[5] According to Variety magazine, the film "was regarded by the company's exec echelon, at the outset, as fine drama and [a] wham money-maker but the box office disappointment is now ascribed to [an] absence of names".

[6] As a German infantry unit retreats across Russia in the spring of 1944, Ernst Graeber's conscience is revolted by the execution of captured civilians.

Calling at the house of the family doctor for information, the daughter Elizabeth tells him her father is in a concentration camp because of an unwise remark.

"[5]) Sirk's son, actor Klaus Detlef Sierck (1925–1944), died in Ukraine as a soldier of the Panzer-Grenadier-Division Großdeutschland when he was 18 years old.

As studio executive Al Daff said: We could have put two well-known personalities in it and proceeded on the basis of making a star vehicle.

Or we could, as we decided to do, cast the story for inevitability and put into the lead roles talented, fresh performers who would not have to overcome the handicap of personality identification and could be accepted as a young Nazi officer and his sweetheart.

[9] Filming took place in West Berlin, which Sirk had fled over 20 years before and the US Army Europe training area at Grafenwöhr.

[12] Hedda Hopper saw a preview and predicted that Gavin will "take the public by storm and so will the picture, which should also put its co-star, Lilo Pulver in the top ten.

[14] The Los Angeles Times wrote the film wasn't as good as All Quiet on the Western Front but was "vivid, sometimes brutally shocking and, less often, emotionally moving.