MovieChat Forums > 1917 (2020) Discussion > Why were all the Germans assholes?*spoil...

Why were all the Germans assholes?*spoilers*


So they saved the pilot's life and then he stabbed him? Seemed like a dick move.
Then the kid gave him away when he could have just waited 30 seconds instead, and saved his own life.

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The Nazis were very evil - they tortured, raped and killed many people including civilians, they were the first to use poison gas, they bombed undefended towns without warning, they sunk civilian ships with their submarines, etc.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_war_crimes#World_War_I

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Not quite Nazis

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The Nazis were very evil

And they had time travel machines, so they could travel back in time to WW1.

By the way, everybody had war crimes, the British too. Though usually the ones that win the war, they write history. In WW2, for example, everybody remembers the Holocaust, almost nobody knows about the hundreds of thousands of war prisoners murdered by the allies (and I'm talking about normal German soldiers, massacred by thousands after the war, both in Eastern and Western front).

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Well they started it!

(Actually, they started it twice. Twice. They started TWO world wars...)

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(1) That's not true. World War 1 started with a Serbian military mobilization towards Austria, then Austria declared war, then Russia joined, and then Germany.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I#July_Crisis

Germany was the 4th country to join WW1.

(2) Even, EVEN it that was true, you'd be justifying the massacre of hundreds of thousands of prisoners because "well they started the war!"

Germany had a quarrel with Jews too, since German Jew community, that was supposed to be loyal to Germany, supported Britain during WW1 (Britain was the key to obtain the land of Israel). Now imagine back in the day somebody claims about the Holocaust and the nazi answers "well they started it betraying our country!".

Be careful with your arguments, because arguments are like swords: they can cut both ways.

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"almost nobody knows about the hundreds of thousands of war prisoners murdered by the allies"

Nothing of the sort ever occurred. Absolute uneducated moronic BS. Stop reading lunatic fringe crap and try reading serious history.

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Other_Losses

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Half of that wiki is about the book being debunked.

"U.S. and German sources estimate the number of German POWs who died in captivity at between 56,000 and 78,000, or about one per cent of all German prisoners, which is roughly the same as the percentage of American POWs who died in German captivity."

Why would the German sources be short a million dead soldiers?

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You're an idiot.

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Exactly, they want us to feel sorry for those $%# jews.... but the americans and Brits were WORSE than the Nazis...!

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> Nazis

Jesus Christ make it rain some brain please...
Oh God how STUPID people are these days besides living in the age of information is beyond ironic.

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Germans, Nazis = same thing!

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Well, thank you for supporting what I said so eloquently. No further questions, case closed.

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Memieto, he’s trying to tell you there were no Nazis in WWI.

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Memieto, he’s trying to tell you there were no Nazis in WWI.

There were many Nazis in WWI, including Hitler who was a soldier at that time. He was a message-runner just like the main characters in this movie, it would have been cool if they had bumped into him...

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The National Socialist German Workers' Party did not exist until 1933.

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Are you seriously that stupid, Memeito?

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It would be cool if young Hilter was trying to paint quietly and peacefully but suddenly our main hero bumped on him outta nowhere and dropped his paint can ruining his painting and making him cross.

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...how can people be this stupid. It is both, amazing and horrifying at the same time.
To imagine that guy has voting rights... and probably drives a car. Oh God...

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Come on, being a little harsh man

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They call them Huns in this war.

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For all the pilot knew he was being saved for interrogation and then shot. In his mind it may have been his duty to escape.

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They were at war. I guess the German thought he'd do his part for his country killing a couple of Brits, even if they had saved his life.

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That was my only real gripe with the movie. The difference between WW1 and WW2 is that there were no clear villains in WW1 and you can make some pretty interesting stories out of that. For example, what if the plane crashing killed the kid instead (wouldn't have to be an instant death either, he could've slowly died in a similar way but just with different injuries) and then the protagonist had to choose what to do with the german. Maybe the other allies show up and there could be some real tension, some of them wanting to kill him and others not.

I wouldn't call this a flaw though, but it's something that would've made me appreciate the movie even more if the germans had more dimensions to them.

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Right, I haven't finished the movie yet, but the stabbing jumped out at me as something out of character from the interactions I've read about in history. These are the same soldiers who were able to celebrate Christmas together at Verdun. These were the same pilots who refrained from shooting down an enemy if it wasn't an "honorable" kill. There are assholes everywhere and in every war, but here it felt forced as if to provide the movie with a clear villain.

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I wouldn't call this a flaw though, but it's something that would've made me appreciate the movie even more if the germans had more dimensions to them.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Quiet_on_the_Western_Front_(2022_film)

(I'm aware the movie is from 2022 and your comment is from 2020)

Fun fact: There's a nod in 1917 to Paul Bäumer and Friedrich Müller (from "All Quiet on the Western Front"), they're the two germans Schofield encounter in Écoust-Saint-Mein (Bäumer is the one he strangles).

There's possibly another small nod in "All Quiet on the Western Front" to "1917", in a scene where one of the soldiers collects cherry blossoms, which are very present in "1917".

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That makes no effing sense.

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War doesn't make sense on the ground. He saw an enemy on the battlefield, was probably freaking out from the crash, and attacked because of other horrors he saw or heard while on deployment. There was also as language barrier which didn't help.

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I also liked the way it avoided the obvious trope of the opposing soldiers realising they were all just men together, stuck in this hell and then becoming friends with respect for each other as soldiers.

No, first chance he got, he shanked him in the gut. The pilot would have been an officer too, so probably looked on the British lower ranks as scum anyway.

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>attacked because of other horrors he saw or heard while on deployment.

This. There were all kinds of crazy rumous. They could be in a company that genuinely believe the brits ate thier prisoners for example.

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I came here to write your same op.

You forgot to add that they also planned this whole fake retreat strategy (after months of fighting spent to gain 1 meter) and abandoned fully equipped trenches (and booby trapped them) just so they could make even bigger dick moves.
Making them dicks is also the naivity and fairplay repeteadly shown by brits, falling every time in their lies, always acting human against such tricky enemy, and always paying for it.

Talk about a fair and realistic depiction of war...

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I’m glad you said it, saves me & many others who just have seen this coming here & posting about it. The thing is I feel as you do but I look at it this way. The guy was an enemy soldier of an enemy country who had just got shot down & almost killed by their forces. They pulled him out of a burning airplane which was extremely decent on their part but once the initial shock wore off he probably just reacted on instinct not knowing what to do.

In his defense, trying to understand where he was coming from, he had to deal with horror of being chased, shot down & left to die in a fiery wreck by the British in the air & the surprise & relief of being pulled out of said flaming wreck by 2 soldiers of the very same army on the ground that happened to come along who naturally of course knew who he was.

In the short span in which he had to sort all of this out in his extreme confusion & the contradiction was probably too much for his racing mind & even though it was extremely stupid on his part, he reacted & killed the poor guy. Extremely dumb because from where he was lying on his ass on the ground, all the other guy had to do was just shoot him from where he was standing & that was it. Not very logical to do but I just guess he was pumped up on adrenaline & fear on what was going on & the unknown.

Still a dick move as you say, but what the hell were they supposed to do with him? Drag him along for the ride? My least favorite part of the movie, you have two individuals who shouldn’t feel for the guy but yet did because he was a fellow human being & it cost one of them their lives when we all of course feel it shouldn’t have but that’s war. Makes no sense.

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I figured it came down to language barrier and not knowing intent of the other party

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