Winterspelt 1944

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Movie
Original title Winterspelt 1944
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1978
length 111 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Eberhard Fechner
script Eberhard Fechner
production Eberhard Fechner
music György Ligeti
camera Kurt Weber
Rudolf Körösi
cut Barbara Büscher-Grimm
occupation

Winterspelt 1944 is a 1977 German feature film based on the 1974 novel " Winterspelt " by Alfred Andersch with Ulrich von Dobschütz in the role of a German Wehrmacht officer who wants to hand over his unit to the approaching US enemy without a fight in order to avoid senseless bloodshed . This is a film and television co-production by the recognized TV documentarist Eberhard Fechner .

action

The town of Winterspelt in the Eifel in the late autumn of 1944: The western front is quiet, the German Wehrmacht has been promised new tank units and rested troops from Berlin, with which a last attempt is to be made to defeat the incessantly eastward advancing U.S. American and British forces to stop and eventually throw back. In this initial situation, Commander Major Dincklage, who was still young and influenced by his life-wise and sensible friend Käthe Lenk, realizes that the war is lost for the Germans. Unlike his superiors, he is no longer willing to senselessly sacrifice his soldiers for a defensive battle without a chance. The idea of ​​handing over his battalion to the Americans without a fight matured in him. He has to be very careful with this planned action, because Dincklage knows that he is committing high treason . Little did he suspect that not only his own people could rebel against it, but that even the enemy, whom Dincklage's action should definitely suit, threatens to oppose it.

The brutal and somewhat dumb Corporal Hubert Reidel also serves under Dincklage's command. The hotelier's son is unpopular with his people, a grinder and National Socialist who approached a comrade with homosexual intent. Therefore, proceedings are currently pending against him. Reidel is threatened with deportation to a concentration camp under Section 175. To be able to prove himself, Reidel is assigned to accompany the art historian Schefold to the Americans. Schefold is supposed to negotiate the conditions for handing over the battalion with the US military. But a long-standing code of honor for officers does not allow breaking the oath of the oath, and so the project fails early on. Reidel, a man with sadistic features, now sees the opportunity to finally rehabilitate himself, humiliates Schefold in the open field by forcing him to the ground on all fours, and finally shoots the corpulent civilized man who, like a humanistic alternative to barbarism, is more soldier The vices of World War II are effective. A few days later the Ardennes offensive begins, which becomes a mass grave for tens of thousands on both sides.

Production notes

Winterspelt 1944 was shot on 42 days between September 5 and October 22, 1977 in Belgium and was premiered on February 24, 1978 in Berlin as part of the International Film Festival. On April 28, 1978 the film was released in the cinemas of the Federal Republic of Germany.

The film structures were designed by Hans-Jürgen Kiebach , the equipment was provided by Wolf Witzemann .

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