International Press Review “…a turning point in German television.” Der Spiegel ‘’…rarely has such a programme triggered as much debate and interest” “…a turning point in German television.” ‘‘epochal“ “an epoch-making event, not only in TV history” “tough, uncompromising – a grandiose anti-war film” “uncompromising, wonderfully acted, an absolute must-see!” “An epoch-making three-parter… the last chance to relate the history of the war across the generations” ‘truthful, gripping, compassionate – a great television event’ ‘the most important TV movie of the year’ „The cruelly precise World War II drama “Generation War” finally breaks a silence between generations. It marks a turning point in German television.” “Generation War” relates the historical connections as a gripping and modern feature film. The opinion of BILD: absolute worth watching.” “The story of the totally normal, youthful representative of our past touches a truth in our souls. One should talk about this – especially with the members of the war generation. As long as this is still possible.” “Grandiose war epic!” By Jeevan Vasagar , Berlin 22 Mar 2013 Reviewers have praised the drama for breaking new ground by German TV Drama confronts a nation‘s wartime guilt showing how the Nazi system reached into every corner of life. Christian Buss, a culture editor for the magazine Spiegel wrote in a review of the drama that while the question of Germans' collective A television drama exploring the guilt of ordinary Germans during guilt had been resolved, the role of individuals remained unclear. the Second World War has become a ratings sensation in Germany, "Who has had the conversation with their own parents and reaching more than seven million viewers. grandparents about the moral failings of their elders?" he wrote. "The Our Mothers, Our Fathers follows the lives of five young men and history of the Third Reich has been examined down to the level of women – two brothers who become Wehrmacht soldiers, a singer, a Hitler's dog while our own family history is a deep dark crater." nurse and their Jewish friend. The final episode was watched by 7.6 million people. The series draws on the experiences of the film-makers' parents The drama begins on the eve of Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 and shows how the young people are rapidly corrupted by the Third Reich. One of the soldiers executes a Russian prisoner, while the nurse betrays a Jewish patient to the SS. The Jewish man is shown escaping the Nazis to find shelter with Polish partisans. The three-part series has been hailed by critics as a "turning point" in German television for examining the crimes of the Third Reich at an individual level. The screenplay of Our Mothers, Our Fathers draws on the experiences of the film-makers' parents – the screenwriter Stefan Kolditz's father was a 19-year-old soldier on the eastern front, while a scene in which a Jewish child is shot was based on an event witnessed by the producer Nico Hofmann's father. The drama also explores the seductive aspect of Nazism. Mr Hofmann told the newspaper Bild: "My mother took many years to understand that Adolf Hitler was not a father figure, not a substitute for religion, not a missionary." 3/21/2013 by Scott Roxborough MIPTV 2013: German Series Sparks National Debate About War German critics have been nearly universal in their praise for the History series, with Der Spiegel calling it a “turning point in German television” and a review in national newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung “Generation War,” billed as a German “Band of Brothers,” said Generation War provides “the first and last chance .. to ask follows the lives of five friends from 1939-1945. grandparents about their true biographies, their immoral COLOGNE, Germany – A miniseries billed as a German Band of compromises ... the missed chances to act – everything which, in Brothers has become a ratings hit here and sparked a nationwide masses, leads to catastrophe”. discussion about the role of ordinary Germans during WWII. Historic dramas set during WWII are nothing new for German TV but The six-hour series Generation War depicts the lives of five German in the past they have been more costume melodramas that shied friends from 1939-1945. Most of the series is set among the German away both from the raw violence of the period and uncomfortable Wehrmacht - the regular German armed forces, not the Nazi- historic truths. In scenes that are certain to make Generation War as controlled Waffen SS - and occurs on the Eastern Front, the site of controversial East of Berlin as it is in Germany, some of the Polish the most brutal acts of violence by the German army in World War II. partisans fighting the invading Nazis are depicted as Anti-Semites. That violence is at the core of Generation War , something that sets “We tried to filter out all the conventions that are usually used in the series apart from previous German TV shows set during WWII. telling stories from the war on German TV, such as using a love Also central to the series is the idea of personal complicity and story to provide the dramatic arc,” said Nico Hoffmann of Berlin- burden of guilt on ordinary Germans for the Nazi atrocities. based teamWorx, speaking to THR at television industry conference In addition to drawing record ratings for public broadcaster ZDF over MIPCOM last fall, where the producers unveiled the first footage of three nights – 7.6 million viewers, a 24 percent share of the German the series. “Instead we wanted to get as close to the documented audience, saw the series finale Wednesday night - Generation War facts as we could." Hoffman cites Band of Brothers as an inspiration has begun a heated discussion in the media here over history and for the style of Generation War although the characters in the personal responsibility. The debate is arguably on a scale last seen German series are fictional. following the release of Stephen Spielberg's Schindler's List (1993). TeamWorx produced Generation War for ZDF and Austrian public “Were German Soldiers Really So Barbaric?” was one front page broadcaster ORF in association with Jan Mojto's Beta Film. Beta is headline in leading German tabloid Bild , which, like many selling the series to international buyers at MIP TV in Cannes next newspapers and websites here, called on wartime veterans and month. family members to share their personal memories of the time. Yes, they were, was Bild 's conclusion. Tony Paterson Saturday 23 March 2013 Postcard from… Germany “The war” is mentioned almost daily in the German media at the moment. The reason is a new €15m TV drama, Our Mothers, Our Fathers, which gives a shockingly realistic account of five 20- something Germans before, during and at the end of the conflict in 1945. The series was broadcast at prime time for three nights this week. It attracted more than seven million viewers and glowing critical acclaim. The ordeals suffered by the protagonists are dreadful: two brothers enlist in the German army. Wide-eyed they are dispatched to the eastern front where they are confronted with the reality of SS men who shoot Jewish children at point-blank range and receive orders to assassinate prisoners on capture. One returns traumatised for life. The other commits suicide. Their well-meaning girl friend serves as a front-line nurse and ends up being raped by Red Army soldiers. German TV viewers have been fed on countless documentaries about the Second World War. But Edgar Reitz’s famous 1980s Heimat drama series was the first to give post-war generation German and British TV audiences a real inkling of what the war must have felt like for many Germans. Our Mothers, Our Fathers could do the same. Saturday March 30, 2013 To outsiders’ eyes, German television can be a dispiriting wasteland Over three nights, the miniseries shows the complexity of the of witless comedy and bizarre folk-music extravaganzas. But there is characters and their situation without absolving them of the guilt for, one genre that Germany still does very well: the miniseries. or consequences of, their wartime actions. “This is a generation that killed, many times,” says Hoffman. A friend Creating event television may seem an anachronistic endeavour in of his father’s was the source of one scene in the film, in which a the era of YouTube and Netflix Yet last week, as Cypriot protestors soldier sent to burn down a shack encounters an elderly Russian wielded posters of Angela Merkel with a Hitler moustache, millions of couple, who offer him tea. “My father’s friend didn’t just burn down Germans sat down once more to confront the real shadows of the the house but the entire village,” he says. “In the end, there were only 80- year-old Russian women left, clutching their teapots.” past. Unsere Mütter, Unsere Väter ( Our Mothers, Our Fathers ) was The producer took another calculated risk by framing the miniseries billed as epochal television, and over three nights up to eight million as a final chance for viewers to engage with the last war generation people – a quarter of the available audience – watched the story of – not of victims but of perpetrators. Given the level of Third Reich five twentysomething friends dragged into the second World War. dross dished out almost daily in the German media, it was far from certain that this strategy would work. Weak viewership figures could They part company in 1941, promising to meet up again in Berlin at have sent a disastrous signal that, seven decades on, Germans are Christmas, but the war has other plans for them.