Stalingrad
Note: This is about the 1993 film. If you are looking for the actual Battle of Stalingrad, please see the World War Two article. If you are looking for the city, which is now known as Volgograd, please see Useful Notes on Russia
Stalingrad is a 1993 film directed by Joseph Vilsmaier, following a platoon of Heer soldiers through their service in Russia fighting the Soviet Union. It received average reviews, but was notable as the second German attempt to make a film about the events of the Ostfront.
Tropes used in Stalingrad include:
- An Asskicking Christmas: For the Russians.
- Break the Badass
- I'm Cold... So Cold...
- Curb Stomp Battle
- Death Course
- Despair Event Horizon
- Downer Ending: The remaining main characters are implied to freeze to death
- Driven to Suicide: Otto
- The Engineer: The Sturmpioniere, a combat engineer platoon.
- Grave Robbing: The soldiers steal good-quality boots from corpses, and a few later steal doctor-signed passes in a desperate attempt to be airlifted out with the wounded.
- Hero Antagonist: Arguably, the Reds with Rockets.
- I Have You Now, My Pretty: The female sniper encountered early in the movie is found tied up to a bed in a German officer's stronghold. It's clear she's been used as a 'comfort woman', and the protagonists even plan to take turns doing the same. Hans puts a stop to it and let's her go, however.
- Infant Immortality: Averted hard.
- Man On Fire
- My Country, Right or Wrong: Though by the end, almost all of them decide to desert.
- Kill'Em All: See Downer Ending, above.
- Nazis With Gnarly Weapons The protagonists of the film.
- The Neidermeyer: The officer who orders war crimes committed and hounds Hans for being a 'Russian sympathizer'. True to form, he is shot by the remaining troops at the end.
- Obligatory War Crime Scene: Where do we start?
- Reds with Rockets: The primary antagonists.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here
- Shirtless Scene: The opening scene in Italy is laden with it, though with less focus on the women at the Italian beach.
- Snow Means Death
- Trapped Behind Enemy Lines
- Urban Warfare
- Villain Protagonist: To a certain degree, though the enlisted ranks get off far more lightly than the officer class.
- War Is Hell