Stolz der Nation (The Nation's Pride in German) is a 2009 American short film directed by Eli Roth.
It is the film (directed by the fictional "Alois von Eichberg") of which the premiere is an important plot point in Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds (in which Roth played Donnie "The Bear Jew" Horowitz). It parodies Nazi Germany's propaganda movies.
It tell the story (with much exaggeration) of German soldier Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl), who is seen as a hero by Nazi propaganda in Inglorious Basterds after allegedly fighting a whole US Army battalion on his own in Sicily in 1943, killing GIs by the dozens with deadly accuracy from the top of a bell tower. Zoller reenacts his own exploits in there, for that matter.
Provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: A 1940s German film in the context of Inglourious Basterds, yet it uses two very post-war Hollywoodian Stock Screams, one of which is the famous "Wilhelm scream". This sound effect wasn't recorded and used until the 1951 film Distant Drums.
- Artistic License: In Inglourious Basterds, the film is described as requiring at least four reels, which means a running time of at least 44-48 minutes. The film is actually a short that's 6 minutes 11 seconds long, and it lasts 4 minutes and 56 seconds without the opening credits.
- Artistic License – Military: Much like Saving Private Ryan, Germany actually discourage snipers from operating in church steeples and other tall buildings because they offer an easy target and have no means of escape if the enemy gets too close, and actually shelled such buildings to deny their use. The Allies also shelled and bombed such buildings, most (in)famously at Monte Cassino
, which makes the American officer lamenting they can't just use artillery against Zoller very weird. - Autobiographical Role: Within the context of Inglourious Basterds, Zoller plays himself.
- Baby Carriage: An Italian woman loses her baby carriage in Battleship Potemkine fashion, which then rolls in the middle of the steet where the shootout occurs until it's stopped by a dead GI's body.
- Credits Gag: The opening credits are overly long.
- Groin Attack: Zoller's last rampage scene have him shooting dozens and dozens of GI in succession, one who got a bullet down there while drinking booze.
- Human Shield: A GI sees the baby carriage, takes the baby and holds him up so he'll be visible and won't be shot at and throws him at his mother. Zoller interprets this as using the baby as a human shield and insults the American before shooting him dead.
- One-Man Army: Zoller kills dozens of hapless GIs on his own from a bell tower, so much so that corpses start piling up.
- Robbing the Dead: After Zoller snipes one of the Americans, another passing Allied soldier briefly stops to pick his pockets.
- Shout-Out: Zoller's story is a nod to Audie Murphy's, a celebrated American war veteran who went One-Man Army and reenacted his exploits in a film (To Hell And Back). Only this time it's on the Axis side.
- Shown Their Work: The mock up posters for Stolz der Nation are rendered in the style of actual German film posters of that era including a German censor approval stamp and the Film-Kurier magazine's title.
- You Rebel Scum!: "Du Amerikanischer Schwein!"
- You Shall Not Pass!: Zoller keeps a whole US Army battalion at bay on his own.
