Film · Final months, 1945
The Bridge
Die Brücke
The production
Released 1959
Germany · Film
The history
April 1945
German schoolboys conscripted to defend a bridge in the war's final days · 1945
- 🎬 Director
- Bernhard Wicki
- ⚔️ Campaign
- Collapse of Nazi Germany
- 📍 Theater
- Western Front
- 🎭 Genre
- Combat, Historical Drama
- 🌍 Country
- Germany
- 🕐 Runtime
- 103 minutes
- 🎞️ Perspective
- Axis
- 📺 Production type
- Film
- 🗺️ Battle
- Information unavailable
Synopsis
As American forces close in during the last days of the war, seven teenage German boys are conscripted and ordered to defend a strategically meaningless bridge in their hometown. With no real military purpose to the defense, the boys are left to fight and die largely unnoticed by their own retreating army. The film is a devastating anti-war statement from the perspective of Germany's youngest victims.
Historical Context
In the final chaotic weeks of the war, Nazi Germany conscripted increasingly young boys into the Volkssturm militia as the regular Wehrmacht collapsed, sending poorly trained teenagers into hopeless combat against advancing Allied forces. The film reflects postwar West German reckoning with the human cost of the regime's final fanaticism.
Historical Accuracy
Based on a semi-autobiographical novel by Manfred Gregor, the story is fictional but reflects a well-documented pattern of late-war child conscription in Germany.
Cast & Crew
Directed by Bernhard Wicki
Cast: Folker Bohnet, Fritz Wepper, Michael Hinz, Frank Glaubrecht
Where It Fits in WWII
Positioned at April 1945 within the Final months, 1945 phase of the war, as part of the Collapse of Nazi Germany. This is entry 140 of 150 in the chronological archive.
- Volkssturm
- child soldiers
- German cinema
- end of war
- anti-war
