''Westfront 1918'' is a German

war film War film is a film genre concerned with warfare, typically about navy, naval, air force, air, or army, land battles, with combat scenes central to the drama. It has been strongly associated with the 20th century. The fateful nature of battle s ...

, set mostly in the

trenches A trench is a type of excavation or in the ground that is generally deeper than it is wide (as opposed to a wider gully, or ditch), and narrow compared with its length (as opposed to a simple hole or pit). In geology, trenches result from erosi ...

of the

Western Front Western Front or West Front may refer to: Military frontiers * Western Front (World War I), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (World War II), a military frontier to the west of Germany *Western Front (Russian Empire), a maj ...

during

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

. It was directed in 1930 by G. W. Pabst, from a screenplay by Ladislaus Vajda based on the novel ''Vier von der Infanterie'' by Ernst Johannsen. The film shows the effect of the war on a group of infantrymen portrayed by an ensemble cast led by screen veterans Fritz Kampers and

Gustav Diessl Gustav Diessl (30 December 1899 – 20 March 1948) was an Austrian artist, and film and stage actor. Biography Diessl was born Gustav Karl Balthasar Diessl in Vienna. In 1916, he was an extra on different stages in Vienna but was soon recruited ...

. The film bears a resemblance to its close contemporary ''

All Quiet on the Western Front ''All Quiet on the Western Front'' (german: Im Westen nichts Neues, lit=Nothing New in the West) is a novel by Erich Maria Remarque, a German veteran of World War I. The book describes the German soldiers' extreme physical and mental trauma ...

'' (1930), an

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, pe ...

production, although it has a bleaker tone, consistent with Pabst's New Objectivity work through the late 1920s. It was particularly pioneering in its early use of sound – it was Pabst's first "

talkie A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known public exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900, but decades passed before ...

" – in that Pabst managed to record live audio during complex tracking shots through the trenches. ''Westfront 1918'' was a critical success when it was released, although it was often shown in truncated form. With the rise of

National Socialism Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Naz ...

, the German authorities quickly judged the film to be unsuitable for the public for its obvious pacifism and for its denunciation of war, which propaganda minister

Joseph Goebbels Paul Joseph Goebbels (; 29 October 1897 – 1 May 1945) was a German Nazi politician who was the '' Gauleiter'' (district leader) of Berlin, chief propagandist for the Nazi Party, and then Reich Minister of Propaganda from 1933 to ...

labelled as "cowardly defeatism". Some shots from the film were used for scene-setting purposes in a 1937

BBC Television BBC Television is a service of the BBC. The corporation has operated a public broadcast television service in the United Kingdom, under the terms of a royal charter, since 1927. It produced television programmes from its own studios from 193 ...

adaptation of the play '' Journey's End''.

Plot

In 1918 in France during the last months of the First World War, four infantrymen – the Bavarian (Fritz Kampers), a young man known as 'the student' (Hans-Joachim Moebis), Karl (Gustav Diessl), and the lieutenant ( Claus Clausen) – spend a few rest-days behind the front. The student falls in love with a French peasant girl, Yvette (Jackie Monnier). Back at the front, the four suffer again the everyday hardships of war: dirt, trenches and danger of death. The Bavarian, Karl and the lieutenant become trapped when part of the trench collapses and the Student digs them out. Later they are mistakenly fired upon by their own artillery due to a misjudgement of distance and are again saved by the Student, who as a messenger risks his life to relay instructions to the soldiers setting the firing range of the artillery. Karl receives leave, returning to his starving home town and promptly catches his wife in bed with a butcher. Embittered and unreconciled, he returns to the front. In his absence, the student is stabbed in a melee; his body lying in the mud of a shell-hole, only one hand sticking out. An offensive by the Allies begins, supported by tanks, and a mass of French infantry breaks through the thin German lines. During the defensive battle against the French, Karl and the Bavarian are seriously wounded, covering the remaining members of the group. The lieutenant has a nervous breakdown and falls into insanity. Shouting "Hurrah" non-stop, he salutes a pile of corpses. He is admitted to the field hospital together with Karl and the Bavarian. While the lieutenant is being carried though the hospital, many injured soldiers can be seen. In a fever, Karl sees his wife again and dies with the words "We are all to blame!". He is covered up, but his hand is hanging out the side. A wounded Frenchman lying beside him takes the hand in his and says "comrades, not enemies". The final message "End" is displayed with a question mark.

Cast

Fritz Kampers Fritz Kampers (14 July 1891 – 1 September 1950) was a German film actor. He appeared in more than 250 films between 1913 and 1950. Early life Fritz Kampers was the son of a Munich hotel owner, spent his early childhood in Garmisch-Partenk ...

as The Bavarian *

as Karl * Hans-Joachim Moebis as The Student * Claus Clausen as The Lieutenant * Jackie Monnier as Yvette * Hanna Hoessrich as Karl's Wife * Else Helle as Karl's Mother * Carl Ballhaus as Journeyman butcher * Vladimir Sokoloff as Purser

Reception

Contemporaneous reviews for ''Westfront 1918'' were generally positive, according to film scholar Jan-Christopher Horak in a video interview accompanying the Criterion Collection release package. Alfred Kerr writing in the ''

Berliner Tageblatt The ''Berliner Tageblatt'' or ''BT'' was a German language newspaper published in Berlin from 1872 to 1939. Along with the ''Frankfurter Zeitung'', it became one of the most important liberal German newspapers of its time. History The ''Berline ...

'' in 1930 said of it: "Apart from anything, everything I saw in the winter, a sound film these days was my most deeply felt: because he exposes the face of war for non-participants in the rudest. The impression drowned weeks, months. One should perform every New Year's Day, once each year beginning; in every village, in every school; ex officio by law. What are plays " In the ''

Frankfurter Zeitung The ''Frankfurter Zeitung'' () was a German-language newspaper that appeared from 1856 to 1943. It emerged from a market letter that was published in Frankfurt. In Nazi Germany, it was considered the only mass publication not completely controll ...

'' in the same year, Siegfried Kracauer wrote: "The urge to truthful reproduction of horror that prevails here outgrown two scenes, already almost exceed the limit of the expressible. One: a single battle ends with an infantryman is nipped in the swamp in front of everyone. (The fact that you can still see protrude from the bubbling mud later a dead hand, is unnecessary sensationalism.) The other is the front military hospital in the church with the maimed, nurses and doctors who can barely operate their craft farther from exhaustion. It is as if medieval torture pictures come to life " 1930) in '' More recent reviews of the film, though generally positive, are more subdued. The review aggregator

rotten tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wan ...

records 9/9 positive professional reviews, with the average score 7.9/10. Walter Goodman, in his review in ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' on 22 November 1987, compares the film unfavorably to

Lewis Milestone Lewis Milestone (born Leib Milstein (Russian: Лейб Мильштейн); September 30, 1895 – September 25, 1980) was a Moldovan-American film director. He is known for directing '' Two Arabian Knights'' (1927) and ''All Quiet on the Weste ...

's '' All Quiet in the Westfront,'' stating: "Although the German work ... isn't nearly as moving as " All Quiet", it has a power of its own... Pabst is especially good at giving a gritty documentary quality to the battle scenes; the pointless slaughter comes through. The movie is weaker when it focuses on individual soldiers. ... The truth of the movie is all in the trenches."

J. Hoberman James Lewis Hoberman (born March 14, 1949) is an American film critic, journalist, author and academic. He began working at '' The Village Voice'' in the 1970s, became a full-time staff writer in 1983, and was the newspaper's senior film critic ...

reviewed the film positively in ''

The Village Voice ''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the cr ...

'' on 10 May 2005, writing "The always protean Pabst made a brilliant adjustment to sound."

Home video

The Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home video, home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scho ...

releases the film in the 2014 2K digital restoration by Deutsche Kinemathek in

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

and DVD formats.

References

Notes Bibliography * Bandmmann, Christa and Hembus, Joe (1980) "Western Front 1918" in ''Classics of German sound film''. Munich: Goldmann. pp. 19–21, Further reading * Hissnauer, Christian (2006) ''Western Front 1918 - Four of the infantry'' in Klein, Thomas; Stiglegger, Marcus and Trotter, Rodo (eds.) ''Film genres: war film''.. Stuttgart: Reclam. pp. 57–60 . * Kagelmann, Andre and None, Reinhold (2014) "'Casually starts death, humans and animals to harvest' Considerations Ernst Johannsen's novel ''Four of the infantry'' and G. W. Pabst's film ''Westfront 1918''" in ''Ernst Johannsen: Four of the Infantry, Their last days on the Western Front in 1918. Kassel: Media Usage Edition. pp. 80–113. * Mückenberger, Christiane (1883) ''Western Front 1918'' in Dahlke, Günther and Karl, Günther (ed.) ''German Feature Films from the Beginnings to 1933. A Film Leader''. (2nd edition) Berlin: Henschel Verlag. pp. 221 ff.

External links

* * * *
Senses of Cinema Article on the film

Jeremy Arnold on the film, for Turner Classic Movies''Westfront 1918: War Is Hell''
an essay by

Lucy Sante Lucy Sante (formerly Luc Sante; born May 25, 1954) is a Belgium-born American writer, critic, and artist. She is a frequent contributor to ''The New York Review of Books''. Her books include '' Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York'' (1991) ...

at the

Criterion Collection The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films." Criterion serves film and media scholars, cine ...