Erwin Geschonneck portrait as Oberst and later General Petershagen is authentic. As a German I can testify to that. Considering the fact this movie was made under communist rule, this takes very little away from "how people behaved ". The acting is superb in all respects. This movie honors Germans with an active conscience, and they where few. I grew up in west Germany, in a country that had it's pains dealing with the past. A lot of it remained unresolved. Now it is time, after the iron curtain has fallen, for the movieindustrie to take another look at hidden treasures like this one. I believe the intelligent public should be made aware of this masterpiece of a movie. It definitely deserves restoration and a DVD release. So at least schools and university's could use it. Because for the powerful content, people might actually learn from the past.
2 Reviews
Superior WW2 drama *** SPOILER ***
boyzonee27 December 2001
Warning: Spoilers
Based on fact this is the story of conscience-ridden German army colonel Ebershagen during the latter half of WW2. Originally a 3-part mini-series made for East German television, it runs for nearly 4 hours.
Episode 1 finds him in Stalingrad at the end of 1942 when the Red Army is beginning to encircle the German 6th Army. While his men are freezing to death around him or sometimes killed in combat, the colonel himself is wounded and is evacuated on one of the last planes out before the trap snapped.
In episode 2 he is appointed Kommandant of his hometown Greifswald 150 kilometres north of Berlin after a long convalescence. It's early 1945 and the Red Army is advancing rapidly through Poland and the German provinces east of the river Oder. Ebershagen doesn't intend to sacrifice his town and fight to the last man. Having realized years ago that the war is lost anyway, he wants instead to surrender and declare Greifswald an open town after the Russians have crossed the Oder in April 1945. In order to succeed he has to keep about a dozen balls in play at a time, such as Army brass, SS and Gestapo, Hitler Youth, party officials and concerned town leaders plus the 6000 Russian P.O.W.s in the nearby camp.
After the surrender of Greifswald at the beginning of episode 3 Ebershagen follows his regiment into captivity in Russia. First he is placed in an officers's camp outside Moscow where he soon draws the disdain and harassment of his fellow prisoners who regard him as a traitor to the Fatherland while they spend their time re-playing their lost battles on the barrack room table each and every day. On the other hand the colonel is reluctant to join the renegades who are willing to work for the Russians or the newly established Communist Party in East Germany. After a year he joins a work brigade of privates who are toiling in the woods. In 1948 he returns to Germany and his wife.
Considering the fact that this film was made under Communist rule in 1961 when the Berlin Wall was erected, it gives a mostly well-balanced and nuanced account of the period in which it is taking place and of the men and a few good women making history. Don't expect too much action and too many explosions around the actors. Most of the combat scenes are stock footage in b/w like the whole film, but yet every image is stark and compelling (if not spell-binding). No minute should be missed. Themes about duty and conscience, obedience and guilt, honour and treason are masterly played through with State Actor Erwin Geschonneck as the quiet-spoken and yet towering centre of the film. Think of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum combined and speaking German, and you will have an idea of what he is like. All the other excellent actors are simply too numerous to be mentioned. This film isn't easy to come by, so unless you catch it on some German channel sometime, you'll miss out on a great film.
This very 27th December is by the way Erwin Geschonneck's 95th birthday and if you wonder how he managed to look so dogged and troubled for this long film, you try and read his biography.
Episode 1 finds him in Stalingrad at the end of 1942 when the Red Army is beginning to encircle the German 6th Army. While his men are freezing to death around him or sometimes killed in combat, the colonel himself is wounded and is evacuated on one of the last planes out before the trap snapped.
In episode 2 he is appointed Kommandant of his hometown Greifswald 150 kilometres north of Berlin after a long convalescence. It's early 1945 and the Red Army is advancing rapidly through Poland and the German provinces east of the river Oder. Ebershagen doesn't intend to sacrifice his town and fight to the last man. Having realized years ago that the war is lost anyway, he wants instead to surrender and declare Greifswald an open town after the Russians have crossed the Oder in April 1945. In order to succeed he has to keep about a dozen balls in play at a time, such as Army brass, SS and Gestapo, Hitler Youth, party officials and concerned town leaders plus the 6000 Russian P.O.W.s in the nearby camp.
After the surrender of Greifswald at the beginning of episode 3 Ebershagen follows his regiment into captivity in Russia. First he is placed in an officers's camp outside Moscow where he soon draws the disdain and harassment of his fellow prisoners who regard him as a traitor to the Fatherland while they spend their time re-playing their lost battles on the barrack room table each and every day. On the other hand the colonel is reluctant to join the renegades who are willing to work for the Russians or the newly established Communist Party in East Germany. After a year he joins a work brigade of privates who are toiling in the woods. In 1948 he returns to Germany and his wife.
Considering the fact that this film was made under Communist rule in 1961 when the Berlin Wall was erected, it gives a mostly well-balanced and nuanced account of the period in which it is taking place and of the men and a few good women making history. Don't expect too much action and too many explosions around the actors. Most of the combat scenes are stock footage in b/w like the whole film, but yet every image is stark and compelling (if not spell-binding). No minute should be missed. Themes about duty and conscience, obedience and guilt, honour and treason are masterly played through with State Actor Erwin Geschonneck as the quiet-spoken and yet towering centre of the film. Think of John Wayne, Gary Cooper and Robert Mitchum combined and speaking German, and you will have an idea of what he is like. All the other excellent actors are simply too numerous to be mentioned. This film isn't easy to come by, so unless you catch it on some German channel sometime, you'll miss out on a great film.
This very 27th December is by the way Erwin Geschonneck's 95th birthday and if you wonder how he managed to look so dogged and troubled for this long film, you try and read his biography.
See also
Awards | FAQ | User Ratings | External Reviews | Metacritic Reviews
