The German Captain Gunter (SPOILERS!!!!)
Was he really lying about letting the Italian soldiers go home? Or did the orders come from higher up and he had to follow the orders?
shareI don’t know if Captain Gunther Weber was based on a real historical character and so I would just answer in the context of the film. I don’t think he intended to lie to the Italians, and at every stage he was simply carrying out orders received from the higher authorities. The latter might have decided from the very beginning to put the Italians soldiers in prison after they laid down their arms rather than grant them free passage back to Italy, but that was probably not known at Weber’s level. He was simply following the order to disarm them.
Captain Weber was one of the more complex and interesting German characters in a war film. In war films, German soldiers were often depicted as completely evil. Some films also occasionally included a few "good" Germans who actually hated Hitler and the Nazi Regime. Weber was different in that he was undoubtedly a Nazi but at the same time appeared to be a decent guy. He gave the Nazi salute and talked openly in the presence of his Italian allies about German racial superiority, saying it was a “scientific fact”. But he was friendly with them and the local population, and eventually joined them in singing and frolicking. After the Italians were disarmed, he said to Corelli that he must be happy about going home and suggested that they should meet again sometime after the War. At that point there was no reason to doubt his sincerity. Later, Weber was present when the Germans were ordered to execute the Italians (after they joined the partisans), but he still could not bring himself to finish off Corelli.
100% agree with everything HenryCW has said...
Gunter also looked reasonably horrified before/during/after the Italian POW execution scene... but then officers do not necessarily get their hands dirty as often as their enlisted counterparts...
I also recall a scene where Gunter was justifying not being blond (as an Italian remarked that he thought all Germans were blond) and when someone said "like Hitler" he seemed a bit defensive. Could have just been me.
On the other hand, when accused of thinking his race was superior to others, he said 'it's a matter of science' - so, maybe he was drinking the KoolAid after all.
The movie was a bit vague, but perhaps someone who has read the novel would know the depth of Gunter's actual involvement.
"Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream..."
I always thought Captain Weber was on the fence and naive not really into the true cause like Heydrich who was a real Nazi and one of the senior members of the party. He seem more of pencil pusher than an officer in the infantry who hasn't seen it all when it come to combat for example the scene where he gives the order to commence firing for the execution of the Italian soldiers. The Nazi came into true power in Germany in August 2 1934 when Paul von Hindenburg passed away so Weber was already a grown man in his early thirties so I assume he went college in the early 1920s when Germany was the Wiemar Republic so he wasn't brainwashed by the Nazi ideology in the German public school and universities. He couldn't join the German Army or get into the German military academy in the 1920s because of the terms that were giving to Germany after the Great War. Maybe when Hitler came to power Germany allow college educated men to obtain junior officer ranks in the army. He didn't seem like the type of person who would take part in the violence and vandalism in Germany in the early to mid 1920s. I think he was one of those German officers that can easily be turn and than make a 180 go against the Nazis stop walking with a stick in the butt.
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