'...Ich kenne den Soldat; ich kenne diesen Mann' The German soldier says this to Upham after the battle for Remel. And then he shoots him.
Is this a question for translation? "I know this soldier.. I know this man!" (It's he German soldier from the radio station earlier in the movie, see my avatar ) IIRC he also says something to the effect that "He (Upham) will not shoot us" or so, but I'm not that sure any more. Base line is that he surrendered and gets shot. Cheers,
Thanks Andy-So the German soldier 'Steamboat Willie' thinks that they are safe because tehy know Upham-hehehehe-how wrong he was-No matter how much I hated the German soldier for shooting Captain Miller, it still isn't right in war to shoot a POW...
Actually I never got an idea what Spielberg wanted to tell us with this scene: Upham, the "coward" during the entire film, executes the german POW who had been captured earlier in the movie but was released by Cpt. Miller. Later the same German soldier shot Cpt. Miller. Seems that Spielbergs tried to tell us that the German soldier did something "wrong" (joining his men after he was released? Shooting at the enemy?Well, what do we expect?) and deserved to die, but I don't get it why? Cheers,
I don't think Spielberg wanted to tell us anything about the German or with regard to the German. I think he just "used" the German to show the change in Upham. Upham turned from a sort 'intellectual', un-warrior-like "coward", into, well, stil kinda a coward but one that was affected by what he had seen how he came to actually consiously deciding to kill a human being, something he wouldn't have done at the start of the movie, when he was ordered by Miller to come along.
