Willie Herold, an ordinary German soldier under the age of twenty, was able to impersonate an officer with just one captain's uniform he found, and even did whatever he wanted in the prison camp where German deserters were being held, killing more than a hundred prisoners!
What is extremely frightening is that this is not hearsay, but a real story in the history of World War II.
The German film "Captain Fake", based on this true event, tells how on the eve of the German Nazi surrender, how the originally lost deserters gradually became the appalling "Emsland executioners" in history.
【Friendly reminder: there will be spoilers below】
The story takes place in April 1945, at the end of World War II, when the German Nazis were at the end of the crossbow.
It is worth mentioning that this film is deliberately made into a black and white picture, which sets off a cold and desolate atmosphere, so that the treatment can more realistically present the background of the times.
Seeing that the Allies were about to invade Berlin, the German troops gradually appeared to throw away their armor and flee.
Herold was one of the deserters, and just two weeks before the end of the war, his life took a major turn...
The film opens with Herold being hunted down as a deserter, but he survived the run.
Herold, who was hiding in hiding, later hit the big luck again, and just when he was about to be unable to hold on to the hunger and cold, he accidentally found a broken car on the side of the road, which not only contained food but also a new set of captain's rank uniforms.
Herold immediately changed into a relatively warm and comfortable dress, and with the blessing of this uniform, he instantly felt that his entire temperament had been greatly improved.
It didn't take long, however, for Herold to see a soldier coming from afar, not only calling him a commander, but also saying that he had been separated from the original unit, hoping to become Mr. Captain's subordinate.
So he could only make a mistake and continue to role-play, pretending to be Captain Herold.
Thinking that it will be "a great difficulty and not to die, there will be a blessing", but I do not know that the gift of fate has already been secretly marked with a price.
The facts have once again proved that most human nature cannot withstand the test, and once tempted by the growing desires, it will fall into the abyss of eternal doom.
Herold at first pretended to be a captain, perhaps just to protect himself, and there was still a trace of humanity in his heart, but then he gradually lost himself and immersed himself in the pleasure of holding power.
A captain's uniform full of medals turned the deserter into a Nazi officer in charge of life and death.
He swindled and ate and drank all the way, successively recruited a group of deserters as his subordinates, and spontaneously formed the so-called special task force of the Herold Guard.
Herold also claimed to have received secret instructions from the Fuehrer Hitler, not only cleverly escaping the scrutiny of the gendarmerie, but also blending into camp two where deserters were being held, and successfully seeking leadership there for himself.
Uniforms brought unchecked power, making Herold's behavior more and more insane and cruel.
He massacred more than a hundred German deserters and turned the prison camp into a hell on earth.
I have to say that Herold knows the truth that "chaos is a ladder", and knows how to observe and observe colors and has first-class acting skills.
He took advantage of the fluctuation of people's hearts in the special period and the intrigue between departments, so that he could smoothly ascend to the throne and enjoy the benefits and conveniences brought by power.
He was no longer the cowardly and defeated deserter he had been, but a high-ranking officer sought after by everyone.
This great transformation undoubtedly made Herod gradually blur the line between true and false, and he could no longer do without the uniform that symbolized identity and status.
Even when the camp was later bombed by the British, he did not forget to put on his uniform and gather the members of herold's guard from the rubble at the first time.
This time, with good luck, Herold and six of his men were not hit by a British bomb.
They then drove directly to the city and continued to stir up trouble in the name of the Provisional Court.
Herold began the demonic act of slaughtering his countrymen again, glorifying his use of lynching as "patriotism", claiming that everyone who betrayed the motherland would get the fate they deserved.
Of course, by the end of the evil war that belonged to Herold, he was destined to pay the price for the crimes he had committed.
Herold was eventually executed along with six accomplices, only 21 years old at the time, but cruel enough to make many shudder.
So how did he escape from a young soldier and degenerate into a murderous demon?
In fact, Herold's disguise is not without loopholes, and many people have found out that he is a fake but have not debunked it.
In order to satisfy their personal desires, they chose to play for the tiger and acquiesced to the existence of Herold, the fake captain.
Captain Junker, who had hunted down Herold, for example, claimed to have never forgotten the human face, apparently implying that he had recognized Herold.
Juncker needed to use Herold's fake identity to rectify the problem of the overdose of deserters in the camp.
His Ministry of Defence considered the detained deserters useless to be wasted, and camp officers had been trying to find a reason to kill the parasites, but were strongly rejected by the relevant members of the judiciary, who insisted that they be tried and sanctioned through regular military tribunals.
The officers and soldiers, who longed for violence, were naturally willing to go to war, and they spared no effort to elevate Herold to the position of the highest leader of the camp, hoping that Herold would give them a certain legitimacy to the wanton killing of fugitives.
When Herold's fake identity was revealed and he was tried in a military court, Captain Juncker and the Nazi high-ranking officials next to him pleaded with the judge, saying that the now crumbling empire needed talents like Herold, which showed that the will of the empire was clearly above the law.
Nothing is more terrifying than the blind obedience and self-interest of the group in the face of power, which gives the soil to breed the evil of mediocrity.
For example, the subordinate who first followed Herold, who was originally the kindest of them, also asked Herold to be merciful to the fugitives.
However, when he was forced to obey Herold's orders and kill the fugitive with a gun, he embarked on the road of no return to complicity with his superiors...
Herold also tied up four deserters one day and had two deserters shoot in the back.
One chose to shoot in order to protect himself under the entanglement, and the other shot first into the open space next to him and then raised his gun to commit suicide.
Their respective choices form an extremely sharp contrast, allowing the audience to see the ugliness and brilliance of human nature at the same time.
Some people must maintain their good nature even if they pay the price of their lives, so it can be seen that objective factors such as great ideals or difficult situations cannot become an excuse for doing evil, after all, human beings can make their own subjective choices, and all evil consequences are just self-inflicted.
The Easter egg section at the end of the film is even more frightening, and we see Herold and his men traveling through time and space, driving the "temporary court" World War II military vehicle through the streets of modern Germany.
They flirted with women unscrupulously, interrogated passers-by and robbed them of goods, but in the face of this group of hooligans dressed in World War II Nazi uniforms, except for a middle-aged German woman who rose up to resist, the vast majority of modern people actually obeyed.
Although it is the war that gave birth to a murderous demon like Willie Herold, the absurd irony at the end of the film is a wake-up call:
This may not be just a product of a special era, but it may even happen today.
If the collective is plunged into unconscious revelry or silence, it may lead to the evil of human nature taking root and sprouting until it fully blossoms, and then similar tragedies may be staged again.
(This article was first published in the FOX Kunlun German subtitle group)