Directed by:
Géza von RadványiScreenplay:
Werner P. ZibasoCinematography:
Georg KrauseComposer:
Siegfried FranzCast:
O.E. Hasse, Eva Bartok, Hannes Messemer, Mario Adorf, Walther Reyer, Vera Tschechowa, Valerij Inkižinov, Michael Ande, Siegfried Lowitz, Rolf Kralovitz (more)Plots(1)
Spätheimkehrer (= Late Returnees) was a legal term for all those POWs German or fighting for the Reich who hadn't been released by December 31st 1946. It should take till '55, the so-called Heimkehr der Zehntausend (= Return of the Ten Thousand), for the process of "repatriation" to find some kind of end (the fate of many remains unclear; they're formally considered MIA). Anyway: By the time Heinz G. Konsalik, a war correspondent ao. at the so-called Eastern Front (with a "not hostile' disposition towards the Nazis, at least according to his attempts at getting accepted in the Reichsschrifttumskammer...) and arguably the most (in)famous of all Bonn republic pulp writers, published Der Arzt von Stalingrad (1956) the subject was one of the past. Now began the time of myth-making – and few and far apart were the subjects more stories circulated about than that of the Soviet-run prison camps with their invariably brutal jailers and wardens, as well as the impossibly beautiful and fundamentally unreadable Russian women... In 1958, two films about Germans in Soviet POW camps hit the local screens, both rather surprising and quite special in their respective ways: Wolfgang Liebeneiner's curiously melancholic melodrama Taiga and Radványi Géza's ballsy, slightly noir'ish and certainly mighty claustrophobic Der Arzt von Stalingrad which takes the disappointed-going-disgusted perspective of a returnee as its starting point. A true gem, and a most worthy work of his auteurs, a modernist maverick if there was one in FRG cinema at that time – a genuine case for critical re-evaluation on an international scale. (OM) (Midnight Sun Film Festival)
(more)Cast
O.E. Hasse
German Empire
Best movies:
Die vertauschte Braut (1934)
The Last Laugh (1924)
Knockout - Ein junges Mädchen, ein junger Mann (1935)
Eva Bartok
Kingdom of Hungary
Best movies:
Blood and Black Lace (1964)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
The Crimson Pirate (1952)
Hannes Messemer
German Empire
Best movies:
The Great Escape (1963)
The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
Il Generale Della Rovere (1959)
Mario Adorf
Switzerland
Best movies:
Winnetou (1963)
The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
Marco Polo (1982) (series)
Walther Reyer
Austria
Best movies:
The Third Lover (1962)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Sissi: The Young Empress (1956)
Vera Tschechowa
German Empire
Best movies:
Love at Twenty (1962)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Euridice BA 2O37 (1975)
Valerij Inkižinov
Russian Empire
Best movies:
The Last Adventure (1967)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Up to His Ears (1965)
Michael Ande
Best movies:
Treasure Island (1966) (series)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Goodnight Mommy (2014) - a.f.
Siegfried Lowitz
German Empire
Best movies:
It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958)
The Octopus (1984) (series)
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
Rolf Kralovitz
German Empire
Best movies:
Paths of Glory (1957)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Magic Fire (1956)
Eddi Arent
German Empire
Best movies:
The Treasure of the Silver Lake (1962)
Winnetou: The Red Gentleman (1964)
The Mysterious Magician (1964)
Willy Schultes
German Empire
Best movies:
The Nasty Girl (1990)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Cow and I (1959)
Curt Linda
Austria-Hungary
Best movies:
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Paul Bösiger
Switzerland
Best movies:
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
08/15 (1954)
08/15 - II. Teil (1955)
Leonard Steckel
Austria-Hungary
Best movies:
M (1931)
The Captain from Köpenick (1956)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Til Kiwe
German Empire
Best movies:
The Great Escape (1963)
The Longest Day (1962)
One, Two, Three (1961)
Johannes Buzalski
Best movies:
The Bridge (1959)
The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (1974)
Sudden Wealth of the Poor People of Kombach (1971) (TV movie)
Wilmut Borell
German Empire
Best movies:
The Devil Strikes at Night (1957)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Baal (1970) (TV movie)
Rolf von Nauckhoff
Sweden
Best movies:
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)
Cow and I (1959)
Man on a Tightrope (1953)
Erich Ebert
German Empire
Best movies:
Agguato sul grande fiume (1964)
Decision Before Dawn (1951)
The Doctor of Stalingrad (1958)