Generation War

I purchased this movie just recently and found it jaw-dropping and hard to turn away from, despite what some other people have said in their reviews. Basically, 5 friends meet in a bar in Berlin, two of them brothers and another of them Jewish, which is hard to believe, but not unheard of, right before the start of the German invasion of Russia in June, 1941, and pledge to meet back there again after the final victory is assured by Christmas. Almost immediately, their little farewell party gets unwanted attention from a Gestapo officer, who comes in claiming he's been complained to that they're dancing to swing-dance music, which is now considered forbidden by Germany's laws, and also dancing with a JEW, the unholy crime. One of the girls, aspiring to be the next Marlene Dietrich, and who is dating that Jewish guy, who is a second-generation tailor, kinda warms up to the Gestapo officer and even sleeps with him, hoping she can suck up to him enough to get her boyfriend legal papers getting him out of Germany and to the USA before the final roundup of Jews begins. That doesn't do the trick at all, and her Jewish boyfriend is rounded up in December, 1941 to be sent to a concentration camp. But he and one other manage to bug out of the train taking them there by prying up enough of the floorboards in their car and dropping down across the tracks, a risky move when you think about how fast the train is going. The two brothers witness a lot of action in the Eastern campaigns against Russia. Each scene marks their advance as they get closer to Moscow, and while the older brother is a lieutenant commanding a platoon, it's not lost on him that his younger brother, an enlisted man, is not well thought of by the other men in their unit, with a poor attitude regarding soldiering, and accused of being a coward. After that brother seems to deliberately give away their position by freely lighting up a cigarette in the dead of night and marking that position to an attack by Russian aircraft, he gets jumped by several of the men in the platoon and badly injured as a result. One of their friends, Charlotte(Charly, as she is called by others)is a field nurse located not far from them, and still getting used to the multiple wounds of soldiers from their side that she has to treat daily. Part 2 seems to skip through quite a bit after that, going from January, 1942 to right before the beginning of the Battle of Kursk in the summer of 1943. The older brother, Wilhelm, is still a lieutenant, which is questioned by some people in the reviews as to why he isn't a captain by then, like many would be promoted to considering the time he spent in the field and the mass casualties the Germans are taking. Considering that this lieutenant has several times DOUBTED their "final victory" right in the presence of his superiors and looks like he's leaning towards defeatism, I guess his superiors wouldn't have promoted him for that either, regardless of their losses and needs for experienced officers. The Gestapo has been known to give such officers a fate ending at the end of a firing squad if they spouted defeatist remarks. Their "Marlene Dietrich" visits the front lines as well, performing songs for the German soldiers before they're to be sent against the Russians at Kursk as fuel for the meat-grinding machine of war. Kursk goes badly for the Germans, and this singer knows it since she was too late to catch her own plane out of there before the battle began, and is temporarily working alongside Charlotte as a nurse and stretcher-bearer. Once back in Berlin, she makes the ultimate mistake by chiding several soldiers in a bar loudly enough to voice her opinion that "the Final Victory has been cancelled, so you better go back to fight while you still can." In my observance of this scene, some of the soldiers were a rowdy lot, looking at her as if they wanted a piece of ass, got angry at her speech, so in no time flat, they turn her in to the Gestapo as a defeatist. In 1943 Berlin, flapping your gums out loud in public about how Germany was losing the war could only have ONE consequence of your actions, and sleeping with a Gestapo officer and threatening to tell his wife about their affair doesn't make it any better. Wilhelm nearly gets killed at Kursk, and seems to stumble in a daze away from the fighting and takes up refuge in an abandoned cabin before he's found and arrested by the local military authorities some time later. His younger brother mows down a squad of Russians single-handedly, gets cut off from his unit, and has to put on Russian military clothes to get through the trap even though his fellow soldiers mistake him for a Russian and shoot him. He nearly dies, and clings to life thanks to Charly and her skills. When coming home on leave, his father treats him like dirt, as if blaming him for still being alive while the Favorite Son is still missing and presumed dead. He coldly tells his father, "I'm sorry the bullet missed by two inches" and cuts his leave short to be the soldier he hadn't been in the beginning. Wilhelm is sentenced to death, but the powers that be change their mind and sentence him to a penal battalion of defeatists and other questionable soldiers, where their task is to be thrown in where the fighting is fiercest as cannon fodder for the war machine. Around this time, the Jewish former tailor that escaped the Train of Death is now working for Polish partisans for the Home Army. The partisans have opinions that are strongly anti-Jewish, so he keeps his true origins to himself until that identity is given away after his fellow partisans ambush a German train that is packed with Jewish inmates heading to a camp. The partisans are agreeing to the fate of leaving the Jews locked inside the train while they make off with everything else of value. He unlocks the doors and lets all the inmates out to give them a chance at staying alive. Thereafter he is banished from his fighting group, and led into the forest by the leader at what appears to be a personal execution, but the leader tosses the gun down at him and turns away back into the trees. Reviews have complained about the Polacks' so-called anti-Semite opinions, and how the Home Army had units that even saved Jews, but this movie is not far from the truth. Many parts of Poland even before 1939 were having anti-Semite laws that limited the numbers of Jewish people from attending universities. Jews were not very well thought of by the general Polish population, some of which collaborated with the Germans gleefully to help get rid of the "Jewish problem". The Home Army even questioned why they should try to supply the Jews with their limited weapons for the '43 Uprising in the Jewish ghettos of Warsaw, since "Jews don't make good fighters." The facts are, even though many Poles bent over backwards to help rescue Jews during the war, there was no shortage of Poles who didn't care about the fate of Jews in any way and some stated that "they're getting what they deserve." There definitely was no future in Poland for those Jews who survived once the war was over. That fact was well-documented. All in all, it's a great movie, and really has a way in showing another part of the war which wasn't revealed in any other WW2 movie. Well done!!!

Not wanting to mirror what others have already said, this production is nothing short of absolutely epic. The details, large and small, were painstakingly reproduced, and that's the kind of thing that usually drives me crazy with WWII movies, but not here. They got everything right with this one. The production quality is as good as, or better than, Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, and the story line is extremely well done and knitted together perfectly. You will feel like you know these people and you're right there alongside what's going on. I have only two complaints with the film - one is that the English captions are not entirely accurate to what's actually being said, even to the point of changing the name of the series from "Unser Mutter, Unser Vater" to "Generation War" because they thought that would appeal to an American audience more (I suppose). Aside from the title, knowing a bit of German, the sub-titles and translations aren't quite right in a number of places. Still, nothing major is lost due to this and it's not something that should keep anyone from buying this movie. My bigger complaint, which occurs in virtually all films made by Germany dealing with either war, is the seemingly irresistible urge to apologize for being the "bad guy" and painting themselves as "the bad guys" in virtually every situation. This film was largely escaping that until the final hour (or so), when the Reich falls apart. Then, we see an unbelievably kind female Soviet officer who steps in to save the day, and well disciplined Soviet troops who follow her orders, and Soviet troops at the end of the war behaving honorably, taking prisoners, and generally seeming to be all-around nice guys. That did bother me a bit, but I have watched this three times now and I would HIGHLY recommend this film to ANY WWII history buff. This is probably the best German war film since "Das Boot" and the scope of this work is fantastic. If you're into German WWII history, you absolutely MUST have this film in your collection - it is an absolute masterpiece.

Es de esas películas que siempre mantienes en el recuerdo. La historia, la fotografía, los efectos especiales, los actores, están a un nivel insuperable. Una historia objetiva y desmitificadora de II Guerra Mundial. Vi el primer capítulo en TV y no he parado hasta localizarla y adquirirla. Para los amantes del cine bélico, un título imprescindible. Sobre la calidad de esta edición de BETA en blu-ray (duración 270', imagen 1080 HD, formato 1,78:1 y sonido DTS HD en español y alemán, subtitulos en español y con extras) decir que es simplemente perfecta, lo mismo que el envío de Amazon. Un 10.

Excellent movie of group of german friends and how they survived the war. Great twists and turns and although it may be a little far fetched is very believable. Shows how ordinary Germans caught up in the war managed to survive .

Il film è avvincente e, secondo me, anche abbastanza verosimile. E' incentrato non tanto sulle battaglie (ridotte ad alcune scene) ma più sulla vita dei singoli personaggi, attraverso un contesto storico veramente difficile. Si fa riferimento ai crimini nazisti ma non si parla di campi di concentramento (tema questo, che ritengo ormai sufficientemente sviluppato e proposto da centinaia di altre pellicole). Lo consiglio assolutamente. Sicuramente inoltre, ci sono molte meno "americanate" rispetto ad altri titoli come "Salvate il soldato Ryan" o Pearl Harbor. Insomma, un film per intenditori. Lo consiglio.

Well, it certainly shows WW2 from a different perspective...that of the ordinary Wehrmacht soldier. Hitler's brainwashing of the German population is tangible as is the manner in which millions of ordinary people are still brainwashed by despotic leaders even in the 21st century. Throughout history there are numerous examples of this. Some viewers seem to think of this as being about the Holocaust. It is mentioned and one of the 5 characters, Viktor, experiences the treatment of Jews from a personal perspective. It isn't really about the Polish partisans either, although they are not treated in the most positive light. For me, the ethos was described perfectly towards the end of the series. One of the soldiers hiding in a barn with Wilhelm states: "To begin with we were heroes and now we're just assholes". Isn't that the way with any ordinary conscript in a defeated army in any century? It reminds us also that Hitler's 'jugend' were still brainwashed into fighting at the end even though the war was already lost. The series is beautifully shot with a few original newsreel films intermingled with the story. The acting is excellent....especially by Volker Bruch I thought. There are several parts which are most unlikely as plotlines. Mainly how the five main characters meet up/cross paths throughout the story. There are also minor sub-story scenes which are pretty much taken from other WW2 films...Anthropoid being one such example. Ultimately, it's a drama, a story and not an historically accurate representation. Very few 'stories' ever are. Shakespearian historical plays aren't accurate and yet they are lauded. As entertainment I thought it was excellent. The mental, emotional and physical decline of the characters is beautifully portrayed and acted. Does the storyline have drawbacks? Definitely. Is it 100% historically accurate? No, but then it's not an historical documentary. Would I recommend it? Without question.

Der Film is sehr interessant für alle die Geschichte und das Kriegsgeschehen besser verstehen wollen schaut Ihn euch auf jeden fall an