An Important Film


Essential viewing for any documentary film fan.


"In documentary films, God is the director."
Alfred Hitchcock

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Exept that is full of crap. The Russians were the real baddies.

"Shultz, close the gates! The wars back on!"

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It's terrific propaganda. Yes the Soviets were brutal and nasty. Stalin slaughtered millions of his own people. I couldn't help but think about that when we saw people dancing like nothing was wrong.

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Im sure theres plenty of truth in it factually...but lets not forget Russia was an aggressor in WWII. For all intents and purposes, the Soviet Union was an Axis power until the Germans invaded them. While Hitler was invading Czechoslovakia, Stalin was invading Finland. While Hitler was invading Poland, the Soviet Union was invading all of Eastern Europe and East Poland.

Go mother russia...

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Yes, it is amazing how many of Russia's war atrocities were whitewashed in this. There was a brief mention of the pact between the Soviets and the Nazis regarding Poland. There were other wars going on in Europe - around the time Germany invaded Poland, Hungary and Romania were fighting over Transylvania.

Had Germany not started attacking Russia, WWII would have been much, much different. The US wouldn't have sent the USSR tanks, planes, food, weapons, etc.

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In doing some personal project, I just happened to look up Baltic states like Lithuania and Estonia. Following up on their history briefly, those countries also had to endure mass deportations and crimes of humanity perpetrated by the Soviets. NKVD alone is responsible for murder of up to 100,000 prisoners, not limited to those from aforementioned states, but including massacres in Poland, Hungary, any states where it had chance to prop up puppet regimes. It appears that after WWII, heavily pro-Soviet mandated societal structure and instructions had masked some of the utter outrage that the people must feel to redress this crime and bring it to light, but I'm afraid I can't speak for them anymore.

But if Germany didn't attack USSR, USSR would have invaded Germany anyway, Stalin was vying for the right time to strike at Hitler and wanted the war in the West last a bit longer while he got his house in order. He wanted to string along both sides of the conflict while getting the most in return for USSR's participation. Then naturally the US would have wanted to negotiate with the USSR as it meant any chance of ending the war as quickly as possible is improved (Roosevelt's primary concern). US accounted for over 70% of entire war production of all participating nations and needed bodies to use them.

It is interesting to note that later films that serve as documentaries (World at War, Battlefield series, etc.), they fulfill the need to credit the Soviet participation of war by emphasizing the concept of 'Motherland' and need for avenging its abasement at the hands of the enemy. I do sympathize with the personal aspect of a common Red Army soldier driven by patriotism, and commemorate the many millions of ordinary Russian lives lost in the conflict. If the borders and nationalities are withdrawn to get a clearer perspective, a similar case can be made for an ordinary Wehrmacht soldier and compels to account for the victims and perpetrators accordingly, although sometimes they exist on a very thin line, in more than few cases represented in a single person.

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