Generation War

Being fed the usual US blockbuster TV series makes the viewer numb. Mindless rubbish that is sold to us as a"'Television Event 'is nothing more than marketing hype. But every now and then a quality television film comes along. Generation War is a bright light in an otherwise production line of poor offerings that seem to rate on commercial TV. This film was brilliant in so many ways. From the skillful direction and intriguing storyline to masterful character development, from magnificent set recreations to convincing performances from its actors, this film is a winner.

Having an interest in WWII history I would agree that some albeit minor inconsistencies in the retelling of history may be identified. But given that it is entertainment mixed with history it does an outstanding job of closely matching the attitudes and people of the time. Its easy for us to sit back in the 21st Century judging the people and attitudes of those living in a deceitful, cruel and secretive fascist state that was Nazi Germany. But times were different and all people that live through any war (whether good or bad) are in some way adversely affected by it. Generation War showed another side to the WWII story which shows no one is a winner. Needless to say I thoroughly enjoyed this offering from German TV.

I have watched the series several times now, and I still find it pretty engrossing. It was made by German filmmakers for a German audience, ostensibly to nudge the fast passing away generation of eyewitnesses and veterans and the generations of their children and grandchildren to use the last chance time will give them to break the wall of silence and talk about their wartime experiences. The series has a whole lot on it's platter, arguably more than enough to cover in a meaningful way in 4.5 hours: the enthusiasm of youngsters for Hitler's war; the obvious persecution of Jews and the developing genocide in the East; the nature of the Nazi regime, the unprecedented savagery of the war, the commissar order, taking casualties from partisan ambushes, savage counter insurgency warfare, the dehumanization of the populations of the conquered territories at the hands of the Germans, plans of colonization and ethnic cleansing, battle trauma, the disillusionment of the soldiers, what it was like to fight a losing total war, denunciation, finally the savagery of the soviet troops. In the end, everything is in ruins, countless are dead and the survivors emerge as deeply scarred personalities, each of them having to live with personal guilt and the ghosts of the past.

Granted, the numerous chance encounters of the lead characters may be unlikely but they are an acceptable plot device. What can't be seriously disputed is that the mini-series takes great pains to put the audience in the shoes of the five young Berliners on their journey through the madness of total ideological war. The dominant question looming in the background is not so much the well known question, asked in the comfortable situation of a stable post-war order „How could you be such a criminal tool of Hitler's genocidal war?" but rather „Damn, what would I have done in their position and where do I take the smug conviction from that I would have done so much better?". The overall approach is not a conversation stopper between the generations but an outstretched hand, not a tone of indictment and condemnation but one of empathy.

I came across two major groups of audiences who got all worked-up and downright mad about the show: German internet-Nazis and patriotic Poles. The former were foaming at the mouth about just another installment of guilt-worship and defilement of the supposedly heroic and noble German soldier of WWII (and the millions of German civilians who got killed, raped and expelled from their homelands). The latter were upset that a German show about WWII in the east doesn't center on the suffering of Poles at the hands of Germans and even portrays Polish civilians and partisans as ardent antisemites.

Both camps, even the internet Nazis, have some points, I believe. When Friedhelm says in the first part that the Russians „are learning from us" about atrocities, it's a fair objection to point out that Stalin's mass-murdering terror regime in fact didn't need any lessons from the German invaders about committing atrocities, be it politically motivated mass-murder, genocide by famine, ethnic cleansing, etc. At the time the film starts, Stalin and his countless henchmen still had much more blood on their hands than the Nazis and their helpers – which was going to change, however… For a good account on this, read Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands).

By the way, a legal fact which is apparently too unpopular nowadays to be mentioned ever is that customary international law at the time of WWII allowed quite far-reaching reprisal actions of occupying forces when attacked by irregular forces. Even the US Army field manual of 1937 deals in detail with the accepted practice of hostage shooting and the burning of villages as reprisals… Collective punishment had been commonplace in the soviet union since the revolution, and the British applied collective punishment in their colonial rearguard fights even throughout the 1950s. (Sadly, that list is far from complete: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_punishment). That doesn't undo German atrocities but it's not helpful either to view those completely out of historical context.

Polish criticims, as mirrored in several reviews here, centers on the fact that the show depicts the war against the Soviet Union and therefore leaves the Polish campaign of '39 and the subsequent German occupation of Poland largely out of the picture. What makes countless Poles then totally snap is the double dip of being once again portrayed as antisemites (remember the bitter reactions in Poland to a brief scene in Spielberg's Schindler's List or to the favorable reception in the US of books by the Polish-born author Jan Gross) and then, of all people, by Germans. While I believe that the subject of antisemitism among Poles could have been portrayed in a more balanced fashion, especially by blaming someone else than the AK who evidently helped Jews and even supplied weapons for the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising, I think it's time people in Poland start to accept that todays's Germans have a right as anyone else on the planet to include Polish antisemitism in their renderings of history. As for brave Polish resistance to the Nazis not having gotten more screen time, it's the decision of the makers of the show what their story focuses on. I was also disappointed when AMC's Hell on Wheels reduced Plains Indians to mere plot devices but I guess that I just have to live with it that Hell on Wheels is about people building a transcontinental railway and not about the plight of the ethnically cleansed Indians. Same applies here.

Summing up, if you have seen enough comic-book Nazi villains on screen and are curious about the German experience in WWII, this mini-series is a pretty well-made, honest and quite engrossing attempt.

July 1941. Five friends, three men, two women, meet in Berlin and, confident that the war is going Germany's way, promise to meet up again at Christmas. Two are soldiers, off to fight on the Eastern Front. One will be a nurse in a field hospital on the Eastern Front. One is an entertainer. One is Jewish. Their individual experiences of the war will vary somewhat but their aim is to one day be reunited.

Very gritty and engaging war drama showing WW2 from the German perspective. Not just the military point of view but also from a civilian aspect and a Jewish aspect. Quite original in this regard as it tries to capture a broad German experience.

Incredibly successful in this regard as we not only see the battles from the everyday soldier's perspective but home life and the persecution of Jews. Quite realistic and a harrowing ordeal, especially as the war goes on.

We also see how the war changes people. One soldier goes from coward to callous killer. One woman goes from fervently pro-Hitler to distinctly anti the Nazis and the war. The individual story arcs are incredibly interesting and plausible and are what holds the series together.

In between we have some good battle scenes, some great intrigue and some good human drama.

There are some scenes which do come off as being contrived, especially towards the end, but these are fairly minor blemishes in what is otherwise a superb series.

I'll leave it to Germans, Jews and historians to vouch for the accuracy of this film. As a work of dramatic entertainment, however, I can attest to its brilliance of construction and visual realization. Following the lives of five principal characters in the confusion of war is no easy task, yet the makers have succeeded in keeping their stories clear while producing exciting variety for us viewers. I saw this film at a festival after sitting through two duds. Generation War came as a riveting, exciting and thoroughly professional achievement. The writing, acting, cinematography are all first-rate, and kudos, too, to the musical score, including the terrific song, "Mein kleines Herz". In detailing the lives of five people during World War II on the eastern front, Generation War ultimately exposes the brutality and futility of war. Because its protagonists plunge into it with the greatest of hopes, the process of how those hopes are dashed is what makes Generation War such a fascinating film.

Like a mirror image of Der Untergang, the film depicts the lives of ordinary German people during the same period and shown with the same brutal honesty. It should also be based on real life events, since at the end they show how much each of the protagonists lived.

The plot revolves around five friends, in their late teens and early twenties, happily partying before some of them are sent to the front for the war that "would end by Christmas". There are two brothers, sons of an asshole father who loves just one of them. The unloved one naturally is an intellectual and an artist, while the other is the pride of his father. Then there are two girls, one wishing to become a star like Marlene Dietrich and another preparing to go to the front as a nurse to help the fatherland. Also in their group of friends is the boyfriend of the wannabe starlet, who is also a Jew.

Now, they all start with expectations, the first being that the war will be swift and won by Germany. Other such expectations reduce the rate of violence related deaths in a war, make Germans leave nice Jews alone, applaud the loving and caring nature of humans everywhere and . The war changes all of those in a gruesome three parter film that lasts for almost five hours. Years later, when the war is actually over, they meet at the café where they optimistically planned to party that first Christmas, their souls and lives in tatters.

The story is complex, the script well done, the war effects and related scenes are realistic, the characters are human and change a lot through the film, the acting is exceptional. It is certainly at least one order of magnitude better than most American war movies, perhaps because the sense of hopelessness given by a war lost (morally at least) way before it began gives everything an uncomfortably realistic grit. Any acts done in the name of god and country look and feel completely stupid and pointless, and are not sold as heroic drama moments. Good guys don't always make it and bad guys escape unpunished.

If you like war movies this is a good one and I submit that this film will appeal even to people who don't generally watch the genre - like myself. It also makes me want to watch more German films in the hope that they would be just as good.