Generation War on Netflix is really good

English title for Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter

Update January 2021 no longer on Netflix and not available on Prime Video.

Well I thought it was good...

 ~Currently~ on Netflix there is a subtitled German war drama series called Generation War and it's really good. It focuses on the lives of 5 German friends in World War 2 and their different paths through the war from 1941 until the end. I don't really want to dissect every aspect nor give away the whole plot, this is just meant as a recommendation of a series that I think is really worth watching.

The 5 friends; Charlotte (Miriam Stein), Friedhelm Winter (Tom Schilling), Greta Müller (Katharina Schüttler), Viktor Goldstein (Ludwig Trepte) and Wilhelm Winter (Volker Bruch), all take different paths in the conflict. The Wilhelm brothers go to the Eastern Front and fight in the battle of Kursk, Charlotte becomes a nurse in a military field hospital, Greta becomes a renowned singer and entertainer and her boyfriend Viktor (who is Jewish) is taken away presumably to the concentration camps.

Titled: "Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter" in the original German meaning "Our Mothers, our Fathers" the miniseries is a deeply personal look at the conflict and it's effects. This is a war production about people, the events of the war so integral to the story telling, are still somehow in the back ground the focus is upon the 5. In this sense it is fascinating to revel in how individuals acted in these situations. This is also a very controversial part of Generation War, there is criticism that the attitudes contained were ahistorical and that patriotism, antisemitism and Nazism would have been more evident. I don't really know what to make of that debate, was everyone in wartime Germany a Nazi, fully aware of the horrors perpetrated? If you think the answer is yes I suspect, you might this film troubling. If you think the answer is no then you might find comfort in the idea of the innocence of the 5. Personally I'm on the fence, I don't think the question is that simple and I just enjoyed it for what it is, fiction...

Germans 'going over the top' at the battle of Kursk scene

In terms of combat scenes, they are hugely compelling. The action on the Eastern Front centres around the Wilhelm brothers and their experiences in the Wehrmacht. It tends to be smaller squad based warfare, rather than huge epic battle scenes. This serves to make the experience more tangible and real, as you see the German soldiers fighting field by field, street by street and house by house against the soldiers and tanks of the determined Red Army. The cinematography of the action scenes is superb and it's easy to get a very real feel of quite how terrifying combat was in the war against the Soviet Union. Of course combat is the only thing that happens but like I wrote above I don't want to give the plot away and this is a war film blog. But the other parts are just as good.

What do you think? let me know below, for me it's good to see a war series on Netflix although this is only 3 parts. It's very refreshing to see the focus be on individuals rather than the mission or the war itself. German productions on World War Two are so rare and even if some might criticise the story line for being revisionist in it's portrayal, it's still a great drama and excellent tv.