Truth or Revisionism

Rating: Null/10 (25 July 2002)

I saw this and I was very disturbed, in a strange way. It's not that it is not well-done, and historical in a sense. But to me, and this is my opinion, it's a propaganda film to try to humanize the Germans and try to make us feel sorry for them. The Germans, who attacked Russia and planned to starve millions of them!
It's true that many portrayals of Nazi Germany portray them as "complete evil" and not even human. It has swung to such an extreme, the Nazi's have almost become a cartoon cliche and when you see the boots and uniforms, you can become detached from their humanity and it can alienate you from the fact that these are real people. It makes them nonhuman and that can be a great peril because they are so evil, it can make you think that the danger is past and cannot come again. So I am not for a total "evil incarnate" image of the Germans- I'm not talking Hitler- there may have been people who were AS evil as Hitler, but I surely don't think there's ever been someone who has been MORE EVIL - and surely he's the most evil man who ever held the power to back it up. But I'm talking about the Army itself and while I said I'm for allowing these soldiers to have human emotions, IN THIS FILM, instead of the extreme of robotic evil, it SWINGS the entire other way and tries to convince people that instead, they were a good people in bad circumstances. There's no middle ground here, I saw. The characters I saw here simply CANNOT BE this innocent and while I think it's possible for them to have some of the qualities, I find it IMPOSSIBLE they have ALL OF THEM which are presented in this movie. I'll elaborate with examples-
I guess there are spoilers here, so don't read if you don't want them. The soldiers are shown to do all of this:
1. When they come across a Russian boy, they actually give him bread to eat because they feel sorry for him.
2. When this same boy is supposed to be shot, the soldiers shoot him but in a heart-tugging scene, you would think they are horrified at it.
3. They are honorable to women. There is a Russian women who gets raped, and a gentle soldier demands that no one touch her.
4. They simply don't agree with this war and try any means to get out.
5. They cry, they talk about their mothers and fathers, they are kind to many people.
Maybe some of these things happened, but it seems to me, knowing what we know of the Germans and Stalingrad, that ALL these qualities could be embodied in the same men is dubious, at best. If so, it has be an anomaly of epic proportions. It could be a compilation of different memories, but c'mon! There's no middle ground here! I realize the film wants the audience to see the German Army as human beings, but they go too far in painting a white picture with no shades of black. I'm sure, the film-makers want to change people's opinions of the Germans during this time, and I'm not saying there weren't man like this. But give me a break!