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German band of brothers movie?


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Perhaps you're thinking of a Soviet saying and its ilk: "Russia is a place with a terrible past and a glorious future. And it always will be!"  But I wouldn't take Russian cynicism at its face.  Rest assured, you have friends in this whole forum.

 

On-topic,
I don't believe I've seen 1993's Stalingrad in this thread.  It has some excellent filming that makes it rather beautiful.  It also has a special place in my heart as one of the first movies of its type I'd seen, though I admit that Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter is quite good.

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Sublime,

Swear to God I too thought those two films had the same director, but it turns out they don't. Das Boot was directed by Wolfgang Petersen, Stalingrad by Joseph Vilsmaier. I think we may have been taken by Stalingrad being marketed as 'the spiritual successor to Das Boot' or some similar crap.

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Really? I ALWAYS had thought that! Wow thx. Maybe its a same actor?

It definitely feels like the spiritual successor. I only have 2 issues

1.Starving German troops adopting a orphaned Russian kids. Highly doubt it. More like theyd kill him.

2. The end with the killing of the officer etc. I realize the director wanted to show the hopelessness and futility but showing things that were proven to have happened probably would have bro8ght it home more and the truth was probably worse than the fiction.

Das Boot doesnt have those qualities im surprised now i didnt think about that 

 

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LOL, I was about to post something like you did, then decided to check Wikipedia just to be sure and found out. The BFC forum is good for reality checks. :D

9 minutes ago, Sublime said:

Starving German troops adopting a orphaned Russian kids. Highly doubt it. More like theyd kill him.

Whatever it's worth, a Russian anecdote:

After the War, a teacher was asking all the children in class what they did during the War. When it was little Vladimir's turn, he said:

- I carried rounds to soldiers.

- And what did the soldiers say to you, Vova?

- They said "Sehr gut, Waldemar."

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Very true of course  however hes more a mascot in Stalingrad  and the battlw is exceptional because even before the envelopment of 6th Army rations and living conditions for Wehrmahcht troops even by Ost Front standards and I dont see them taking the food or chance of betrayal having a 12  yr old "untermensch" lurking around their positions.

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23 hours ago, Sublime said:

Really? I ALWAYS had thought that! Wow thx. Maybe its a same actor?

It definitely feels like the spiritual successor. I only have 2 issues

1.Starving German troops adopting a orphaned Russian kids. Highly doubt it. More like theyd kill him.

 

I think you are wrong, imo they are more likely to have adopted.

Your a father, so imagine fighting in a god awful war and seeing children affected that have no part in the war what is your instinct?

Yes there are a small percentage of psycho's who would kill kids, but vast majority of humans are genetically engineered to protect kids.

Just my 2p

;)

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Idk. Yes im a father but all amyone needs to do is look largely at the conduct of the Wehrmacht in Russia. By and large brutality was the rule not the exception.

Every house commandeered during Russian winters condemned families to death. We have Wehrmacht wide decrees stating the war is to be fought differently and that the army would be expected to largely feed itself off the land. This killed untold numbers.

You have countless incidents ( to the point of an army commander sending a complaint to his army threatening his troops ) of wehrmacht soldiers shootinf wildly into the streams of POWs in the early days for sport. Volunteering for " actions " against jews.

Not only that but we.re not talking Wehrmacht troops in notmal conditions. We.re talking men who were utterly stretcged to the limits of endurance in histories most brutal battle or one of the top 3. They were underfed. They had learned their spades sharpened made a better weapon than an smg. The luftwaffe firebombed Stalingrad before the battle killing 75k civilians.

No sir I do not see any high chance of adoption by the Germans. Of course it could be one of those on in a million things but no. German conduct in Russia ESPECIALLY when they thought they were winning ( i.e. before 2/3/43 ) was utterly ruthless and cynical. If the boy had been older I could see them usong him as a HiWi but they were purposefully shunted to rear areas and were always the first to die of starvation or exposure in any of the innumerable massive fu*k ups the Wehrmacht had from 41 to 45 in the East.

But a young boy in the city? And what if a higher ranking officer found out? What if the boy screamed when silence was needed? ( didnt he betray them in the movie anyway? )

Nah man no way. Yeah i got a kid but if I was a German from then thered be a good chance Id view a Russian kid as nothing more than an animal of minimal use to me.  Even as an American in a city fight like Stalingrad I would absolutely make sure the kid was gotten rid of. Not killed but definitely not taken in and fed. No friggn way in the most brutal city battle of the most brutal land war in history. 

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I tend to agree with Sublime here. We in the West have little idea just how brutal and ugly the war in the East was. All wars tend to be brutal and ugly the closer you get to them, but the GPW took it at least a quantum step or two beyond the average. Hitler ordered his minions to make it as brutal and ugly as possible, and to this end they applied themselves with great energy and single minded purposefulness.

And then of course there was the Soviet payback...

Michael

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Hi, I don't disagree that war is brutal, but I also don't paint all humans with one brush.

I think in the right situation this is possible and likely. Not all German's were sold on the path of total war with the Russians. 

So it depends on the situation, if the men were located away from direct control in a fairly stable situation I.e. static part of the line, this to the men would be part of a way to mentally get away from the war. Of course it might not have lasted long, but I do believe in small acts of human kindness even on the Russian front.

WW1 saw a game of football being played in no_mans land in between the trenches. Lot's of examples of humans trying for a short while to not be part of the machinery of death.

 

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Yes it did. The first winter. Things were way too bitter after thr first XMas in Ww1. Look at 4 years later. Men KNEW the war would end at 11 AM and theres just as many examples of men trying to get some last kills in.. id say Stalingrad was already pretty deep into going brutal and becoming numb to brutality. Never mind even in a static area you.d see endless men being pulled in. The 6th Army literally ran out of combat infantrymen and started pulling them out of everywhere. Anywhere in the city WAS NOT ever SAFE or STATIC and thats where this situation takes place.

I almost guarantee you if some Germans had popped up with a football on XMas 1916 ( after the somme and verdun ) the french or brits would happily have gunned them down. Same in reverse.  Chivalry, old uniforms and the idea war could be put off worked in 1914 for xmas. However we.re talking a war that changed how we set our damned clocks! ( DST was made to improve factory efficiency) and what was not there in 1914 was the intense bitterness. Bitterness so intense I might add that it directly laid groundwork for another world war. ( ww1 really wasnt ww1 yet by 1914 the horror really hadnt even begun ) 

Fine maybe they could have taken him in. The movie should then also have shown one of them dutifully blowing the kids head off once a "chain dog" or offizier showed up. And dont tell me theyd refuse.   Theres a famous incodent of a mans best friend being on the firing squad to kill him vecause he 'deserted' at the Somme. I think youre waaaay underestimating what more than a year of heavy combat does to people and the insidiousness of military training in that whether BEF cifca 1916 and shooting your best friend or Wehrmacht 42 you WILL follow orders, or get put in that line too.

** yes otherwise the BEF is a bad example because by and large they were gallant gentlemen fighting for another nations freedom and were nowhere near the criminal band - however militarily effective - the wehrmacht was pretty much the moment it moved anywhere East of Germany.

Edited by Sublime
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http://www.childrenofstalingrad.org/acts-of-humanity/

Sublime you making a convincing case and I am sure that the vast majority of the times you are correct, but I do believe that even in the worst of situations humans can make stands against those situations by small acts of kindness.

So adopt a boy maybe only for a short while, maybe just giving him bread, maybe they got caught doing it, maybe those acts of kindness were not discussed, but some people do make them, even if they are forgotten or the people making them die in the process...

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