Best WWII movie that shows German Soldiers not acting stupid

There are way to many movies that never shows German Soldiers using a brain.

I have piled a list of movies that shows Germans kicking some ass or is fair in showing both sides. There may be more, so let me know.

Cross of Iron
Stalingrad
Enemy at the Gates
Saving Private Ryan (some what)
Anzio
Downfall (course this movie focuses on Germans)
A bridge to Far
The Longest Day (some what)
When Trumpets Fade
The Bridge (THE BEST ONE I HAVE SEEN)

 

Enemy at the gates portrayed the russians as really stupid.

 

Why evertime I watch Enemy at the Gates it seems I find mistakes made in the movie. I always wonder when I am watching it seems to stranger and stranger. Anyone noticed this when watching it.

 

The movie was 90% accurate up till the point where him and the german sniper's former pupil are trying to get the german to shoot the helmet. In reality, the german shot the helmet, checked his "kill" and was killed while doing so. After that, it was mostly Hollywood

 

The bit from Enemy at the Gate that sticks with me is a shot of the city with a crashed He111 in the foreground. I found it interesting that the bombers glazed nose seemed to be completely intact. Could help thinking the pilot of that plane might not have been good at keeping it in the air but man, he knew how to crash well.

 

hmm, not at all. Major König was an apparently apocryphal German major, propagated by the Soviets as the best World War II enemy sniper, with more than 400 kills. While Soviet sources pitted him against Vasily Grigoryevich Zaitsev in their propaganda of the time, neither the name Erwin König nor Heinz Thorvald have been found in any German records and some historians postulate that he never actually existed. In the movie he is a Major = SS-Sturmbannführer, but no sniper got such a high rank, coz they joined the battlefield to serve and not to command, also there were no soldiers of the Waffen-SS involved in Stalingrad.

The most successful german sniper was Matthias Hetzenauer, who killed 345 enemy soldiers. His longest confirmed kill was reported at 1100 metres.Hetzenauer trained as a sniper from March 27 through July 16 1944, before being assigned to the 3rd Gebirgsjäger Division, issued both a K98 rifle with 6x scope and a Gewehr 43 rifle with 4x scope.
On November 6, 1944, he suffered head trauma from artillery fire, and was awarded the Verwundeten-Abzeichen three days later.
Awarded the Ritterkreuz on April 17, 1945, Hetzenauer was captured by Soviet troops the following month, and eventually served 5 years in a Soviet prison camp.
He died on October 3, 2004, after several years of deteriorating health.

@ HSU21

Saving Private Ryan is the ultimative sutpid german soldiers movie, as you would call it It doesn´t take to much brain to shoot on soldiers on the beach out of bunkers, made by smart engineers^^ The rest of the movie shows still stupid german soldiers. When the wall broke down all german soldiers lost their lifes, when Tom Seizemore meet this german soldier who threw his helmet at him, the german took his pistol and instead of shooting he wooble his gun til Seizemore get his own^^ But the
best scene is when Upham take a group of german soldiers as POWs, hahaha, how did he do this, they all had their weapons and could shoot him easyily. Or another one, why should a tgier tank commander open the hatch, when he knew that the enemy is around, why did the driver didn´t close the observation slits, so the cool Captain Miller can kill him, interessting to destroy the tracks while useing HE, the whole energy would
go into the air and not exactly to the tracks. Interessting to see how stupid the german soldiers left the Sdkfz 251, so the soldiers can shoot everyone of them. All in all this movie is the ultimative historical nonsense, but good entertaiment hehe

The best movies are documentries and books^^

Regards,
Che.

 

I enjoyed the final bridge scene

The German soldiers were very good at running from building to building, occasionally stopping to yell something at each other...


Also the prisoner who was taken... He appears to be a nice enough guy, so Tom Hanks mercifully releases him... Later we see the same guy join in the German assault and shoot Tom Hanks

The moral of the story?

There are no good Germans :roll:

 

You mean the P-51 managing to hit a Tiger I in an urban environment dead centre, first time, with a bomb?

Yeah, made me giggle too.

 

....and you should better avoid to take enemy soldiers as prisoners. I wonder how this soldier, who found the german lines again, could join the Waffen-SS.
Probably they had catch him, but wouldn´t a soldier of the Wehrmacht join his old unit again ? I mean, that has to be very chaotic if every soldier who gets seperated from his unit becoming a member of the next comeing unit, would make a lot of bumph

Regards,
Che.

 

Well actually Tom Hanks destroyed the Tiger tank with his pistol. He hit the tank through the open observation slit, the bullet killed the driver and penetrated him, wounded the commanders knee and hit the fuel pipe.

Regards,
Che.

 

What i found interesting is that he had regular army insigna, but had SS later, and was refereed to as both a colonel and some SS rank.

But, the germans did send a sniper after Zaitzev, and he was killed by checking a supposed kill he had, which was just a helmet stuck against a window. Up to that point the story was true except for the love interest. After that, it was mostly Hollywood

 

I thought even this was propaganda ?! :-? coz there are no records about this event, neither on russian nor on german site. Am I wrong ?

Regards,
Che.

 

I saw footage from the 80's showing zaitzev talking about the whole situation.

 

A couple of TV show in here too ...

1. The Dirty Dozen.

2. Kelly's Heroes.

3. Hogan's Heroes.

4. Where Eagles Dare.

5. Ripping Yarns - Escape From Stalag Luft 112B.

:smok:

 

Didnt Hogans heroes only portray klink, and to a lesser extent shultz, to be stupid ?

Actually, when shultz was given command of the camp in one episodes, he showed himself to quite brilliant.

 

The wonderfully brilliant Allo Allo

"Your Name What Is It?"
"Don't Tell Him Pike!"
ahhhh Dad's Army

 

The series of War and Remembrance was pretty good in it's portrayal of everyone, Herman Wouk's books that it was pretty faithfully based on are a very good read too, if long.

 

I was under the assumption that it somehow hit a shell inside the tank

 

Smeg:
I came to a bit different conclusion as to the moral of the story.
In my mind the delimma was/is whether or not there is room for humanity in the midst of the inhumanity of war.
Tom Hanks let the German soldier go over the violent disagreement of his platoon. The decison to do so, ultimately cost him--and some of his soldiers--their lives.
Hindsight would tell us, he should have shot the German out-of-hand. Even if Hanks didn't value his own life, his primary responsibility is to the welfare of his troopers.
Past that, I imagine the lines and communication was as muddled for the German defenders as the American paras. People do get separated from their units and take-up arms to fight where they stand.
Don't know about ya'll, but if I was faced with staying-put in a burning halftrack--one just hit by a bazooka-round--or putting-dirt under my feet again... the decision would have been an easy-one.

Tim

 

Actually, Schultz was uncannily savvy and shrewd.
He had easy-duty guarding allied prisoners outside Dusseldorf, far from the Eastern-Front.
He "Saw nothing, heard nothing, and did nothing" thus staying out of trouble with superiors... and away from the Russian Front. I don't believe he was even a registered member of the Nazi-party.
He obviously had plenty to eat, based on his "girth" and I can't recall him ever being forced to fire his weapon in anger.
My kind of stupid.
Yes, I'd say Sgt Schultz survived the war, whilst Col. Klink and General Hoffsteader were likely shot as war-criminals.

Tim