Die Brücke (film)
| Die Brücke | |
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Film poster by Helmuth Ellgaard
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| Directed by | Bernhard Wicki |
| Produced by |
Hermann Schwerin Jochen Schwerin |
| Written by |
Manfred Gregor (novel) Karl-Wilhelm Vivier Bernhard Wicki |
| Starring |
Folker Bohnet Fritz Wepper |
| Music by | Hans-Martin Majewski |
| Cinematography | Gerd von Bonin |
| Edited by | Carl Otto Bartning |
| Distributed by | Deutsche Film Hansa |
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Release date
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Running time
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105 minutes |
| Country | West Germany |
| Language | German English |
Die Brücke (The Bridge) is a 1959 West German film directed by Austrian filmmaker Bernhard Wicki. It is based on the 1958 novel of the same name by journalist and writer Gregor Dorfmeister (published under the pseudonym Manfred Gregor). The story was based on an actual event, upon the personal report of a surviving veteran who in his own youth experienced a similar situation in World War II.
The film was timely in West Germany as the Bundeswehr had only recently been created in 1955 with conscription in Germany beginning in 1956.
In the closing days of World War II, a small German town comes into focus as American forces advance in its direction. In the town's school, seven boys—each about 16 years old—are oblivious to the seriousness and dangers of the war, feeling excitement about how close the fighting is getting to them, and they live their lives as normally as they can, though they are overshadowed with personal problems: Karl, who has a crush on his hairstylist father's young assistant, is shocked to see them in an intimate situation; Klaus is oblivious to the affections of his classmate Franziska; and Walter is deeply resentful of his father, the local Nazi Party Ortsgruppenleiter, who has chosen to save his own skin under the pretense of an important Volkssturm meeting. Jürgen is the son of a German officer who has been killed in action, and hopes to live up to his father's reputation.
Unexpectedly, the boys are recruited into a local army unit, but after only one day in the barracks, the commanding officers receive news that the Americans are approaching, and the garrison is called out. As they prepare to move out, the Kompaniechef, who has been asked by the boys' teacher to keep them out of action, arranges for the youths to be placed in 'defense' of the local bridge (which is strategically unimportant, and which is to be blown up anyway to spare the town the direct effects of the war), under the command of a veteran Unteroffizier.
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