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08/15
08/15
	German Poster
Directed by	Paul May
Written by	Paul May; Hans Hellmut Kirst; Claus Hardt; Ernst von Salomon;
Based on	08/15; by Hans Hellmut Kirst
Produced by	Ilse Kubaschewski
Cinematography	Heinz Hölscher
Edited by	Walter Boos; Arnfried Heyne;
Music by	Rolf A. Wilhelm
Production; company	Divina-Film
Distributed by	Gloria Filmverleih AG
Country	West Germany
Language	German

08/15 is a 1954–55 West German film trilogy directed by Paul May and based on the novel 08/15 by Hans Hellmut Kirst who also served as the film's screenwriter (published in English as "The Revolt of Gunner Asch"). The term 08/15 (nill-eight/fifteen, German: Null-Acht/Fünfzehn) refers to the German Army's standard machine gun, the 08/15 (or MG 08 model 15), by far, the most common German machine gun deployed in World War I. It was manufactured in such large quantities that it became the German Army slang for anything that was standard issue.^[1]

The film follows the story of Private Asch, a German soldier in World War II. The film title implies that Asch, and the soldiers under his command, were unostentatious (i.e. "run-of-the-mill") characters deployed on the Eastern Front.^[1]

Premise

The last of the 08/15 film trilogy ends with Germany being occupied by American soldiers who are portrayed as bubble-gum chewing, slack-jawed, uncultured louts, inferior in every respect to the heroic German soldiers.^[1] The only exception is the Jewish emigrant, now a US officer, who is shown as both intelligent and unscrupulous, the fact interpreted by Professor Omer Bartov as implying that the "real tragedy of World War II was that the Nazis did not get a chance to exterminate all Semites, who have now returned with Germany's defeat to once more exploit the German people".^[1] "Although Asch is never identified with the Americans – indeed, in the final film of the trilogy, the Americans appear to be nearly as dangerous a foe as the SS."^[2]

Parts

Part 1: In der Kaserne (In the Barracks)
Part 2: Im Krieg (In War)
Part 3: In der Heimat (Back Home) [de]

Cast

Joachim Fuchsberger as Private I Class / Staff Sergeant / Lieutenant Asch
Helen Vita as Lore Schulz
Peter Carsten as Corporal Kowalski

Notes

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d Bartov, Omer (2004). "Celluloid Soldiers: Cinematic Images of the Wehrmacht". In Ljubica & Mark Erickson. Russia War, Peace and Diplomacy. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 0-297-84913-1.
^ Screening War: Perspectives on German Suffering, page 26.

References

Kapczynski, Jennifer M. (2010). "Armchair Warriors: Heroic Postures in the West German War Film". In Cooke, Paul; Silberman, Marc (eds.). Screening War: Perspectives on German Suffering. Screen Cultures: German Film and the Visual. pp. 23–27. ISBN 978-1-57113-437-0.