Generation War: Out Mothers, Our Fathers, directed by Philipp Kalderbach.

This is the best thing that has been on the telly for a long time. The first episode begun with an impromptu party in Hitler’s Germany of 1941. Five friends celebrating life and agreeing to meet up at the same time every year. Wilhelm Winter (Volker Bruch), a Wehrmacht officer posted to the Russian front, provides some of the voice overs. He’s the natural leader of the group. His brother Friedhelm (Tom Schilling) is the more sensitive or the two, but more cynical and posted to the same battalion as Wilhelm, more cowardly. The Eastern Front bleeds idealism dry and leaves only room for cynicism and cowardice, Wilhelm deserts and Friedhelm although injured leaves the safe berth of home to return to the dangers of the front. The brothers become more like each other. Charlotte (Miriam Stein) secretly loves Wilhelm and is posted as a front-line nurse to the Russian front. It’s not much of a secret. Wilhelm and everyone else knows, but he refused to acknowledge their mutual love because he believes, like most of his battalion, he will soon be dead.  Ironically, with an actress with such a Jewish sounding name, Charlotte’s great moral betrayal is finding a photograph of a Ukrainian auxiliary nurse, Lilija, she has hired and befriended her and turning her over to the SS as a Jewess. Greta Muller (Katharina Schuttler) is the acknowledged great beauty and talented singer of the group. She models herself on Marlene Dietrich a fact a high-ranking SS officer, Dorn (Mark Waschke) asks her to play down so he can help her with her career and other things. This includes helping her lover Viktor Goldstein (Ludwig Trepte) escape to Paris. In one swoop Dorn gets rid of his love rival and the possible consequences of Greta being tagged with the charge of racial defilement. Viktor is not, of course, sent West, but East to the concentration camps. He escapes with a woman companion from the cattle trucks enroute. This is perhaps the least convincing part, but it’s still mesmeric viewing. Watch the last episode, A Different Country on IPlayer. Get your hands on the first episode. Watch the last episode tonight. Watch the trilogy one episode after the other. You’re in for a treat.

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b043h4jx/Generation_War_Our_Mothers...