Stalingrad

I first saw Stalingrad about 7 years ago and to this day it still hits me as hard as the first time I watched it. It is the story of Leutnant von Witzland, Unteroffizier Rohleder, Obergefreiter Reiser, and Oberschütze Müller and their desperate fight for survival in the deadliest battle in the history of war: STALINGRAD. The film starts off in Italy in the summer of 1942 where their platoon is resting following heavy combat in North Africa. Soon they are on a train heading for the Eastern Front. The men of 1st Platoon laugh and joke, play games, write letters home, and enjoy the view of western Russia as they head for the Ukraine. This is as light-hearted as the film gets. What follows is a very accurate and graphic portrayal of the infamous battle. It pulls no punches. It's main antagonist is Hauptmann Haller, a field police officer who thinks nothing of allowing his men to abuse and murder Russian and Ukrainian prisoners. At one point he lines up a group of civilians and has them shot saying they were partisans.

The combat scenes themselves are even more horrific. In one scene a German soldier hits a Russian over the head with a shovel as the Russian is trying to kill Ltn. von Witzland. In another scene a German soldier is cut in half by a Russian tank shell. There are many other gruesome scenes in the film, but they are necessary. The world has to see what happened in the Battle of Stalingrad. To see its brutality. To have its heart broken at the horrendous waste of the soldiers' lives. Over 2 million people lost there lives. Only 6000 of Field Marshal Paulus' 250,000-man 6th Army survived the battle. As with the battle, the film itself does not have a happy ending. And that's the way it should be. And as you watch this film, remember one thing, not every German soldier who fought in the war was a criminal. They were mostly decent people caught up in events well beyond their control.

This is a film that I keep coming back to, for a variety of reasons. As a testament to the suffering of the ordinary soldier on the Eastern Front in the Second World War, it is a powerful one. There are a number of very powerful scenes in the film which help to capture the horror of war, such as the tank battle for instance. Furthermore, from what I can see the experiences documented in the film are by and large 'true' - if you read A. Beevor's book 'Stalingrad' you will know what I mean. The film is also successful in the sense that it doesn't allow character or plot to dominate it - it is simply a tale of survival, that attempts to depict the battle mainly from the ordinary (German) soldier's point of view. I've read somewhere that the original screenplay had to be toned down, which doesn't surprise me at all - if they tried to really show what the battle was like, it would have been almost impossible to make I'm sure. Even so, there are still some moments that are difficult to watch - this was made before Private Ryan but is possibly even harder-hitting in places. Just one word of caution - don't buy the dubbed 'English' version, it's pretty awful and spoils the film - try to get a copy in the original (German) version with English subtitles, it's far more powerful. You may need to buy a Region 1 DVD of the film in this case, as I did.

The film is about the battle of Stalingrad. For those of you who don't know anything about it, it was the worst battle in the Second World War. Over 1 million people died in the course of the battle. This is the only film that I've seen that seems to have actually captured how bad things were in the war between Russia and Germany. What I really liked about it is that the two ideologies (Nazism and Communism) were nowhere in the film. Unlike most American films, the Germans are not seen as blood thirsty murderers, but what the average German foot soldier was, a person.

The film revolves around four soldiers fighting in Stalingrad. They were transferred there to try and take the city. The film follows these men from August of 1942 to early 1943. During this time, they learn about the horrors of war and try to find a way out of the battle.

Through the entire film, one feels the desperation of the entire battle. Unlike "Enemy at the Gates" the film makers didn't try to put some sappy love story or dress up factual occurrences of the battle. This film may be fiction, but it conveys what happened in the bloodiest battle in World War II.

There can be no real victors in war if we value human life at all. That so many German and Russian boys should die in the snow-bound wilderness around Stalingrad is a tragedy beyond comprehension. The camera crew did a great job in bringing to the screen the vastness of Russia with soldiers camouflaged in white struggling on the point of death across frozen landscapes. Far from home and missing their loved ones the German soldiers are depicted as rough diamonds with kind hearts sharing their last crust of bread with starving Russian children. The over-all German plan is to take certain cities important in the flow of oil and supply of food to the Russian enemy, but their plans are thwarted when the Russian armies encircle them. The close fighting is well filmed with lots of explosions, flames and shattered bodies among fallen masonry. I liked particularly the contrast of the opening scenes in sunny Porto Cervo (where the Germans are celebrating their recent victories) with the tragic scenes which followed when calamity overtakes them.I thought too that the three struggling figures exhausted in defeat symbolised the horrific loss of human life and the futility of war. While none of the actors shone above the others, their characterisations were adequate enough though I got somewhat confused with such a large cast and all the same uniforms. The lasting impression is not with individual performances but with the over-all mood of this tragic event captured superbly under expert direction. One soldier says to another:"This will give us the Iron Cross" The reply:"Yes...it will look good on your coffin!"

I had the honour of knowing a German soldier who fought in the streets of Stalingrad and was one of the few (about 9,000) who got out, on an aircraft. He was the father of one of my boyhood schoolmates, a quiet decent man, his face would light up in a kind of animation whenever the subject was raised, but he wouldn't talk about it to us boys.

He's gone now, poor old fellow. He spent the last years of his life living in a Caravan/humpy on the foot of a mountain in Southern Australia, estranged from his wife, who never forgave him after she discovered he'd fathered a child to another woman during WW2 and was secretly supporting the child financially.

A kinder, more honorable man would be hard to find. I think this film succeeds in depicting the decency of the people on both sides of the conflict as well as the obligatory sadism of the Officer who ordered the firing squad shootings of Russian civilians.

It's pity the Germans still feel no WW2 Film is complete unless traces of the 'evil Nazi' are included. On the other hand it was not lost on myself at least, that the prayer scene, in which the German Army chaplain made a long point of the fact that each Wehrmacht soldier had 'God with us' imprinted under his belt buckle. While the Godless communists enemy did not.

Maybe this is a sly inclusion by the filmaker showing how European peasantry has been propagandised to hate and kill the enemy for centuries.

Stalingrad was the largest battle ever fought in human history. The Germans lost 300,000 frontline combat troops and later, the second World War. This is the best Film ever made on the subject. It is fitting that it was done by Germans.

Bernhard