“In the Maelstrom of War – A German Family History” is a film about the destructive power of war, about mental destruction and the effects on future generations.

Since the 1980s I have had my father’s war diaries and his field letters to my mother. From 1943 until the end of the war he was a reliable officer in the 999 Penal Division and saw himself as a ‘tool in a mighty machine’. His records are unfiltered documents from the immediacy of the war. They convey how he felt, thought and experienced. They show how propaganda seduces and how the laws of war devastate humanity. Read and understood in today’s context, my father’s notes are warnings to those born later.

Christoph Boekel

Documentary | 118 min. | DCP
Co-
production COIN FILM, Baum-Film

 

Team

Script | director Christoph Boekel
DoP Axel Brandt
Editing Thomas Balkenhol
Producer Herbert Schwering, Christoph Boekel



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