Germans are people too!

Rating: 10/10 (1 March 2002)

I have to say first that I REALLY like Stalingrad (gave it a 10). The main reason is simply that it shows a piece of the war through German (albeit 1992 German) eyes, something not done in a significant way by any US-produced movie. Even more remarkable (and commendable) is that the vast majority of the soldiers depicted are decent people and not faceless child-eating murdering Nazi thugs (as in "Enemy at the Gates"). Having learned German (the subtitles are incomplete, sometimes wrong, and generally bad) the movie was made all the more enjoyable - some of the stuff just doesn't translate to English. Sure there are problems - continuity, editing, technical, etc. But I've read now three different histories of the battle (most recently Antony Beevor's excellent book) and the movie does an excellent job of showing you a cross-section of life for German soldiers who fought, starved, froze and eventually died during the campaign while avoiding a superficial "check all the boxes" plot like the one in the truth-bending yet inexplicably popular "Platoon". Other commentators have criticized the character development in "Stalingrad", a charge just as easily directed at any film with the ambitious scope of this movie. These comments might just as well be due to the problems of translation. Through Lieutenant von Witzland and Captain Musk, one sees the traditional German values of honor and service; through Otto, we see the moral crisis faced by the German Army officer corps that found itself paralyzed in the face of Nazi manipulation; in the innocent GG we see the waste and loss of war.
In line with other commentators, however, I have to say that I can't approve of the revisionist nature of the "Stalingrad" plot. Personal accounts and letters show overwhelmingly that even the average German soldier was quite confident of victory and many in their faith in and allegiance to Hitler almost up until the end in February, 1943. While this would have made the movie less appealing, both in Germany and elsewhere, it would have made for much better history. One had to ask when viewing "Stalingrad" the same question one asks when walking the streets of modern-day Germany -- "Where did all the Nazis go?"