๐ŸŽฌ Stalingrad (1993)

Stalingrad (1993), which was directed by the German filmmaker Joseph Vilsmaier, follows in the tradition of the better American films about Vietnam. Like Olive Stoneโ€™s Platoon or Stanley Kubrickโ€™s Full Metal Jacket, Stalingrad centers the war on a group of likable everymen trapped in a hell not of their own making. The film opens in sunny Italy. We meet Lieutenant Hans von Witzland, a proper young man from an aristocratic Prussian family, and Sergeant Manfred โ€œRolloโ€ Rohleder, a veteran of the Africa Corps. At first, we are led to believe that von Witzland is a Nazi. He refuses to pin a medal on the rough-looking Rohleder when the latter refuses to button up his collar during inspection.
โ€œHeroes arenโ€™t late,โ€ he says to Rohleder and his friend Corporal Fritz Reiser. But once we get to the frozen steppe along the Volga, we realize that von Witzlandโ€™s proper, โ€œby the bookโ€ Prussian militarism actually means the opposite. Heโ€™s an old school German conservative who violently objects to Russian prisoners being abused. He hates the Nazis. Fritz Reiser, whoโ€™s played by the French actor Dominique Hororwitz, is a tough-minded realist whoโ€™s determined to survive at any cost. That Reiser is played by the very Jewish looking Horowitz sends a clear message. Von Paulusโ€™s soldiers were not all Nazis. Like Americans in Vietnam, they were just soldiers with rotten leaders.