I Was Nineteen

I Was Nineteen (1968)

Ich war neunzehn

A young soldier enters Germany with Soviet troops at the end of WWII, feeling like a stranger in his homeland. As he meets Germans, he grapples with his ambivalence, realizing he is both a victor and one of the vanquished. His inquisitive nature leads him to confront the atrocities and lies he encounters along the way.

Date of release
1968-02-01
TMDB
7.6 / 10 (28)
Runtime
1h 55m
Genres
Drama, History, War
Director
Konrad Wolf

Casting

Interesting facts

  • Awards: 2 · Nominations: 0. Including: National Prize of East Germany; Heinrich Greif Prize

I Was Nineteen is a 1968 East German film produced by Konrad Wolf for the DEFA studio.

Background

Filming began in January 1967 with the support of the Soviet Army and the National People's Army. It had a budget of 2,077,000 East German Marks.

It alludes to Wolf's own experience as a political refugee who comes back as a 19-year old to Germany but in Red Army uniform.

Socialist Unity Party official Anton Ackermann forced Wolf to revise his screenplay because it depicted the Red Army as unprepared for the postwar occupation of Germany.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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