The Captain: Der Hauptmann

 

This 2017/18 movie has scenes of brutality that will likely make you cringe. It is based on the true story of German soldier and war criminal Willi Herold. When you read "war criminal," you will be surprised to then learn that Herold was a war criminal for primarily committing crimes against German soldiers, in what is certainly one of the more bizarre stories to come out of World War Two. And while I mention World War Two, the story is not about a famous battle, or about any battle actually. It is not filled with the names of famous generals, nor is the action of the story about the exploits of soldiers behind enemy lines or about heroic attacks on fortified positions. Just to set the scene, with the Allied forces moving deeper and deeper into Germany, individual German soldiers, or groups of soldiers, often became separated from their units and wandered around behind the front lines. Of course some (probably many) were deserters, as the end of the war was nearing, and fewer and fewer troops were willing to risk their lives for an outcome that was obvious. These men robbed and pillaged the communities in the countryside not only for food, but often for anything valuable they could carry off. Even as the German war effort circled the drain, Hitler and the Nazi regime spouted slogans about "final victory" and threatened soldiers and civilians with punishment, including death, if they didn't follow the path to "total ruin," a more apt description of the meaning of "total victory." To enforce "order" and to terrorize German military personnel and civilians into continued support of the regime, the Nazis used special courts to hold courts martial to "try" people and to usually execute the individuals within a short time of the "verdict."    

The film is in German, but it can easily be found with English subtitles, and it's likely available with subtitles in other languages. It stars Swiss actor Max Hubacher who gives a notable performance as Willi Herold, Milan Peschel as Freytag, Frederick Lau as Kipinski, Waldemar Kobus as Hansen, Alexander Fehling as Juncker.

The setting of the film is northwestern Germany in April 1945, just a couple weeks before the end of the war. A lone young man in the uniform of a German paratrooper is running across a snow covered field. Following not too far behind is a German military vehicle with several military police, many of them singing and firing rifles at the man. (We find out later the man's name is Willi Herold.) The head officer gives up his pistol for a rifle with a telescopic sight when the fleeing man runs into the forested area at the end of the field. The officer and the military police pursue Herold on foot, but they cannot find him. Herold comes across another German soldier and they break into a barn for food, only to be discovered. The farm people bring pitchforks and repeatedly stab the second man until he is killed. Herold gets away and he later finds an abandoned military vehicle stuck on the side of the road. Inside the vehicle he finds a suitcase with a new Luftwaffe captain's uniform.* The vehicle also contains some other odds and ends, as well as some apples. He tries on the uniform, and while it's not a perfect fit, it's very close, except for the pant legs, which are too long and uneven. Herold seems to have hit the jackpot; a new uniform to replace his raggedy corporal's uniform, an overcoat to help keep him warm and some apples to stave off his intense hunger. He begins to act out what it would be like to be an officer, with himself as the pursuer of others, just as he had been pursued. Another soldier comes along named Freytag and he helps get the vehicle out of the mud and he acts as the driver and takes Herold, whom he believes to be a captain, into a nearby town. The two go into an inn and Herold shouts "Heil Hitler" to the unenthusiastic older group of customers (younger men are in the military). He acts like a man of authority and he makes a list of names along with items stolen from them by deserters. He promises the Nazi Party will make reimbursement (German: "Rückerstattung") to them for their losses. He also promises to bring order to the town by stopping the looting and pillaging. All of this gains the support of the people there, and when Herold shouts "Heil Hitler" the next time, the men all spring to their feet, raise their arms in the Nazi salute and shout "Heil Hitler" in reply. All of this performance gets Herold and Freytag a dinner of roast beef, but the innkeeper becomes suspicious when an the overly eager Freytag grabs the two dinners from his hands. Freytag gives Herold his dinner and then sits and gobbles down the food just like the starved man he is, not like a man on a mission ordered by Hitler himself, which is what Herold has told the people there. Willi Herold himself makes sure to slowly eat his meal as the innkeeper looks on skeptically.

Later the townspeople catch a German army looter and the innkeeper tests the captain to see how he'll handle the situation. The captain walks up, takes a pistol and executes the man without another word. He then goes back to his room, where he is somewhat shaken by the incident. The next morning he and Freytag find some other men and the captain takes them into his group, claiming again that he has been commissioned by Hitler himself to report on the morale and activities behind the front lines. One of these men seems especially tough, but this might be what the "captain" is looking for. The group then comes across two soldiers with a 20mm flak gun, and they join the group too. The group is stopped by a troop of military police and a major test is now facing the captain. When pressed by the man in charge of the military police for his pay book,** he again relies on his story that Hitler has commissioned him for his assignment and he challenges the officer by telling him that he'll show his pay book if the officer shows his, and that he'll be sure to mention the officer in his report to Hitler. The bluff works and the man backs down, so Herold's cover as a captain is still safe. The captain's uniform and Herold's ability to act with authority show him many people will follow him, although his whole being as a captain under direct orders from Hitler is totally bogus, but it means survival, and the fulfillment of Herold's fantasy when he first donned the captain's uniform; that is, for him to be on the other side of power, power over life and death, as he had only experienced this from the perspective of the powerless when we encountered him in the very opening of the film, as Herold ran for his very life to escape the power of the military police.   

The military police and Herold's group go to a prison camp for German military prisoners, many of them deserters, but also some thieves and rapists. Nazi bureaucracy has various factions in control of different aspects of the camp and Herold is able to exploit the situation and essentially take control. He and a couple of his men go to one of the barracks, where one of Herold's men, a sadistic man, beats one of the prisoners to death. Herold knows the war can't go on much longer and that he and his troop of men need food and shelter, so he offers to "solve" the camp's overcrowding by executing prisoners. This wins him support from a couple of the camp factions who have wanted the prisoners killed, but who couldn't get the approval of one of the other Nazi factions. Herold again plays the "Hitler" card by telling one of the Nazi authorities in a telephone call that he has unlimited authority granted to him by Hitler himself. One of Willi's thugs begins executing prisoners himself, but then prisoners are used to dig their own mass grave and then executed in groups. Willi is becoming more and more taken with his role of power, and after one mass execution, a prisoner moans in agony in the mass grave after only being wounded, so Willi orders Freytag, the original member of Willi's group, but who is far less enthusiastic about Herold's growing ruthlessness, to climb down into the pit and kill the man, which he reluctantly does. Afterwards, as the camp guards, officers and Willi and his men gorge themselves on all sorts of foods and liquor, one of the Nazi officers tells Willi that on Hitler's approaching birthday there is going to be a huge military offensive launched to reverse the course of the war. He tells Willi that Hitler has said this, and that "the Führer does not lie." 

Allied aircraft later attack the camp destroying much of it and killing many of the remaining prisoners and guards. Herold gathers his men and goes into the nearby town where, under the phony guise of being one of Hitler's special "courts" with summary execution power, they kill the mayor who is preparing to surrender the town to the Allies. The group loots the town, and then they take over a hotel, where they begin a huge "party while we can." The army military police finally arrive and Herold and his men are arrested. Herold fails as he tries to destroy the page of his pay book showing that he is only a corporal, not a captain. and the military police get the "real" Willi Herold. At his military trial, Herold plays the "patriotism card," telling the officers hearing his case that he only acted in the interests of Germany and the German people. Even though the evidence clearly shows he impersonated an officer and committed numerous offenses, the right wing officers spare him, and decide to send him back to the front as the war nears its end. Herold escapes through a window and as he goes through a forest full of skeletons, we are informed that after the war, he was captured, tried and executed for war crimes.  

* The German paratroops were under the administrative control of the Luftwaffe, and they thus belonged to that branch of the German armed forces, but operationally; that is, in combat or on military assignment, they were typically under the command of the army.

** The German military used each soldier's pay book ("Soldbuch") as their identification and the book contained various information about a soldier, including promotions; thus, Willi Herold cannot let anyone see his pay book, because it would show that he was not a captain. 

 

Photo is of the Music Box Films 2018 dvd

 

 

WORD HISTORY:

Leap-The origin of this word is unknown. "Leap" is related to "lope," a word from the same Old Germanic form, but in this case, borrowed from Old Norse. Old Germanic had "hlaupanan," which meant, "to jump, to spring," and it "seems" to be a word only in the Germanic languages, but where Germanic got the word is the question. The Germanic form gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "hleapan," meaning, "to jump, to run, to dance." This then became "lepen," before the modern version. The use of the word for "jump over an object for sport or to avoid going around it" developed in the 1400s. The noun form is from Old Germanic "hlaupa(n)," and produced Old English "hlep/hlyp/hliep" (dialectal), meaning "a jump, a spring in movement;" thus also, "the process of jumping." Relatives in the other Germanic languages: German has "laufen," once spelled "hloufan" (to run, to walk, to jog, to flow), Low German "lopen" (run), and "tolopen" (to hurry), West Frisian "ljeppe" (to jump), Dutch "lopen" (to walk, to run), Icelandic "hlaupa" (to run), Danish "løbe" (to run), Norwegian "løpe" (to run) and "laupa" (dialect?... to run, to flow), Swedish "löpa" (to run).