Sounds like a great movie - I'll be there too!! Thanks for the heads up Bill!!
Actually, the first book I read about WW2 was very bios - but it was good and got me into reading more - because of that I still like the book. And a great war movie - IMHO - is also a great Anti-war movie, because people sometimes get the idea that war is glory - a great war movie will show the BLood, gore AND guts - then people realize it's not all glory!!
Figmo
Enemy at the Gates - Mesmerizing!
Moderator: MOD_SPWaW
Is the movie about Stalingrad or is it about the snipers?
I've read both "Enemy at the gates" (about Stalingrad) and "War of the rats" (about the snipers).
The two stories are virtually identical, bar the name of the German sniper (Koenig in EATG, Thorwald in WOTR).
Both books are good, the first one being generally about the Campaign, not just the fighting in and around the City.
In the first book the "Snipers" storyline is sketched along many others.
In WOTR the focus in on the "Snipers" storyline.
From the trailer, I would guess the movie is more about the "Snipers", as it gives a better dramatic focus to Hollywood's annoying tendency to distort and dramatize everything.
Even the cast is a little odd: pretty boy Jude Law to portray the Russian master sniper is probably completely mis-cast, but it'll get the girls in.
Anyway, seen as Wild Bill gives it a good review I'll change my mind and go see it.
After that movie about how the Allies got hold of Ultra I have lost what little faith I had in Hollywood's way to portray historical conflict.
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Fabs
[This message has been edited by Fabs (edited March 07, 2001).]
I've read both "Enemy at the gates" (about Stalingrad) and "War of the rats" (about the snipers).
The two stories are virtually identical, bar the name of the German sniper (Koenig in EATG, Thorwald in WOTR).
Both books are good, the first one being generally about the Campaign, not just the fighting in and around the City.
In the first book the "Snipers" storyline is sketched along many others.
In WOTR the focus in on the "Snipers" storyline.
From the trailer, I would guess the movie is more about the "Snipers", as it gives a better dramatic focus to Hollywood's annoying tendency to distort and dramatize everything.
Even the cast is a little odd: pretty boy Jude Law to portray the Russian master sniper is probably completely mis-cast, but it'll get the girls in.
Anyway, seen as Wild Bill gives it a good review I'll change my mind and go see it.
After that movie about how the Allies got hold of Ultra I have lost what little faith I had in Hollywood's way to portray historical conflict.
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Fabs
[This message has been edited by Fabs (edited March 07, 2001).]
Fabs
Did anyone ever read any of the books written by Sven Hassel? He was a Danish bloke that was homeless at the beginning of the war and was caught sleeping in..uhm..in a train I believe.
Anyway, he get's caught , he is send to prison ( and german prisons in those days really really were -bad- places to be...I am sure that the name Torgau still sends shivers through some of the vets that are still alive ) and after a truly gruesome period he is offered a 'pardon'..he has to work off his debt to society in a special panzerdivision, made up fully of convicts, ranging from petty criminals to murders. I believe it was either 21 or the 22 Panzerdivision.
Those convicts were used as assault troops, always leading the attack with enormous high casualties. Anyway, it gives a fascinating look behind the scenes of the german army and why it was to fail eventually.
It also gives a nice point of view on some of the major battles, one of my own favourites being the situations around the battle of Monte Casino and the fighting around the Red October factory.
I think they made a movie based on his books once ( and a horrible conversion at that ) called Wheels of Terror.
Rho.
Anyway, he get's caught , he is send to prison ( and german prisons in those days really really were -bad- places to be...I am sure that the name Torgau still sends shivers through some of the vets that are still alive ) and after a truly gruesome period he is offered a 'pardon'..he has to work off his debt to society in a special panzerdivision, made up fully of convicts, ranging from petty criminals to murders. I believe it was either 21 or the 22 Panzerdivision.
Those convicts were used as assault troops, always leading the attack with enormous high casualties. Anyway, it gives a fascinating look behind the scenes of the german army and why it was to fail eventually.
It also gives a nice point of view on some of the major battles, one of my own favourites being the situations around the battle of Monte Casino and the fighting around the Red October factory.
I think they made a movie based on his books once ( and a horrible conversion at that ) called Wheels of Terror.
Rho.
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Yogi Yohan
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I have read some Sven Hassel books, and I belive that only the first is truly autobioghraphic. In some of the others there are so many mistakes one doubts the man ever served in Hitler's armies. Just to give two examples:Originally posted by Rhodan:
Did anyone ever read any of the books written by Sven Hassel?
*Hassel claims to have used Panzerfaust's during the summer 1941 advance in Russia.
*More than once Tigers are described as being equipped with flamethrowers.
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Randy Stead
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Rhodan:
Did anyone ever read any of the books written by Sven Hassel?
I read some of his books when I was a teenager and found them to be like pulp fiction. He seemed to revel in describing the basest of human behaviour. An example being from one of his books where he goes into great detail describing the Germans executing Russian partisans by flamethrowers aimed at the genitals. Nasty stuff.
Did anyone ever read any of the books written by Sven Hassel?
I read some of his books when I was a teenager and found them to be like pulp fiction. He seemed to revel in describing the basest of human behaviour. An example being from one of his books where he goes into great detail describing the Germans executing Russian partisans by flamethrowers aimed at the genitals. Nasty stuff.
Sven Hassel's books were written to shock and sensationalize war.
I read them as a teen-ager, and enjoyed them for what they were.
I was immature and some of the blackest stuff in them fascinated me in a morbid way.
I haven't come across one for 30 years now, and i wonder whether I would still find them as enthralling as I did then.
Having said all this, I suspect that pretty awful stuff did go on on the Eastern Front, where a titanic struggle between two power systems, two ideologies and two races was being played out.
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Fabs
I read them as a teen-ager, and enjoyed them for what they were.
I was immature and some of the blackest stuff in them fascinated me in a morbid way.
I haven't come across one for 30 years now, and i wonder whether I would still find them as enthralling as I did then.
Having said all this, I suspect that pretty awful stuff did go on on the Eastern Front, where a titanic struggle between two power systems, two ideologies and two races was being played out.
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Fabs
Fabs
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Lars Remmen
- Posts: 245
- Joined: Tue May 09, 2000 8:00 am
- Location: Copenhagen, Denmark
I have a book about Hassel written by a fellow who has written about Freikorps Danmark and other Danes in action on the eastern front.Originally posted by Rhodan:
Did anyone ever read any of the books written by Sven Hassel? He was a Danish bloke that was homeless at the beginning of the war and was caught sleeping in..uhm..in a train I believe.
Anyway, he get's caught , he is send to prison ( and german prisons in those days really really were -bad- places to be...I am sure that the name Torgau still sends shivers through some of the vets that are still alive ) and after a truly gruesome period he is offered a 'pardon'..he has to work off his debt to society in a special panzerdivision, made up fully of convicts, ranging from petty criminals to murders. I believe it was either 21 or the 22 Panzerdivision.
Those convicts were used as assault troops, always leading the attack with enormous high casualties. Anyway, it gives a fascinating look behind the scenes of the german army and why it was to fail eventually.
It also gives a nice point of view on some of the major battles, one of my own favourites being the situations around the battle of Monte Casino and the fighting around the Red October factory.
I think they made a movie based on his books once ( and a horrible conversion at that ) called Wheels of Terror.
Rho.
Compare the first book hassel wrote to Remarque's 'All quiet on the western front'. You'll see that he got some inspiration from that book. Also, a Dane who served on the eastern front was sentenced to prison about 10 years after the war when he told what he'd been doing during his service. Hassel hasn't been to prison because his books are 99.9% fictional.
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Lars
Nec Temere - Nec Timide
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" - Benjamin Franklin
Well smack on my fingers 
although I never took them to be fully true to life, I always did have the feeling that substantial parts were at least partially based on what he witnessed..but I do feel I need to point out a few things though:
1. His story, if it is indeed true (to whatever degree) points out that he did not voluntarily joined the german armed forces. He was pressed into it and next send of to locations that do not really invite to desertion. ( the russians had a habbit of looking at the color of a uniform first , then shooting, then asking, unfortunately for the tankers they shared the same color uniform with SS troops)
2. Atrocities...I've been a professional soldier for 8 years, been to places and had the misfortune to witness things that long ago took away any ideals and dreams I might have had regarding my fellow human beings. Any former UN in the region of the Vitez pocket will remember the burning of the little village of Amichi (spelling?) done by regular forces of one of the warring factions...after they made sure every citizen was locked up in their basement..since most of the men in that village were either dead or gone to war, that meant that roughly 400 women, senior citizens, babies and toddlers were burned alive.
There was an investigation not too long ago about belgian paracommandos swinging kids back and forth above a fire.
Canadian soldiers strangling german POW's with barbed wire during WWII, soviet troops butchering enormous amounts of polish people in a large forest, right after the fall of Poland.
etc etc etc
War is a brutal business that has a habbit of bringing out the worst in a large group of people, and that is/was something Mr Hassel managed to capture quite realistically and while I agree that it might be perceived as sensationalism ( then again the same would apply for CNN or any other news network that has to show the same bloody scenes over and over again) I'd rather take it as a dead serious warning about the ugly nature of the beast we call war and what it does with the people involved.
Rho
although I never took them to be fully true to life, I always did have the feeling that substantial parts were at least partially based on what he witnessed..but I do feel I need to point out a few things though:1. His story, if it is indeed true (to whatever degree) points out that he did not voluntarily joined the german armed forces. He was pressed into it and next send of to locations that do not really invite to desertion. ( the russians had a habbit of looking at the color of a uniform first , then shooting, then asking, unfortunately for the tankers they shared the same color uniform with SS troops)
2. Atrocities...I've been a professional soldier for 8 years, been to places and had the misfortune to witness things that long ago took away any ideals and dreams I might have had regarding my fellow human beings. Any former UN in the region of the Vitez pocket will remember the burning of the little village of Amichi (spelling?) done by regular forces of one of the warring factions...after they made sure every citizen was locked up in their basement..since most of the men in that village were either dead or gone to war, that meant that roughly 400 women, senior citizens, babies and toddlers were burned alive.
There was an investigation not too long ago about belgian paracommandos swinging kids back and forth above a fire.
Canadian soldiers strangling german POW's with barbed wire during WWII, soviet troops butchering enormous amounts of polish people in a large forest, right after the fall of Poland.
etc etc etc
War is a brutal business that has a habbit of bringing out the worst in a large group of people, and that is/was something Mr Hassel managed to capture quite realistically and while I agree that it might be perceived as sensationalism ( then again the same would apply for CNN or any other news network that has to show the same bloody scenes over and over again) I'd rather take it as a dead serious warning about the ugly nature of the beast we call war and what it does with the people involved.
Rho
The 21st Panzer Division was certainly not made up of convicts, and did not fight in Russia in 1941, 1942, 1943 or 1944.
It was one of Rommel's Afrikakorps divisions, and fought agains the Allies in north Africam Italy and Normandy.
It never fought in Russia, and fought on the Eastern Front only at the end of the war, where its bulk was made prisoner by the Russians.
I don't know much about the 22nd Panzer Division.
Convicts and other such personnell tended to fight in penal battaions. These were infantry units mostly, and were given the rottenest jobs and poor equipment.
This business of a Panzer Division made up entirely of convicts and given the most dangerous jobs is pure fiction, as are most of Sven Hassel's stories.
He can't have served in Cassino, as the line there was held by Fallschirmjaeger and elements of two Panzer-grenadier Divisions.
No Panzer Division took part in the battle of Cassino, as the terrain was totally unsuitable.
He just seized on popular episodes of the war and inserted his bunch of misfits into it, to get a good war pot-boiler for naive little boys like me to feast on.
They did make good reading, I'm almost ashamed to admit.
The movie sucked.
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Fabs
It was one of Rommel's Afrikakorps divisions, and fought agains the Allies in north Africam Italy and Normandy.
It never fought in Russia, and fought on the Eastern Front only at the end of the war, where its bulk was made prisoner by the Russians.
I don't know much about the 22nd Panzer Division.
Convicts and other such personnell tended to fight in penal battaions. These were infantry units mostly, and were given the rottenest jobs and poor equipment.
This business of a Panzer Division made up entirely of convicts and given the most dangerous jobs is pure fiction, as are most of Sven Hassel's stories.
He can't have served in Cassino, as the line there was held by Fallschirmjaeger and elements of two Panzer-grenadier Divisions.
No Panzer Division took part in the battle of Cassino, as the terrain was totally unsuitable.
He just seized on popular episodes of the war and inserted his bunch of misfits into it, to get a good war pot-boiler for naive little boys like me to feast on.
They did make good reading, I'm almost ashamed to admit.
The movie sucked.
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Fabs
Fabs
I recall reading somewhere, I believe a website recently that an expert sniper for the Germans, NEVER used a scope, so I wouldn't equate non-presence of scopes to there being no sipers. He said something about that the scope reflecting to the enemy was a dead giveaway, and he knew snipers that were spotted and killed that way.
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CaptainBrian
- Posts: 59
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As far as self embellished war meoirs go, the U. S. has certainly had it's fair share...
Two that come to mind are the works of Shelby Stanton, once considered one of the United States' leading Vietnam experts who claimed to have served in VN as a Special Forces Officer. It turns out he never did serve in Vietnam, much less with SF.
The other is a retired USMC 1stSgt named Hambelen (sp) who lost a leg in a Parachute Jump and continued to serve. His book, called "One Tough Marine," includes accounts of his wartime service in VN. He was there, but did not serve in the capacity he claims to have. His former CO, a retired LtGen said the book should be titled "One Lying Marine." War will always marked by less than truthful and accurate "first hand accounts."
Two that come to mind are the works of Shelby Stanton, once considered one of the United States' leading Vietnam experts who claimed to have served in VN as a Special Forces Officer. It turns out he never did serve in Vietnam, much less with SF.
The other is a retired USMC 1stSgt named Hambelen (sp) who lost a leg in a Parachute Jump and continued to serve. His book, called "One Tough Marine," includes accounts of his wartime service in VN. He was there, but did not serve in the capacity he claims to have. His former CO, a retired LtGen said the book should be titled "One Lying Marine." War will always marked by less than truthful and accurate "first hand accounts."
CaptainBrian
Hi folks, Did someone read the book "Stalingrad" from Vasilli Tchuikov, the commander of the russian forces into the city?Originally posted by Jeff Norton:
Heard the same thing about Zaitzev and Koenig. A made up fable... Saw the story on the History Channel about Suicide Missions and how it was played up. But, from what I read, there was never any German Officer Sniper. It even sounds odd. Low level German Army officers were generally leading from the front, but is strikes me as funny that a German officer would go 'hunting' in the ruins of Stalingrad.
But, fact is stranger than truth... I may be wrong....
Though, it looks like a good movie... Will check it out, since the wife/daughter are away this weekend. Is it released this week?
-Jeff
It's a great book and tell many interestings aspects from the russian perspective of the battle.
There, he talks about Zaitsev and the confrontation with a German sniper.
There is no name for this sniper but he tells the this guy came from a sniper's school at Berlin. He was an instructor there.
This guy killed two of the best russian snipers that were trained by Zaitsev and he decided to get the german.
at the final confrontation Zaitsev killed the german.
Well, I hope I can see this movie as soon as possible!!!!
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Senta à Pua!!!
Just seen the trailer, pretty neat. I could watch those planes, ships and such cinematics all day long. Man, I can't imagine such a feast on these 70 foot screens they have now. The best I've seen on such a big screen was SPR, and it didn't seem to have many epic shots.
Those Stuka dive bombing remind me of the ME109s when you first saw them approaching that airfield for the strafe in Battle of Britain. Ed Harris sure looks the German part, and only could've been replaced by everyone's favorite actor playing a German, Rutger Hauer, who's too old for the part I suppose.
Those Stuka dive bombing remind me of the ME109s when you first saw them approaching that airfield for the strafe in Battle of Britain. Ed Harris sure looks the German part, and only could've been replaced by everyone's favorite actor playing a German, Rutger Hauer, who's too old for the part I suppose.
Speaking of Stalingrad movies and fiction, has anyone read the novel by Theodor Plevier? I believe that the 1957 and 1994 versions of the movie by the same name are based loosely (very loosely) on the book. Anyone who has seen a preview of Enemy at the Gates or the trailer have an opinion about how they compare? Anyone familiar with Plevier's background. His other war novels are rather cryptic and hard to follow with many contrasting political overtones (which I think he probably did just for effect).
Matt
Matt
IYACYAS
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Randy Stead
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Let's not forget Jurgen Prochnow, the kaleun from Das Boot. I've seen him in some good films, and funnily enough he played a Russian general in Air Force One, but only really a cameo role. Another one of my favourite German actors is the guy who played the Tiger commander in Kelly's Heroes; can't recall his name offhand. Just love that stereotypical top to bottom facial scar!!!!! Also the actor who played the SS panzer group commander in A Bridge Too Far. He was also in The Wild Geese. I just love that scene in Bridge Too Far when he wants to blow up the bridge. His superior officer says, "Why do my generals want to blow up all my bridges?"Originally posted by Charles22:
Ed Harris sure looks the German part, and only could've been replaced by everyone's favorite actor playing a German, Rutger Hauer, who's too old for the part I suppose.[/B]
[This message has been edited by Randy Stead (edited March 10, 2001).]
It's "The Bridge." Available at www.belleandblade.com for about $20USD.
I must have seen it about 35 years ago. It was a black and white German film with English subtitles. I think it was called "The Bridge". It was set in a town in Germany in 1945 with the Americans advancing. A young German boy who has been trained in the Hitler Youth runs away from his school and tries to stop the Yankees.
I remember one vivid moment when an American soldier fires a bazooka and catches his loader with the full back blast.
Has anyone out there seen this film? If so how could I obtain a copy?[/B]
Randy Stead: Considering my last comments I was thinking of starting a new thread asking which actors did you like playing the role of Germans, but I thought it was a bit silly and decided not to. Well.....I won't start a new thread on it, but I will say that James Mason (liked him in any role, and did do a lot of military acting) was good, and though I'm not sure if I've ever seen him play a German or not, Christopher Walken would make a good one.
I just read "War of The Rats" a few months ago(hard to stop reading). I believe someone said, during a TV interview, that this is the book "Enemy at The Gates" is based on. From the trailer, it sure looks more like "WoTR" than "ENaTG"..
"I hate newspapermen. They come into camp and pick up their camp rumors and print them as facts. I regard them as spies, which, in truth, they are. If I killed them all there would be news from Hell before breakfast."- W.T. Sherman
It is based on "WOTR", In my copy of the book it said they were in production of the film.Originally posted by parusski:
I just read "War of The Rats" a few months ago(hard to stop reading). I believe someone said, during a TV interview, that this is the book "Enemy at The Gates" is based on. From the trailer, it sure looks more like "WoTR" than "ENaTG"..