A tale of a veteran German Tank driver from the Second world war, taken from his auto-biography. He tells his story in flashbacks from his home in Britain as an old man. A matter-of-fact account of his youth before the war and his trials during his time as a soldier primarily on the Russian front.
Combining first-person narration with full-scale drama and vivid archive footage, this film tells the story of Henry Metelmann, an ordinary German soldier swept up in the events of the Second World War. Today Henry is a groundsman at one of England's most prestigious public schools. During the war he was a tank driver on the brutal Russian Front. In this remarkably frank and compelling account, Henry confesses to his involvement in Nazi atrocities, killing innocent civilians and gunning down Soviet prisoners of war. He avoided death himself through a combination of luck and cowardice. From proud Hitler Youth to feral animal fighting for survival, we travel with Henry down a spiral of brutality and see the gradual awakening in his mind to the iniquity of the cause he is fighting for.
