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  • Die Ostfront: Sieg oder Sibirien (1999)
  • Documentary
Primary photo for Die Ostfront: Sieg oder Sibirien
Die Ostfront: Sieg oder Sibirien (1999)
Documentary
"The future was a dark, dark wall I couldn't see behind. I believed about what was written on the wagons: 'Victory or Siberia'. But victory was no longer in sight. Nor did I have a concrete perspective of life after the war. But I wanted ...See more"The future was a dark, dark wall I couldn't see behind. I believed about what was written on the wagons: 'Victory or Siberia'. But victory was no longer in sight. Nor did I have a concrete perspective of life after the war. But I wanted to survive at all costs to see what it would be like." The young private Dieter Wellershoff - a well-known writer in Germany after the war - had to go to the front in the penultimate year of the war, "which was no longer a front". The withdrawal from Russia is associated with immeasurable hardships: hardly any food, no fuel, no ammunition. The losses of the German Wehrmacht are excessive. For some units, the "average length of stay" of the platoon leaders at the front is just ten days. Everyone wants to survive, but this has become a lottery game. In the last one and a half war years far more soldiers fall than in the whole war before. Whole regions fall victim to the increasing brutalization: "On the retreat, those were hopeless escapes, everything was set on fire. The grain, houses, everything was to become "burnt earth". The Russians were to be deprived of the opportunity to feed during the winter." Some soldiers doubted the leadership and the meaning of the whole war. Their conclusion is devastating: "What have we tried to hold the front for? For deporting hundreds of thousands behind our backs, even worse, for killing six million Jews in concentration camps. And I was involved in that. And that's what I still can't cope with today." Written by Martin Thoma See less
Read more: Plot summary
Director
Martin Thoma
Writer
Martin Thoma
Cinematographers
Werner Schmidtke | Walter Trost (co-cinematographer)
Editor
Ursula Fritsche
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Status
Edit Released
Updated Dec 31, 1999
Release date
1999 (Germany)

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