Charlotte's grief is further compounded when a wounded Friedhelm claims that Wilhelm was killed in action and she has an affair with the chief surgeon. He is continually broken down further, through the actions of his sadistic platoon leader, and then when he is reunited with Charlotte (as a member of the Penal Battalion), she is incredulous that he is alive. After being expelled from the operating theatre for dropping a scalpel, she is reassigned as a general nurse. Aufgrund einer vermeintlich verzerrten geschichtlichen Darstellung, die von den Produzenten als künstlerische Freiheitd… As the front very quickly closes in, Charlotte, a local aide, Sonja, and a group of seriously wounded soldiers fail to evacuate and are left behind to face the advancing Red Army, whose men kill the rest of the wounded soldiers in their beds and proceed to arrest Sonja as a collaborator and rape Charlotte. Wilhelm firmly believes he is bound by honour to fight as a soldier for his home country.

The invasion is being pushed back by the Soviet Army, causing high casualties for the Germans. He kills his platoon leader a while later, and escapes with a fellow soldier back to Berlin.
On the way there he escapes from the train, along with a Polish woman named Alina, and joins a group of Polish Armia Krajowa partisans. Wilhelm und Friedhelm sind an die Ostfront beordert, Charlotte wird als Krankenschwester dorthin gehen.

"[45] The Hollywood Reporter noted that the sales company in Cannes billed the series as "a German equivalent to HBO's Band of Brothers. [28], The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung wrote that the film would give the remaining survivors of the World War II generation an opportunity to discuss it with their families.
Seit 2006 in Arbeit, anderthalb Jahre lang dauerte allein der Schnitt. [42], The Polish ambassador to the UK, Witold Sobków, criticized the movie in The Huffington Post, United Kingdom, THE BLOG. However, Viktor is arrested by the Gestapo and is put on a train to a concentration camp.

The Economist stated that hardly any German TV drama ever caused so much public debate.

[52], Uri Avnery's review of "Their Mothers, Their Fathers" appeared 28 February 2014 on International Policy Digest. Aimed at today's Germans, who would like, perhaps, to come to a final reckoning with the war period, Generation War is an appeal for forgiveness. Danish public broadcaster DR aired the series over two consecutive evenings beginning 9 May 2015. Charlotte manages to save him by begging the chief surgeon of the field hospital to operate on him, despite the surgeon's bleak triage assessment. As the group is about to carry out an ambush on a motorized Wehrmacht squad, Viktor, by chance, recognizes Friedhelm as one of the drivers, and feigns his participation in the attack allowing Friedhelm to pass safely through the ambush and inadvertently saving the life of Hiemer, his SD officer passenger. [43], Commenting on its success in Germany, The Economist wrote that some German critics suggested that, "putting five sympathetic young protagonists into a harrowing story just offers the war generation a fresh bunch of excuses.