15 May 2014, The Tablet

Generation War: Our Mothers, Our Fathers


Television

 
BBC2Deutschland über alles. The great puzzle and conundrum is how the poets, dreamers, musicians and philosophers of this large and various country went from putting Germany “above everything” in the 1920s to installing “over everyone” only 20 years later. The answer lies in the kind of youthful ­idealism, sometimes misdirected, that we saw at the start of Generation War: Our Mothers, Our Fathers (BBC2, three episodes ending May 10).The series began with five young people dancing, flirting, showing off. It is 1941, and two brothers are heading for the Russian front. Wilhelm has already fought; Friedhelm is a dreamer, a pacifist, a cynic. With them are two girls: shy, delicate Charly, who longs to serve and has chosen military nursing, hoping it will keep h
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