Die Generale, Teil 1

Short Summary (English)

Eight men from eight European NATO states recall why they decided to become professional soldiers. Eight lives that led to generalship, their fights and decisions.

What made them professional soldiers? Why did the boy who wantetd to be a sailor and whose parents wanted him to be a clergyman end up as a Major General and Governor of the Royal Military Acadmey of the Netherlands? Eight different motivations and paths which led eight times to the rank of General. World War II put them all through a decisive test. Apart from the German, who marched credulously into the battle for a Greater Reich, they all took up the fight against fascism. The Norwegain was never a Quisling, but joined the British Air Force as a bomber pilot and took part in forty-eight raids over Nazi Germany. The Frenchman had no truck with the Vichy Regime, but risked his life for the Resistance. Only the German experienced 8 May 1945 as a catastrophe. The others celebrated a historic victory which they had helped to bring about. History shifted to a new backcloth. Indonesia, Vietnam, Algeria, India, Cyprus, Aden, Angola, Mozambique: the classical colonial powers of europe dispatched their soldiers abroad to quell "rebellions". But the Englishman, the Frenchman, the Dutchman and the Portuguese returned home wiser after one improtant lesson: sooner or later their enemies emerged as leaders of new independent states. National liberation movements were in the right and could not be suppressed in the long term by military might: that conclusion turns as colonial soldier into an opponent of colonial rule. So when the Portuguese took office as President of his country, he set out to decolonize the "overseas provinces". The Allies' war against Hitler, the collapse of the colonial systemworld history is reflected in the lives of eight men from eight European countries.

Film Crew

Director

• Gerhard Scheumann
• Walter Heynowski

Camera

• Peter Hellmich
• Horst Donth

Film Editing

• Ilse Radtke

Music

• Udo Zimmermann

Sound

• Eberhard Schwarz

Content Editing

• Wolfgang von Polentz

Short Summary (German)

Vom Truppenführer über den Oberkommandierenden bis zum früheren Staatsoberhaupt: Lebensbilanzen für eine Koalition der Vernunft.

Acht Männer aus acht europäischen NATO-Ländern (Marschall Francisco da Costa Gomes, Portugal; General Nino Pasti, Italien; Admiral Antoine Sanguinette, Frankreich; General Georgios Koumanakos, Griechenland; General Gert Bastian, BRD; General Johan Christie, Norwegen; General Michiel von Meyenfeld, Niederland; General Michael Harbottle, Großbritannien) blicken zurück. Was hat sie dazu bestimmt, Berufssoldaten zu werden?

Acht verschiedene Motive und Wege, die achtmal in den Generalsrang fürhen. Sie sind, an unterschiedlichen Plätzen, durchs Feuer gegangen: durch die Schlachten des 2. Weltkrieges, durch die Kriege der Völker um nationale Unabhängigkeit. Es war nicht eben wenig, was sie hinter sich gebracht hatten. Aber ihre größten Kämpfe und schwersten Entscheidungen standen ihnen noch bevor...