General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhat is the greatest antiwar movie ever made?
My vote is for 'The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly' starring Eli Wallach.
The depictions of the barbarity and waste at the prison camp and the battlefield cannot help but touch the heart of any viewer with a heart to touch. In particular, the scene with the dying soldier, seeking only one last mercy before he perishes as the result of the greed and violence of others.
Anybody who sees 'The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly' as just another cowboy shoot-em-up is really not paying attention.
The Road Runner
(109 posts)leftstreet
(36,081 posts)TheNutcracker
(2,104 posts)Aristus
(66,099 posts)I like Platoon much better as a film, but I agree with some of the criticism it received that, as jarringly realistic as it was in depicting jungle combat in Vietnam, it tended to apotheosize war as a struggle between good and evil, with Sgt Elias and Ssgt Barnes as the two icons of that struggle.
Full Metal Jacket was a no-holds-barred anti-war statement. It shows war as being ugly, gritty, nasty, petty, inconclusive, and a monumental waste of humanity and national treasure.
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)2banon
(7,321 posts)H2O Man
(73,333 posts)The film of the concert holds up well, I think.
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)ailsagirl
(22,842 posts)Especially Country Joe & the Fish singing "Fixin' to Die Rag"
It still packs a wallop!!
Boom Sound 416
(4,185 posts)cloudbase
(5,487 posts)Big Blue Marble
(4,978 posts)MFM008
(19,782 posts)etherealtruth
(22,165 posts)zappaman
(20,605 posts)El Supremo
(20,365 posts)It was based on an actual occurrence. France banned it for many years.
Babel_17
(5,400 posts)Warpy
(110,913 posts)I don't think anybody can associate "war" and "glory" after seeing that one.
opiate69
(10,129 posts)Babel_17
(5,400 posts)scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)lovemydog
(11,833 posts)It's so powerful and so is the book. In fact, the book was banned for a while because there was a fear that if people read it they would never fight in any war. I know that's how I felt when I read it, and I've never changed my mind since reading it and seeing the movie.
All the movies on this thread are well worth seeing. I can't really name one 'best', as it's kind of weird to me to look at things that way. But if I had to pick one to show to everyone, I'd pick Johnny Gut His Gun.
nadinbrzezinski
(154,021 posts)RiffRandell
(5,909 posts)One.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)LWolf
(46,179 posts)Although I didn't actually know it was a movie.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Then he directed the 1971 movie based on his book.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)I never did hear about the movie. Of course, that's par for my course.
scarletwoman
(31,893 posts)Maybe you were too young in 1971 to hear about the movie? I remember it being a big deal at the time.
LWolf
(46,179 posts)livetohike
(22,084 posts)Mostly filmed in Pgh. (my hometown), it was especially heartbreaking. My generation as well.
My mother's favorite film to this day.
Buns_of_Fire
(17,121 posts)Coventina
(26,874 posts)But there are many great ones.
PumpkinAle
(1,210 posts)it is truly a harrowing film.
Stallion
(6,473 posts)that always seems to overcome common sense as the pro-War professors, businessmen and public officials all lead the cheers during the flag waving Parade. Then the realization comes to those who followed the Parade that what they fought for was very different than what they were lead to believe.
SteveG
(3,109 posts)I've seen it several times. Definitely the most anti-war movie.
meaculpa2011
(918 posts)Benton D Struckcheon
(2,347 posts)The Last of the Mohicans had that same kind of thing built in. No romanticization of war in that one, at all.
I've always thought The Boys in Company C was seriously underrated.
Spider Jerusalem
(21,786 posts)Also: "Paths of Glory"; "Das Boot", "La Grande Illusion"
valerief
(53,235 posts)should watch this first.
Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)That depth-charge scene when the newbie crawls into his bunk & goes to sleep. It just wouldn't end, the malevolent light show.
hunter
(38,264 posts)Simply because it puts you right there in that horrible place with the "enemy."
burrowowl
(17,607 posts)Exposethefrauds
(531 posts)The greatest antiwar movie is the one that moves someone enough where they become antiwar.
TGBU is a very interesting and good choice as is all the movies named already.
I thought Breaker Morant would be a good choice but not sure if it really the greatest
it is based on the book Scapegoats Of The Empire by Edward Witton
Highly recommended reading
shenmue
(38,503 posts)One of my favorites too.
SummerSnow
(12,608 posts)Martin Eden
(12,805 posts)Very daring movie for when it was made ... between the World Wars.
It gets a big thumbs up from me, though I'm partial to All Quiet on the Western Front, and Dr Strangelove.
shenmue
(38,503 posts)Saw it in high school for a class. Cried my eyes out.
marked50
(1,350 posts)Agree
nomorenomore08
(13,324 posts)Shankapotomus
(4,840 posts)Eleanors38
(18,318 posts)Good segment.
The cause of so many wars is the disrespect we have for others, individually as well as nations. We should at least accord respect instead of demanding it.
My, what a long life. RIP, Eli Wallach.
He quite quietly repaired the spilling.
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Powerful anti-war film.
CTyankee
(63,773 posts)it is too sad...
frylock
(34,825 posts)My choice also.
lunatica
(53,410 posts)then shocks you down to your soul in one scene. I don't know if I'm imagining this but wasn't that scene with the guy's guts spilling out of the jacket the last one before the intermission? It gave you time to react to that scene for quite a while before getting distracted with the next scene. Everything after that scene was relentlessly depressing. It made me feel sick that I had laughed in the beginning of the movie.
edited for spelling and clarification
Uncle Joe
(58,112 posts)Thanks for the thread, FrodosPet.
Motown_Johnny
(22,308 posts)or how I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.
You know, we just can't allow a mine shaft gap.
Tikki
(14,539 posts)Lots and lots of death and blood...
Tikki
Tikki
(14,539 posts)Tikki
FreedRadical
(518 posts)I liked Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs.
1000words
(7,051 posts)"Renoir seeks to refute the notion that war accomplishes anything, or that it can be used as a political tool to solve problems and create a better world. "That's all an illusion", says Rosenthal, speaking of the belief that this is the war that will end war forever.
La Grande Illusion is a war film without any depiction of battle. Instead, the prisoner of war camp setting is used as a space in which soldiers of many nations have a common experience. Renoir portrays war as a futile exercise. For instance, Elsa, the German widow, shows photos to Maréchal and Rosenthal of her husband and her brothers who were killed, respectively, at the battles of Verdun, Liège, Charleroi, and Tannenberg. Ironically the last three of these battles were amongst Germany's most celebrated victories in World War I. Through this device, Renoir refutes the notion that one common man's bravery, honor, or duty can make an impact on a great event. This undermines the idealistic intention of Maréchal and Rosenthal to return to the front, so that by returning to the fight they can help end this war."
greatlaurel
(2,004 posts)Outstanding antiwar film with superb acting throughout the film. It was William Holden's best and he had many great films.
Eli Wallach was a great actor, too. RIP
Mike Nelson
(9,903 posts)(Any great War Movie is an Anti-War Movie)
Agony
(2,605 posts)The Silent Death of Cambodia
http://johnpilger.com/videos/year-zero-the-silent-death-of-cambodia
multiple layers of ongoing tragedies, Kissinger is still wandering around.
Sancho
(9,065 posts)Almost like the Daily Show in sarcasm, but so true...
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)But I haven't seen enough of these movies to determine which is the "greatest".
marked50
(1,350 posts)"On the Beach" and "Testament" and "The Thin Red Line" can be added to the list
BillZBubb
(10,650 posts)One of the great ones is "Stalingrad". If I recall correctly it was a German film that I saw with subtitles. The battle was a total human disaster. Definitely worth watching if you get the opportunity.
raccoon
(31,092 posts)Tierra_y_Libertad
(50,414 posts)Brickbat
(19,339 posts)RiffRandell
(5,909 posts)A few months ago I woke up in the middle of the night, watched most of it again, by the end it was time to get up and I'm thinking, well this is a great way to start my day.
Brickbat
(19,339 posts)Brigid
(17,621 posts)There are plenty of contenders, but no other can quite match it.
rug
(82,333 posts)Full movie (sign-in required.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pork_Chop_Hill
I can't make up my mind if it's intentionally or unintentionally antiwar.
KoKo
(84,711 posts)GusBob
(7,286 posts)PFunk
(876 posts)One american, one South Korean but both are set during the Korean War. Unsung in popularity. both are hard hitting in their non-sugar coated portrayal of it despite their dates.
JEB
(4,748 posts)BootinUp
(46,928 posts)dogknob
(2,431 posts)Gotta put down the bong and the cellphone to catch all of the dialogue, though.
canoeist52
(2,282 posts)WillyT
(72,631 posts)Martin Eden
(12,805 posts)when I saw it ~30 years ago
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Those are the inmates who should be running our asylum.
-- Mal
Alex P Notkeaton
(309 posts)Great film, with a final shot that packs a real punch.
The Blue Flower
(5,420 posts)A WWII film. The title is meant to be ironic because no one wins in a war.
dilby
(2,273 posts)The only thing that comes close is the other mini-series "Generation Kill". The reason these two are so compelling is they are true stories on what war is like and there is no glamorization. If you are not crying by the end of "The Pacific" I don't know what to say, it's just gut wrenching to see young boys aged into old men and commit acts that are just haunting.
BootinUp
(46,928 posts)tkmorris
(11,138 posts)It is nowhere near as powerful as The Deerhunter or most of the others mentioned, by I always thought it was a severely under-rated film, and it definitely leaves an anti-war vibe with the viewer.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Just Kidding
dogknob
(2,431 posts)"A-at l-least I-I... got to h-have... yooou!"
*dies*
tblue37
(64,982 posts)L0oniX
(31,493 posts)Contrary1
(12,629 posts)Not so much for the few Civil War battle scenes, but for how the movie depicts the utter devastation that war wreaks on the families.
And then there's Jimmy Stewart. One of the greatest actors ever, imho.
canoeist52
(2,282 posts)HooptieWagon
(17,064 posts)I don't know about the greatest, but its a good one thats also critical of US imperialism and gunboat diplomacy. Good book, too.
pa28
(6,145 posts)frazzled
(18,402 posts)Though I don't remember much of it at all. I saw it in Paris in 1970, and never since. But I will never forget Bill Klein's segment of the self-immolation. I don't really want to see this film again because it's probably a hot mess. But when you're 20 years old, living abroad as an ex-pat far from home during the height of the war and the March on Washington, and enamored of the French New Wave, it hit a chord.
Never released on home video in North America, the 1967 anthology movie Far From Vietnam was in its day intended as a cinematic intervention, a cataract of antiwar activism delivered by a dream team of New Wavers: Chris Marker, Jean-Luc Godard, Alain Resnais, Claude Lelouch, Agnès Varda, the fashion photographer-turned-filmmaker William Klein and the old-guard Dutch documentarian Joris Ivens. Along with a virtual army of sympathetic technicians, actors and producers, the directors staged the cinematic equivalent of an angry peace march: if not the first documentary about Vietnam, then the first to be made in direct resistance to the American invasion there.
...
Seen today, Far From Vietnam comes across as a mournful, enraged chant. Mr. Marker, the French New Waves most mysterious artist, was the projects primary architect, and its editor. The segments, which are not attributed to individual directors, are conscientiously eclectic in strategy and form, mixing stock footage, firsthand documentary scenes, pop-media imagery and, in the case of Mr. Resnaiss portion, actors and scripts. (The actor Bernard Fresson plays a spineless French intellectual articulating excuses for his classs political apathy.)
The mix includes self-condemning speeches from Hubert H. Humphrey and Gen. William C. Westmoreland, the folk satirist Tom Paxton singing Lyndon Johnson Told the Nation, a detailed stock-footage history of postcolonial Vietnam, footage of a traditional North Vietnamese clown play about President Johnson weeping over his Air Forces failure, on-the-street explorations of protests on the home front, interviews with Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro, portraits of Hanoi inhabitants and their one-man concrete bomb shelters, and so on.
...
The hammer blow of Far From Vietnam, however, comes with Mr. Kleins segment about the legacy and family of Norman Morrison, a 31-year-old Baltimore Quaker who in 1965 doused himself with kerosene outside the Pentagon office of Robert McNamara, then secretary of defense, and set himself ablaze. Grief doesnt prevent Mr. Morrisons serene pacifist widow from endorsing her his martyrdom, and Mr. Klein makes clear that Mr. Morrison immediately became a folk hero in Vietnam.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/28/movies/the-filmfar-from-vietnam-returns-after-decades.html
ON EDIT: Ooh, I found a trailer:
reddread
(6,896 posts)Very fond of Hair as well.
hedgehog
(36,286 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)top 10'er.
Twyla Tharp!
Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)cherokeeprogressive
(24,853 posts)Savannahmann
(3,891 posts)The discomfort of the transportation workers who carry the bodies of the fallen. The agony the escorts feel in carrying the fallen home. The mechanical reciting of lines. "The President of the United States, the Commandant of the Marine Corps, and a Grateful nation present you with this flag."
I had a friend who lost part of his hand at work many years ago in an accident. He went to a meeting a couple months after and the company offered him $25,000. He thought for a moment and said. "No deal, give me the hand back." I remembered that incident after Taking Chance. No deal, give me my son, brother, or friend back, keep the flag.
Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)There has never been a more heartbreaking portrayal of war's innocent victims.
I believe that no less than Roger Ebert called it one of the best antiwar films ever made.
kentauros
(29,414 posts)And you'd have to be Dick Cheney (i.e., heartless) to not cry at the end.
I've seen it a few times (with many years between viewings) and just thinking about it tears me up a bit...
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Frank Cannon
(7,570 posts)Just have a box of Kleenex handy. My wife and I handle sad movies pretty well, but this one had us bawling like a couple of little kids. I'm talking "projectile" crying here.
sufrommich
(22,871 posts)ever watching. Gut wrenching.
ALBliberal
(2,304 posts)Can't choose one!
Lint Head
(15,064 posts)mixed with the Civil War was a little disconcerting.
Other than that, Paths of Glory.
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)To me, it was about the emotion.
The emotion of the confederate prisoners as Tuco was being destroyed in Angel Eyes' office. The drunken resignation of Captain Clinton. The desperation for one last kindness, one last drag of smoke, on the dying soldier's face.
This, more than battle scenes, is what tells the cost of war.
A HERETIC I AM
(24,321 posts)Jan Michael Vincent and Darrin McGavin, a 1970's made-for-TV movie that was remarkably well done.
Cerridwen
(13,251 posts)I hadn't seen it before. When I asked my SO yesterday about this thread, he mentioned it and we watched it on youtube yesterday afternoon.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)paired with "Flags of Our Fathers" if you like.
Fix The Stupid
(947 posts)pinto
(106,886 posts)Dr. Strangelove would probably be the most well known example.
2banon
(7,321 posts)Mr Dixon
(1,185 posts)Born on the Fourth of July (1989)
CBGLuthier
(12,723 posts)Both of those make films like Saving Private Ryan look like a sunny day at the beach.
The Good the Bad and The Ugly does have a fine antiwar sentiment running throughout it.
4Q2u2
(1,406 posts)The Best Years of Our Lives did make an impression of what happened after the War and what a Country owed to it's Vets and those needs not always understood or met. I believe it was the first post war movie that was not all rah-rah and Candy Canes.
Orsino
(37,428 posts)It's not deep, but it effectively highlights the divide between the war enthusiasts and the miserable assholes who have to do the fighting.
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)I often think of Kelly's Heroes as one of the cleverest anti-war movies ever made, but a lot of people seem to think it is too heavy-handed. But the scene with the Tiger evoking Eastwood's westerns is priceless.
Alberty's facial expressions are brilliant, too. I've loved just about every role he's played.
-- Ml
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Special Prosciuto
(731 posts)Maybe not the greatest but a good lesser-known film. There is also a 2008 remake.
aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)I saw it with subtitles on American TV back in the early 60s. It's a very powerful film about the last days of WWII and 13 and 14 year old German kids recruited into the German army who have to defend a bridge against the advancing Americans. It really does make a statement about the pointlessness of war.
Tetris_Iguana
(501 posts)Such an in-depth cerebral commentary on the latest war folly even 10 years later.
Plus it doesn't hurt that George Clooney is in it
abakan
(1,815 posts)Bandit
(21,475 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)After seeing your post, I felt the documentary was about more than war to such a degree that it took me a minute to remember the heart rending scenes of that mother in DC.
Which, in a just America, would have been replayed nightly on the evening news.
I see an even bigger issue of trust and betrayal being replayed repeatedly, in different scenes.
Terrorism. Unlawful, unwarranted surveillance. Death dealing and money making on unprecedented scale.
All on the back of the US taxpayer.
easttexaslefty
(1,554 posts)Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)and believe it or not, "Patton", which is chock-full of unspoken, subversive anti-war sentiments depending on which perspective you watch the movie from...I love "Patton" because it's ambiguity makes it (especially in the politically volatile era that the film was released) kind of like a Rorschach test -- Do you see an anti-war statement or patriotic hagiography?
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Outwardly hagiographic, but the subtext is amazing.
And George C. Scott played both Patton and Buck Turgison. Interesting, no?
-- Mal
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)morningfog
(18,115 posts)Art_from_Ark
(27,247 posts)Friendly Fire, starring Carol Burnett:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friendly_Fire_%281979_film%29
Rhiannon12866
(203,041 posts)daleo
(21,317 posts)The scene where the bulldoze the dead into a mass grave, so that the battle can start all over again said it all.
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Okay, maybe not the "best," but definitely shows the futility and stupidity of war. And Remarque has a cameo in the movie.
Since there are so many touting "All Quiet On the Western Front," I thought it would be useful to mention his book about WW2. Of course he wrote several other books about war.
-- Mal
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Bio Snip:
On June 22, 1898, Erich Maria Remarque, the author of the great World War I novel All Quiet on the Western Front, is born in Osnabruck, Germany.
A student at the University of Munster, Remarque was drafted into the German army at the age of 18. He fought on the Western Front during World War I and was wounded no fewer than five times, the last time seriously. After the war, he worked various jobsteacher, stonecutter, race-car driver, sports journalistwhile working to complete the novel he had had in mind since the war. Published in Germany in 1929 as Im Westen Nichts Neues, it sold 1.2 million copies within a year; the English translation, All Quiet on the Western Front, published the same year, went on to similar success. It was subsequently translated into 12 languages, and made into a celebrated Hollywood film in 1930.
The smashing success of All Quiet on the Western Front was due in large part to its reflection of a widespread disillusionment with the war that took hold of many during the 1920s. Praised as a novel of unyielding realism, All Quiet on the Western Front described in stark detail the physical trauma of war. Remarque also articulated the numbing frustration and anger of the conscript soldier, sent into battle by government and military leaders for reasons of politics and power that he struggled to understand. In the words of his protagonist, Paul Baumer: I see how peoples are set against one another and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently, innocently slay one anotherI see that the keenest brains of the world invent weapons and words to make it yet more refined and enduring.
The celebrated American journalist H. L. Mencken called All Quiet on the Western Front "unquestionably the best story of the World War." Both the book and the 1930 film version were banned by the Nazis after their rise to power in Germany in 1933 as prejudicial to German national prestige. Remarque went on to write nine more novels, all dealing with the horror and futility of war and the struggle to understand its purpose; his last novel, The Night in Lisbon, was unsparing in its condemnation of World War II as Adolf Hitler's attempt to perpetrate the extermination of Jews and other nonpeople on behalf of the master race.
Though he became a naturalized American citizen and was during the 1930s a frequent participant in New York City nightlife and a companion for several years in Hollywood of the actress Marlene Dietrich, Remarque lived for most of his later life at Porto Ronco, on the shore of Lake Maggiore in Switzerland. He died at Locarno in 1970 with his wife, the actress Paulette Goddard, at his side.
http://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/erich-maria-remarque-born
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)I'd venture to say that Heinrich is to the WW2 Eastern Front as Remarque is to the WW1 Western Front.
-- Mal
KoKo
(84,711 posts)Thanks for the Heads Up... With War back in the picture (when did it ever end) I'm doing Summer reading.....with the "older stuff to refresh.
Sad that we have so few vets of our latest Wars/Invasion/Interventions for Democracy writing the hard hitting prose and the incredible poetry of WWI and II.
It seems our Volunteer Army isn't able to make sense of it the way others could in other times.
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)As usually happens, the book is much better. You might also check out Guy Sajer's The Forgotten Soldier, which is just about as grim. But Sajer has been subjected to a lot of criticism for supposed inaccuracies as history and panned as a "novel," which is kind of ridiculous. And some of the criticisms are kind of ridiculous, too, the kind of nit-picking that you get from fanatics who have studied every incidental bit of trivia they can and seem to think that a mistake of memory is proof of fraud. It's a good read, anyway, and that's the point, isn't it?
I mention this because Heinrich has been subjected to some of the same kinds of criticism, although to a much lesser extent.
-- Mal
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Well, you don't get much more anti-war than that one. And it's a topical choice, what with the 100th anniversary coming up. Some people dislike it because it is a typical Attenborough flick: long, in need of editing, and somewhat lacking in plot. I understand the play was better, but aren't they always? And the closing scene is one of the more gripping in cinema (as well as cinematography).
-- Mal
theHandpuppet
(19,964 posts)Agree it's a great antiwar film.
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)The 1993 version of Stalingrad (the 2013 Stalingrad movie was shite)
It's bleak as hell.
Sid
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)I'd recommend Theodor Plievier's Stalingrad.
-- Mal
SidDithers
(44,228 posts)Sid
pansypoo53219
(20,908 posts)Caretha
(2,737 posts)We thought we had the warmongers beat! Fuck....it's so damn hard, they are thinking up more wars by the minute -
How will we put these evil "Lizard Bastards" finally down?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hair_%28musical%29
Hair tells the story of the "tribe", a group of politically active, long-haired hippies of the "Age of Aquarius" living a bohemian life in New York City and fighting against conscription into the Vietnam War. Claude, his good friend Berger, their roommate Sheila and their friends struggle to balance their young lives, loves and the sexual revolution with their rebellion against the war and their conservative parents and society. Ultimately, Claude must decide whether to resist the draft as his friends have done, or to succumb to the pressures of his parents (and conservative America) to serve in Vietnam, compromising his pacifistic principles and risking his life.
Bonobo
(29,257 posts)aint_no_life_nowhere
(21,925 posts)and is generally recognized as such. In fact, it's one of the greatest films ever made. Erich Von Stroheim was at his best. The film was banned by Nazi Germany because it described camaraderie between German and French and between Gentile and Jew during a time when people were supposed to be killing each other.
Stargleamer
(1,979 posts)as is "Barefoot Gen".
eridani
(51,907 posts)You can't fight in here! This is the War Room!
malthaussen
(17,066 posts)Pay attention, there will be a quiz later.
-- Mal
PCIntern
(25,347 posts)With Poitier and Widmark is up AFAIC.
SpookyCat
(1,066 posts)The 1938 version.
Amazing cast and begins like a romp but when it turns, it turns fast and horribly. One of my favorites.
If you haven't seen it, I highly recommend you do.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0030044/?ref_=nv_sr_2
FrodosPet
(5,169 posts)Bugles are calling from prairie to shore,
Sign up and fall in and march off to war
Drums beating loudly, hearts beating proudly
March blue and gray and smile as you go.
Smoke hides the valleys and fire paints the plains,
Loud roar the cannons till ruin remains;
Blue grass and cotton burnt and forgotten
All hope seems gone so, soldier, march on to die.
Count all the crosses and count all the tears,
These are the losses and sad souvenirs;
This devastation once was a nation
So fall the dice, how high is the price.
There in the distance a flag I can see,
Scorched and in ribbons but whose can it be;
How ends the story, whose is the glory,
Ask if we dare our comrades out there who sleep.
Count all the crosses and count all the tears,
These are the losses and sad souvenirs;
This devastation once was a nation
So fall the dice, how high is the price we pay.