1961-1970 Drama Germany Heiner Carow War

Heiner Carow – Die Russen kommen AKA The Russians Are Coming (1968)

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It is March 1945 and 15-year-old Günter Walcher still believes the war will end in victory. During a manhunt for a runaway immigrant laborer, Günter proves himself the most capable searcher. He turns the man over to the local police who then shoot the foreigner. Günter is proud of himself and, although his father has recently died in battle, the boy volunteers to be sent to the front.
On his first mission, Günter comes under attack from the Russians and he flees. When the Russian army marches in to Günter’s village, the boy is arrested for the murder of the laborer. His experiences throw him into intense confusion. Soon he asks himself: How can he live with his guilt?
Based on the story “Die Anzeige” (The Report) in Egon’s Richter’s book Ferien am Feuer (Vacation by the Fire).

The film, originally shot in 1968 and dedicated to Konrad Wolf, was banned for being “contaminated with modernism” and also in part because the title was interpreted as a commentary on current events and the Prague Spring. Although portions of the footage were incorporated into director Heiner Carow’s subsequent film Career, The Russians Are Coming would not be shown in its original form until 1987.
The severe use of hard black-and-white and the stylistically ideosyncratic symbolism and imagery make the film an appropriate counterpart to other WWII films from the 1960s, especially Konrad Wolf’s I was Nineteen and the Russian film Iwan’s Childhood.