The five month Battle of Stalingrad beginning August 21st, 1942 was one of the most monumentally important and devastating conflicts in military history. More than any other event, it marked the turning point in World War II. Up until this battle, the German Wehrmacht had been irresistible. Everything after the Battle of Stalingrad consisted of the gradual withdrawal and defeat, however grudgingly, of the German forces on all fronts. The importance of the Battle of Stalingrad was certainly not lost on either the German or the Soviet leadership. Both Hitler and Stalin threw the full weight of their iron resolves into the conflict. As a consequence, about 1.5 million people died during the Battle of Stalingrad. Hitler lost more than 300,000 of his best troops including some 90,000 that were taken prisoner.
The film
Stalingrad was put together by the same production team that was responsible for the highly acclaimed film
Das Boot (1981), widely considered to be the best movie ever made about submarine warfare.
Das Boot, however, was directed by Wolfgang Petersen while
Stalingrad was directed by Joseph Vilsmaier. If
Stalingrad does not quite match the effectiveness of
Das Boot as cinema, it is not due to shortcomings in direction, but rather weaknesses of script. The principal weakness of the newer of the two films is its failure to provide characters with which viewers will strongly identify or empathize. On the other hand, it ranks among the most detailed and realistic war films ever produced and, as such, provides the strongest kind of antiwar statement.
The Story: The plot is not especially strong. The opening scene takes place at an Italian resort where German soldiers of an elite stormtrooper unit are on leave after a successful campaign in North Africa. Here we mainly see that these men enjoy the normal range of pleasures in life and camaraderie. Soon they are ordered to form up, where medals are distributed and their new assignment is revealed. They are headed to the eastern front. On the train, we meet the four principle characters: Lt. Von Witzland (Thomas Kreischmann), Rollo (Jochen Nickel), Gege (Sebastian Rudolph), and Otto (Sylvester Groth). Witzland, inexperienced, idealistic, and hailing from a military family, is the closest thing to a central protagonist, though this is really more of an ensemble film.
When they arrive at Stalingrad, they walk past countless wounded men and corpses and assume their place on the front line. Their first assignment is to take a heavily defended factory at any cost. The battle scenes here are among the best of the film. Loses on both sides are enormous. The factory is taken but only 62 of the unit’s 400 men have survived. Moreover, the survivors are soon pinned down in a bunker. Lt. Witzland negotiates a brief “ceasefire” (contrary to regulations) with the Russians so that each side can gather up their wounded. One of the German soldiers, however, violates the truce by firing on the Russians. Later, the core group of protagonists make an escape through the sewer system. At one point the Lieutenant is separated from the others and encounters a female Russian soldier. They strike a deal whereby she will show him the way out and he will then let her go. Instead, she unceremoniously pushes him into a pool of bilge and makes her getaway. Lt. Witzland is pulled from the sewer water by his comrades and they are able to return to the main unit, though one of their number is seriously wounded. At the hospital, they demand at gunpoint immediate treatment for their comrade in preference to others. As a result, they are stripped of their rank and assigned to duty digging up land mines.
Later, as the situation for the Germans grows increasingly desperate, the de-ranked soldiers are given an opportunity for reinstatement if they accept an assignment to block the passage of Russian tanks at a key point of defense. This leads to another skillfully filmed battle sequence in which these German soldiers incapacitate eight or so tanks at the cost of many lives. When they return to the main unit, they find nothing but cold, hungry, desperate men that have been essentially abandoned by their country. An airdrop falls nearby but is found to contain only worthless medals and no food or useful supplies. Soon, they reencounter Captain Haller (Dieter Okras), the closest thing to the embodiment of Nazi evil in this film, and, in a showdown, shoot him to death, but not before he informs them of a cache of supplies in the officers’ bunker.
The small group of survivors make their way to the bunker, which is full of food and wine but empty of people except for a captured Russian female that the officers were apparently using for sex. The German soldiers have in mind doing likewise, except that Lt. Witzland hangs onto just enough sense of humanity to prevent it. Further attrition (by suicide or death) reduces the group to just Lt. Witzland, Rollo, and the Russian woman. In the final scene, they attempt to flee from Stalingrad together.
Strengths: This film is the grimmest kind of depiction of war and hence a very strong argument against it. The battle scenes are highly realistic. There is no glorification, however, just the ugly reality of gushing blood, lost limbs, mangled heads, and the like. Death in this film involves neither honor nor heroism. The budget for the film was $20 million, which was very large by German film standards.
Weaknesses: The foremost weakness is the lack of development of the principal characters. This film could have benefited by the kind of systematic introduction of the characters utilized in such films as
The Seven Samurai or
The Dirty Dozen. The lack of identifiable characters was further compounded by the absence of plot on the level of the individuals. While the approach taken may serve to strengthen the antiwar message by emphasizing the dehumanizing aspect of war (where individual value and characteristics are largely lost in the overriding “cause”), it detracts from the entertainment value of the film. The paradox of this film is that it looks at war from the vantage point of individuals rather than grand strategies but it fails to give those individuals much personal identity. There are also some plot weaknesses in the unrealistic reemergence of certain characters (a Russian boy, a Russian woman, and Captain Haller), which was undoubtedly done to limit the number of new characters, but which strains credibility.
Another weakness is the oversimplification of blame for Nazi aggression. The main villains in this piece are the corps of officers. There are several instances where officers are depicted as sadistic, unreasonable, and inflexible. Religion is also implicitly held culpable, by a scene in which a chaplain asserts that God is on the side of the German soldiers against the godless-Bolsheviks. These are worn out clichés. The enlisted men, in this film, are depicted as innocent victims of duty while Hitler and the German leadership lie largely outside the scope of the film. The film is engaged in scapegoating of the most simplistic kind, promoting a comforting denial of the responsibility that all citizens share when a country undertakes unprovoked, aggressive military action. These enlisted men were happy enough to join up and to wear their medals proudly when they met little resistance and only become victims when they find themselves on the losing end.
Bottom-Line: The technical achievement in staging realistic battle scenes is every bit as impressive in
Stalingrad as in such Hollywood war films as
Saving Private Ryan and
All Quiet on the Western Front. The strength of the moral message is also as strong or stronger in this film than other war movies. The character development and the plot elements, however, are less effective on the whole than for the best war films out of Hollywood or, for that matter, outside of America. I’ve ranked this film #10 on my list of
Ten Best Non-English Language War Movies!!. It’s well worth a look. I think that the main thing one takes away from viewing this film is reinforcement of the notion that war is a gruesome and excruciating painful activity that needs to be strictly reserved for the most crucial defenses of life and rights.
Stalingrad was filmed in German. The DVD version that I own provides for choosing either English subtitles or a dubbed English version. It has nine chapter breaks and is a good quality transfer. The running time is 135 minutes. It’s not rated but would probably be rated R due to the gruesome battle scenes. I would like to give this film five stars for production values and only three for plot and characters. I’ll have to settle for averaging the two and awarding four stars.
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You might want to check out these other excellent films from Germany:
The American Friend
Beyond Silence
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant
The Blue Angel
Das Boot
The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
Dr. Mabuse the Gambler
Fitzcarraldo
Kings of the Road
M
The Marriage of Maria Braun
Metropolis
The Nasty Girl
Nosferatu
Pandora's Box
Run Lola Run
The Testament of Dr. Mabuse
Threepenny Opera
The Tin Drum
Wings of Desire
Zentropa 
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United Kingdom
Australia
USA
