The Unknown Soldier

The Wehrmacht-Exhibition, which was shown in eleven major cities in Germany between 1999 and 2004 and was visited by more than 500,000 attendants, challenged ordinary Germans to rethink what their fathers and grandfathers did during the war. Whereas most had been led to believe that the cold-blooded murder of civilians had been a crime of a minority of officers, for the first time Germans saw photos and footage of ordinary soldiers gleefully tormenting and executing civilians on the Eastern front. The nation was shaken, and large protests were organized by those who believed the evidence was manufactured.

In THE UNKNOWN SOLDIER, director Michael Verhoeven (The Nasty Girl) interviews historians and experts, including those who allege or deny the crimes, and filmed in the killing fields of Ukraine and White Russia.

“As Verhoeven's film makes clear, many thousands of surviving German veterans, along with a disturbing quotient of their children and grandchildren, are much too eager to make excuses.” (Andrew O’Hehir, salon.com)

“Both chilling and fascinating … the reckoning with the past, which has occupied West German society since the 1960s, has been painful and divisive, which makes the calm, empirical spirit of this film all the more impressive.” (A.O. Scott, New York Times)