After liberation


There's a scene after the war has ended, about 10mins from the end of the film, when Traudl is escaping with the boy who took her hand. After one guy makes eye contact with her and she seems a bit stuck there, the boy pulls her out of it. Camera pulls back to view the scene of celebration. Bunch of people dancing around a fire. But the dancing and music don't sound German to me and have kind of a folk flavour, even a Russian flavour. Can anyone explain to me who these people were supposed to be, exactly? I'm confused.

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Yes, the people dancing and celebrating around the fire are Russians.
Traudl and Peter slip undetected through enemy lines.

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Thank you. I seem to remember a comment within the movie that the Germans were surrounded in their location in Berlin. So then it makes sense they would have to pass through enemy lines. Somehow I thought there had been a liberation, ie that the Russians were gone. Found bits of it hard to follow, probably because I was reading subtitles throughout.

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That depends what point of view you're taking.
Nowadays it's a common view that Germany was "freed".
Sorry, we simply lost WWII.

Of course, people in concentration camps were "freed".
And many had been there unjust (not only Jews).
Some of them had been real criminals.

Our father was from Königsberg (nowadays Kaliningrad).
He was 17 when they made the 'outbreak' in 1945 to get access again to the Baltic Sea.
Königsberg was full of refugees...and surrounded by Russians, a way out was needed.
Aside of our father only 3 of his class mates made it, of more than 30.
He was a lucky pig.
What happens to civilians during war he saw in Metgethen.
And he saw also against whom they were 'fighting'.
Without a uniform, barely 14, only with a scythe...yes, a dead Russian.





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