Die Brucke (The Bridge) by Bernhard Wicki

"Hitler Youth:Growing Up in Hitler's Shadow." 2005. Studysync: Reading & Writing Companion. Sonoma, CA: BookheadEd Learning, LLC, 2015. 397-99. Print.

Hailed as one of the greatest anti-war films of the era, as mentioned by Chambers, “All Quiet on the Western Front” really is an impressive display of sound and visuals. These, as a whole, reconstructed the harsh reality of wars through the eyes of a fresh young recruit who initially thought that engaging in war means glory and pride.

The boys believe they are willing to fight to their country. Their ultimate death “for the fatherland” seems far more senseless. While the first film provoked questions about the individual evaluation of death for cause, this film left me wondering about national assessments of worthwhile deaths. While the parents and teacher of these boys worried about them as individuals, the nation viewed the boys as part of a greater whole, and therefore their deaths were part of some larger German vision, untainted by individual loss of life. The film was painful to watch. It seemed fitting that I watched it after visiting Arlington Cemetery this past weekend, and was made somber by the unending white waves of grace stones marking the names of young men barely older than those shown in the film. The sight left me humbled and appalled. It seems, to me, so senseless. Some conflicts we’ve justified in popular history, others we have not, yet here these men and women lie, equal in

Sound effects, dialogue, and the musical score are three elements that make up the soundtrack, all of which assisted in enhancing the story of the film. Not only did the soundtrack augment the meaning of the film, but it also helped amplify the emotions that would be felt by the views as well as heighten the range, depth, and our experience of the film. In the film there are many sounds present. All the different sounds contributed to the makings of this film in their own way, whether it was giving off the feeling of actually happening, and being there, or to accompany the visual images.

Sound is also a big part of the film. There is a non-diegetic soundtrack used throughout the title sequence, which is rock music and when the American flag appears, the music changes to the American anthem, which is slightly lower pitched and distorted. This adds to the whole imagery of the film. Then you also have Columbus’s observations and comments that run throughout the film as well. Director and editor also used diegetic sound, which is mainly used for the growling of the zombies when they are attacking people. The sound of the zombies growling is low pitched and the amplitude of the vibrations is loud.

The film is more emotion based rather than fact based, in an attempt to appeal to the audiences symphonies rather than instruct them on a historical event. It has been criticized for its accuracy, specifically pertaining to the ages of the boys. Many critics claim that boys as young as Schmuel would never have been at Auschwitz, because all children too young to work were gassed upon arrival. Others argue that the film is symbol of innocence, and the two boys reflect how children are able to look past each other’s differences easier than adults.

Christopher Isherwood, a young British medical school student who went to Germany due to the political conflicts that was taking place there at the time. He also admits that one of the reasons he went there was not only because of the political conflicts but also because of the “boys”, Germany meant boys to him. Before his trip to Germany, his mother was against his decisions. Going to Germany is like going to war, she didn’t want him to go there because she was worried about him, she thought that he will be cut back from medical school and also because the Germans have killed her husband.

Sound plays a very important role in the film. From the sound of the different bullets flying by to explosives, these sounds add to the authenticity and believability of the film. Another example is the muffled noises that occur when the Captain experiences shellshock. One example of this is in the very end when the bridge is blown up and Captain Miller falls to the ground, by muting the

There are voices that need to be heard, there is so much to communicate yet no ears are there to satisfy such yearnings. The work by Wolfgang revolves around the plight of the people of Germans as the Third Reich crumbled. It is a side of the repeatedly told tale that very few are aware of; people, including children like Wolfgang, paying the price for depravities they did not take part in or even know of. All through the work, the plot

World War II was one of the most significant events that impacted the world for many centuries. Of all the countries, Germany suffered the most consequences, as they were one of the primary countries that sparked the world war. Under the Nazi Regime, soldiers had no choice but to battle the war and die for their country. Fighter jets bombed several cities, killing off thousands of civilians. Germany was financially ruined from highly prioritizing the war efforts. Author Wolfgang Borchert’s postwar play, “The Man Outside,” primarily focuses on post-war and the harsh reality of coming back and starting over from nothing. Borchert’s style in the way he addresses the feelings of recovering from the war are displayed within the dialogues of the characters as well as story structure by coming to terms with the past and accepting them.

This could be interpreted as a well-intended attempt on behalf of the writer to show the young readers that ‘Germans are humans too’. Although not ‘good’, in this novel the Germans are not the evil monsters that dominated Fildisi’s earlier book. What the two books have in common, however, is that in both the responsibility for the war is attributed exclusively to Hitler and promote the stereotyped image of a madman who manipulated a whole nation into going into war. It stands to reason that this interpretation is particularly alerting to the eyes of the modern-day adult reader who engages with books for the young. However, it should be always kept in mind that the book owes everything to the time in which it was written and that was the late 1970s, almost a decade before the collapse of the Berlin Wall which signified the beginning of a particularly distressing Vergangenheitsbewältigung process as much for Germany as for the rest of

Overlord, a film with an interesting blend of historic footage and acting, does not present a heroic view of World War Two. This film portrays a pessimistic view of the war using documentary footage, as well as showing an ordinary soldier who died too young. Alongside this, at the time anti-war sentiment was on the rise and the memory of World War Two was being reshaped.

Marco came to raise money for his family and plans to go back to Italy

German Boy by Wolfgang Samuel is the true story of a young boy enduring the horrors of war. He flees his home in the late war, travelling across war-torn Germany in a desperate attempt to escape to the West. His experience in the war, and his innocence, along with the development of his mother, prove the horrors of war, the durability of the human spirit, and the kindness of strangers. Wolfgang Samuel’s German Boy was a successful novel due to the writer’s use of characters, setting, and theme.

World War II was not the war to change all wars like its predecessor, rather it was a war that drastically changed the politics and social relationships of neighboring countries in Europe forever. In its wake, the war left millions of people dead, displaced, and the entirety of Europe polarized between two ideologies: Fascism and Socialism. When the Nazis surrendered May 8, 1945, it marked the end of the war but also the beginning of a struggle towards European recovery. Instead of Fascism, the focal point turned towards reconstruction of Germany and the memory of the war and holocaust. The question of ‘how should the war be remembered’ became a central focus within most of Europe (especially in Germany); governments and townspeople actively worked together to cover up its past and rewrite their narratives as resistance fighters instead of participators. The concealment of Europe’s active participation in the war and holocaust is ultimately what enticed artists such as Michael Verhoeven and Art Spiegalman to use their work and explore the question of how the war should be remembered. Both artists have a distinct connection towards the events of World War II due to their religious and national identities. Their identities being at odds with one another in the context of the war because Verhoeven is Jewish and Spiegalman is Jewish. Through Verhoeven’s The Nasty Girl and Spiegalman’s Maus II, both artists reflect on the holocaust and the war and the repercussions it brought.