"Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt" or "The Adventures of Werner Holt" is an East German German-language film from 1965, so it had its 50th anniversary last year. It is among the more known films from the GDR these days and the director as well as one of the writers who adapted the Dieter Noll novel is Joachim Kunert (still alive at almost 90). Most GDR films are in black-and-white and this one here is no exception. However, it is an exception in terms of the duration as this one runs for no less than 2 hours and 45 minutes. Extremely long. Unfortunately, I must say that I was not too impressed here. There were some good moments, but overall the script was not good enough to keep me interested in the title character and his actions and life. I also must say that the late lead actor Klaus-Peter Thiele may not have been the best casting decision. I found him fairly bland for the most part and his co-lead Manfred Karge (still alive) was somehow more memorable over all. Then again, he also had the baitier scenes and moments I guess. This is the story of two friends during the days of World War II. They (have to) join the army, but take very different paths in the next months. This also has a lot to do with how they perceive the Fuehrer and his claim to power and of course by other factors that make an impact on them individually. I already wrote in the title that this film may have worked better at 90 minutes max. I definitely would have preferred a more essential version of this story about Werner. I guess the director decided to keep it that long because he did not want to cut out too much from the book, but I believe this may not have been the right decision. Thumbd.won from me. Not recommended.

This movie is a cult sleeper waiting to be discovered. If war can be funny than this movie is as funny as "Full Metal Jacket". The end of the Second World War is seen through the eyes of two German teenage boys, one a fanatic Nazi caught up in the glory of war and the other is his friend awed by the experiences they have at the end of the war fighting for a hopelessly lost cause. The nightmarish landscape, photography and surreal atmosphere of situations and characters captures the madness of war in Germany with a unique childlike wishful thinking expressed by the characters. A unique perspective of war that ranks with the movies "Cross of Iron" and Breakthrough"

SPOILER FREEVery intriguing movie with superb acting (!) that shows the life and mindset of young Germans during WW2, how they were moulded into becoming killers without second thoughts and how they were eventually used up in war. Definitely worth watching, especially if so far you have been exposed only to Hollywood's interpretation of the second world war and the nazis.Unfortunately there is one HUGE propaganda-insertion though, which the DEFA included: At 54 minutes into the movie, the young men (or rather, boys) discuss Nazi racial-theory, where eventually one states that "Slavs are basically Aryans" (without anyone dissenting it) "Selbst wenn die Slawen nicht so hochwertig sind wie die Nordische Rasse, so sind sie doch immer noch Arier". This is total nonsense of course. The Slavs were considered sub-human by the Nazis, worth not very much more than Jews themselves. This propaganda-insertion is really bad in TWO ways because it a) twists around the truth 180 degrees in order to make their Big Brother from Russia look better AND b) because it looks like they ACCEPT the nazi-racial theory; why else would they try to make the Slavs look better? The Nazi racial theory IS COMPLETE NONSENSE of course since there are no human races. This one sentence should be cut out when showing "Werner Holt" today, as it gives the whole movie a cheap taste: What else could be made up? And that shouldn't be, since everything else in it seems very accurately depicted. One note concerning the previous comment by Mrdat Kundu: Their black uniforms are quite correct. Those are Panzer-uniforms. Maybe you should have done some research before claiming such nonsense. Besides, they never were "standard Wehrmacht". First they were members of the HJ (Hitler Youth), then RAD (Reichs Labour Service) and then members of the Panzertruppe (Armoured Troops). Did you really read the novel 3-4 times?The reason for them fighting Soviets instead of Americans in the movie is quite obvious: How could the DEFA possibly have gotten American WW2 tanks/uniforms/weapons? And it really shouldn't matter to anyone that the Soviets are using Kalashnikov rifles, as the movie is not trying to depict weapons, but people. (Unless of course you have read the novel 3-4 times, do not know the difference between Panzer and SS uniforms and rate the quality of a movie by the types of weapons used in it).

I was truly disappointed when seeing this film. There is a lot of mistakes, i.e. Russians have AK-47s (!), shots of cannons are poorly made - you can´t see the flash, some scenes are evidently taken in studio, and so on... Moreover, important things were changed - (SPOILER) - in the ending Holt and his company fight against Russians and not against Americans like in the book, ending is horrible vague - Holt goes somewhere, instead of being taken as the prisoner of war... and the worst thing, Holt and his friends have the uniforms of SS, although they originally fought just as standard Wehrmacht soldiers!!! The author of the scenario should be punished worst of all!!!A lot of characters is so flat that if you don´t know the book you can´t absolutely understand what they mean :(Honestly, I don´t like this film and I will play it no time in the future. I have read the book maybe 3 or 4 times but this film is really weak in the comparison with original story.2 of 5 (just for nice Sturmgewehr 44 assault rifles, trenches and one good action scene)