A 1998 Mockumentary Made-for-TV Movie by Robert Stone and produced by ZDF Television and TLC, World War III (Der Dritte Weltkrieg in Germany) is about ... well, World War III.
More specifically, this movie is an Alternate History tale with the divergence point being in the fall of 1989: Mikhail Gorbachev is disposed of in a coup and replaced with a hardliner General named Vladimir Soshkin who quickly undoes the reforms of Glasnost and Perestroika. The film then covers the events of the following months in which international outcry grows as the Soviets escalate the crisis to a full blown World War.
While the movie does contain interviews with fictional characters who have a role in the events, it's most notable for being composed almost entirely of Stock Footage of both military combat as well as real life heads of state making statements that are edited in a way to fit the story. As such this film hardly averts No Celebrities Were Harmed and it adds a heightened sense of realism.
The movie can be seen in its entirety here.
Not to be confused with the 1982 NBC miniseries of the same name starring Rock Hudson.
This film provides examples of:
- Acceptable Breaks from Reality: The Wham Line leaves one wondering just how a documentary such as this could have been made if humanity's historical record ends once the nuclear exchange begins. However, it helps to look at this film as being similar to The War Game in the sense that this movie is what could have happened rather than what did happen.
- Alternate History: The point of divergence is the fall of 1989 when Gorbachev is disposed of in a coup.
- Ambiguous Ending: The last line - "There is no further historical record of what happens next" - implies that human civilization, and possibly the entire human race, was annihilated in the nuclear exchange of 1 April 1990. However, the mockumentary format features after-the-fact interviews with the people involved, which obviously implies that these people survived along with some form of civilization. That said, these interviews may be posthumous.
- Anyone Can Die: Gorbachev doesn't last the first 10 minutes.
- Apocalypse How: Contemporary films on World War III typically range between Societal Disruption and Societal Collapse. The Wham Line hints that in this film, we're looking at Species Extinction. It's hard to say for sure, though.
- Cold War: Take place near the end of the Cold War. The Communist hardliners cause it to go hot out of desperation of protecting their ideology.
- Crapsack World: When Gorbachev is ousted, things constantly go from bad to worse. Toward the end, just when it looks like things may start getting better, Russia launches her nukes.
- Cycle of Revenge: Basically how a shooting at the Berlin Wall escalates into World War III. NATO condemns the USSR who blockade West Berlin. This causes NATO to go on full military alert which results in Russia blockading the entire North Atlantic. And then the shooting starts.
- Downer Ending: The entire human race is destroyed in a massive nuclear exchange. Which is then heartwarmingly subverted when the movie rewinds and shows real life history, depicting the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the start of the Autumn of Nations.
- Dub-Induced Plot Hole: Downplayed; while there's no glaring differences in how things unfold between the TLC and ZDF versions of the film, there are details between the versions that are different or outright missing:
- The TLC version includes two scenes not included in the ZDF version—an interview with two East German soldiers who defected to the West following the Brandenburg Gate massacre and a pair of civilian interviews in Times Square.
- The ZDF version makes mention of conflict between Hungary and the Soviet Union. Hungary's president, a reformist (likely still János Kádár given his real-world policies and conflict with Moscow at this point in time) refused to attend a Warsaw Pact meeting with General Soshkin. This isn't mentioned at all in the TLC version, but the ZDF version says that his absence caused "a little sensation."
- In the TLC version, General Karl Frohm says that "our conventional forces were granted another twenty-four hours" before NATO employed tactical nuclear weapons to halt the Soviet advance. A strike force of NATO aircraft, including American F-117 stealth fighters, slip north through Czechoslovakia to take out the Soviet command center in Legnica, Poland. Other command elements in East Germany are also targeted. The narrator and footage implies this organically developed into a massive air battle between NATO and the Warsaw Pact which led to the decimation of the Soviet air force.
In the ZDF version, General Frohm says that conventional forces had been ordered to continue fighting for another twenty-four hours until the tactical nukes launch. The wording suggests that in the TLC version, NATO forces requested the additional time in one last play to avoid resorting to nukes—but here, they were simply ordered to keep fighting. Also in the ZDF version, NATO aircraft in the strike package are explicitly said to be twelve American fighter-bombers, as well as a squadron of Panavia Tornados from Britain along with the aforementioned F-117s. Rather than striking north through Czechoslovakia and hitting targets in both Poland and East Germany, the ZDF narration says they fly low-level over the Polish front lines to hit Legnica exclusively. The strike is also given an explicit date (March 19, 1990) and an official name—Operation Bloody Nose. Unlike the TLC version, this doesn't develop into a massive air battle between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Instead, only the F-117s and a few other aircraft survive the Soviet retaliation.
The stock footage remains the same for this sequence, which includes other NATO aircraft such as F-4s, F-5s, F-14s, F-15s, and Harriers. These aren't mentioned in the ZDF narration—though the F-15 footage could be passed off as that of F-15E Strike Eagles, which entered operational service just six months before Operation Bloody Nose. The footage of Harriers, F-14s, and F-5s would be harder to explain. The U.S. Air Force and Navy used F-5s as training aircraft, not in a combat role—it was other NATO member states who did—and F-14s acting as an overland low-altitude fighter-bomber would be ... a creative use for them, to say the least.
- Foregone Conclusion:
- The war obviously can't escalate to Armageddon, since everyone's alive to give interviews about it, right? Wrong.
- The movie begins with the nuclear exchange before flashing back to the events that led up to it, so you know from the outset that NATO and the USSR end up nuking each other.
- Foreshadowing: As the film progresses, the characters interviewed drop hints in the way they talk that these interviews are taking place posthumously. For example, Colonel Wolfgang Hecker of the East German Army saying at one point "that was the last good day I remember."
- From Bad to Worse: When Gorbachev dies, things get worse for everyone.
- Insane Admiral: General Soshkin, by the time he takes power. Martin Jacobs says that when Soshkin joined the Politburo around 1982, he absorbed ideas circulating within the Interior Ministry about American and British designs to topple the Soviet Union. Jacobs calls it an "enormous bit of crap."Martin Jacobs: My impression was, here was a guy with his finger right there on the nuclear button who was, um, shall we say, not exactly playing with a full deck.
- By the end of the film, Soshkin arguably becomes a full on General Ripper as he becomes convinced, in spite of their attempts to signal restraint, that NATO intends to march on Moscow or launch a nuclear strike.
Yuri Rubanov: You can think what you like now, but after all, even paranoiacs have real enemies. - Just Before the End: The film covers the 9 months between the coup and the firing of the missiles.
- Keystone Army: NATO conducts an air raid on the Soviet command and control headquarters located at Legnica in Poland. (In the TLC version, this attack also targets command elements in East Germany.) This critically weakens Warsaw Pact forces due to the rigidity of the Soviet command structure. In the ZDF version, this affects both air support and communication—in the TLC version, the Soviets outright lose air control over eastern Europe due to the ensuing decisive air battle. Either way, the raid leaves Warsaw Pact forces in disarray and exposed to NATO air power. Combined with the Polish resistance sabotaging supply lines, this stalls the Soviet advance and forces a retreat.
- Mockumentary: Structured like a real documentary with interviews of those involved in the events as well as footage.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: Averted. One of the things that adds to the film's realism is the use of footage of real world heads of state (e.g US President George H. W. Bush, British PM Margaret Thatcher and the Chancellors of East and West Germany, Erich Honecker and Helmut Kohl respectively) making various statements that are edited out of context to make it fit the narrative of the story.
- No Swastikas: In the TLC version, the assassination of General Dmitry Leonov in West Berlin is explicitly said to be the work of an underground group of West German Neo-Nazis. In fact, we get to see the video they put out claiming responsibility for the attack. Despite being named as Neo-Nazis (even signing off with a Nazi salute and exclaiming "Heil!") the flag they hold up in the background is not a Nazi Germany flag—it's the War Ensign of the German Empire. (The ZDF version does not show the group claiming responsibility, and instead refers to them as a right-wing terror organization.)
- Point of Divergence: This film can be considered what would've happened had Gorbachev been removed from power and/or the events that lead to the fall of the Berlin Wall never happened.
- Posthumous Character: There's heavy implication that this whole documentary is conducted posthumously.
- Reassigned to Antarctica: A number of moderate East German politicians, once Gorbachev is disappeared, are similarly disposed of through various means. Hans Modrow was originally the party chief of Bezirk Dresden—but following Gorbachev's disappearance, he gets appointed as ambassador to Mongolia. He gets off lucky compared to Politburo member Günter Schabowski, who (according to rumors) was tried for treason and shot.
- Re-Cut: There are several differences between the TLC and ZDF versions of the film. Some of these noticeably alter the plot or even leave minor plot holes; see Dub-Induced Plot Hole above. There are other differences, however:
- The ZDF version opens with a This Is a Work of Fiction disclaimer that is absent in the TLC version.
- The TLC and ZDF versions give different titles for some of the interviewees. East German Markus Lehman is described as a protestor in the ZDF version, but a factory worker in the TLC version. Martin Jacobs is explicitly the US National Security Advisor in the TLC version, but just a former advisor in the ZDF version. Karl Frohm is listed as a West German general in the TLC version, but in the ZDF version he is the explicitly the (former) Inspector General, the highest ranking officer in the Bundeswehr. This office is typically rendered in English as the Chief of Defense.
- While they speak English in the TLC version, both Dr. Franziska Brückner and General Frohm speak German in the ZDF version—this is not a simple redubbing, but actual footage of the two speaking in each language. General Frohm also wears glasses in the ZDF version, oddly enough.
- In the TLC version, characters speaking languages other than English are, for the most part, subtitled. In the ZDF version, they're translated via voiceover.
- Although it's to be expected for the news anchor scenes—with the two versions using American and British or West German news channels reporting on events—the TLC and ZDF versions also differ in usage of Stock Footage. For example, after the clip of Bob Dole expressing dismay at hardliners taking control of the Soviet Union, the TLC version cuts to Senator Phil Gramm discussing the fundamental change in the US-Soviet relationship. The ZDF version instead cuts to chairman of the Social Democratic Party Björn Engholm calling on the Soviet Union to allow East Germany and other western Warsaw Pact countries to continue developing democratically.
- In the TLC version, the group that assassinates General Dmitry Leonov are outright said to be West German Neo-Nazis, and we are shown their tape claiming responsibility for the attack. The ZDF version doesn't show this and instead refers to them as a right-wing terror organization.
- Red Alert: The film opens with this, showing the massive nuclear attack launched by the superpowers.
- Shown Their Work: The events of the film were based on actual military plans that were prepared by both NATO and the Warsaw Pact, some of which were previously classified.
- Stock Footage: Uses footage of military combat, political heads of state speaking, as well as clips of the (real life) German reunification and the fall of the Berlin Wall, but the clips are edited out of context in order to fit the narrative. For example, one of the clips used of Soviet aircraft falling out of the sky toward the conclusion of the final air battle (Operation Bloody Nose in the German version) is of a MiG-29 crashing at the Paris Air Show in 1989.
- This Means War!: The Warsaw Pact occupation of East Germany and blockade of West Berlin (essentially seen as holding the entire city hostage) is taken by NATO as a sign the Soviets have crossed the line.
- Uncertain Doom: The narrator (in both versions) explicitly says that Gorbachev's ultimate fate is unknown after his departure from Berlin. Of course, Radio Moscow claims he retired from office due to "ill health."
- World War III: Well...duh. Here's a blow by blow account of how it goes down.
- Gorbachev is removed from power in a military coup. His exact fate is unknown but power over the Soviet leadership is transferred to General Vladimir Soshkin, a Communist hardliner who quickly undoes Gorbachev's reforms.
- The USSR begins a massive crackdown across the Eastern Bloc in response to unrest. One of the Monday Demonstrations in Leipzig results in scores of civilians gunned down by Red Army troops. This culminates in a massive protest at the Brandenburg Gate of the Berlin Wall, which features East German citizens attempting to scale the wall. East German soldiers shoot dozens of civilians, and even fire across the wall into West Berlin.
- NATO begins a military buildup in West Berlin. The US Secretary of State secretly arranges to meet with the Soviet commander of the East German forces, but the commander is killed by a car bomb set off by West German Neo-Nazi's upon his arrival in West Berlin. Meanwhile in a televised interview Soshkin threatens to occupy West Berlin. Hours later NATO's tactical nuclear weapons in West Germany are placed on operational status. The Soviets respond by deploying their submarine fleet to the North Atlantic and flying Tu-95 Bombers into Alaskan airspace.
- East German soldiers cut off the three main access routes to West Berlin, effectively holding the city hostage, while the Soviet Air Force closes off East Germany's airspace. Soshkin's plan is to cut off West Berlin from NATO and to keep them out of the USSR's sphere of influence. NATO responds with a full scale deployment to West Germany.
- The US Navy sends a convoy across the Atlantic to support the NATO forces in West Germany. The Soviets blockade the entire North Atlantic in an attempt to cut off the US from Western Europe. US and British ships engage the blockage and an intense naval battle ensues. Despite losing nearly a quarter of their ships, the blockade is destroyed. Afterwards the US offers the Soviets a timetable to draw down their forces in East Germany, which Soshkin flatly refuses. World War III has begun.
- Soviet forces make an amphibious assault near Kiel and catch NATO off guard, who has to scramble forces north to contain the invasion. However this was a decoy for the real assault: a massive Warsaw Pact ground invasion through the Fulda Gap. Meanwhile the Soviet Air Force bombs NATO air bases to deny them air superiority. NATO is sent reeling and the Warsaw Pact manages to advance 50 miles into West Germany. The USSR's plan is to cripple NATO before beginning negotiations to secure a strategic advantage in Western Europe.
- NATO plans to respond with a nuclear counterattack. But 24 hours before the attack is to take place it attempts a last ditch aerial campaign. A massive air battle ensues between NATO and Warsaw Pact forces, but NATO manages a decisive victory: establishing air superiority as well as crippling the Soviet command and control structure by striking key areas. With supply lines cut by the resistance in Poland, the Warsaw Pact begins a hasty retreat.
- West Berlin is liberated and the East German government begins to collapse. German citizens are hopeful that reunification is at hand and NATO makes it clear they have no desire to send their forces past the East German border. Meanwhile violence erupts in other Eastern Bloc nations as citizens call for the overthrow of the Communist governments. Soshkin is convinced that NATO will use the opportunity to invade Russia if not destroy with with a nuclear attack. He detonates a single nuclear warhead above the North Sea as a show of force. The United States goes on full nuclear alert.
- Soshkin fires Russia's nuclear arsenal at the West (it's implied a malfunctioning radar may have caused him to think the USSR was under attack) the silo's at Dombarovsky Air Base slide open their silo doors and soon it's ICBM's come roaring out, this is probably only one example of something that is occurring all over the USSR, a shot of the Nation's submarine missile's being fired is shown too. The US and NATO respond in kind by launching their missiles and flying their bombers towards the USSR.
- There is no further historical record of what happens next.
- Wham Line: "There is no further historical record of what happens next." This isn't like The Day After, where civilization collapses and millions die, but humanity survives. This isn't even like Threads, where humanity's population is decimated and the technology level is reduced to Scavenger World-meets-Age of Steam. The implication here is that humanity ceases to exist.
- There are no further tropes on what happens next.
