one of hopelessness. Hitler’s generals are still dominated by his presence and charisma. Reality’s dark truth is blunted by Hitler and his determination to resist till the end. His generals know that the only true hope left is that the Western Allies conquer Berlin first and are more accommodating. Any hope of military victory has long since passed. Obedience and discipline are all the remains to drive the German soldiers. Much of the story is a kind of humanization of Hitler as he is presented as a desperate human being still trying to seize victory despite the obvious defeat staring him in the face. About the only redeeming quality he shows is when he marries his mistress Eva Braun right before they commit suicide. This is the main controversy in the film as even when the film was shown close to 60 years after Hitler’s defeat the world still views him as a monster not fitting even of the title human. Indeed the film’s critics often asked if he can even be portrayed as human.
David Denby (2005) mentions that the film’s acting is indeed excellent and the fact that Hitler has been humbled by defeat despite his delusions makes him somewhat more human. In the movie he was humanized. He was still a megalomaniac who believed that he was born to rule the world. However, he was kind to his cook, his secretary and genuinely loved his dog. Even in the end he was surrounded by loyal subordinates. For Denby the movie was all about making Hitler Mortal.
Tragically this is met with unfortunate pessimism and negativity. People believe the mere idea of Hitler being anything less than an evil demagogue. The movie itself delivers on this, as Hitler is frequently seen ranting and raving claiming that Germany itself should perish if it can not defeat its enemies. The movie presents Hitler as the image of the defeated tyrant his power long since evaporated which given the events surrounding him is hardly surprising.
Even famed Hitler biographer Sir Ian Kershaw chimes in
“Knowing what I did of the bunker story, I found it hard to imagine that anyone (other than the usual neo-Nazi fringe) could possibly find Hitler a sympathetic figure during his bizarre last days. And to presume that it might be somehow dangerous to see him as a human being – well, what does that thought imply about the self-confidence of a stable, liberal democracy? Hitler was, after all, a human being, even if an especially obnoxious, detestable specimen. We well know that he could be kind and considerate to his secretaries, and with the next breath show cold ruthlessness, dispassionate brutality, in determining the deaths of millions. (Kershaw 2004)”
It would appear that Sir Ian joins in the opinion that Hitler was no doubt insane because he will never grant any sympathy to Hitler for what he did. Yet he still finds it mind boggling that Hilter could be nice to his staff and dog yet be the same man who ordered the extermination of the Jews and countless other attrocities.
Critics also alleged that the movie had, in a way, tried to soften Hitler’s image from that of the cruel genocidal dictator that he is best known for. But in this writer’s opinion the softening of his image only balance what the world knows about Hitler. In desiring to condemn him for his evils often people forget that he was an actual human person who made choices that had a drastic impact on the world around him. His failings were those of a human wrought large but human failings nonetheless.
The forgotten Solider is, purpotedly, an autobiographical account by a veteran German solider named Guy Sajer and is largely about his experiences on the German Eastfront. The authenticity of this book is somewhat disputed. Here is another image of a German solider humanized from the biased perspective that most people in the world have lumped them under. The book is an account of a disatrous love affair with war and with the army that, of all modern armies, most loved war, as it was written by a semi-outider (Moss and Driver 2005).
The story revolves around Guy Sajer, a young German solider forced to fight in the bitter Russian winter aginst Russian partisans, and the desperate but resilient Red Army. Guy is a member of the elite Grosse Deutschland or Großdeutschland division with its extreme training regime. He is ulitmately dehumanized as he is forced to reconcile his humanity to the extremely brutal, violent and remorseless world that crushes any hopes and ideals he had. All that matters to him in the end is survival in the face of a relentless enemy.
As mentioned early the accuracy of the book is disputed. For example some of the details in the book are incorrect while others can not be verified. However, in defense of the book the inaccuracies may be because it was written from poor memory and some information might have been lost as it was translated from the orginal French.
From the beginning Sajer considers himself a semi-outsider; I learn some military songs, which I warble with an attrocious French Accent. The other soldiers laugh. They are destined to be my first comrades in this place. (Sajer 1) This picture might very well be what Sajer and his fellow looked like when they first prepared for war. Although considering that he was in an elite unit their uniforms might have been flashier.
Perhaps the most fascinating aspect of Sajer’s book is that he is actually from Alsace. Alsace as history tells us is a heavily disputed region in Europe which Germany and France have contested since the 19th century. Therefore, as Sajer points out it is as much French as it is German. Personally, this also leads me to question the veracity of Sajer’s book since the Großdeutschland was an elite German division it is somewhat questionable how a potential outsider could gain acceptance is somewhat hard to believe at best.
Even if he is not trully German, being half-french, Sajer is a loyal soldier and fights for the Fatherland even unto the bitter end. He was only sixteen when he first enlisted in 1942. It is notable that he entered the war at the point when the Germans were already losing the war and the entries in his book show it. There is no glorious victory to be won here. For Sajer the war is only an endless series of battles where he must kill others to survive, where friends die and both defeat and victory only bring more of the same. Sajer is somewhat cynical in his writing but then considering that he was almost always on the losing end of things. Brotherhood more than nationalism motivated Sajer to fight. But brotherhood quickly becomes meaningless when all your comrades have died.
For example, “…that’s not so bad. At least he didn’t have to suffer” I knew that Ernst’s agony had lasted for nearly half an hour. “We ought to bury him”. The three of us lifted out the body, which was already stiffening. I moved like an automaton, and my face was without expression…. We dug the grave with our helmets, rifle butts and barehands. The others were already pushing back the dirt and trampling it down with thier boots when I looked my last on that mutilated face. I felt that something had hardened in my spirit forever.(Sajer 96) In this scene Ernst, a close friend of Sajer had died horribly. Common decency would dictate that he bury his friend but he does this with little emotion as he has already been desensitized by all the death around him.
We fought two more battles before recrossing the Dnieper in the begining of the authumn. Several of us had to be re-equipped before these engagements, and the most serious accusations were leveled against those who returned without his weapons (Sajer 219). This passage was written in the Authumn of 1943. The German army is already in retreat. The cummulative effect of four years of warfare and has taken its toll. German troops can ill afford to lose their weapons because their heavily depleted industries can ill afford to replace them. It can easily be imagined that equipment has to be abandoned when one is on the run, but in Russia our soliders were never suposed to abandon thier arms. (Sajer 219) For his part Sajer tells u that as a hardened veteran he clings to his weapons and gear mostly out of discipline and pride.
This picture of a German soldier in the Russian front would not have been too different from what Sajer would have looked like during this long retreat. Their attire is purely practical carrying as much ammo for their weapons as they can because they don’t know when they will be supplied with more again. It is good to note that the man in the picture could easily pass for a G.I. if only his helment had been different and his gun a different model. Then a striking realization hits, German soldiers were not monsters but human beings.
Conclussion
The movies Stalingrad and Downfall and the book The forgotten solider, all show a human aspect of the German. He is not simply the enemy, they are not all bad, evil or genocidal. In fact for the most part they are human. Sajer did not go to the Eastern Front because he simply wanted to kill Russians, he enlisted to defend his country. The same goes for the Sixth Army soldiers in Stalingrad, they fought not out of genuine hate or savergy but because they were obeying orders which told them they had to. In fact, were they not marching under the banners of the enemy they were probably no different from our own G.I.s, simple ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances fighting far from home.
Perhaps we’d like to say that the G.I.s were fighting for the side of good but then perhaps the German soldiers were also fighting for, what they thought, was the side of good. After all, the Nazi propaganda machine was so effective that until the German people saw the extermination camps many honestly believed that they were justified in what they did. In fact, to this day there are fringe groups called Neo-Nazis who still believe their cause was right. That cause was the brain child of Hitler. Adolf Hitler, a man who will forever be remembered in infamy for what he has done. In the movie the Downfall he was presented as a human being. He was not the moster whose very name could scare children to sleep. In the movie Hitler knew fear and the ignominy of defeat, his charismatic voice reduced to lambasting people to continue fighting a lost cause. Yet in the movie he was portrayed as possesing some good. The man who caused the deaths of millions could be kind to a dog and in the end would make an honest man of his mistress.
References
Primary
Sajer, Guy The Forgotten Soldier.
Eichinger, Bernd Downfall 2004.
Vilsmaier Joseph, Stalingrad 1993.
Secondary
Holden, Stephen Stalingrad Film Review (1995). Web.
Fest, Joachim (2004). Inside Hitler’s bunker : the last days of the Third Reich. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. ISBN 978-0-374-13577-5.
Junge, Traudl; Gertraud Junge, Melissa Müller, Anthea Bell (2004). Until the final hour: Hitler’s last secretary. New York: Arcade Publishing. ISBN 978-1-55970728-2.
O’Donnell, James Preston (1978). The Bunker: The History of the Reich Chancellery Group. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-39525719-7.
Denby, David. “David Denby’s comments on Der Untergang”. The New Yorker. Web.
Kershaw, Ian (2004). “The human Hitler”. The Guardian. Web.
Krysia Diver and Stephen Moss (2005). “Desperately seeking Adolf”. The Guardian.