Stukas (1941)

The film’s main characters are pilots from two squadrons of German dive-bombers. It has no coherent plot, and its narrative continuity is repeatedly interrupted. Instead, scenes at camp alternate with aerial combat scenes. Several pilots die and are honored by their comrades. Their deaths happen “off-screen” and are only reported verbally. Some are taken prisoner, while others fight their way back to camp through enemy lines. One subplot follows three pilots who make their way through unoccupied France to their base, forcing a French company to surrender along the way. In another subplot, a German officer is seriously wounded and suffers from depression from then on. A kind-hearted nurse takes him to the Richard Wagner Festival. During the orchestral interlude “Siegfried’s Rhine Journey” from the opera *Götterdämmerung*, he regains his will to live and returns to his comrades, who greet him with great enthusiasm. At the end, they go into battle against England.