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Generation War is the three-part ground-breaking German World War II drama, which draws to a conclusion this Saturday on BBC2, and the Blu-ray & DVD are released next Monday, May 12th, as well as a digital download via iTunes.
While you’d normally expect to find high-quality subtitled foreign drama on BBC4, such as The Killing, The Bridge and Borgen, Generation War has been BBC2’s first subtitled television acquisition since 2001. The channel-leap further embodies the strength of the UK’s love for foreign-language drama, which continues to grow.
Generation War has been hailed as the German ‘Band Of Brothers‘ and is a multi-award winning international success story. 8 years in the making, the mini-series was watched by over 7.5million viewers when it aired in Germany last year, and has since gone-on to be a hit across Europe and in the USA.
Synopsis:
A groundbreaking, often violent depiction of five Berlin-based friends lives and relations between the years of 1941 and 1945, the compelling and, at times, controversial storyline show what life was like on the other side of the trenches and blockades during the Second World War.
Split into 3 x 90 minute episodes, Generation War begins in Berlin, in the summer of 1941, as Hitler stepped up his assault on the Soviet Union.
Five friends – soldier Wilhelm, his sensitive younger brother Friedhelm, Charlotte, Viktor and Greta – say their farewells, with the promise to meet again after the war, which they are convinced will be over by Christmas.
Little do they know how long it will go on to last, nor how much the unfathomable experiences, deprivations and terrors will change them. It is the experiences of friendship and betrayal, belief and disappointment, illusion and insight, guilt and responsibility, which will change their lives forever.
Wilhelm and his brother have been ordered to the eastern front, Charlotte will do duty as nurse in a field hospital there. In Berlin, Greta makes a name for herself as a singer, with the help of a high ranking party official. Her Jewish boyfriend Viktor is betrayed and deported to a concentration camp in the east.
See the trailer below:
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