Four young men break into an old, empty castle where they stumble across abandoned weapons, steel helmets and uniforms. What starts off as a game with the objects soon threatens to become serious. They carry out drills, shoot and wait for the enemy, because “you’ve got to be able to prove yourself!”

The ideas for Werner Herzog’s films often seem to originate with the locations. THE UNPRECEDENTED DEFENCE OF THE FORTRESS DEUTSCHKREUTZ must be one of the earliest examples of this. When Herzog was making the film, the old castle on the border between Austria and Hungary probably was in fact deserted: it was from this site, steeped in history dating back to the 13th century, that the Nazis deported Jews and gypsies who were murdered in the concentration camps after Austria’s annexation to Germany; in 1944, hundreds of Hungarian Jews that had been deported to the town of Deutschkreutz to work on the East Wall died here. Shortly before the end of the war, Red Army soldiers seized both the castle, built in the early 17th century, and the town of the same name.

The castle’s history remains unmentioned in Herzog’s film, but is reflected by the objects found by the four young men who appear like wanderers from a no man’s land. In the beginning an off-screen (but audibly dominant) commentator refers to the futile efforts to return the place to meaningful use and “restore some sanity to the castle, so to speak”. Even the attempt to convert it into a mushroom farm failed. The derelict building, which had seemingly housed an insane asylum prior to the Russian occupation, is now up for sale. This unconfirmed reference to a psychiatric institution could also be understood as an allusion to the young men’s background.

After the gang of four manages to break into the building through a broken window, enters the inner courtyard and finds the weapons and uniforms, the commentator says, “You can’t escape your presents,” just as you can’t escape your past. For a short time the young men argue over the ownership of the various finds, and one chases the other with a gun: where there are weapons there is also the temptation to use them – this is the film’s central motif, which will continue to resonate in Herzog’s later works, albeit less directly.

Most of the film takes place in the castle’s run-down inner courtyard: Herzog, a connoisseur of medieval art, was probably portraying the “hortus conclusus” ironically here. This was once considered the topos of the Garden of Paradise, a secluded natural space protected from the influence of the superficial world outside. Now this space and the objects it contains provoke only violence. The young men arm themselves, and soon come to look and behave like young soldiers. They play war games, one takes command while the others carry out drills, all in preparation for the approaching combat, since “the enemy is just waiting for an opportunity to blow everything up”.

What begin as rather vague ideas about “the enemy” soon take on increasingly potent significance, and are confirmed for the young men when a harmless farmer appears: they shoot at him. But there are no consequences, nothing happens. The commentator explains the would-be warriors’ disappointment: “The first duty of an enemy is to commit hostile acts!” And he adds, “Even if everything is calm, you cannot assume there are no enemies about!” Playing at soldiers has taken on a life of its own, even if the enemy remains absent, yet there is still the fear that “the enemy might desert them”. In the end they practice sallying forth as though they had to break through a siege. The commentator makes one last remark: “Wars are more necessary than ever. Even defeat is better than nothing at all.” The statement is as ambiguous as Herzog’s film, which ultimately refuses to convey an unequivocal political message and should instead be viewed as an absurd dramatic study.

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1966/1967

Production Year

1967

color

b/w

Aspect Ratio

1:1.33

Duration

Short Film (to 30 Min.)

Type

Documentary

Genre

Anti-war / War Film

Topic

Violence, Psychology

Scope of Rights

Nichtexklusive nichtkommerzielle öffentliche Aufführung (nonexclusive, noncommercial public screening),Keine TV-Rechte (no TV rights)

Notes to the Licence

Hinweis: Vorführungen der Werner Herzog Filme außerhalb der Goethe-Institute im Ausland, z.B. in herkömmlichen Kinos, müssen im Vorfeld mit der Werner Herzog Stiftung abgesprochen werden.

Licence Period

14.12.2026

Permanently Restricted Areas

Germany (DE), Austria (AT), Switzerland (CH), Liechtenstein (LI), Alto Adige, Belgium (BE), Luxembourg (LU), Italy (IT)

Available Media

Blu-ray Disc, DVD, DCP

Original Version

German (de)

Blu-ray Disc

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Italian (it), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Turkish (tr), Arabic (ar)

DVD

Subtitles

German (full), English (en), French (fr), Spanish (Latin America), Portuguese (Brazil), Italian (it), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Turkish (tr), Arabic (ar)

DCP

Subtitles

German (de), German (partly), English (en), French (fr), Portuguese (Brazil), Arabic (ar), Chinese (zh), Russian (ru), Spanish (Latin America), Italian (it), Turkish (tr)

Note on the Format

Verschlüsseltes Herzog-Kurzfilm-Sammel-DCP (8 Filme)

• Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreutz
• Werner Herzog