I knew a man who was there

Rating: Null/10 (22 May 2003)

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