The Fifth Day of Peace

The Fifth Day of Peace

One of the most bizarre episodes in the annals of "military justice"

1970103 min5.5 / 10

A grim, historically grounded examination of military bureaucracy and injustice persisting even as war ends, centered on the absurd execution of deserters in the name of order.

Based on a true story. Near the end of World War II, two German deserters are put in an Allied POW camp. When a rigid and militaristic German colonel learns about their desertion, he wants them court-martialed, even if the war is over. The uninterested Allied officers oblige him, and the two men face the firing squad on "the fifth day of peace".

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