A group of German boys are ordered to protect a small bridge in their home village during the waning months of the second world war. Truckloads of defeated, cynical Wehrmacht soldiers flee the approaching American troops, but the boys, full of enthusiasm for the "blood and honor" Nazi ideology, stay to defend the useless bridge. The film is based on a West German anti-war novel of the same name, written by Gregor Dorfmeister.
Direction
Wicki's first feature—still one of the greatest anti-war films ever made
Acting
Unknown young cast delivers devastating authenticity
Writing
Based on Dorfmeister's novel—he lived this horror as a teen
Director
Bernhard Wicki
Folker Bohnet
Hans Scholten
Fritz Wepper
Albert Mutz
Michael Hinz
Walter Forst
Frank Glaubrecht
Jurgen Borchert
Volker Lechtenbrink
Klaus Hager
Günther Hoffmann
Sigi Bernhard
Cordula Trantow
Franziska
Wolfgang Stumpf
Stern
Günter Pfitzmann
Heilmann
Heinz Spitzner
Fröhlich
Siegfried Schürenberg
Lieutenant Colonel
Ruth Hausmeister
Frau Mutz
Edith Schultze-Westrum
Mutter Bernhard
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Wicki cast actual teenagers with no acting experience, shooting chronologically so their exhaustion and fear would be real.
Released when Germany was still awkward about WWII, this was one of the first films to show ordinary Germans as victims of Nazi machinery—controversial then, essential now.
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