May 1945. Somewhere in Germany. Only a few days before the capitulation. Seven Hitler-youth, who’ve been stuck into Wehrmacht uniforms, are deployed to defend a bridge of no strategic significance, equipped with nothing more than a few carbines and bazookas. Abandoned by their senior officer, helplessly torn between a thirst for adventure and a confused belief that they must save the Fatherland, they take up the futile struggle just as the American tanks roll in.
"The Bridge", which achieved worldwide success as a book in 1958, followed by the equally successful film in 1959 (followed by a television remake in 2008 - click for the trailer here), is a memorial to a duped generation that was sent to the slaughter in the final days of the War.
The publication of the book and the release of the film did nothing to popularise the "Wehrpflicht" (conscription) which began in 1956. My turn came in 1963 when I had turned 18. Despite prescription glasses and fallen arches, I was given the medical all-clear and a shiny "Wehrpaß" with the instructions not to leave town (or worse still, the "Vaterland") which I did anyway, with the help of the Australian embassy, in 1965.
Better to serve two years as an assisted migrant in Australia than eighteen months under a sadistic "Feldwebel" in the "Bundeswehr".
Sixty years later, I am still here! "Unrasiert und fern der Heimat …"
