What Did You Do in the War, Mutti? Courageous Women ... - iSites

570 Robert G. Moeller
disease of National Socialism, that she cannot share his pride in the courage
and accomplishment of his young recruits. ‘Proud? What do you mean,
proud?’ she explodes. ‘I’m not proud, not even a little. We want to bring
them home, nothing more.’ But it is too late. The boys have been assigned
to defend a key post against the oncoming Red Army. The general is happy
to have any soldier who can aim a rifle, and the boys have filled this manly
bill. Even communicating with them will not be easy, because at the front,
the exasperated general explains, confusion reigns. Such arguments do nothing
to convince Mutter Bergmann who leaves no doubt that this war is not
of her making. ‘I’ve always kept my mouth shut, like all women have kept
quiet, although they are affected by it most.’ The time for silence has passed.
Exasperated, unsettled, and tipped off balance by his counterpart, the general
wonders out loud how he can give orders while he thinks about mothers.
‘No general in the world can do that!’ But General Bergmann has no sympathy
for his dilemma. She and her troops will not take no for an answer,
and they are off for the little village where the boys have put their fingers
in a leaking dyke, soon to crumble under the pressure of the red flood.
Stopping for the night at an abandoned pub, an oasis in a desolate war-torn
landscape, the women create domesticity in the midst of disorder, settling
down for the night after sharing their meagre provisions. They are not the
only ones in this deserted wasteland, however, as they discover when they
are joined by a band of battle-weary soldiers, the dregs, mustered at the last
minute to hold off the Russians. Led by a wild-eyed lieutenant ‘who no longer
laughs’ (a youthful Klaus Kinski), an Iron Cross around his neck, their number
includes a distracted enlisted man (Maximilian Schell) whose gaze fixes
immediately on the décolletage of the sister, the youngest of the women’s
troop. When he whispers that she should meet him outside for a midnight rendezvous,
it is obvious that she will not live out his fantasies. Later that night,
however, after soldiers and mothers have divided their quarters, ‘the soldier
who no longer can’, 16 as he is described in the film’s publicity materials, is
caught by the sentry, dressed in civilian clothing and preparing to desert. Confronted
by these unpleasant facts, the lieutenant has no choice but to dispense
summary justice, and off-screen, the sound of machine gun fire announces
that in March 1945 there is no time for the niceties of a military tribunal.
The next day, the women descend to yet another rung of the hell that war
is (Figure 2). They pass a row of bodies, not sleeping, as one mother speculates,
but dead, and when they finally reach the village where the boys
are stationed, it is a scene of devastation—levelled buildings, ruins, destruction.
They are, however, at the end of their quest. In an interview with the
commanding office, Captain Dornberg (Bernhard Wicki), Helene takes
the lead, and it is immediately apparent that in some circumstances, a good
haircut and a shapely calf may be more effective weapons than Mutter
16 Publicity materials from the distribution company, Schorcht, DFI.