Film about the trials and tribulations of the German soldier on the Western Front throughout the year 1917. A grim look into what the First World War looked like from “the other side”. The concluding scene showing a dying English prisoner in the German trenches surrounded by his sympathetic enemy at the Christmas tree says more about the film’s message than anything else. The film ends with the words, “Frieden den Menschen auf Erden” (peace, the people of the earth) - a Christmas message with broader implications here - and explains all too well why this film was banned by the Nazis one year later when they came to power.
