an era boy

Matt 2022-03-24 09:03:21

An anti-fascist film from a unique perspective. Hitler once said that sending the next generation of officers to the battlefield ahead of time means that the country is about to end. His words allegorically happened to Germany itself.
Germany educates the next generation in the way of Hitler's youth, for the glory of the motherland, for the unification of the world in the future, for National Socialism, for the Führer Hitler... Everything is like brainwashing and hypnosis, growing in the hearts of the German people .
Sometimes I even think that conquering the world, just like saving the world, is a kind of beautiful complex of men. The future world depicted by Hitler is too perfect, just as the film said, when the war is won, you may become senior officers in New York, Moscow, or even London in the future. These dream-like ideals give people a huge sense of mission. And the powerful power makes the blood boil.
Just as the senior officers in the film sent their young sons to fight on the Eastern Front, Hitler still sent tens of thousands of young German officers to the battlefield even though Germany was losing ground on the Eastern Front from 1942 to 1945. While human nature and conscience are considered weak things are forbidden, the two boys in the film are too weak, so one lost his young life, and the other gave up a bright future. If there is a so-called honor in the battlefield, then the boy finally let go in the icy lake and chose to listen to the voice of the heart in a suicide way, so that his flexibility can be truly free.

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Extended Reading

Before the Fall quotes

  • Christoph Schneider: Pull yourself together!

    Albrecht Stein: Pull myself together? Do you know what we just did? You shouldn't have shot! You shouldn't have shot!

    Tjaden: I didn't give the order. Your father said they had guns!

    Albrecht Stein: Why are you looking at me like that?

    Friedrich Weimer: I'm not looking at you.

    Albrecht Stein: I know what you're thinking. Don't look at me like that!

  • Albrecht Stein: [reading from his essay] "As childish as it sounds, the winter time and the sight of freshly fallen snow always fill us with inexplicable joy. Perhaps because as children, we associated it with Christmas. I always imagine myself the hero who killed dragons, rescued virgins, and freed the world from evil. As we went out yesterday to find the prisoners, I felt like that little boy who wanted to save the world."

    Vogler: Albrecht, stop.

    Albrecht Stein: But as we returned, I understood that I am part of the evil that I wanted to save us from.

    Vogler: Albrecht, stop.

    Albrecht Stein: Shooting prisoners is wrong. They were not armed, as Governor Stein told us, to incite us. We didn't shoot men, only children.

    Vogler: Out!