(Heinz Spitzner), the Kompaniechef (com pany commander)— a former teacher
who has just lost his son in action—to keep them out of the war so they won’t be
sacrificed pointlessly. The commander assigns the boys to the defense of a local
bridge (slated for de mo li tion anyway), under the command of Cpl. Heilmann
(Günter Pfitzmann), a veteran Unteroffizier. The young men hunker down as
Heilmann leaves to alert the de mo li tion squad, but on his way, Heilmann is con-
fused for a deserter by a German patrol and goes into a panic. Instead of commu-
nicating his purpose, he attempts to flee and is shot by the Feldegendarmerie
patrolmen. The boys are thus left on their own, on the bridge, without a way to
contact their unit. The boys decide to remain in position until receiving official
orders to pull back. At dawn an American fighter plane drops a bomb near the
bridge, killing Sigi, who had stubbornly refused to take cover as he had endured
endless mockery for what his friends contended was cowardice. The death of their
friend stuns the boys as they scramble to set up positions against three American
tanks and accompanying troops. Walter uses Panzerfausts to obliterate two of the
tanks, but soon overwhelmed, he is killed in action. Karl kills a G.I., but is imme-
diately the victim of intense machine- gun fire. Klaus is unable to cope with Karl’s
death and sprints forward into American gunfire. Fi nally, the last American tank
and remaining soldiers do retreat, and Hans and Albert, the only boys still alive,
realize that they have temporarily stalled the American advance. A German de mo-
li tion squadron arrives on the scene, and one of the leading officers chastises the
two remaining boys, sarcastically referring to them as “fools” and “fine heroes.”
Hans goes mad once he sees that his friends have perished for nothing, and he
threatens the German officer. Before the officer can shoot him, Albert fires at
Hans instead. Hans dies in a last round of machine- gun fire, and Albert goes
home, alone. A single sentence appears before the end credits: “This event occurred
on April 27, 1945. It was so unimportant that it was never mentioned in any war
communique.”Reception
Released in West Germany on 22 October 1959, Die Brücke won five awards at the
1960 German Film Awards, including Outstanding Feature Film. At the Mar del
Plata Film Festival in Argentina in March 1960, Die Brücke beat out 25 other films
to win Best Film in International Competition and also won the FIPRESCI Prize
(tied with Alfonso Corona Blake’s Verano violento). At the 5th Valladolid Interna-
tional Film Festival in Seminci, Spain (April 1960), the film won the Silver Spike
(i.e., second place behind François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows). It also received the
Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Language Film, the National Board of
Review Award for Best Foreign Language Film, and a nomination for the Acad-
emy Award for Best Foreign Language Film (but lost to Marcel Camus’ Black
Orpheus). Not surprisingly, reviews, both con temporary and more recent, con-
tinue to heap praise on Die Brücke as an exemplary anti- war film. In the words of
Bosley Crowther, “Withal, Herr Wicki has constructed an intense and compel-
ling film, notable for its cinematic sharpness and its concentrated emotional
drive” (Crowther, 1961).48 BRIDGE, THE [GerMAn: DIE BRÜCKE]