DVD : Mein Krieg - My Private War
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0738329019228
Format: Black & White, Color, NTSC, Subtitled
Label: Kino Video
Manufacturer: Kino Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Kino Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: November 28, 2000
Running Time: 90 minutes
Sales Rank: 100904
Studio: Kino Video
Theatrical Release Date: 1991
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Editorial Review:
Amazon.com:
Amateur movies shot with small handheld cameras by six German infantrymen on the Eastern Front during World War II form the core of this documentary. The men who took the movies appear on camera as old men to provide narration (in German, with subtitles), and they provide a perspective not often heard. As might be expected, they distance themselves from atrocities, and as they were foot soldiers in the Wehrmacht, their denials of involvement are probably true. One of the men still owns the camera he carried in the war, and he demonstrates how its small size made it perfect for impromptu filming in the field. Clips of smiling troops on the move is accompanied by an old man talking about how happy they were to be going to an unknown destination, likening it to "the joy one feels when on a journey." It turns out the gleeful trip he recalls was actually the beginning of the invasion of Poland and thus the beginning of the war in Europe. Later footage shows combat conditions in Russia, and the grisly aftermath of vicious combat. The rarity of the film footage, some of which was shot in color, makes this documentary worth watching. But the recollections of the amateur cameramen also provide an unusual insight into the German war machine, such as when one of the old veterans mentions how he eventually realized, "This was no defensive war forced upon us, it was an idiotic war of aggression." --Robert J. McNamara
Average Rating: 
Rating:  -
I believe that McNamara is wrong about what the gentlemen is describing. McNamara states that the old soldier is describing the journey to the front before the invasion of Poland. My take on it is that the old soldier is describing the move to the front through Poland and to the assembly positions for the invasion of Russia in 1941.
No serious student of WWII can be without this film. Unless you know exactly where Vitebsk is and when the Germans first captured it, you won't know exactly ... Read More
Rating: -
This DVD is not for people with a closed mind, it is an example of journalism not a war story. It is the simple story of German cameramen in WWII, what they saw, what happened them and how they felt. Is is refreshing to see footage of WWII that isn't written from an action or moral stance. It is a fly on the fall that runs from the start of the war when these men moved forward with their nations troops right up to the time that they arrived home after defeat and what awaited when they got "home". There ... Read More
Rating:  -
I was a bit disappointed by this DVD, but it is still worth having. It provides some very penetrating insight onto bits of everyday life for the German landser on the Eastern front -- the footage is mostly of barracks, hospitals, rear-areas, roads, and only rarely the front -- but its short length (90 minutes) and the unavoidable messiness brought about by editing the amateur footage of six different men into one narrative gave it a ragged, uneven feel. It also seemed like the documentarians' questions ... Read More
Rating: -
What is gripping is the combination of pride and defensiveness in the retired landsers. You get the impression some are unwilling to reveal explicitly what they really think because these thoughts became unacceptable in May 1945. If I am right, the film is a real achievement.
Rating: -
First, a remark about the KINO DVD: It only contains the documentary, nothing else, picture quality is up to vhs standard only (of course I speak about the newer segments, shot in 1990), and worst of all, the english subtitles in this all-german film can not be switched off (the dvd was taken from an already subtitled print), which is very annoying as one would like to see the old images without big white letters written over them.
But then, what choice do you have?? This is the only version of this ... Read More
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