I liked how Capt. Hosenfeld had been a good samaritan in helping
Szpillman during the war and so here are my questions:
1. Was Wilm Hosenfeld based on a real life german officer?
2. Whatever became of him after the war's end?
In the movie Szpillman tried to find him and he was reportedly
a captured pow being held in a soviet prisoner of war camp.
Lorenzo Sunny Florida
I'm James "Sonny" Crockett!
Hosenfeld was a real German army officer who helped Szpilman and other Jews and Poles throughout WWII. He was captured by the Russians in January, 1945 and held prisoner until his death in 1952. Szpilman and others who Hosenfeld had aided pleaded to Russian officials on his behalf, but Hosenfeld continued to be detained and tortured because the Russians refused to believe that he had not been involved in War Crimes. He was honored as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2008.
shareThanks for your post and that is quite interesting to know about
Hosenfeld. Glad to know that he finally got the long overdue
recognition which he deserved.
Lorenzo Sunny Florida
I'm James "Sonny" Crockett!
Hosenfeld haunts me.If you're focusing on the main action, you might not even notice what he's doing until almost the end of the film. For me, he's one of the strongest characters. I find it almost heartbreaking that Szpilman and the others weren't able to save him.Strike the "almost."
I'd love to see a movie about the life and actions of him and his like-minded battalion-mates during the war. I'd love to see a movie about Albert Goering, too, who went to great lengths and risk to publicly and blatantly denounce the Nazi regime, encourage and help resistance movements and even personally free Jews when he could, all in the face of his older brother Hermann, head of the Luftwaffe.
suednim1960, why the "almost" out of curiosity?
Hosenfeld haunts me, too. It really is incredible what he did. He not only helped an enemy of the Axis powers, he helped a Jew! There is no telling what would have happened to him if they found out what he had done.
suednim1960, why the "almost" out of curiosity?
Check out Sophie Scholl, it's about the resistance movement by two sibbling who risked their lives to fight against the regime.
shareDid everyone skip over the part where Hosenfeld was wearing a Nazi uniform? The guy was a Nazi officer; that means he did his fair share of bad before deciding to do good. Kudos to him for seeing the light and saving people before his demise but I don't believe his capture was by accident.
shareThere was no evidence Hosenfeld committed any war crimes, none. And he was Wehrmacht, not SS.
In fact there are documented cases where he saved others, Jews and Poles alike, not just Szpilman.
"Did everyone skip over the part where Hosenfeld was wearing a Nazi uniform? The guy was a Nazi officer; that means he did his fair share of bad/-/"
What kind of reasoning is that? And what`s a "Nazi uniform", anyway? He was wearing a German military uniform - Wehrmacht, to be precise (even though this doesn`t automatically mean he never partook in any war crimes as Wehrmacht units did engage in a good number of those, as well) - just as every other German soldier. And not every German soldier`s a war criminal by default.
"facts are stupid things" - Ronald Reagan
Okay I apologize, I did not pay enough attention to the insignias on Hosenfeld's uniform. My point was that just because Hosenfeld was in a position where he was obligated to turn Szpilman over to the SS and didn't act on it, let's not make him out to be a saint because of that. Although it has been documented that he did save other people besides Szpilman the movie does imply that Hosenfeld's reasons for saving Szpilman were largely due to his musical talent, not for humanitarian reasons. Think about it, if Szpilman had told Hosenfeld he was unemployed prior to the war, do you think Hosenfeld would have been like "Hey that's super, after the war I look forward to seeing you collect unemployment checks and look for work"? Doubt it.
share
the movie does imply that Hosenfeld's reasons for saving Szpilman were largely due to his musical talent, not for humanitarian reasons
Hosenfeld helped a lot of persecuted people throughout the duration of the war. One of those people happened to be famous. He was selected as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. You don't get that kind of honor for merely helping one person whose piano playing you liked.
shareYou better think again if the reason he helped to save a life was due to musical appreciation. That is too direct an inference.
share[deleted]
He was a Wehrmacht officer and not an SS officer, the most fanatical Nazis. That's not to say he didn't commit atrocities. Many in the German army supported Hitler, not so much in support of his racist ideas, but because Germany was humiliated at the end of WWI and Hitler, right or wrong, gave the Germans their pride back. The German army was still in full force and the end of WWI, and they believed the politicians sold them out in the end.
shareThere were many in the German army who disagreed with Hitler and his regime. There were over 40 attempts on Hitler's life from 1933 until he died in 1945. I recommend you watch the movie, "Valkyrie". As much as I dislike Tom Cruise, he did an excellent job on this movie portraying Lt. Col. Claus von Stauffenberg and his attempt to kill Hitler. There were more than 10 nazi military personnel involved in this plot to kill Hitler.
shareHere's what wikipedia says about him: Although Stauffenberg agreed with some of the Nazi Party's nationalistic aspects and had supported the German colonization of Poland and made racist remarks regarding Polish Jews, he found many aspects of the Nazi Party's ideology repugnant and never became a member. Moreover, Stauffenberg remained a practicing Catholic. Stauffenberg vacillated between a strong personal dislike of Hitler's policies and a respect for what he perceived to be Hitler's military acumen. On top of this, the growing systematic ill-treatment of Jews and suppression of religion had offended Stauffenberg's strong personal sense of Catholic morality and justice.
shareYou can't go by Wikipedia. The sight is run by individual posters and their perceived ideas of the truth. Being an amateur WWII aficionado, I have read many, many articles and books on Claus von Stauffenberg, and I have never come across anything that hints of what Wikipedia has stated. Here is an excellent article on him via the HistoryNet: http://www.historynet.com/claus-von-stauffenberg.htm
I checked Wikipedia and found the reference to Stauffenberg's "support of German colonization of Poland or racist remarks" comes from the unsubstantiated opinion of one author. I checked out the book at Amazon and looked at the index. There isn't a single pointer of Stauffenberg under any name. I would not give this book any credence at all given what I know about Stauffenberg by my research.
Agreed! And I love how, despite minimal screen time and only showing up in the last 20 minutes, Thomas Krestchmann got second billing in big letters right up with Adrian Brody, as if it was the director's way of saying "hey, remember the character this guy plays. He deserves it."
shareHosenfeld's story is a pretty sad one. He was described as a gentle man who was a schoolteacher and completely rejected the hateful ideals and violent methods of the Nazi party. There are several stories of him helping Jews during the war apart from Szpilman's. He died in a Russian POW camp and according to reports, he was physically and spiritually worn down for awhile before he died.
See you in hell, candy boys!share
I agree. He deserves a movie of his own.
shareGod bless Hosenfeld.
From all that I read about him, he was a good, kindhearted man. He risked his neck for people that he didn't even know, just to save *their* lives and not his *own*. He had *everything* to lose but he persevered through to the end anyway.
A light shines on his soul.
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"97-X...Bam....The future of...Rock 'n' Roll."