When the novel THE NIGHT OF THE GENERALS (by Hans Helmut Kirst) was published in the 1960s, it was a best seller. It has a very clever (devilishly clever) theme - when is a murder considered heinous? The plot is basically three levels or intertwined murder.
1) The organized murder (both normal and war crime) of World War II as practiced by the Nazi German Government.
2) The activities of a select band of German Generals (led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel) to assassinate Adolf Hitler during a conference at Raustenburg, in July 1944, seize the German Government, and negotiate an end to the war with the British and Americans (probably not with the Communist Russians).
3) A series of apparently random prostitute killings across Europe (first in Warsaw) that appears to be linked to one of three leading German Generals: General Kallenberg (Donald Pleasance), Seydlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray), and Tanz (Peter O'Toole). The crimes are being investigated by Major Grau (Omar Sharif), who is as determined to solve this case as Inspector Javert was to capture Jean Valjean a century earlier.
Now, one can make a general statement (and it has been seriously made) that warfare is organized killing and murder and is no different from Jack the Ripper's activities (which resembles the activities of the prostitute murderer here). Yet while abhorring (or supposedly abhorring) the Rippers, Christies, Mansons, etc. in our society, people do still glorify and reward the officers and soldiers of armed forces (for the most part) who serve their countries. Rommel, for example, by his eleventh hour switch to support the Stauffenburg bomb plot, was technically committing treason - and was forced to commit suicide to protect his family from Hitler's full anger. But today, "the Desert Fox" is one of the few Axis generals to be regarded as great by both sides for his abilities, and a hero by both sides for his trying to get rid of a really evil madman. Yet that bomb plot actually killed two others in the bunker with Hitler who were closer to the bomb itself. Doesn't that (even if we don't want to think it) make Rommel an accessory to two murders?
Rommel is no more blamed for the deaths of Allied and Axis soldiers in his battles in North Africa than say George Washington and Lord Cornwallis are blamed for deaths at Yorktown. Yet their plans and orders set things up for such deaths - but we tend to ignore these. If people are blamed for wars it is the civilians or governments heads who are usually blamed.
And what happens with crimes that are government policy at the time. The issue is still cropping up in the U.S. actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. With the Nazis, you have the Holacaust and various battleground horrors (i.e. "the Malmedy Massacres" during the Battle of the Bulge) that are not considered normal (if any warfare is normal) actions in war. Are the soldiers involved in such activities true criminals or are they considered "doing their duty". The answer depends on whether the country involved is willing to cover-up for them, and also successful in the war. Don't forget, we live in a post- Nazi defeat world. Had Hitler won, the war criminals would have included Churchill, F.D.R., and Eisenhower, not Goering, Hess, and Von Ribbentrop. Survivors in Nazi controlled Europe (no Jews or Slavs or Gypsies, or Communists or enemies of the Nazis) would have barely heard of the death camps and the Holacaust.
Here Major Grau is determined to find which of his three suspects is the murderer of the prostitutes. He has followed them across Europe. Tanz is the most ideological of the generals - a favorite of the Fuhrer. We see him destroying a section of Warsaw (presumably the ghetto) while being questioned by Grau. Tanz looks disdainfully at the Major and remains in his tank during the interview (looking downward at the Major). Kallenburg is the most secretive and mysterious of the three suspects - and we realize he is not as cooperative as he pretends to be. Seydlitz - Gabler is in a loveless marriage, and seems to hide behind his aristocratic lineage.
Grau does get some help from a French inspector Morand (Philippe Noiret) when the generals turn up in Paris. Morand actually makes some headway - he finds a crime being planned. But it is the bomb plot against Hitler. Grau hears this and laughs it off calling the plotters traitors (which again makes us wonder when is a crime no longer a crime and a murder what it is supposed to be).
Seydlitz - Gabler's daughter Ulrike (Joanna Pettet) is having a love affair with Corporal Hartmann (Tom Courtenay). Her parents are not thrilled by her romance with this untitled nobody. Hartmann is assigned to chauffeur Tanz around Paris while he is on vacation there. They go to one of the forbidden museums of impressionistic art there, and Tanz discovers a somewhat kindred spirit in Vincent Van Gogh's art style. In fact Tanz keeps returning to the museum day after day. Tanz's reaction to the paintings is one of the most effective moments of the movie.
In the end the case cannot be solved in wartime - it requires 20 years for the solution to emerge. And (although the audience does know who did it long before the conclusion) the end of the film shows that the sometimes a sense of disgrace can be brought about by the type of killing one gets tangled with.
1) The organized murder (both normal and war crime) of World War II as practiced by the Nazi German Government.
2) The activities of a select band of German Generals (led by Field Marshall Erwin Rommel) to assassinate Adolf Hitler during a conference at Raustenburg, in July 1944, seize the German Government, and negotiate an end to the war with the British and Americans (probably not with the Communist Russians).
3) A series of apparently random prostitute killings across Europe (first in Warsaw) that appears to be linked to one of three leading German Generals: General Kallenberg (Donald Pleasance), Seydlitz-Gabler (Charles Gray), and Tanz (Peter O'Toole). The crimes are being investigated by Major Grau (Omar Sharif), who is as determined to solve this case as Inspector Javert was to capture Jean Valjean a century earlier.
Now, one can make a general statement (and it has been seriously made) that warfare is organized killing and murder and is no different from Jack the Ripper's activities (which resembles the activities of the prostitute murderer here). Yet while abhorring (or supposedly abhorring) the Rippers, Christies, Mansons, etc. in our society, people do still glorify and reward the officers and soldiers of armed forces (for the most part) who serve their countries. Rommel, for example, by his eleventh hour switch to support the Stauffenburg bomb plot, was technically committing treason - and was forced to commit suicide to protect his family from Hitler's full anger. But today, "the Desert Fox" is one of the few Axis generals to be regarded as great by both sides for his abilities, and a hero by both sides for his trying to get rid of a really evil madman. Yet that bomb plot actually killed two others in the bunker with Hitler who were closer to the bomb itself. Doesn't that (even if we don't want to think it) make Rommel an accessory to two murders?
Rommel is no more blamed for the deaths of Allied and Axis soldiers in his battles in North Africa than say George Washington and Lord Cornwallis are blamed for deaths at Yorktown. Yet their plans and orders set things up for such deaths - but we tend to ignore these. If people are blamed for wars it is the civilians or governments heads who are usually blamed.
And what happens with crimes that are government policy at the time. The issue is still cropping up in the U.S. actions in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Iraq. With the Nazis, you have the Holacaust and various battleground horrors (i.e. "the Malmedy Massacres" during the Battle of the Bulge) that are not considered normal (if any warfare is normal) actions in war. Are the soldiers involved in such activities true criminals or are they considered "doing their duty". The answer depends on whether the country involved is willing to cover-up for them, and also successful in the war. Don't forget, we live in a post- Nazi defeat world. Had Hitler won, the war criminals would have included Churchill, F.D.R., and Eisenhower, not Goering, Hess, and Von Ribbentrop. Survivors in Nazi controlled Europe (no Jews or Slavs or Gypsies, or Communists or enemies of the Nazis) would have barely heard of the death camps and the Holacaust.
Here Major Grau is determined to find which of his three suspects is the murderer of the prostitutes. He has followed them across Europe. Tanz is the most ideological of the generals - a favorite of the Fuhrer. We see him destroying a section of Warsaw (presumably the ghetto) while being questioned by Grau. Tanz looks disdainfully at the Major and remains in his tank during the interview (looking downward at the Major). Kallenburg is the most secretive and mysterious of the three suspects - and we realize he is not as cooperative as he pretends to be. Seydlitz - Gabler is in a loveless marriage, and seems to hide behind his aristocratic lineage.
Grau does get some help from a French inspector Morand (Philippe Noiret) when the generals turn up in Paris. Morand actually makes some headway - he finds a crime being planned. But it is the bomb plot against Hitler. Grau hears this and laughs it off calling the plotters traitors (which again makes us wonder when is a crime no longer a crime and a murder what it is supposed to be).
Seydlitz - Gabler's daughter Ulrike (Joanna Pettet) is having a love affair with Corporal Hartmann (Tom Courtenay). Her parents are not thrilled by her romance with this untitled nobody. Hartmann is assigned to chauffeur Tanz around Paris while he is on vacation there. They go to one of the forbidden museums of impressionistic art there, and Tanz discovers a somewhat kindred spirit in Vincent Van Gogh's art style. In fact Tanz keeps returning to the museum day after day. Tanz's reaction to the paintings is one of the most effective moments of the movie.
In the end the case cannot be solved in wartime - it requires 20 years for the solution to emerge. And (although the audience does know who did it long before the conclusion) the end of the film shows that the sometimes a sense of disgrace can be brought about by the type of killing one gets tangled with.