Stalingrad Movie Depicts Horror Of War, Part Two, The Movie
There have been a number of movies over the years about the titanic struggle at Stalingrad from late summer 1942 until early February 1943. The movie I'm referring to here is the German produced film of 1992, released in early 1993. The film is in German, but is available with English subtitles. It is available on DVD, released by Fox Lorber Home Video, it was directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. I want to be sure to say that the movie graphically depicts war, and if you are the least bit squeamish, you probably should not see it. Also, this is NOT a total scene by scene presentation of the movie, but rather some select scenes and a more general presentation, and there is much more to the movie than what I'll cover here. Remember, this is a movie based on the real battle of Stalingrad, but it is not a documentary; however, you can refer to "Part One" of this article for the general historical info.
This anti-war movie follows a platoon of German specialist combat engineers, known as "Sturmpioniere" ("storm" or "assault engineers"), who were trained for close combat and for the use of explosives, and who were equipped with a high proportion of automatic weapons (remember, this was World War Two, when such weapons were not as common as today). The movie opens with the men enjoying leave in Italy, after serving in North Africa, where their platoon commander was wounded. Their new commander is from the German nobility, as his name is "von" Witzland (played by Thomas Kretschmann); the "von" indicating the tie to the nobility. He has not seen combat, and one of the experienced men, known as "Rollo" (played by Jochen Nickel) makes a bet with him, that he will outlive the new lieutenant. As one of the other men points out, if one lives and one dies, how will the survivor collect from a dead man? Anyway, the lieutenant is idealistic, but even many of the more experienced men think they will be able to deal with the Russians handily. The brutality of the Eastern Front is seen immediately upon their arrival in Stalingrad, when they witness Russian POWs being beaten, kicked and bludgeoned, as they are marched off.* When the lieutenant protests the brutal treatment of the POWs to a nearby captain, the captain laughs at him.
The platoon is put into a special battalion with other assault engineers, and before going into battle, they attend a religious service, where the chaplain tells them what a duty it is to defend western civilization and Christian values against the "eastern" Bolsheviks, "who have no time for God." Of course the men of this platoon have just seen the Russian POWs beaten, with one being beaten to death and left lying in a mud puddle.
Off the battalion goes to take a large factory complex, which they do with heavy casualties. During the fighting inside the factory, one soldier (played by Sebastian Rudolph) is told to shoot anything that moves, but when he does so, it turns out to be his friend, who dies. The young man is distraught for killing his own friend, but when the fighting calms down, one of the more experienced guys (played by Dominique Horwitz) befriends him and cheers him up. In this calmer phase, we also learn that the battalion started the attack to take the factory with 400 men, but more than 300 became casualties. The radio man for the platoon (played by Heinz Emigholz) puts a speaker up so the men can hear a speech by Hitler in Munich; a speech in which Hitler mentions the Stalingrad fighting.** The disconnect of the speech and the cheering Nazis with the actual soldiers doing the fighting is evident by the looks on the faces of the men, and a comment or two. Fighting erupts again, as Soviet troops are right across the street in another building. The radioman is seriously wounded and the men carry him to a temporary hospital full of bloody, wounded troops, but staffed by only a few medical personnel. When one of the men points a gun at a medical attendant in an effort to get the radioman treatment, a captain (the same captain who laughed at the lieutenant's complaint about the treatment of POWs) has all the men arrested. We learn during this same time that the Soviets have launched a major offensive which is about to cut off the entire force in Stalingrad. As punishment for the hospital incident, the men are put into a "penal battalion" ("German: "Strafbataillon"), with the dangerous task of clearing minefields from the snow and ice. They are given a chance to "redeem" themselves by defending a sector where a Soviet attack is expected very soon. The men dig into the snow, and sure enough, here come Russian tanks, covered with Red Army infantry riding along. The battle scene is absolutely gory, as men are blown apart by shells and bullets from both sides. In the end the Germans halt the Soviets, but there are only a handful of the men left. They return to their camp believing they will get leave (it's the Christmas season ), only to be told that all leaves have been canceled. A German force trying to break through the Soviet lines to free the entrapped army is halted, and the men and the entire army await the inevitable end.
Survival now becomes paramount to some of the men, and three of them, including the now totally disillusioned lieutenant, try to board a plane leaving from the last operating airfield in Stalingrad. To do so, they find dead German soldiers (frozen to death) and remove their "wound tags" (German: Wundzettel), which have the authorized signature of a doctor. The rush of soldiers toward the plane (which turns out to be the last plane to take off from Stalingrad) leaves the men unable to get aboard and the plane departs. The men return to the camp, where their fellow platoon survivors are sheltering from the bitter cold. They hear a plane flying over and several of the men run outside, only to see the plane drop some supplies by parachute. They find some food, as well as useless things like medals. As they enjoy some of the food, who shows up but their nemesis, the captain from previous scenes. He pulls his pistol out and tells them he can have them shot for stealing army supplies. There is an exchange of gunfire and the captain is killed, but so is one of the men; the young man who had earlier accidentally shot his friend inside the factory. Before the captain is shot, he tries to bribe the men by telling them he can give them food and shelter in exchange for his life, but by telling them where this food is, they go there after killing him. They find a well stocked building, complete with heat. So the ruthless captain had been stealing and hoarding food and other supplies all along. Each man now contemplates what he should do. One veteran (played by Sylvester Groth), who had earlier told how his wife and children had reacted to his changed personality when he had gotten leave a year before, puts a gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger (the scene is graphic, so keep that in mind, if you watch the movie). When relating the leave story, the man had told the other men that he was only happy when he returned to his unit on the Eastern Front, and that only then was he "really home."
"Rollo," mentioned earlier, takes the badly wounded and sick battalion commander, also a captain ("Hauptmann," in German), outside to continue the fighting, only to see a long line of German troops, led by a general, throwing down their weapons and raising their hands in surrender. In the freezing weather, the captain dies, and "seemingly" so does "Rollo." The only two men left, which includes the lieutenant, go with a Russian woman, who the "nasty" captain had kept chained to a bed for his private enjoyment, if you get my drift. Just when she thinks she has gotten them through to safety, shots ring out from Soviet troops, killing her. The lieutenant can go no further, and the two men freeze to death amidst the blowing snow.***
* Up to this point, these men had fought the French and British and Commonwealth forces. While all war is awful, there was not the ideological and racial hatred in their prior combat; in fact, Erwin Rommel, the famous German commander in North Africa, wrote a book about the North African war called, "Krieg Ohne Hass" ("War Without Hate").
** As mentioned in "Part One," the movie uses an actual recorded excerpt from the speech Hitler gave that day.
*** There are all kinds of books, articles and documentaries (some of which may cover the entire war or the war in Russia, but have segments on the battle) available about the "Battle of Stalingrad." Check your local library. I did almost all of the historical background part of the article from memory, but that comes from many years of study (literally decades), but I did check a couple of details directly from the movie, as it has some historical info as text in the film, and online at Wikipedia. Naturally, having watched the movie several times over the years, including just about two weeks ago, this provided the info for the synopsis of the movie.
Photo is from the 1998 Fox Lorber DVD
WORD HISTORY:
This anti-war movie follows a platoon of German specialist combat engineers, known as "Sturmpioniere" ("storm" or "assault engineers"), who were trained for close combat and for the use of explosives, and who were equipped with a high proportion of automatic weapons (remember, this was World War Two, when such weapons were not as common as today). The movie opens with the men enjoying leave in Italy, after serving in North Africa, where their platoon commander was wounded. Their new commander is from the German nobility, as his name is "von" Witzland (played by Thomas Kretschmann); the "von" indicating the tie to the nobility. He has not seen combat, and one of the experienced men, known as "Rollo" (played by Jochen Nickel) makes a bet with him, that he will outlive the new lieutenant. As one of the other men points out, if one lives and one dies, how will the survivor collect from a dead man? Anyway, the lieutenant is idealistic, but even many of the more experienced men think they will be able to deal with the Russians handily. The brutality of the Eastern Front is seen immediately upon their arrival in Stalingrad, when they witness Russian POWs being beaten, kicked and bludgeoned, as they are marched off.* When the lieutenant protests the brutal treatment of the POWs to a nearby captain, the captain laughs at him.
The platoon is put into a special battalion with other assault engineers, and before going into battle, they attend a religious service, where the chaplain tells them what a duty it is to defend western civilization and Christian values against the "eastern" Bolsheviks, "who have no time for God." Of course the men of this platoon have just seen the Russian POWs beaten, with one being beaten to death and left lying in a mud puddle.
Off the battalion goes to take a large factory complex, which they do with heavy casualties. During the fighting inside the factory, one soldier (played by Sebastian Rudolph) is told to shoot anything that moves, but when he does so, it turns out to be his friend, who dies. The young man is distraught for killing his own friend, but when the fighting calms down, one of the more experienced guys (played by Dominique Horwitz) befriends him and cheers him up. In this calmer phase, we also learn that the battalion started the attack to take the factory with 400 men, but more than 300 became casualties. The radio man for the platoon (played by Heinz Emigholz) puts a speaker up so the men can hear a speech by Hitler in Munich; a speech in which Hitler mentions the Stalingrad fighting.** The disconnect of the speech and the cheering Nazis with the actual soldiers doing the fighting is evident by the looks on the faces of the men, and a comment or two. Fighting erupts again, as Soviet troops are right across the street in another building. The radioman is seriously wounded and the men carry him to a temporary hospital full of bloody, wounded troops, but staffed by only a few medical personnel. When one of the men points a gun at a medical attendant in an effort to get the radioman treatment, a captain (the same captain who laughed at the lieutenant's complaint about the treatment of POWs) has all the men arrested. We learn during this same time that the Soviets have launched a major offensive which is about to cut off the entire force in Stalingrad. As punishment for the hospital incident, the men are put into a "penal battalion" ("German: "Strafbataillon"), with the dangerous task of clearing minefields from the snow and ice. They are given a chance to "redeem" themselves by defending a sector where a Soviet attack is expected very soon. The men dig into the snow, and sure enough, here come Russian tanks, covered with Red Army infantry riding along. The battle scene is absolutely gory, as men are blown apart by shells and bullets from both sides. In the end the Germans halt the Soviets, but there are only a handful of the men left. They return to their camp believing they will get leave (it's the Christmas season ), only to be told that all leaves have been canceled. A German force trying to break through the Soviet lines to free the entrapped army is halted, and the men and the entire army await the inevitable end.
Survival now becomes paramount to some of the men, and three of them, including the now totally disillusioned lieutenant, try to board a plane leaving from the last operating airfield in Stalingrad. To do so, they find dead German soldiers (frozen to death) and remove their "wound tags" (German: Wundzettel), which have the authorized signature of a doctor. The rush of soldiers toward the plane (which turns out to be the last plane to take off from Stalingrad) leaves the men unable to get aboard and the plane departs. The men return to the camp, where their fellow platoon survivors are sheltering from the bitter cold. They hear a plane flying over and several of the men run outside, only to see the plane drop some supplies by parachute. They find some food, as well as useless things like medals. As they enjoy some of the food, who shows up but their nemesis, the captain from previous scenes. He pulls his pistol out and tells them he can have them shot for stealing army supplies. There is an exchange of gunfire and the captain is killed, but so is one of the men; the young man who had earlier accidentally shot his friend inside the factory. Before the captain is shot, he tries to bribe the men by telling them he can give them food and shelter in exchange for his life, but by telling them where this food is, they go there after killing him. They find a well stocked building, complete with heat. So the ruthless captain had been stealing and hoarding food and other supplies all along. Each man now contemplates what he should do. One veteran (played by Sylvester Groth), who had earlier told how his wife and children had reacted to his changed personality when he had gotten leave a year before, puts a gun into his mouth and pulls the trigger (the scene is graphic, so keep that in mind, if you watch the movie). When relating the leave story, the man had told the other men that he was only happy when he returned to his unit on the Eastern Front, and that only then was he "really home."
"Rollo," mentioned earlier, takes the badly wounded and sick battalion commander, also a captain ("Hauptmann," in German), outside to continue the fighting, only to see a long line of German troops, led by a general, throwing down their weapons and raising their hands in surrender. In the freezing weather, the captain dies, and "seemingly" so does "Rollo." The only two men left, which includes the lieutenant, go with a Russian woman, who the "nasty" captain had kept chained to a bed for his private enjoyment, if you get my drift. Just when she thinks she has gotten them through to safety, shots ring out from Soviet troops, killing her. The lieutenant can go no further, and the two men freeze to death amidst the blowing snow.***
* Up to this point, these men had fought the French and British and Commonwealth forces. While all war is awful, there was not the ideological and racial hatred in their prior combat; in fact, Erwin Rommel, the famous German commander in North Africa, wrote a book about the North African war called, "Krieg Ohne Hass" ("War Without Hate").
** As mentioned in "Part One," the movie uses an actual recorded excerpt from the speech Hitler gave that day.
*** There are all kinds of books, articles and documentaries (some of which may cover the entire war or the war in Russia, but have segments on the battle) available about the "Battle of Stalingrad." Check your local library. I did almost all of the historical background part of the article from memory, but that comes from many years of study (literally decades), but I did check a couple of details directly from the movie, as it has some historical info as text in the film, and online at Wikipedia. Naturally, having watched the movie several times over the years, including just about two weeks ago, this provided the info for the synopsis of the movie.
Photo is from the 1998 Fox Lorber DVD
Frost-This word, closely related to "freeze," and meaning "coating of ice crystals on something," also, "the process of temperatures causing ice crystals to form," goes back to Indo European "preus," which meant "to freeze, to frost over." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "frustaz," which meant "frost." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "forst/frost," which then just became the latter from the Middle Ages until today. The other Germanic languages have: Standard German and Low German "Frost" (all German nouns are capitalized), Dutch "vorst," ^ West Frisian "froast," Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish "frost."
^ Note the similarity to one of the two previous English forms, "forst."
^ Note the similarity to one of the two previous English forms, "forst."
Labels: anti-war movies, Dominique Horwitz, English, etymology, Germanic languages, movies, Stalingrad, Thomas Kretschmann, World War Two movies
posted by Randy at 7:19 PM
3 Comments:
Johnnie should like these articles, since you have some of the German terms in parentheses. Very good account.
Thanks for the mention Seth, and u R right, I always like the German words he uses, helps me increase my German vocabulary.
I shold be able to rent thus movie, it sound pretty good. you give a good descrition
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