California Doubling: The film is set in Austria and most of it has been appropriately filmed in Tyrol, but some scenes were reportedly shot in the small Italian mountain village of Sappada.
Extremely Lengthy Creation: Filming was completed in 2016, but the picture would only be released three years later. Post-production went on so long that two actors (Michael Nyqvist and Bruno Ganz) died before the film was released. Actor Franz Rogowski said in a March 2019 interview that "no one knew how the film would turn out or when it would be released". Rogowski added that Terrence Malick is "a director who creates spaces rather than produces scenes; his editing style is like that". It is not uncommon for a Malick project to have such a lenghty post-production.
Granted Austria was part of Germany between 1938 and 1945 following the Anschluss, but August Diehl is a native of Berlin (his character was born an Austrian way before the Anschluss).
Michael Nyqvist was Swedish and played an Austrian/German bishop.
Matthias Schoenaerts is Belgian and played a German captain, just like he did in Suite Française.
The Belgian Johan Leysen as Ohlendorf.
Posthumous Credit: The film was released over two years after the passing of Michael Nyqvist and ten months after the passing of Bruno Ganz.
Those Two Actors: August Diehl and Ulrich Matthes previously appeared in 2004's The Ninth Day, about a Catholic priest from Luxembourg who is imprisoned at the Dachau concentration camp.
Working Title: For a long while, the project was known as "Radegund" (after Sankt Radegund, the birth village of Franz Jägerstätter).
