(“Generation War” contains graphic war violence and sexually suggestive scenes.This comprehensively revised, updated and significantly extended edition introduces German film history from its beginnings to the present day, covering key periods and movements including early and silent cinema, Weimar cinema, Nazi cinema, the New German Cinema, the Berlin School, the cinema of migration, and moving images in the digital era. It’s not exactly “Berlin Alexanderplatz.” But it should appeal to arthouse audiences and World War II movie buffs. In Germany, “Generation War” was intended to teach young people unfamiliar with World War II what events and politics molded their country and their grandparents’ generation. The writing by veteran Stefan Kolditz is consistently solid.

A scene in which Friedhelm begins to sink into fly-infested, blood-soaked soil covering a mass burial ground is one of the film’s most powerful. “Generation War” is well-cast and nicely, if also modestly, shot and staged by director Philipp Kadelbach and cinematographer David Slama. In order to save Viktor from deportation and arrange for him to sneak out of Germany, Greta allows an SS officer, Dorn (Mark Waschke), with connections in the entertainment business to have his way with her. Wilhelm Winter (Volker Bruch of “The Baader Meinhof Complex”) is a Wermacht officer, a brave captain serving on the Eastern Front, trying to protect his more sensitive younger brother Friedhelm (Tom Schilling also of “The Baader Meinhof Complex”), who is afraid of fighting, until he grows used to the carnage and begins even to enjoy it. Charlotte (Miriam Stein of “Young Goethe in Love”) is a nurse who believes deeply in Nazi ideology until she works alongside the German-speaking Ukrainian Hildegard (Henrietta Richter-Rohl), who has trained medical experience and a grave secret. Greta (the stunning Katharina Schuttler), Viktor’s girlfriend, loves “degenerate” swing music and dreams of becoming a singer. Viktor is a tailor, who dreams of being a fashion designer and whose tailor father, a decorated World War I veteran, is in stubborn denial about the intentions of the Nazis. “Part 1” tells the story of five young Berlin friends, including a Jew named Viktor Goldstein (Ludwig Trepte), who make a pact in the summer of 1941 to reunite the following Christmas.

A German “Band of Brothers,” “Generation War,” which has been split into two parts in the United States, began life as a three-part miniseries aired on German TV titled “Unsere Mutter, Unsere Vater” (“Our Mothers, Our Fathers”).

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