Stalingrad (1993) Firing Squad Scene

Hauptman Haller orders von Witzland and his men to execute some unarmed civilians, including Kolya, whom Witzland tries to save but to no avail.

Credits:
Directed by, Joseph Vilsmaier

Produced by:
B.A. Produktion,
Bavaria Film,
Perathon Film-und Fernsehproduktions GmbH,
and Royal Film

[TheRubsi]

As a German i can tell you that the subtitles don't even come close to portraying the true intensity and meaning of the dialogue.
Powerful Scene

[dontbothermeimjust]

My Polish grandma was shot in front of her building together with her neighbors in a similar fashion in Warsaw during the war. She was a kid and fainted from the shot that went through her. She was later rescued by other neighbors after the soldiers left. Luckily the shot didn't hit any organs and she lived a happy life up until 4 years ago, when she passed away in her sleep.

[jeannemulvihill]

The actor that played the Officer was absolutely magnificent. Pure evil. He stole the scene.
My hat is off to you Sir.

[unkultur]

3:57 This scene works so well, because even after engaging in an argument with the commanding officer, and even after showing signs of hesitation, remorse, guilt, when the firing order comes, it pretty much sounds like one single shot, as they shoot their rifles in unison. So even though they were neither robots, nor soulless killing machines, they did function as such.

[caidee]

Damn, the cinematography and the quality are amazing for 1993

[paponeable]

My Father and his brother’s life’s were saved by a German soldier who said ( probably - nobody spoke German) that in the hole in the ground were they were hiding there was nobody: he lifted the wood that covered the hole ( there was in there 6 children - my dad and my uncles), he had eye contact with them and then the officer yelled something at him. He said “ no “ also shaking his head, left the wood that went back to cover the hole…, and he left.

[izaakdejager]

This comment thread is a goldmine for amazing war stories. Obviously they describe horrifying things but I am fascinated by them. Thank you all for sharing. My only war story is this: my grandfather lived in the occupied Netherlands. He was conscripted to work in a factory in Germany. He avoided deportation by hiding in a wheat field. The story goes that before he left the house to go hide, his mother gave him a kitchen knife and said "don't be afraid to use it". These are basically gentle peace-loving Christian peasants we are talking about. It just goes to show how brutal the war was, that a mother has to give her son instructions like that. And this story is nothing compared to many in this thread.

[johndeaes]

My great uncle fought in this battle.
He was born in 1923 and just 18 years old when he and his friends were sent to Stalingrad in the Summer of 1942.
He would always tell my dad that one time they had orders to attack a factory, which was being held by the Soviets. He would always say that that was the day he saw all of his best friends die right in front of him. He would also talk about the situations were he was engaged in hand to hand combat, telling my dad about the struggle and the slowly appearing white shimmer in the eyes of your enemy, once you take his life.

He also talked about a war crime he and his comrades committed, when they shot and killed their commanding officer. Because that officer didn’t care about the lives of his men, constantly forcing them to attack strongly fortified positions.

He also was awarded his iron cross there for shooting down an enemy plane, which then crashed right into the position of the Soviets.

The one thing that always gets me is when I hear the stories about the winter inside the city. My great uncle said that they didn’t have warm clothing, there was no food. It was so cold the young soldiers would not even notice the tears running down their cheeks from crying, praying, yearning for their mothers.
When new casualties were suffered, they would go out dragging the stiff-frozen bodies of their own comrades into their position and use them as sandbags. When a firefight erupted those bodies would thaw and pervade the air with a foul smell.

In January 1943, he went out of his position, when 4-5 bullets penetrated his legs. His friends took him to the last available airfield and he was fortunate and got flown out of Stalingrad in one of the last airplanes.
Neither his friends, who got him on the plane nor one of his other comrades made it out of there alive. They were all between 19-21 years old.

After his recovery he was sent to France, where he fought in Normandy, Falaise and the Battle of the Bulge. During the latter he was taken prisoner by the Americans and returned to Germany in 1948.

He would never even look at gun again. He passed away at the age of 86 in 2009. He finally found his peace

[RegularDude]

great and depressing scene that shows some serious personality in these soldiers rather than just making them evil monsters im going to give this movie a try

[howtoguro]

My grandfather was part of a truck division that carried medical supplies, he was ambushed by some Wehrmacht youth. He thought he was going to die, but they just wanted to eat his chocolate. Then they waved him through. He carried Hersey kisses for passengers in his glove box as an homage until he died 40 years later.

[FoodForThought]

This comment section is a living, breathing history tour de force.

So refreshing to see you all keeping your grand-relatives memories alive with their incredible tales, they'd be proud of you.

[Zelectrocutica]

One of the best war movie of all time, it's really show you how horrible the war can be. When men said "war is hell" they aren't exaggerated even a tiny bit.

[Alex-cswd]

My grandfather was part of the Greek resistance, during the war. He was one day given the order to move a German POW (a captured Wehrmacht soldier, I believe) from one village to the next, during the middle of the night when nobody would see them. So off they went, through the fields, in the middle of the darkness. However, after some time they came to a road, where there was some noise of engines and lights approaching, so my grandfather grabbed the German and held him down in the tall grass, but they were only a few metres away from the road. It was a German convoy of open trucks and armoured vehicles and stuff, passing by.

My grandfather immediately pulled out his pistol, held it to the German's head and whispered "if you yell, you die". This was however a known way that some of his fellow resistance fighters had been killed, as previous POWs in this kind of situation had been unafraid to yell out and sacrifice their own lives, just for the sake of the Reich and to have a resistance fighter killed (and perhaps they were done with living as POWs anyway). My grandfather was paralysed with fear because he knew that this German would probably also struggle and call out, despite my grandfather holding a gun to his head, and get them both killed. However, the German POW remained completely still and silent, until the convoy eventually fully passed. They continued their journey.

Once they were in some quieter fields, my grandfather asked him (he had a good level of German): "Why didn't you call out? All the other German POWs who saw troops did and got their captors killed." The German replied with something like: "I come from Bavaria, from a family of 5 sons. 2 of my brothers are dead in Stalingrad and another 2 are dead on the Western Front. I am all my parents have left, but now I have been missing for many months and they'll think I am dead. I hate this war, all it has done is destroy my family and I don't want to fight you. I want us to lose so I can go home and see my parents again.". My grandfather indeed did transfer the German POW to some resistance hideout in the next village.

My grandfather never saw that man again or found out what had happened to him. He accepts that he will now never know, but he hopes that he survived the rest of the war and then made it home. My grandfather has always told me that WWII movies that portray all Germans as evil killing robots are not so accurate; some Germans were terrible war criminals, while others were not. He says that the majority were radicalised with national socialism and followed the orders that they were given, but essentially behaved like professional soldiers. He also said that there were occasionally soldiers who tried to be helpful or kind. They were just human beings, coming in all shapes and sizes, ranging all across the morality spectrum. He also says that the real evil ones were the SS.

[Orthane]

One thing that's very underestimated in this scene is how the actual Wehrmacht are all wearing ragged clothes, had to be handed new rifles, are suffering from some frostbite, and have clearly been fighting hard. Whereas the Military Police and SS are all dressed in perfect uniforms without as much as a scratch on their helmets, some of the Wehrmacht don't even have helmets.

[papillon]

man the dialogue in this scene is absolutely amazing you can feel everything in their words its crazy!

[Nclysn]

I know it isn't related to the eastern front. But my great grandfather was in the 2nd polish corps he fought for monte cassino and ancona where i live now he got alot of medals for his bravery. He died last year in his sleep i love you grandpa.

[bulhakov]

My grandfather told me a story a lot of times of how his family was nearly killed by firing squad when he was just a kid.
His village in Poland was occupied by the Germans. One morning the whole family (my grandpa was around 7-8 years old then, his parents and grandparents) gets dragged out from the house by a troop of soldiers and lined up against the house wall. A German officer with the aid of a translator proclaimed the village was accused of harboring resistance fighters and they will be executed as an example what happens if you help the resistance.

This was true, the whole village including grandpa's family did frequently feed resistance fighters and couriers and let them sleep in the barn; however, this was not solely from patriotic duty - if you did not help the resistance, your barn and house got burned down in the night.

As the Germans waited for a crowd of onlookers from the village to gather for the execution, the leader of the German colonists ran over and started shouting and arguing with the commanding officer. The village chief vouched for my great-grandfather’s honesty, argued that the Germans were here to colonize not terrorize and needed honest hard working Polish farmers. He also threatened the officer with some family connections high in the Nazi party. The officer finally angrily gave up, but took out his frustration on my great-grandfather, beating him unconscious with a rifle butt. My great-grandpa lost his hearing in one of his ears, but lived long past the war.

As an added twist - it later turned out the accusation of harboring resistance fighters came from a Polish collaborator from another village, who got rejected by a girl from my grandfather's village and wanted to take vengeance. Resistance fighters beat him and burned his farm to the ground.

The story really shows the confusing morality of war. Grandpa was saved from a bad German by a good German, with both good and bad Poles contributing to the situation.

[andreik]

I am Russian.
My grandfather fought and I know this story from him.
He was wounded in battle, the battle was won by the germans and he lay wounded, unable to move and watched as a German officer walked across the battlefield and finished off russians wounded by last shoot from his pistol.
My grandfather's turn came, a german officer approached him and they looked into each other's eyes. The officer did not shoot and went on.
So my grandfather stayed to live, then he was a prisoner in Poland. Came back home.
And no one can explain why the officer didn't shoot him.

[foflgsq]

The howling of the winter in the background is so chilling.. it sounds like souls going to hell..

[adamc]

I’m Italian American and my grandfather was stationed in Greece after Mussolini rolled over. There were refugees fleeing across a valley below his sentry, and his commanding officer commanded that he shoot said refugees in a similar fashion depicted in this video. He was insubordinate, and ended up being thrown into an East German concentration camp for many years. He was ultimately liberated by Russians and eventually immigrated with his remaining family to America in the 60s. For all of the years that he was in that camp, he shared very little and took the nightmares to the grave.