Generation War

I read very positive reviews of this DVD which was shown on German television. Simply put, it was excellent. The story line, character development, cinematography, as well as the acting were all outstanding. You forget you are reading subtitles - always a good indication of a compelling story. While it is unrealistic and unlikely that the five close friends and major characters of the series would encounter one another at various times throughout the war; that nonetheless did not detract from the overall narrative - it had to be done to maintain continuity, etc.Gaining insight into Nazi Germany from the German perspective was eye-opening and allows you to at least begin to understand why they did what they did - i.e. wage war on their neighbors. The propaganda machine was in full operation. It was fascinating to watch all of the main characters become disillusioned with the cause and face the many moral dilemmas they all had to endure. They all suffer their own form of hell.I can believe this story was controversial in Germany. Generation War is unapologetic towards Germany and lays bare the atrocities of their aggression. At a minimum, it should kick start a dialogue between that generation and their children and grandchildren. Overall, it is an outstanding DVD series.

...and I have seen them all. I know that this film deserves an intelligent review but I am unable to do so, having just drenched my emotions in 4 captivating hours of this amazing work. Excellent direction, editing, sound, cinematography, acting, and screenplay. This film is so important toward understanding the basic premise that war kills humans on both sides, that all involved suffer, that politicians espousing war generally lie about its necessity, (except in self-preservation defenses) every high school student should see it. Instead of video games that glorify war, social science educators need to show young people that war is not the lovely heroic adventure army recruiters and history books paint. It is graphic, brutal, destructive, painful, and horrible in every sense. Clint Eastwood produced a film years back that took us into the Japanese soldier's psyche, and this so perfectly expresses the complexities of the lives of German soldiers and citizenry. What makes Generation War stand out is that it also looks at anti-semitism from every conceivable angle-the Germans who stole their apartments and cheered The Fuhrer; the Ukrainians who joined the SS as prison guards; the Poles who hated Jews more than Germans despite being thrust into war because of them. It showed duty to country as machinated by informing on Jews, and then facing the karma of being the victim in the same game, which was symbolic of how we are all victims even when we think we are waging war for some bizarre vision of a nationalistic utopia. War like death makes cowards of us all, makes losers of all involved.

As a WWII history buff, I was eager to view this series, but I did go into it having read the negative reviews about how it paints the Germans as victims (to an extent) and offers a rather unfavorable depiction of the Polish. Having watched it now, I have to strongly disagree with a lot of the criticisms of this series. The brothers are in the Wehrmacht, not the SS, so to me, it is more than reasonable not to see them portrayed as mindless, zombie-esque Nazis. Certainly, there were vehement Nazis in the Wehrmacht as well, but there are many accounts of men fighting due to loyalty to Germany rather than Hitler and Nazism; there are accounts of men such as this being resentful of the SS and their arrogance and preferential treatment. If one or both of the brothers had been in the SS and the series focused on their internal battle between right and wrong in regards to Nazism and anti-Semitism, then I would have found it much less realistic.As far as the portrayal of the Polish, I don't find much to pour scorn on there, either. A lot of people like to look at the war with a straight line down the middle with the Germans on the "bad" side and everyone else on the "good" side. Generally speaking about WWII, that may be fitting, but when you break it down to an individual perspective regarding every single person as a human being, it just doesn't work. Not all Germans were bad; not all of them were good, either. The same can be said for all of us, including those in the Polish resistance. I didn't walk away from this taking the main Jewish character's encounter with the Polish resistance group as a rule-of-thumb. The anti-Semitism was not representative of every partisan (take the Bielski brothers, for instance), just with the group he happened to fall in with. It's plausible.There were plenty of Nazi-compliant Germans portrayed here. Perhaps not to an excessive degree in our heroes and heroines, but with them being the crux of the story, they were presented to us in a way that would make us want to root for them and pity their circumstances, or understand their reactions to certain situations, whether we agreed with them or not.The action sequences and filming in general was very well done. This is definitely among the rankings of Band of Brothers and The Pacific, in my humble opinion. Very well done.