Der Arzt von Stalingrad (1958)

Germany, after the war and reconstruction. A man checks in at a hotel reception desk. His gaze falls on a photograph of a war ruin. In a long flashback that makes up the bulk of the film, we find ourselves after the Battle of Stalingrad and the end of the war in the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp 5110/47 near Stalingrad. Dr. Fritz Böhler is interned there too: an upright doctor and a leading authority in his field. Together with the idealistic senior doctor Sellnow and the resourceful orderly Pelz, the somewhat older man, who has a weak heart, tries to honor his Hippocratic oath even in captivity. Through considerable cunning and improvisation, they repeatedly manage to circumvent the oppressive bans imposed by the Soviet camp authorities and ease the suffering of their fellow prisoners. Böhler even operates on a fellow prisoner using only the simplest tools, such as a pocketknife and silk thread taken from a stolen scarf. The daily lives of the “Plennis” (from the Russian военный пленник, vojennyj plennik, meaning “prisoner of war”) are made harder not only by Walter Grosse, a German informant working for the Soviets, who pays for his activities with his life, but also by Alexandra Kasalinsskaja, the Soviet camp doctor, who harbors a deep hatred for every German ever since her husband fell in the war against the invaders. First Lieutenant Pjotr Markow, who is in love with Alexandra and tries to impress her by subjecting the German prisoners to numerous forms of harassment, also proves to be a hard man who insists that his orders be carried out exactly to the letter. The situation begins to ease only when tender feelings develop between the Russian woman and senior doctor Sellnow, and when the life of the camp commandant Worotilow’s son is saved thanks to the Germans’ medical skill. Alexandra Kasalinsskaja, until then characterized by icy severity toward herself and everyone else, begins to reconsider her attitude toward the Germans and now shows greater humanity. But she, like Sellnow, knows that their blossoming love can have no future. At least Dr. Sellnow is able to secure better medical care for his comrades, even though some of his fellow prisoners regard him with suspicion and ostracize him because of this relationship. Alexandra, for her part, knows full well that her romance with the “fascist beast,” as Soviet propaganda jargon calls him, would meet with fierce disapproval and bring the gravest consequences if her superiors learned of it. In fact, First Lieutenant Markow finds out and, jealous, sets out to make life hell for his rival for the woman’s affections. Sellnow pays for his love with his life, and Alexandra is removed from the camp and sent into exile in Siberia. In a further subplot, a German prisoner falls in love with Tamara, a camp official, but the two are torn apart when the prisoner is allowed to return to Germany. In the final scene, the film returns to the hotel reception desk. The new guest turns out to be Dr. Böhler, finally returned home from captivity. Through dissolves and superimpositions, it is made clear that the armies have taken to the field again and weapons technology has entered the jet age. It seems that no one has learned the lessons of the past.