MovieChat Forums > So weit die Füße tragen (2001) Discussion > Salute to WWII German Veterans

Salute to WWII German Veterans

posted 20 years ago by leuk1966
39 replies | jump to latest

I am a Hong Kong born Chinese and I have just watched this touching movie. Though it might be the first German-made movie to touch the sensitive topic, I am glad it would be a good start.

As the topics of German prisoners of war and the killings and raping done by the Russians and other allies troops(slightly in scale as compared with the former) at the end of World War Two is still a taboo in German Society, I wish the young generation of German people should study more regarding the mental as well as physical sufferings of their grand and great grand parents during the war. It is not a sin for these old veterans and people to fight and die with the motives of exploring more land and natural resources, as British, French and Americans have done so in the last couple of centuries. In fact, Germans have paid the highest price for this tragic war, more than 10 million people died in the war and they have forever lost their vast territories both in the east and west. Regarding the holocaust, the responsible high ranking leaders have paid the price in Nurnberg, together with mid to low level officers having been executed in different regional courts. Hence, the German people are not liable to the crime, particularly that most of the German soldiers as well as Waffen-SS soldiers don't know the existence of extermination camps.

[–] oliverrenye 12 years ago

@leukk1966
The story was plublished in 1955 and turned into a 6-parts TV-adaption in 1959, already, being in instant TV-blockbuster, back then. This movie now is just a remake, - the first one, by the way.
If you're interested in Cornelius Rost, the real life person behind Clemens Forell, read this Wikipedia-article, which I recently improved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornelius_Rost

Best Christmas wishes from Germany
Bylot

[–] jmarkoff2 10 years ago

The German suffering in the 1940s has been unfairly brushed off by saying "They deserved it!" I'm glad that movies like this point out that the Allies committed war crimes too.

[–] goutham-jacksparrow 10 years ago

the problem is that people readily accept that germans had extermination camps myths when in reality there is no evidence regarding killing Jews. It goes as back as 1910 when the 6 million propaganda started. If we take out that holohoax, there is only one thing to look at. Germans were actually the good side trying to protect themselves and uniting the lost pasts. War sucks. But to take on soviets knowing you might lose heavily takes guts. Its because of that GERMANS we are happy else stalin would have converted the whole world into a communist crap.

[–] greekBruin 9 years ago

After starting two World Wars that killed millions and effectively destroyed Europe, Germany should not have been allowed to be a country any more. The possibility is very high that sooner or later they will forget what happened in the past and cause another war.

[–] rusoviet 8 years ago

Good analysis in fact the untold story is the rape and murder the Russians perpetrated in Manchuria when they invaded 8th August 1945. Absolutely horrific. You're also right about land loss by Germany but that they brought on themselves by their predatory grabs in 1938-1941. They seized Sudentenland in 1938 and then swallowed Bohemia and Moravia in March 1939. They took back Memeland from the Lithuanians in March 1939. They re-annexed Alsace-Lorraine from the French which they had grabbed in 1870. They re-annexed Schlewig-Holstein from Denmark they first seized in 1865. They did everything they could to liquidate theentire Polish intelligentsia. Seized Slovenia from Yugoslavia - they did an awful lot of awful things for those 6 years of hell.

This is a great film with the most touching scene is when the Jewish man helps the lead actor.

Russia is a sad ugly depressed place to be which is why it eagerly embraced Communism. The worst thing Germany ever did was do the same with Hitler.

[–] dragomnew 8 years ago

Just visit the hundrends of villages in Greece that have been vanished by the coward Germans, killing all the civilians including pregnants and infants, just because they refused to cooperate or because the Greeks guerillas have killed 1 german soldier. My dad who was a child then has managed to escape the massive slaughter of his whole village (7 of hiw family died) in Kandanos Crete remembers unborned infants to be taken out of the torn bellies of their mothers with their skulls smashed by the boots of the "fearfull" German soldiers. Even now the Germans haven;t give any compensation to their victims in Greece neither moral or financial. just do some history searching before you say about German victims.