philo beddoe
1st July 2010, 02:41 PM
A Look At Saving Private Ryan Though A German Soldier's Eyes
Permit me, a twice wounded veteran of the Waffen-SS, and participant in three campaigns (Battle of the Bulge, Hungary and Austria) to comment on your picture, "Saving Private Ryan."
Having read many of the accolades of this undoubtedly successful and, shall we say, "impressive," film, I hope you don't mind some criticism from both a German and a German-American point of view.
Apart from the carnage immediately at the beginning of the story, during the invasion at Omaha Beach, whereon I cannot comment because I was not there; many of the battle scenes seemed unreal.
You made some commendable efforts to provide authenticity through the use of several pieces of original-looking German equipment, for instance, the Schützenpanzerwagen (SPW), the MG 42s, and the Kettenkrad.
And, while the appearance of German infantry soldiers of the regular Army in the Normandy bunkers was not well depicted, the Waffen SS in the street fighting at the end of the film were quite properly outfitted.
My comment about the unreality of the battle scenes has to do with the fact that the Waffen-SS would not have acted as you depicted them in "Private Ryan."
While it was a common sight in battle to see both American and Russian infantry congregate around their tanks when approaching our lines, this rarely if ever occurred with the Waffen-SS.
(The first Americans I saw during the Battle of the Bulge were about a dozen dead GIs bunched around a burned-out, self-propelled, tracked howitzer.)
Furthermore, almost all the German soldiers seen in "Private Ryan" had their heads shaved, or wore closely cropped hair, something totally in conflict with reality. Perhaps you were confusing, in your mind, German soldiers with Russians of the time.
Or else, your Jewishness came to the fore, and you wanted to draw a direct line back from today's skinheads to the Waffen-SS and other German soldiers of the Third Reich.
Also, for my unit you should have used 18 or 19-year old boys instead of older guys. The average age, including general officers of the heroic Hitlerjugend division at Caen, was 19 years!
The scene where the GI shows his Jewish "Star of David" medallion to German POWs and tells them: "Ich Jude, ich Jude!" is so outrageous as to be funny.
I can tell you what German soldiers would have said to each other if such an incident had actually ever occurred: "That guy is nuts!"
You don't seem to know that for the average German soldier of World War II, of whatever unit, the race, color or "religion" of the enemy didn't matter at all. He didn't know and he didn't care.
Where Are The Stars of David?
Furthermore, you committed a serious error in judgment when, in the opening scenes of "Private Ryan" you had the camera pan from the lone grave with the Jewish star to all the Christian crosses in the cemetery.
I know what you wanted to say but I am sure that I was not the only one who immediately thereafter glanced over all the other hundreds of crosses one could see, to discover whether somewhere else was another Star of David.
And you know the answer. In fact, you generated exactly the opposite effect of what you had intended. Your use of that scene makes a lie out of the claim now put forth by Jewish organizations that during World War II Jews volunteered for service in numbers greater than their percentage of the general population, and that their blood sacrifice was (therefore) higher also.
I visited the large Luxembourg military cemetery where General Patton is buried and counted the Jewish stars on the gravestones. I was shocked by their absence.
http://judicial.hostzi.com/ty4a_look_at_saving_private_ryan_th.htm
Permit me, a twice wounded veteran of the Waffen-SS, and participant in three campaigns (Battle of the Bulge, Hungary and Austria) to comment on your picture, "Saving Private Ryan."
Having read many of the accolades of this undoubtedly successful and, shall we say, "impressive," film, I hope you don't mind some criticism from both a German and a German-American point of view.
Apart from the carnage immediately at the beginning of the story, during the invasion at Omaha Beach, whereon I cannot comment because I was not there; many of the battle scenes seemed unreal.
You made some commendable efforts to provide authenticity through the use of several pieces of original-looking German equipment, for instance, the Schützenpanzerwagen (SPW), the MG 42s, and the Kettenkrad.
And, while the appearance of German infantry soldiers of the regular Army in the Normandy bunkers was not well depicted, the Waffen SS in the street fighting at the end of the film were quite properly outfitted.
My comment about the unreality of the battle scenes has to do with the fact that the Waffen-SS would not have acted as you depicted them in "Private Ryan."
While it was a common sight in battle to see both American and Russian infantry congregate around their tanks when approaching our lines, this rarely if ever occurred with the Waffen-SS.
(The first Americans I saw during the Battle of the Bulge were about a dozen dead GIs bunched around a burned-out, self-propelled, tracked howitzer.)
Furthermore, almost all the German soldiers seen in "Private Ryan" had their heads shaved, or wore closely cropped hair, something totally in conflict with reality. Perhaps you were confusing, in your mind, German soldiers with Russians of the time.
Or else, your Jewishness came to the fore, and you wanted to draw a direct line back from today's skinheads to the Waffen-SS and other German soldiers of the Third Reich.
Also, for my unit you should have used 18 or 19-year old boys instead of older guys. The average age, including general officers of the heroic Hitlerjugend division at Caen, was 19 years!
The scene where the GI shows his Jewish "Star of David" medallion to German POWs and tells them: "Ich Jude, ich Jude!" is so outrageous as to be funny.
I can tell you what German soldiers would have said to each other if such an incident had actually ever occurred: "That guy is nuts!"
You don't seem to know that for the average German soldier of World War II, of whatever unit, the race, color or "religion" of the enemy didn't matter at all. He didn't know and he didn't care.
Where Are The Stars of David?
Furthermore, you committed a serious error in judgment when, in the opening scenes of "Private Ryan" you had the camera pan from the lone grave with the Jewish star to all the Christian crosses in the cemetery.
I know what you wanted to say but I am sure that I was not the only one who immediately thereafter glanced over all the other hundreds of crosses one could see, to discover whether somewhere else was another Star of David.
And you know the answer. In fact, you generated exactly the opposite effect of what you had intended. Your use of that scene makes a lie out of the claim now put forth by Jewish organizations that during World War II Jews volunteered for service in numbers greater than their percentage of the general population, and that their blood sacrifice was (therefore) higher also.
I visited the large Luxembourg military cemetery where General Patton is buried and counted the Jewish stars on the gravestones. I was shocked by their absence.
http://judicial.hostzi.com/ty4a_look_at_saving_private_ryan_th.htm