Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective?

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Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/2/2006 12:05:37 AM

Martiallaw

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I have watched many WWII movies but all are from the Allied perspective and show the heroism from the Allied side. Is there any WWII movie which which is based on the German/Axis perspective and their heroism? Please inform.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/2/2006 12:44:19 AM

otisabuser2

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Stalingrad
Das Boot
Cross of Iron
Downfall

What was the one with John Wayne as the Captain of a German merchant ship ?

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/2/2006 1:58:00 AM

ezzler

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The Eagle has Landed
The Sea chase { john Wayne as the merchant captain}
night of the Generals
Tora Tora Tora
The misfit brigade {billed starring Oliver Reed and based on Sven Hassel} but it really was poor. Oliver Reed in for about 5 mins.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/2/2006 2:56:54 AM

ShermanM4

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quote:

I have watched many WWII movies but all are from the Allied perspective and show the heroism from the Allied side. Is there any WWII movie which which is based on the German/Axis perspective and their heroism? Please inform.

I, believe, Longest Day deserves credit in this field. The Longest Day does not paint the war as a one-sided affair. I, often, enjoy watching the dilogue of Von Rundstedt.

Also, Hart's War was fantastic and definately shows the German Pers.....

jk

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/2/2006 10:59:11 AM

m10bob

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Decision at Dawn
The Bridge
Zero
I Bombed Pearl Harbor

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/7/2006 6:19:12 PM

bartholimew

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El Alemain
The Winter War
Under 10 Flags (something like that)

and one more damn cant remember the name but it has this Lufwaffe medic who paradrops back into germany to spy for the allies.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/7/2006 10:25:14 PM

m10bob

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"and one more damn cant remember the name but it has this Lufwaffe medic who paradrops back into germany to spy for the allies. "

Decision at Dawn.........

< Message edited by m10bob -- 10/7/2006 10:27:16 PM >

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/8/2006 8:37:37 AM

johnnycanuck1944

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I think that "The Bridge" is possibly the best of the german perpective WW2 films,considering it was shot in B & W in 1961. A very good anti-war film, a good addition to one s dvd collection imho .

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/9/2006 2:50:49 PM

von_B�low

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I think "Stalingrad", "Das Boot" and "Der Untergang" (Downfall) are the best german WW2 movies. Still they are not comparable to english/american movies, eg you won't find "heroism" in these movies, or at least not in the sense english/american people use to know it from their movies.
In my opinion the english/american movies - especially from the 60-70ies - mostly are ignorant, silly and pathetic. Mostly these movies are about mocking the Germans or Japanese: stupid, stiff and snobbish Germans against heroic and cool Americans.

I agree that "The bridge" is also a very good movie.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/10/2006 12:54:18 AM

wesy

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A couple of others:

One more recent that's due later this year or early next year - the companion film to "Flags of our Fathers" and directed by Clint Eastwood as well:

"Letters from Iwo Jima"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0498380/

Click the preview link and then select the Japanese Trailer and it will show you parts of the "Letters" movie intertwined with "Flags of our Fathers"

"Retreat from Kiska" (translation) - it's about the Japanese evacuation of Kiska - very well told about how the Japanese pulled out their troops and when the US invaded all they could find were some left behind dogs.

http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=Kiska

Tora, Tora, Tora -best PH movie.

"Fires on the Plain" (Kon Ichikawa) - Japanese movie about the desperate situation of retreat in the Phillipines in 1945

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0053121/

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/10/2006 6:15:24 AM

RUPD3658

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Not WW2 but "All quiet on the western front" is a classic told from the German perspective.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/11/2006 12:05:33 AM

Big B

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Das Boot, and The Bridge

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/11/2006 12:06:06 PM

Mike Wood

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Parts of Steven Spielberg's "1941".

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/11/2006 9:46:45 PM

MARKUSS

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Yes, also bits of Cross of Iron, which is Hollywood's version of Willi Heinrich's The Willing Flesh. Don't know if its the same Willi Heinrich who won the Ritterkreuz, but doubt it.

There are some wartime German-language films that perhaps take this further, including one about the air ace Marseille, which I have seen clips of. I do not know the name, but someone reading this post might.

The post-war German psyche prevents going overboard on 'heroism' or 'patriotism' given the regime that its soldiers were fighting for, and this extends to Germans or half-Germans of my generation, (in my case born of parents who one way or another served the Third Reich). There are many 'liberal' Germans who were outraged by Das Boot not dealing with questions of morality and being too sympathetic to the boat's crew. Then again, Hollywood refused to back the film financially because there was to be no 'massacre at sea' incident - shame no one told them what USS Wahoo did to the survivors of Buyo Maru and her Japanese crew / passengers and the Indian pows aboard her.

I agree that the film industry has been slow to acknowledge that herosim and patriotism were not traits exclusively displayed by the allies, but then many people in allied countries would find this a bit over the top. The further in the past the war recedes, the thicker the coating of rose-tinting becomes, so that all allied personnel are heroes, and only the enemy are villains. That was how it was in the early 50s when I was a child in an English school, with German as my first language, and we seem to have come full circle if English programmes are anything to go by. Complaints by me about allied pow's being shown being beaten up by sadistic German guards in a TV film about Colditz screened a year or so ago met with total indifference, yet is to my knowledge is a fabricated incident.

I prefer films like Downfall, the German film about Dresden and the sinking of the refugee ship Wilhelm G�stloff by the Soviet submarine S-13, which drowned most of the 10,600 people on board. Consequently I'll settle for an acknowledgement that not only allied troops and civilians were victims, especially as the killing did not stop when the war ended, as some of my mother's friends who like her were expelled from the former Sudetenland in 1947 can testify. I also pay tribute to some documentaries, like Canada's The Valour and the Horror, that frankly admit that allied personnel also committed war crimes, even if it was not on the routine scale found on the eastern front. Band of Brothers also shows this, as does Saving Ryan's Privates (sorry for the pun), which is a step in the right direction.

Regards

Charles

< Message edited by MARKUSS -- 10/11/2006 9:49:06 PM >

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/11/2006 10:38:55 PM

Capt. Harlock

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"The Enemy Below" gives the perspectives of both a U-Boat commander (Curt Jergens) and an American DE skipper (Robert Mitchum). The original book had a British ship, and a less sympathetic view of the Germans, but for once Hollywood, after a concession to American audiences, treated the subject with intelligence and insight.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/13/2006 9:03:55 PM

anarchyintheuk

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quote:

ORIGINAL: MARKUSS

There are many 'liberal' Germans who were outraged by Das Boot not dealing with questions of morality and being too sympathetic to the boat's crew. Then again, Hollywood refused to back the film financially because there was to be no 'massacre at sea' incident - shame no one told them what USS Wahoo did to the survivors of Buyo Maru and her Japanese crew / passengers and the Indian pows aboard her.

Any proof of that? I would say it's more likely that Hollywood (whatever that term means or implies) thought it wouldn't make money financing a script: 1) about u-boats starring unknown (to the us) german actors dubbed in english, 2) about u-boats starring unknown actors with english dialogue, 3) that was totally re-written to be about us subs in the Pacific starring known or unknown us actors for which several films had already been made.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/18/2006 4:36:04 AM

Marauders

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Being that Tora Tora Tora was a joint Japanese and U.S. production, I'd have to give that a nod.

Obviously Das Boot and Stalingrad showed the German perspective.

I would also consider A Bridge Too Far as an even handed movie with quite a bit of dialogue in Deutsche. Cornelius Ryan researched the book from both the Axis and Allies perspectives, and the movie is just about as faithful to the book, including actual verbatim quotes, as any film can be.

There are not that many films that represent the historical political perspective of the era from the German point of view. This is really unfortunate, as one cannot understand why the Nazi party was able to take control of Germany without understanding the context of it. In these times, we would do well to understand that context.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/18/2006 5:47:42 AM

KG Erwin

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quote:

ORIGINAL: Marauders

There are not that many films that represent the historical political perspective of the era from the German point of view.� This is really unfortunate, as one cannot understand why the Nazi party was able to take control of Germany without understanding the context of it.� In these times, we would do well to understand that context.

I know what you mean.

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RE: Any WWII movie from the German/Axis perspective? - 10/18/2006 6:04:08 AM

rictavian

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Just watched "Before the Fall" and was pleasantly suprised. Not a lot of politics but a nice study of the effects of Nazism on youth. I still want to see "The Bridge", I had friends 30yrs ago say it was a moving experience; I wonder if that still holds true today.

(in reply to Martiallaw)

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