Word: hler
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Dates: during 1950-1950
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...Wiedersehen . . ." The opening scenes show a German company moving up to the Cassino front. The major character, Pfc. Gühler, obviously a facsimile of Author Richter, believes that the Nazi army is doomed; his buddies are beginning to doubt the Führer's omnipotence. Some German soldiers, hoping to be captured, greet each other with the wisecrack, "Auf Wiedersehen in Kanada...
...Cassino slopes, Gühler's outfit is torn to shreds by U.S. artillery. Prodded by Gühler, the few remaining men surrender. At this point Beyond Defeat picks up in excitement, for now there begins a new war, subterranean and ferocious, between those German prisoners still loyal to the Fuhrer and those who would cast off the Nazi curse...
When interrogated by U.S. officers, most of the prisoners refuse to talk, but Gühler gives his estimate of German casualties at Cassino. Only when asked to identify German positions does he refuse. As a Socialist, he welcomes Hitler's defeat, but as a German he feels that "every position I give away means 30 to 40 direct hits for my comrades . . ." The job of rooting out Naziism from the German heart, he believes, must be done only by the Germans themselves...
...hler's first chance comes aboard a prison ship on Christmas Eve. In the hold, a Nazi begins to harangue the prisoners, but the anti-Nazis drown him out by singing Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht. Cheered by this little victory, the anti-Nazis feel that, with America ahead, they may yet know freedom...
...Race Apart. Gühler and his friends decide that because the Americans have never lived under terror they cannot really understand how the Nazis operate. "Since I've got to know the Amis," says one of them, "I've realized we must settle with the Nazis by ourselves . . . For most of the Amis, you're either a Nazi or a traitor. They're a race apart from us." The anti-Nazi prisoners then decide to form an underground of their own in order to break the Nazi hold...