Winter Soldier

Documentary by an occasional film collective about war crimes committed by US soldiers in Vietnam. The basis of the film is the integral recording of a three-day hearing in the winter of 1971. The questioning of more than a hundred soldiers about war crimes was organised by the protest organisation ‘Vietnam Veterans Against the War’. The shots of often shocking and very emotional witnesses is juxtaposed with amateur films and slides taken by the soldiers themselves in Vietnam. Newsreel footage and official war documents complete the picture. The veterans regard their painful admissions about the horrors of the Vietnam war as a duty to the fatherland. The term ‘winter soldier’ is borrowed from Thomas Paine. In a reflection on the American War of Independence, he distinguishes summer patriots and those who also supported their fatherland in hard times.