radiokonservativ Finally a WW2 movie from a German perspective without depicting the Germans as brainless monsters. The story and motivations of the characters are very close to reality. Very captive and emotional. And of course a very lovely cast.

tankace By the original German title the proper title should have been "Our mothers, our fathers" and in the end this mini-series is about what was the living like during the Nazi administration of Germany and for the most part the series manage to be both faithful to the period and gives as a four and a half hour of quality entertainment. To the plot itself we follow five friends from the invasion of Russia in 1941 to the fall of the Third Reich in 1945 and what they faced during that period. And as I have wrote before about films and series-about historical periods, focusing in an event or a small group of people makes it easier to us to see what was like back then and what the people believe for their government. In general the series manages to show very well the idealism of the average German about their country before the war was intensified and as the fighting progress, the outcome turned against Germany and the implementation of the racist laws against other nationalities came to effect how that effected their outlook of their country, themselves and their ideology. As for our main characters they are as follows : Wilhelm Winter,our narrator, lieutenant in the German army ,is shown at the beginning as the paragon of a good German, distinguish soldier, loyal citizen , look up to by his soldiers.Friedhelm Winter, younger brother of Wilhelm, has no aspiration of military glory, the most sensitive of the group.Greta Müller, bartender who seeks to become a famous singer and she is willing to go to great and undignified lengths to succeed. Charlotte, the girlfriend of Wilhelm, she is idealistic to a fault ,she becomes a nurse in order as she say to do her duty as a German woman.Finally ,Viktor Goldstein, a Jewish young tailor, he is inconstant fear for his life and he is the only one from his family who sees the emanate danger.In general all of them are interesting people and in the end the impact of the War is the main theme of the series.But the series is far from perfect as it has some big issues ,especially in the third and final episode. Not in directing, costumes or performance, these are top notch, the main issues are the portrait of the Resistance forces in Poland,which was quit off, the fact they never shown the consecration camps( but the rest of the treatment they show it) and the ending was too abrupt I wanted it to be about three to five minutes longer to close more smoothly the arcs of our character.In general it is a good series, with some flaws ,but apart from this ,I recommended for history lovers and person interested to German television/ cinema.

bigredmachine05 I watched the first episode of this miniseries for extra credit in a college World War Two history class. My expectations were decently high, and were soon blown away by this excellent series. We follow 5 German friends starting in Berlin, Christmas 1941- Wilhelm, an officer in the German army, his arts minded brothers and fellow soldier Friedhelm, Greta, a combat nurse, Viktor, a Jew struggling to live in Nazi Germany, and Charlotte, an aspiring singer. They all promise to meet again in the same spot in one year. The series follows all five characters, effectively weaving together their stories into a cohesive chronicle of the German experience in the Second World War. It was very interesting and refreshing to see the WWII experience from the perspective of not only German civilians, but soldiers as well. Well done to Phillip Kadelbach and Stefan Kolditz, the director and writer of this excellent miniseries which is was an engaging, brutal, and stimulating war story.

williamgoodman-01223 A good series was sad for d day to be called the American landings. The British,Canadian's,free french and Polish seem to be forgotten..In no way was d day a mainly American affair..Ships landing craft and equipment was overwhelmingly British. Numbers involved was very equal and overall casualty's..Other then Eisenhower being overall in command, most commanders were British..So this thing of d day being a majority American affair is unbelievably misleading..If anything it was a mainly British affair with around 80% of vessels, equipment etc being from the UK.I feel with many documentaries, mini series and Hollywood movies always go down as Americans fighting the Nazis's and it seems to still be the case.Im sure ww2 was 1939/1945 not 1941/1945