I came across two major groups of audiences who got all worked-up and downright mad about the show: German internet-Nazis and patriotic Poles. The overall approach is not a conversation stopper between the generations but an outstretched hand, not a tone of indictment and condemnation but one of empathy. The dominant question looming in the background is not so much the well known question, asked in the comfortable situation of a stable post-war order How could you be such a criminal tool of Hitler's genocidal war?' but rather ⁍amn, what would I have done in their position and where do I take the smug conviction from that I would have done so much better?'. What can't be seriously disputed is that the mini-series takes great pains to put the audience in the shoes of the five young Berliners on their journey through the madness of total ideological war. Granted, the numerous chance encounters of the lead characters may be unlikely but they are an acceptable plot device.

In the end, everything is in ruins, countless are dead and the survivors emerge as deeply scarred personalities, each of them having to live with personal guilt and the ghosts of the past. The series has a whole lot on it's platter, arguably more than enough to cover in a meaningful way in 4.5 hours: the enthusiasm of youngsters for Hitler's war the obvious persecution of Jews and the developing genocide in the East the nature of the Nazi regime, the unprecedented savagery of the war, the commissar order, taking casualties from partisan ambushes, savage counter insurgency warfare, the dehumanization of the populations of the conquered territories at the hands of the Germans, plans of colonization and ethnic cleansing, battle trauma, the disillusionment of the soldiers, what it was like to fight a losing total war, denunciation, finally the savagery of the soviet troops. It was made by German filmmakers for a German audience, ostensibly to nudge the fast passing away generation of eyewitnesses and veterans and the generations of their children and grandchildren to use the last chance time will give them to break the wall of silence and talk about their wartime experiences.

I have watched the series several times now, and I still find it pretty engrossing.

Generation war movie