Animation meets atrocity: the documentary that dares ask how ordinary men became monsters.
September 1st, 1939. Nazi Germany invades Poland. The campaign is fast, cruel and ruthless. In these circumstances, how is it that ordinary German soldiers suddenly became vicious killers, terrorizing the local population? Did everyone turn into something worse than wild animals? The true story of the first World War II offensive that marks in the history of infamy the beginning of a carnage and a historical tragedy.
Direction
Bold choice: animation humanizes horror without sanitizing it.
Writing
Historians' testimony builds devastating cumulative argument.
Editing
52 minutes of escalating dread, no wasted frame.
Director
Alexander Hogh
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Part of renewed German-Polish documentary cooperation examining contested WWII memory, released as nationalist revisionism resurged in both countries.
Uses 'ordinary men' framework from Browning's seminal research, but uniquely visualizes the psychological 'ramp-up' to genocide through animated reenactment.
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