Generation War (, translated as "Our Mothers, our Fathers") is a 2013 German World War II TV miniseries in three parts. It was commissioned by the public broadcasting organization ZDF, produced by the UFA subsidiary TeamWorx, and first aired in Germany and Austria in March 2013. The series tells the story of five German friends, aged around 20, on different paths through Nazi Germany and World War II: as Wehrmacht soldiers on the Eastern Front, a war nurse, an aspiring singer, and a Jewish tailor. The narrative spans four years, starting in 1941 Berlin, when the friends meet up for a last time before embarking on their journeys, enthusiastically vowing to meet up again the following Christmas. The story's conclusion is set shortly after the end of the war in 1945.
When the series was first aired in Germany, each episode garnered around 7 million views. Generation War has generated much controversy. The Economist stated that hardly any German TV drama ever caused so much public debate. Critics have acknowledged the series to be well crafted, intense and unsparing in its depiction of combat on the eastern front. However, aspects such as the portrayal of the Polish resistance movement as anti-semites, the scant depiction of Nazi Germany's objective to purge the Reich of Jews, and the blurring of differences between non-German victims and German perpetrators have been deplored by others.
Plot There are three 90-minute parts: A Different Time (), A Different War (), and A Different Country ().
A Different Time Shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union, five close friends have a party at a pub in Berlin. Wilhelm is an officer in the Army, while his brother Friedhelm an enlisted man. Viktor is a Jew whose father owns a tailor shop. Charlotte has just passed her examination to become a military nurse. Greta is a beautiful bartender who hopes to become a singer. The friends are hopeful that they will meet again by Christmas.
Wilhelm and Friedhelm witness some early victories as the German army advances toward Moscow. Charlotte gets used to seeing blood as she works in a military hospital near the front line. Greta sleeps with an SS-SD major in order to advance her career as a singer. She attempts to use her relationship to obtain documents for Viktor to flee to New York City, but Viktor is arrested by the Gestapo and is put on a train to a concentration camp.
A Different War The invasion is being pushed back by the Red Army, causing high casualties for the Germans. During an assault in which almost his entire platoon is killed, Wilhelm is knocked unconscious by an explosion and left for dead. When he wakes up, instead of going back to the base, he finds a cabin by a lake and lives on his own for a few weeks. He is discovered by the military police and sentenced to death for desertion. Friedhelm, having been cut off from his unit during the earlier assault, escapes the Soviets by wearing a Soviet uniform, only to be mistakenly shot by his own side when returning to his lines. He is taken to a field hospital where Charlotte discovers him and convinces the doctor to operate, saving his life. While recovering, believing his brother to be dead, he tells Charlotte that Wilhelm has been killed. Friedhelm is sent back home, but seeing his father's disappointment with Wilhelm's apparent death, and lack of appreciation for Friedhelm's survival, Friedhelm cuts short his leave and returns to his unit. Viktor is sent to Auschwitz, but he manages to escape by breaking the wooden floor of the railroad car he is in, alongside a Polish woman called Alina, and joins a group of Polish partisans. He has to conceal his Jewish identity because they hate Jews. Charlotte feels despair over Wilhelm's apparent death and starts an affair with the doctor who saved Friedhelm. Greta visits the front line to perform for the many soldiers. In the apartment where she stays, she is reunited with Wilhelm, Friedhelm and Charlotte for a brief moment. She visits Charlotte's workplace and becomes disillusioned by what she sees. Back in Germany, she returns to the bar where she works and tells the soldiers who have returned from the battlefield that victory is still a long way to go. The day after, she is arrested by the Gestapo and thrown into prison for making remarks in public that disapprove of the war and the Hitler regime and also probably because of her attempts to contact the same Gestapo Lt. Colonel in the first episode (calling him at home, which, as his mistress, was unacceptable). When the Lt. Colonel questions her, she tells him that she has become pregnant.
A Different Country The Soviets are now nearing Berlin. Wilhelm's death sentence is reduced to probation and he is assigned to a disciplinary battalion. A sadistic sergeant abuses Wilhelm, whom he eventually kills before escaping the battalion. Charlotte befriends a Russian nurse named Sonja. After liberating prisoners from a train on the way to a labour camp, Viktor is expelled from the partisans because they find out he is Jewish. Charlotte sees Wilhelm again and has an emotional breakdown because she thought he was dead. Viktor crosses paths with Friedhelm, who kills an SD commander, enabling Viktor to escape. When the field hospital is overrun, Sonja and Charlotte are captured and Charlotte is nearly raped by a Soviet soldier. Lilija, Charlotte's former assistant arrested by the Gestapo for being Jewish, is revealed to have survived and is now serving as a Soviet officer. She sees Sonja being harassed as a traitor by Soviet soldiers and then being executed by Lilija. After the German army falls apart, Friedhelm dies while leading a group of Volkssturm, sacrificing himself to make his troops surrender. In the war's last days, Greta is executed by the German authorities for her speech crimes and her possession of incriminating evidence about her former Gestapo lover—who, it is implied, has ordered her execution. Shortly after the end of the war, the three survivors, Wilhelm, Viktor and Charlotte, meet in the ruins of the same pub as before and grieve for their lost friends, without any sense of triumph over their survival.
Main characters
Wilhelm Winter Wilhelm (Volker Bruch) is the narrator of the story. He provides the opening monologue for the episodes, and when the plot jumps forward in time his voiceovers describe the course of the war. In the pilot episode he states that he has served in the invasion of Poland as well as in the invasion of France. He is somewhat aware that Charlotte has feelings for him, but tells his brother and fellow soldiers that he doesn't want to get her hopes up, presumably as he could be killed on the front lines before he could reciprocate.
Wilhelm firmly believes he is bound by honor to fight as a soldier for his home country. Consequently, he is determined to do what he considers his duty as a Wehrmacht officer commanding an infantry platoon and he executes a prisoner in accordance with the Commissar Order. As the war goes on he is awarded the Iron Cross 1st class and promoted to Oberleutnant but the hope for a quick victory evaporates and so does his naïve idealism. Facing the death of his whole platoon to achieve a questionable objective, he walks away from the front line after suffering from a concussion caused by a Panzerfaust anti-tank explosive. He then takes refuge in an abandoned lakeside cabin where he is arrested as a deserter by Feldgendarmerie officers. Instead of being executed, he is placed in a Strafbattalion (Penal Battalion). He is continually broken down further, through the actions of his sadistic platoon leader. Charlotte encounters him as a member of the Penal Battalion and is incredulous that he is alive, but they are quickly separated. Later he kills his platoon leader and escapes with a fellow soldier, making his way to Berlin.
At the series' end, he, Charlotte, and Viktor gather in the rubble of the bar where Greta worked in occupied Berlin and toast Greta and Friedhelm.
Charlotte Charlotte (Miriam Stein), referred to as "Charly" by the circle of friends, secretly loves Wilhelm. When the war begins she volunteers as a nurse. She initially cannot bear to witness the suffering of wounded soldiers, but over the course of the campaign she hardens considerably. After being expelled from the operating theatre for dropping a scalpel, she is reassigned as a general nurse. Because the medical staff are overworked and in short supply, she is allowed to get assistance from local Ukrainian medical workers. She employs a Ukrainian assistant named Lilija who, when asked, denies being a Jew. After morphine goes missing, Charlotte investigates and discovers a photograph of Lilija's family standing in front of a menorah. She confronts Lilija, who admits to being a Jewish born medical doctor. Upon hearing this admission, Charlotte wrestles with her conscience but in the end decides to report her to the authorities. However, shortly afterwards, when she sees Gestapo officers approaching the ward she tries to warn Lilija to run away. But before Lilija can act, another German nurse points her out to the authorities who are "looking for a Jew hiding in the hospital" and they take her away. Charlotte's grief is further compounded when a wounded Friedhelm claims that Wilhelm was killed in action and she has an affair with the chief surgeon. Things only get worse when Wilhelm later turns up as a Penal Battalion soldier at her field hospital as the German Army is retreating on the Eastern Front. She angrily pushes Wilhelm away after confessing she is in love with him, and runs away to cry. When she regains her composure to try and speak with him again, she finds that he is gone.
As the front very quickly closes in, Charlotte, a local aide, Sonja, and a group of seriously wounded soldiers fail to evacuate and are left behind to face the advancing Red Army, whose men kill the rest of the wounded soldiers in their beds and proceed to arrest Sonja as a collaborator and attempt to rape Charlotte. Just then Lilija, having been freed by the Soviets and now in their service as an officer, shows up, saves Charlotte from rape and from further harm (execution) by arranging her inclusion as a nurse in the Soviet field hospital. She does however proceed to shoot Sonja, stating there was nothing she could do to alter a death penalty for a collaborator, noting that she has at least saved her from suffering sexual abuse at the hand of the soldiers.
At the war's end, she, Wilhelm, and Viktor have a solemn reunion in the rubble of the bar where Greta worked.
Greta Müller Greta (Katharina Schüttler) is a bartender at a local tavern in Berlin, and an ambitious singer who wants to succeed by any means. When the Gestapo officer Martin Dorn crashes their going-away party (in the pilot episode), she admits to possessing the Teddy Stauffer swing-dance record the five friends are dancing to in order to stall the officer and prevents her Jewish boyfriend Viktor from being discovered out past curfew. She starts a love affair with Dorn to try to worm out of the charges of incitement; Dorn, in return, promotes her career for propaganda efforts. When she becomes a threat to his own marriage, he organizes a USO-like road show in the midst of the Eastern Front. She is briefly reunited with Friedhelm, Wilhelm, and Charlotte in her improvised dressing room after her performance, but cuts short the reunion (much to the other friends' dismay) to attend a private party held by the senior commanders.