The German paratroopers, the famous Fallschirmjäger, elite troops who fought in Normandy - Carentan - against the 101st Airborne, US elite paratroopers in fierce melee dog fights, those Third Reich troops were, as the terrific Afrika Korps, not SS troops, committing atrocities against POWs or civilians, they were authentic fighters, noble soldiers. In Monte Cassino, as in Stalingrad - despite the fact that the Russian front was a very brutal and bloodthirsty war - or even in North Africa, you had some chivalry scenes, truce sequences, during which fighters from each side stopped killing each other and permitted the other to take their corpses, exchanging food and even litters or medicine. There was a contrast between this very touching behavior and the fierceness of the combats. The other user obviously ignores these facts, for him German soldiers were necessarily Nazis. Rommel for instance admired Hitler ONLY, for him he was a great leader, no matter the ideology behind him, such as the anti semitic or master race non sense. he admired the Fuhrer till 1943 though, not after , for obvious reasons that you can guess, after he saw civilians slaughters in Italy by SS troops. But Rommel was definitely not a Nazi admirer. he was a soldier, as most of the Fallschirmjäger who fought in Monte Cassino. This film is not propaganda; it only shows the German side, after all, this is a German movie. Most war movies audiences don't know WW2, except thru the Hollywood crap industry. Such a shame. The scheme of this high rank officer trying to save the paintings, artwork from the bombardments in Monte Cassino, this officer role reminds me the awesome Paul Scofield's character performance in John Frankenheimer(s THE TRAIN, where a German officer also stopped at nothing to save priceless artworks.
