Unternehmen Michael
| Unternehmen Michael | |
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| Directed by | Karl Ritter |
| Produced by | Karl Ritter |
| Screenplay by |
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| Based on | the play Unternehmen Michael or Frühlingsschlacht by Hans Fritz von Zwehl |
| Starring | |
| Music by | Herbert Windt |
| Cinematography | Günther Anders |
| Edited by | Gottfried Ritter |
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| Country | Nazi Germany |
| Language | German |
Unternehmen Michael (Operation Michael or The Michael Action; English title The Private's Job) is a 1937 German film directed by Karl Ritter, the first of three films about the First World War which he made during the period when the Third Reich was rearming.
The film is set in the First World War and is based on a 1932 play by Hans Fritz von Zwehl (Frühlingsschlacht, 'Spring Battle', originally also titled Unternehmen Michael) about the German offensive Operation Michael during the First World War, which was launched on 21 March 1918. The British are in possession of the village of Beaurevoir. The Germans plan to send in assault troops to take the village, but their commanding officer, Captain Hill, is injured the night before. A desk officer, Major zur Linden (Mathias Wieman), volunteers to lead the mission. The unit succeed but find themselves surrounded by the enemy. They discuss their options and Major zur Linden's advocacy of a heroic death for the sake of their country wins out over the defeatist and the traditional military pragmatist; the Germans declare a ceasefire and then the commanding general, in full knowledge, gives the order for their artillery to bombard the village as the British are storming it, thereby sacrificing their own men in order to kill the enemy. The sacrifice is not in vain; it enables the Germans to push forward to the British fortress, the 'Labyrinth'.
Shooting took place between 12 May and late June 1937, with interiors shot at the UFA studios in Neubabelsberg.
Unternehmen Michael is the first of three 'soldier films' set during the First World War which Ritter made in 1936–38, when Nazi Germany was rearming in preparation for renewed war. Ritter himself described his war films as "pictorial armo[u]red car[s]", in contrast to entertainment films. It was a Staatsauftragsfilm; it was commissioned by the Ministry of Propaganda. It is representative of the glorification in Nazi Germany of the heroic death (Heldentod). As the general tells the major in charge of the assault unit: "Posterity will remember us not by the greatness of our victory but by the measure of our sacrifice!" Thousands of men are sacrificed over a ruined village of little strategic value.
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