My Private War

Overview

Late in the 1980s, two documentary film makers found six German men, all in their 60s and 70s, who had been soldiers in the German invasion of the USSR in 1942. Each carried an 8mm camera into battle and they still had their film. "Mein Kreig" alternates between interviews with these older men, now apologetic, philosophical, or defiant about their participation, and the footage they shot. It's chronological: basic training, the train trip East, roof-top vistas of war-torn Warsaw, peasants in Belarus, the downing with carbine volleys of a Russian plane, winter, a holiday at the Black Sea, mud, impassable roads, death, destruction and retreat. "Home, that was the front," one says.

Details

Status

Released

Release date

February 12, 1990

Original language

German

Spoken languages

English, German

Countries

Germany

Production

WDR,Känguruh Film GmbH

Director

Harriet Eder,Thomas Kufus

Writer

Harriet Eder,Thomas Kufus

Cinematography

Johann Feindt

Budget

Not recorded

Revenue

Not recorded

IMDb

tt0107547