The Horrors of War

The Battle of Stalingrad was one of the most brutal battles in human history, and the film STALINGRAD is the most brutally disturbing war movie I have ever seen. The film begins in Italy in the summer of 1942, where a veteran Wehrmacht unit is on leave after being withdrawn from North Africa. The unit is being transferred to the Eastern Front to support the German offensive towards the Caucasus and Volga River.

Upon their arrival, the soldiers learn the war on the Eastern Front is nothing like it was in North Africa. The war in North Africa between the Germans and Italians against the British and their colonial troops was much more civilised. Prisoners were treated humanely and with respect by both sides. However, on the Eastern Front, the Afrika Korps veterans are shocked to see Waffen SS men beating Soviet prisoners and committing other war crimes. The brutality only escalates from there.

The fighting in Stalingrad is street by street and room to room. In some buildings, the Soviets occupy some floors, while the Germans occupy others. The front lines are unclear, in this apocalyptic wasteland strewn with the remains of buildings, vehicles, animals and human beings. The battle scenes are first rate in this film with minimal dialogue. One image which sticks in my mind is a German soldier being severed in two at the waste by an explosion. His torso falls to the ground, but he remains upright because it is so cold that his guts have frozen to the ice. Other battle scenes in this 1993 film look suspiciously similar to those in the 1998 film SAVING PRIVATE RYAN. There is no doubt Spielberg must have seen STALINGRAD.

Any viewer familiar with WWII knows the men of the Sixth Army are doomed from the start of the film. Eventually, the Sixth Army is completely encircled following a Soviet counter-attack. The characters gradually go insane as a result of the carnage they have experienced, the diminishing food supplies, the extremely cold temperatures and the fact it is becoming increasingly clear there is no hope for survival.

At the time of the Soviet counter-offensive, 250,000 men of the Sixth Army where trapped in Stalingrad. At the time Field Marshall von Paulus surrendered, 91,000 were still alive. After twelve years of hard labour, disease and starvation in Soviet gulags, only 6,000 of the original 250,000 returned to Germany alive.

No other film can possibly surpass STALINGRAD in its disturbingly accurate portrayal of the horrors of war. When I saw this film in the theatre in Germany in 1993, the audience left in dead silence. I had the same disturbed reaction when I watched it again last year. This film is very powerful and emotionally draining to watch, but a must see for anyone interested in WWII.