<i>Niemandsland</i> (1931)

GERMAN FILM INSTITUTE <br>The Cinema of Crisis: German Film 1928-1936

Directed and written by Victor Trivas. With Ernst Busch, Hugh Stephens Douglas, Louis Douglas, and Georges Péclet.

The film takes place in a WWI trench, where five diverse individuals (The Englishman, The Frenchman, The Russian Jew, The Vaudevillian and The German) have been unwillingly thrust together. Despising one another at first, the five protagonists come to realize that they must learn to get along if they hope to survive. The story follows their arguments and discussions and ends with them marching out together with a final commentary declaring the sentiment of peace: “Marching forward. Defying their common enemy - WAR.” The pacifistic sentiments (not to mention the ethnic mix) of Niemandsland would be banned by the Nazi regime within a few years after its original 1931 release; indeed, Joseph Goebbels ordered that all copies of the film be destroyed.
[Source: archive.org]
DVD w/English Subtitles, 93 min
German Film Institute pages