GERMAN WAR VETERANS IN 'THE LONGEST DAY'
A classic war movie revisited (Part 1)
The Longest Day is a classic 1962 war movie based on the book of Cornelius Ryan. The movie is filmed in a docudrama style and narrates the key events of the first day of the D-Day Landings on 6 June 1944, the largest amphibious operation in history during which 100000 Allied troops landed on the coasts of Normandy in German-occupied France. D-Day was one of the most important events in the Second World War, as it was the beginning of the liberation of German-occupied western Europe. The Longest Day was directed by several directors who each directed a scene in a specific country or language: Ken Annakin did the British episodes, Andrew Marton did the American ones, and Bernhard Wicki, the excellent Austrian director, did the German ones. The movie was overseen by the influential Hollywood producer Darryl F. Zanuck and he was very committed to historical accuracy. He demanded that much of the dialogue be taken from the diaries and reports of those who had fought at D-Day and hired former Allied and German commanders to provide technical advice. Today, 59 years later, that historical accuracy still shows.
In 1962, during the Cold War and only a year after the construction of the Berlin Wall, Allies needed to be praised and redeemed; European pride had to be aroused in order to rebuff the threat of Communism. America could afford to be magnanimous: the immense movie production was, just like D-Day itself, an example of American strength and the political intentions produced a distinctive and unique war movie in which all warring sides received bounteous respect. ‘The Longest Day’ depicts the Germans as tough and smart, the British as noble, curt, and resourceful, and the French as gallant. In a move as rare in Hollywood at the time as it is today, both the French and Germans were allowed the dignity of speaking their own language (which were then subtitled). A far cry from the evil German buffoons in ill fitting uniforms commonly found in other war movies at the time and - sadly enough - even today.
Just like their American, British and French colleagues, most German actors employed in ‘The Longest Day’ had been through at least one World War themselves. Some of them had been actors in Germany’s Third Reich. Celebrated stars of Goebbels movie propaganda machine, the UFA dreamfactory in Potsdam and Berlin, where seemingly unpolitical films were made for a clear political use. Highly paid and willing career artists and willing servants of the regime, exceedingly well paid, often with close personal links to powerful figures in the national-socialist government and - if male - classed as ‘indispensable’ and not liable to be drafted for military service.
CURD JÜRGENS - MAKING POWERFUL ENEMIES
One of them, a super-star not only in Nazi, but also in post-war Germany, was Curd Jürgens (1915-1982). Well known for playing Ernst Udet in ‘Des Teufels General’, his English-language roles include James Bond villain Karl Stromberg in ‘The Spy Who Loved Me’ (1977), Éric Carradine in ‘And God Created Woman’ (1956), and Professor Immanuel Rath in ‘The Blue Angel’ (1959). Often playing the role of ‘German officer’, his first Hollywood film was ‘The Enemy Below’ (1957), in which he portrayed a German U-boat commander. In ‘The Longest Day’, Jürgens plays the role of General Günther Blumentritt, Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt, the commander of German forces in the west (OB West).
Jürgens was never drafted for military service. He had been contracted by the UFA since 1935 and had soon established himself as an actor not only on film, but also on stage. His work for the German entertainment industry was seen as more important than the need to carry arms and as such he was classed as ‘unabkömmlich’ (indispensable). A safe, secure and well-paid position to be in, yet that all would change in 1944.
In mid-1943 already, Jürgens had nearly and unknowingly, ended his career. Together with his colleague and friend Susi Nicoletti, Jürgens had dined in the ‘Stadtkrug’, a restaurant in Vienna, and popular meeting point for artists. In the course of the evening, the couple became acquainted with some visitors on the neighbouring tables and the dinner turned into a night of drinking and jovial conversation. When curfew ended the merry get-together, Jürgens and Nicoletti were invited to join their new friends in their villa for a few more drinks. In the course of the night however, Jürgens got into a heated debate with his host on the subject of Heinrich Heine. In no uncertain terms Jürgens told his host that banning Heine and his works was wrong and nothing short of national shame. It was then, when another gentleman carefully took Jürgens to the side to ask him if he knew who he was arguing with and who they had all been invited by. Their host was none other than SS-Brigadeführer and Generalmajor of the Police Franz Josef Huber, Head of the Gestapo, Inspector of the Sipo and the SD in the Reich Districts of Vienna, Niederdonau and Oberdonau. Once friend and protegee of Reinhard Heydrich and close associate of Adolf Eichmann. Nicoletti and Jürgens spent the next weeks fearing for their lives, but nothing ever happened. Jürgens had been incredibly lucky.
In 1944, Jürgens was filming ‘Wiener Mädeln’ a historical musical film directed by Willi Forst and made by Wien-Film, a Vienna-based company set up after Austria had been incorporated into Greater Germany following the 1938 Anschluss. One evening he invited two actress-friends, Irene von Meyendorff and Judith Holzmeister, to dinner in the ‘Stadtkrug’. At the neighbouring table sat a group of four men in civilian dress, in a much less jovial mood than Jürgens and his two attractive lady friends. One of the men had a scarred face and left ear and the latter in particular caught the eye of Irene von Meyendorff, who felt ‘disgusted’ by it and started making jokes about the man’s looks. The laughter and the reason for it however, did not remain unnoticed. After dinner, Meyendorff and Holzmeister were allowed to pass unhindered, but when Jürgens walked past the table to leave, one of the men held him by the elbow and asked: ‘What’s your name and why are you not at the front?’.
The man with the ‘disgusting ear’, who had been at the centre of mockery, was the infamous SS-Sturmbannführer Otto Skorzeny, ‘Hitler’s Commando’, head of section VI-S of the Ausland-SD (the SS foreign intelligence service department of the RSHA), responsible to train operatives in sabotage, espionage, and paramilitary techniques and the man who had won international fame for rescuing Benito Mussolini from captivity. He was accompanied by SS-Hauptsturmführer Robert Kaltenbrunner, brother of Ernst Kaltenbrunner, Chief of the Reich Security Main Office (RSHA) and later Chief of the Security Police, a man who controlled the Gestapo Criminal Police, and Security Service (SD) and prime figure in the ‘Final Solution’ in the last years of the war. The third man was Günter Deiss, valet and confidant of Baldur von Schirach, Gauleiter and Reichsstatthalter (‘Reich Governor’) of Vienna and Head of the Hitler Youth movement.
After giving them his name, Jürgens was allowed to leave. The effects of this meeting however were drastic and came quick. Only days after, Jürgens received his draft notice. In panic, he asked for the assistance of his director Willi Forst who had personal connections into the highest circles. Forst made several calls to Berlin in which he expressed that he would be unable to finish filming ‘Wiener Mädeln’ without his actor, but his pleas remained without effect, Jürgens had tangled with the wrong people. Someone had taken the matter directly to Josef Goebbels. Someone so powerful that Goebbels lifted his protective hand, removed Jürgens 'indispensable’ status and left him vulnerable to the full power of the RSHA. Forst managed to finish shooting the scenes with Jürgens, who in September was locked up in a forced-labour camp in the Austrian Steiermark, for being ‘politically unreliable’ , but from which he managed to escape in the final days of the war.
BERNARD VICTOR CHRISTOPH CARL ‘VICCO’ VON BÜLOW - PANZERGRENADIER
‘The war was an atrocious drama and I don’t like talking about its director’ - Vicco von Bülow.
Born in Brandenburg on the Havel in 1923, the great German humorist Vicco von Bülow, who very much defined the German sense of humour and was and is known to the nation simply by his nom de plume ‘Loriot’, the French word for the oriole, the heraldic animal of one of Germany’s most famous military families. It produced countless officers, public servants and Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow. Already in his high-school days, Vicco began to work on stage. Directly after the war in 1945 he worked for a year as a lumberjack before starting to study art. He first came to public attention as a cartoonist, and from 1967 he began to appear on television. Though he has directed and starred in two movies (Ödipussy in 1988 and Pappa ante Portas in 1991), Loriot is better known for his sketches parodying German everyday life.
In 1962 however, he had a mini-roll in The Longest Day as adjutant to Generalleutnant Max Pemsel (who is played by Wolfgang Preis, an actor who during the war briefly served Flak-Regiment 26). Even though von Bülow’s name didn’t even make it into the credits, it is worth taking a closer look at him in his few, brief appearances.
The son of a police officer, volunteered for Army service on 1 August 1941 and after training joined Panzergrenadier-Regiment 3 on the Eastern Front in April 1942, shortly before the regiment, as part of 3. Panzer-Division was subordinated to Army Group South in the area of Kharkov. In October 1942 the young Unteroffizier von Bülow received officer’s training and was commissioned Leutnant on 1 December 1942. Rejoining his regiment, von Bülow fought with 3. Panzer-Division until the end of the war in May 1945, when he - by then an Oberleutnant - surrendered to US-troops in Austria.
The highly decorated Panzergrenadier von Bülow was employed as a platoon leader, orderly officer, leader of the battalion staff and, in the last days of the war, again as platoon leader. He was decorated with both classes of the Iron Cross and the Panzer badge in bronze. In post-war interviews he rarely spoke about the war, but he remembered its horrors vividly.
His Wehrmacht personnel files were published in 2011 and caused enormous public interest and much to the delight of the nation, his file was just as unique as the man himself. The commonplace phrases found in most officer files are missing. There are no mentions or judgement of his political reliability of the kind which can even be found in the personnel files of Henning von Tresckow.
Instead his records state that ‘he is a little withdrawn, even though he has a lively and temperamental character. He is a little arrogant, likes to criticise even his superiors. His sense of tact is still a bit underdeveloped. With his excellent mental disposition he finds it easy and effortless to fulfil his duties, yet he is often absent-minded. His nature is defined by his exceptional mimical and representational talent. He is full of energy, and good and cultivable leadership qualities, but still requires taut supervision. Should he fully commit all his skills, he could achieve much more. His mental agility is exceptional, he is a fast thinker with good power of judgement. His leadership style is clear and well thought through (...) At the front he leaves a well regimented impression (...) Well liked in the circle of his comrades (...), he is an exceptional entertainer.’
Whenever he addressed and asked about his youth, life in the Third Reich and his time as a soldier, he replied quietly with a notable expression of shame. Asked by a journalist if he had been a good soldier, Loriot replied: ‘Not good enough, otherwise I would have been among the conspirators on 20 July 1944’.
Loriot, Germany's beloved comedy legend, the deep-thinker, humourist, satirist, cartoonist, philosopher and clown died at the age of 87 years in 2011.
EDUARD HEINRICH KIEFER (TIL KIWE) - KNIGHT OF THE IRON CROSS
Eduard Heinrich Kiefer, was born in Aachen in 1910. After finishing school he took singing lessons at the Aachen conservatory and later studied ethnology in Cologne and acting at the Studio of Dramatic Art in Baltimore. In the 1930s he took part in several ethnological and anthropological expeditions to Africa, South America, Sudan, Tschad and Polynesia. Details about his military career are shady, probably fostered by the fact that Kiefer liked to shroud himself in mystery, never talking about his experiences in World War Two.
The facts are few: Kiefer seems to have volunteered for military service in 1940 in Regiment „General Göring“ in which - at one point - he served as a company commander in the prestigious Wachbataillon Hermann Göring. In May 1943, now in the rank of Hauptmann, he fought with Kampfgruppe Schmid, the remains of the Brigade Hermann Göring, in Tunisia, with which he capitulated in May 1943. Kiefer, at this point in command of 2./Panzer-Aufklärungs-Abteilung Hermann Göring, was taken prisoner and, after a brief stint in Britain, he was shipped to the USA.
Nearly a year after his arrival there, he learned that he had been promoted to Major and had been decorated with the Knight’s Cross of the Iron Cross. Both the news and the Knight’s Cross were delivered to him by the Red Cross, via diplomatic channels in Switzerland. The one photo that exists of him wearing the coveted award was taken in US captivity, where Kiefer became an ‘escape king’ with 17 escape attempts to his credit. His first partially successful escape took place in February 1944 from Trinidad POW camp in Greeley, Colorado using a vegetable dye to turn his dress uniform brown and arranging for a German comrade to answer for him at roll call. He made it to St. Louis, covering a distance of over 890 miles, before someone noticed the odd-looking fellow in full German, but also weirdly brown uniform, killing time in a train station waiting room. When the Omaha command contacted Trinidad about Kiefer, camp personnel insisted that all prisoners were fully accounted for. Kiefer hadn’t even been missed yet. His recapture was widely reported by the US press, for which he identified himself as ‘Till Edward Kiefer’. Getting the wrong end of the stick, the press described him as a ‘reconnaissance pilot shot down over Tunisia’. Here, for the first time, Kiefer not only called himself ‘Til’, the name under which he would become known as an actor, but also claimed to be six years younger than he actually was. His second near-successful escape was staged from Camp Alva in Oklahoma. This time Kiefer was caught close to Mexican border near San Antonio. Again he had covered a distance of over 600 miles, before being arrested by the US Border Patrol.
After his release he found work in the experimental theatre ‘Der Spieler’ in Munich and up until 1972 became a member of the Kammerspiele and the Bavarian State Theatre. After that he worked as a theatre director and wrote several movie and television scripts. He acted in more than 40 movies and became a well known voice-over artist. As a producer and director he produced 17 documentaries for UNESCO. From the late 1950s he acted under his artist’s names of Til Kiver or Till Kiwe.In the Longest Day he plays the role of Rommel’s Adjutant Hauptmann Helmuth Lang. In 1963 he played the role of ‘Soldat Frick’ alongside Steve McQueen in ‘The Great Escape’. As an advisor and actor he had roles in several other national and international war movies, including ‘The Eagle has Landed’ and ‘The Odessa File’.
Kiefer, who was born in 1910, but throughout his life claimed to have been born in 1915, passed away in Munich in 1995.
HANS CHRISTIAN BLECH - FOUR YEARS ON THE EASTERN FRONT
Hans Christian Blech (1915 – 1993) was a German film, stage and television character actor with great success in both Germany and Hollywood. He made his English film debut in the 1951 picture ‘Decision Before Dawn’. In this and many of his other Hollywood films, he played a German soldier. There is a persititing myth that facial scars are related to his military service. In truth however, they are the result of a car accident on the Darmstadt Luisenplatz when Blech was 14 years old. While Blech rarely and reluctantly talked about his wartime experiences, he did reveal some of them in a radio interview conducted in 1988.
Blech was drafted into the Wehrmacht at the end of 1940, interrupting his fledgling acting career, and after basic training, served in a Nachrichten-Abteilung on the Eastern Front from 22 June 1941 to the last days of the war. Blech never hid the fact that he had been a witness of the Barysav massacres. On 20-21 October 1941, the German occupation authority of Barysaw, headed by Stanislav Stankevich with the participation of SS-Obersturmführer Kraffe, performed liquidation of the Jewish ghetto, killing 7 245 Jewish men, women and children. A day later, during the course of ‘cleansing’ the Ghetto about 1000 more Jews were murdered.The performers were mostly Russian auxiliary police headed by a Volga German David Egof and Latvian militia under SS-Obersturmführer Kraffe who arrived from Minsk for the event. Units of the Wehrmacht were directly and indirectly involved as well. Blech was wounded twice and had been awarded the Silver Wound Badge. During the battles in East Prussia in January 1945, he and the six men under his command at the time, were punished by having to attend the execution by firing squad of one of Blech’s men, who had been caught ‘plundering’ a silver spoon from an abandoned house.
In ‘The Longest Day’, Blech plays the role of Major Werner Pluskat who, according to James Ryan, was the first German officer to see the Allied invasion fleet on 6 June 1944, heading toward their landing zone at Omaha Beach. Actually it was probably Oberleutnant Walter Ohmsen, commander of the Marine Küsten Batterie "Marcouf" who was first to discover the Allied invasion fleet through the battery’s rangefinder. Major Pluskat, the commander of I./Artillerie-Regiment 352, was not even present during the landings and surrendered to soldiers of the U.S. 30th Infantry Division at Magdeburg on 23 April 1945.
HEINZ REINCKE - ACTING BRAVE
As the son of a tailor, Heinz Reincke, who was born in 1925, attended elementary school. At the age of ten he developed the desire to become an actor; according to his own statements, the decisive experience was a parents' meeting at his elementary school. At his father's request, he apprenticed in the administration of the Kiel Chamber of Commerce and Industry. In the meantime he started taking acting lessons and was also working as a prompter, stage manager and extra at the Kiel City Theater. Aged 17, after completing his apprenticeship, he dedicated himself to the stage, playing his first roles from 1941 at the Stadttheater in Landsberg an der Warthe. The city theater in Sopot and the summer theater in Minsk were added as further stations from 1942 onwards, by which time Reincke was classed as a professional actor.
In an interview with German journalist Harald von Troschke conducted in 1982, Reincke remembered witnessing the bodies of hanged Jews and partisans ‘dangling from trees’ all over Minsk and especially in the garden behind the theatre where he worked as an actor. In 1942 he gave some bread to a Jewish professor of music who had been ordered to tune the piano of Gauleiter Wilhelm Kube (assassinated in Minsk in 1943) and only evaded serious consequences because of his young age. In 1943, Reincke was drafted into the army and served in an infantry regiment. He was quickly promoted through the ranks, before being commissioned as an officer in late 1944. When asked if he had been a brave soldier, he replied that, being a talented actor, he had always managed to pretend that he was a brave soldier. In reality however, the war turned him into an alcoholic. Reincke, like so many other soldiers, learned to drink to blot out the fear, and according to his own words, he was constantly afraid.
In 1945, after a stint in US captivity during which he nearly died of hunger, he was handed over to the French. In camp he became part of a theater group in the camp until his release in 1947. Until his death in 2011, Reincke played roles in over 100 German TV and movie productions.
PART 2 COMING LATER THIS YEAR