On Demand
The Unknown Soldier
From 1999 to 2004, the Wehrmacht-Exhibition toured eleven German cities, reaching an audience of more than 500,000. The show shocked the nation by presenting documentary evidence that a large number of ordinary army soldiers, not just a fanatical minority in notorious SS units, were behind Nazi atrocities during World War II. Director Michael Verhoeven's new film, The Unknown Soldier, explores reactions to the controversial exhibition from historians, critics, and many Germans who attended it.
The Unknown Soldier opens on September 7 at Quad Cinema.
Weigh in: Have you seen the Wehrmacht-Exhibition?
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Is Verhoeven's usurpation of the title, "The Unknown Soldier" deliberately meant to undercut the position of Guy Sajer in his memoir of the same title, which recounted his experiences as a German soldier on the Russian front?
It seems the Germans have never really been allowed to grieve as victims when they suffered terrible atrocities at the hands of the Soviets and Americans. Why more guilt to be placed on the German people? How about the atrocities of Soviets in the East? How about the atrocities of the Americans by fire bombing innocent civilians in Dresden and Hamburg? History is defined by the victorious parties and it seems that the Germans have adopted, wholesale, the view of history as defined by the Allies. The Germans have outlawed any contrary viewpoints on the Holocaust, which calls into question these views if the light of history is not even allowed to shine on them.
Oops. Sajer's powerful memoir is "The Forgotten Soldier," not "Unknown." Mea culpa.
Still, it would be interesting to get Verhoeven's take on the psuedonymous Sajer, who I'm sure he sought to interview.
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