From beginning to end, a disturbing work by Konsalik instructing, first, that at the end of the battle the bold or the noble or the good will not remain: neither life, much less war, has logic or meaning; secondly, revealing corruption and more corruption of the German militia, seen by a German director determined all his life to avoid - almost in an unhealthy way - the spotlight and fame; Martin Hollý in "Signum laudis" reveals with respect to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, (and does nothing more than echo multiple voices such as that of Joseph Roth) a mafia of sinister high command and scoundrel-key politicians nothing different from this one; Here the initially indiscernible outrages are supported by a Wehrmacht High Command Council and the feature film exposes the hardships of the victims in a penal battalion, such as Colonel Von Barlitz, demoted and sentenced for insubordination, because by human instinct it occurred to him to save 500 lives of his subordinates withdrawing from the front without waiting for orders from superiors; Barlitz is accompanied on his way of the cross by the "thief" Schwannecke, rugged and proud, and by the doctor Deutschmann, a doctor convicted of using gas gangrene serum on himself, for the court, guilty of self-mutilation but, in reality, guilty where the for focusing on his investigations without permission from the Führer, owner of what he had to think and investigate every tiny piece of the Thousand Year kingdom that he dreamed of; It was of no use to Deustchmann that his wife Julia advocated for him. The pretty woman immediately fell prey to Dr. Kukill, who repeated to her that her husband could have used sulfonamides instead of gas, and with vulgar coquetry he hinted to the desperate wife that he would support the doctor with ulterior motives. Sergeant Krull seems very strict and imposing from the beginning, when ordering the scum who arrived at the battalion the evil exercises of burning and pain for their training, however, when Obermeir orders him to stay in the fiery trench to continue his drawings of maps, in the middle of the fray he cowers in a bunker - in front of Ernst Deutschmann and Barlitz - when the grenades explode near them, is there no greater sarcasm of destiny?,He who punishes Barlitz as a deserter, who did what he did with his regiment to save him, cannot be a deserter to save himself as a coward, in the middle of the line of fire when he finds himself in the middle of nowhere! But the height of arrogance and disdain is reached with the newcomer to Battalion 999 to help, Lieutenant Bevern, spontaneously mistreats and humiliates the captives with unnecessary orders and humiliations that included ordering them to do their inhuman outdoor exercise routine. When many were sick or injured from the previous night of fighting in the trenches. But there is also time in the film for the ironies of war, because while the lascivious Dr. Kukill disputes with Colonel Wendt for fornicating with Julia Deutschmann, to charge her husband Ernst to leave Battalion Camp 999, the husband rejects the proposal. Sexual orientation of the beautiful Tanya, the nurse in the middle of the camp, a relative of Tartushing and the enemy partisans of the Nazis. Who will get the Iron Cross of Courage? Exactly: the one who escaped in the middle of crossfire, the one who fled and was saved, Sergeant Krull, and Deutschmann? He dies almost instantly after being blinded by the fire while checking Tanya's body in her hut.
