stunning imagery got me to check out the movie trailer... to find out why a team of soldiers was pulling a Nazi staff car

as you can see, 70 years later, and even a movie image about a true story can't have the swastika on it depending on the country it's printed in.

Above printed in the USA, below, in Norway

Anyway, the story itself in intriguing, it's not about the Nazis... it's about a deserter impersonating a Nazi officer to first, just survive until the end of the war, but then, to grab as much power as he could to satisfy his sadistic desires by killing and murdering pows and wehrmacht deserters

To quote Wikipedia " the story of German war criminal Willi Herold, who assumed a stolen identity as a German officer and orchestrated the killing of deserters and other prisoners at one of the Emslandlager camps."

director Robert Schwentke (RED, Insurgent, Allegiant) uses the device of a uniform to explore what’s underneath, and finds darkness in the hearts of men. The Captain takes the real-life story of a 21 year-old conscripted private at the very end of World War II who, having deserted his unit, stole a captain’s uniform and adopted the role of very persecutors from whom he was fleeing. It looks at the implosion of violence from soldiers honed and hardened by war once the order of combat starts to break down.

It’s two weeks before the end of the war, and the Third Reich is unravelling. Deserters are pillaging and stealing in order to survive. One of them, Willi Herold (Max Hubacher), his face scabbed with crusted mud, narrowly escapes being shot by German officers in a jeep, then witnesses a fellow stray get pitchforked to death over the theft of some eggs. When he stumbles upon an officer’s uniform in an abandoned truck, he puts it on. And immediately his bearing changes. The cowed, kicked dog demeanour vanishes, in its place a clipped, casual cruelty.

The uniform brings him status and power, both of which he discovers a taste for. But if clothes maketh the man, in this case they make him a monster. Emboldened by the opportunistic soldiers who attach themselves to him, he embarks on a precarious game of brinksmanship, brutally raising the stakes every time it looks like he might be discovered. Of his rag tag band of men, two suspect that The Captain is, like them, a deserter trying to bluster his way out of a tight spot. One, Freytag (Milan Peschel) is the conscience that Herold tries to ignore. Furrowed and sorrowful, he bears witness to the atrocities. Kipinski (Frederick Lau) meanwhile manifests every savage impulse, he’s a rampaging Id armed with an assault rifle.

https://www.screendaily.com/reviews/the-captain-toronto-review/5122126.article

Assuredly uncomfortable, the reality of war often is. I don't think I'm going to see the movie, even with a blu ray so the damn thing doesn't have to be heard in German and read in English.

I understand that this was done in order to show the reality of the situation, as the Germans didn't speak English so Americans could see a movie without subtitles, but I also know that when making a movie, you either do it in English, or get fewer people paying to see it.

Of course, this was probably made to not just show how repulsive men can be in war, it may also have been made to get perennially shown in film schools, history classes, and maybe to try for an Oscar. All of those goals make up for the lack of box office ticket sales

these two full size posters are for comparison sake.

https://www.traileraddict.com/der-hauptmann/poster/1