I'd heard about this movie years ago, the first major West German anti-war movie. A little surprising that it took them until 1959 to decide that World War Two was bad.
A small group of enthusiastic Nazi 16-year-olds are drafted into the Nazi army. They've only been in the Army a day. So when the troops are all sent into combat they're given an easy job "guarding" a bridge that the Germans intend to blow up anyway.
When American tanks appear, the Nazi teens actually do pretty well. Instead of being immediately wiped out, they blow up a couple of tanks and kill quite a few Americans.
It didn't make war seem that awful. If a group of 16-year-olds with no training can successfully defend a bridge, think of what they could do if they completed basic training. Saving Private Ryan made war look way worse, and it was pro-war.
Available on the Criterion Channel.
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