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Author, film researcher and member of the Swedish Military History Commission.

Thursday, July 14, 2011

"Band of Bruders"?!



In "Band of Brothers," there is a scene where one of the paratroopers is passing a group of German POW's and shouts to them "Where are you from boys?!" And one of the POW's responds in perfect English "I'm from Eugene, Oregon." What the...what's an American doing in the German Army?


Well, guess what, a fan of the famous TV series has made a small but impressive film about one of the Americans in the German Army: Fred Treiber (1922-2008). The name of the production is "Project Edelweiss". May I humbly suggest another name, half in jest: "Band of Bruders" ;-)

Fred Treiber was assigned to the Gebirgsjägers (mountain troops) and ended up fighting in the Caucasus. But the above scenes take place during a Gebirgsjäger training climb in the alps.

I don't understand if there is more coming, I would like to know more about Mr. Treiber, like if he returned to the US after the war and if he during the war perhaps also served in Scandinavia? Here is a longer version of the film and here a slide show of the same hike. Still, I hope a yet longer one with more info about Mr. Treiber will be made. Perhaps the film's director, Patrick Kiser, might read this and could inform some more? Well done, Mr. Kiser, hope to see some more films from your camera.

As I have stated earlier, these kind of films both impress me and make me a bit worried, not least as they are getting so similar to the wartime newsreels that some viewers, especially in the future, may take them for the real thing, clips from the German Wochenschau.

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