Generation War (Season 1)

Generation War (Unsere Mütter, unsere Väter, 2013) is a German wartime miniseries you can watch online on iFILM. Berlin, summer 1941: five friends raise their glasses in a small café and swear to meet there again once it's all over. They're sure they'll be home by Christmas. Not all of them make it back.

Director Philipp Kadelbach follows each of them into the Eastern Front — seen through German eyes rather than the victors'. Brothers Wilhelm and Friedhelm ship out as infantry; one strains to stay decent in a Wehrmacht uniform while the other hardens into something brutal. Charlotte signs up as a field nurse, aspiring singer Greta trades her conscience to an SS officer for a shot at fame, and her lover Viktor, a Berlin Jew, runs from deportation. By 1945 little of those starry-eyed kids is left.

Produced by public broadcaster ZDF, the series set off a sharp public argument about how Germany remembers its parents' generation in that war. It's a heavy, unflinching look from the inside, made for viewers who want war drama stripped of heroic gloss. Stream every episode of Generation War (2013) online on iFILM.