46 BRIDGE, THE [GerMAn: DIE BRÜCKE]
was technically a British subject. Besides misrepresenting the geopo liti cal context,
the movie omits the three other defendants who were also on trial with Morant,
Handcock, and Witton: Lt. Henry Picton, a British- born BVC officer, charged with
participating in the shooting of Floris Visser (found guilty of manslaughter and
cashiered from the British Army); Capt. Alfred Taylor, the Irish- born commander
of military intelligence at Fort Edward, accused of ordering Lt. Handcock to mur-
der B. J. van Buuren, an Afrikaner BVC trooper who had objected to the shooting
of prisoners, also accused of the murder of six unarmed Afrikaners and the theft
of their money and livestock (acquitted on a technicality); and Major Robert W.
Lenehan, the Australian Field Commander of BVC, accused of covering up the mur-
der of Trooper van Buuren (found guilty and reprimanded). Breaker Morant also
mischaracterizes the enlisted men at Fort Edward who testify against Morant,
Handcock, and Witton as British- born malcontents motivated by personal grudges
against their Australian officers. In real ity, the 15 enlisted men at Fort Edward who
signed an accusatory letter were Australians stirred by genuine disgust for the war
crimes they had personally witnessed. Furthermore, the movie portrays the pros-
ecution as single- mindedly bloodthirsty while neglecting to note that Morant and
Handcock actually rejected offers of immunity from prosecution if they would agree
to testify against Capt. Taylor and Major Lenehan for issuing take- no- prisoners
orders. The effect of all these changes is to encourage viewers (especially Austra-
lian viewers) to see the defendants as martyrs to British po liti cal intrigue and injus-
tice rather than guilty of war crimes, which they most as suredly were. Somewhat
disingenuously, Bruce Beresford has since deplored the fact that Breaker Morant has
been widely misconstrued “as a film about poor Australians who were framed by
the Brits.” In a 1999 interview with Australian film critic Peter Malone, Beresford
said, “The film never pretended for a moment that they weren’t guilty. It said they
are guilty. But what was in ter est ing about it was that it analyzed why men in this
situation would behave as they had never behaved before in their lives. It’s the pres-
sures that are put to bear on people in war time... That was what I was interested
in examining” (Malone, 1980).BRIDGE, THE [GERMAN: DIE BRÜCKE] (1959)
Synopsis
Die Brücke (The Bridge) is a West German war film directed by Austrian filmmaker
Bernhard Wicki. Based on an actual event fictionalized by Gregor Dorfmeister in
a 1958 novel of the same title, the film tells the story of a small squad of German
teen agers who assume the futile task of defending a bridge against the Allies in the
closing days of World War II in Eu rope.Background
Toward the end of World War II Manfred Gregor Dorfmeister turned 16, so he was
inducted into the Volkssturm ( People’s Army) in his hometown of Bad Tölz, Bavaria,
a resort hamlet about 30 miles south of Munich. On 1 May 1945— the day after