In 1942, seventeen-year-old Friedrich Weimer (Max Riemelt) is a working class Berliner whose future is a life of hard labor in a factory. But while participating in an amateur boxing contest, he is spotted by Heinrich Vogler (David Striesow), an instructor at a prestigious Napola (National-Political Institutes of Learning) school. Friedrich sees a chance to advance his status, and when his father refuses to sign registration papers for the Nazi school, he leaves home on his own and heads off to the combination boot-camp and military school that's housed in a castle. Friedrich learns that everyone there is being trained to be governors in cities around the world. They are taught that only the strong survive and that there is no place in the Third Reich for weaklings.
Yet this ambitious young man soon finds himself surrounded by two weak comrades. One is Siegfried Gladen (Martin Goeres), a bed wetter who is humiliated repeatedly by upper class cadets and a sadistic instructor; the other is Albrecht (Tom Schilling), the artistic son of Heinrich Stein (Justus Vob Dohnanyi), a local Nazi governor. This overly sensitive young man is a poet, and edits the student newspaper.
Friedrich faces his first crucial test when his coach sets up a boxing match after having trained him to become more aggressive and to ignore his feelings of anxiety or pity for his opponent. Having once before lost a match because he was unable to finish off the other boxer, he does so this time by hitting his opponent when he is already down. Friedrich realizes that he has to numb any emotions in order to succeed as a Nazi. His friend Albrecht, on the other hand, is unable to turn off his feelings and ignore long-held standards of fair play and doing the right thing.
Dennis Gansel directs this German film which he co-wrote with Maggie Peren. It realistically shows how many young men were swept away by the drama, the nationalistic fervor, and the ideals of the Third Reich. Yet underneath all the surface adventure is a nihilistic value system that lionizes aggressive and amoral behavior. This morality play swings into full stride in the third act as Friedrich's eyes are opened to the barbarity of the Nazi path to power.
