The Twilight Zone (TV Series) Deaths-Head Revisited (1961) User Reviews

From Rod Serling, with a grudge!

[Coventry · 8/10 · 16 July 2020]

I looked it up after finishing the episode, just to be sure, but his biography quickly confirms what is made abundantly clear during "Deaths-Head Revisited". Rod Serling, creator of the phenomenal "Twilight Zone" series and author of this episode in particular, is Jewish. He was born in a Jewish family in New York and voluntarily enlisted for military service during World War II. Rod Serling HATES Nazis. He hates them passionately and with every bone in his body.

"Death-Heads Revisited" is a truly powerful episode. And, given its thematic and message, it's perhaps even the most meaningful and important "Twilight Zone" episode of the whole series. Fifteen years after the end of WWII, and having cowardly fled to South America instead of facing justice, SS-Captain Gunther Lutze can't resist returning to Dachau; - the concentration camp where he sardonically enjoyed torturing and murdering thousands of Jewish prisoners. But suddenly the tables are turned, and the sadist finds himself on trial when former prisoner Alfred Becker appears in front of him.

The plot of this episode honestly isn't very original, nor even that special, but the personal involvement, and the moral at the end, turns it into one of the best. "Why does the camp of Dachau still exist?" Serling righteously states in his narrative conclusion that horrible historic places like these MUST remain intact, if only to remind future generations about the horror mistakes of mankind's past. Having recently visited the concentration camp site of Auschwitz, I can only agree.

This time the real horrors of totalitarianism.

[darrenpearce111 · 7/10 · 10 January 2014]

The Twilight Zone presented many dictators and totalitarian states. The Chancellor in 'The Obsolete Man', the leader in 'Eye Of The Beholder', and, allegorically, even little Anthony in 'It's A Good Life', but this episode puts the fantasy and allegory aside to reflect on the real horror.

Dachau is the setting as the Nazi former SS Captain Lutze (Oscar Beregi) guilty of savage atrocities during WW2 returns and finds the ghosts of his victims. Lutze goes from gloating to being in denial and then asking forgiveness and the ghost of a victim , Becker (Joseph Schildkraut) says his crimes put him beyond forgiveness.

Much more frightening than any regular episode could be as the terrible events described were real. Still there's a genuinely atmospheric ghostliness of it's own about this. Two German characters, a female innkeeper and a doctor each ask why is Dachau still standing? The question is of course rhetorical as the lessons from a grisly chapter in history cannot be forgotten.

Never again

[classldy · 9/10 · 15 June 2007]

This episode is one of the most frightening morality plays; that has ever been conceived. It is about retribution from the millions who were tortured in Dachau, Berkenbau, Aushwitz and other death camps.(Even though Serling mentioned them at the end of the program) Berengi is excellent as the sadistic Commandant; but nothing could out shine Schildkraut as the avenging angel for the millions who died. His quiet, gaunt,haunted expression shows even after 15 years after the torture. It seemed to me not to be a question of vengeance or justice just to get into the Commandant's mind of all the suffering that one man had caused, to millions of people. It also reminds us that the evil that existed then is still around. My only critique is that Schildkraut had made a career playing quiet tortured victims and it seemed very unnerving to play the same character over and over again.

Should Be Seen By Every Generation

[tthomas760 · 25 February 2006]

Rod Serling served as a paratrooper in the Pacific theater during World War II. As a result, he had an hatred toward any form of totalitarianism. He had an especially intense hatred for the Nazis.

A man arriving at a small hotel in a German village inquires about the ruins of a "camp" nearby. He is told by the proprietress that it is the remains of a concentration camp. The man takes a cruel delight in prying the name of the village from the woman; "Dachau", she replies with anguish and shame.

The man is a former SS officer who served at Dachau and has returned to engage in some sadistic nostalgia for the good old days. His sentimental journey, however, takes a decidedly grotesque and horrifying turn.

As Captain Lutze, Oscar Bergei is nothing short of terrifyingly brilliant. As he strolls across the deserted camp grounds, his stride suddenly lapses into the arrogant strut of an SS officer on his way to mete out pain and death. His revelry in his crimes is sickening and his fate is richly deserved.

Serling's monologue at the end is a departure from other such speeches. It is a stark warning to the ages, coming from a man who had seen the horrors of history all too closely. A man, not only of vision, but of abiding conscience and humanity. Hollywood shall not see his like again.

The Worst Kind of Monster Film, Man's .Mistreatment of Fellow Man.

[redryan64 · 10/10 · 11 July 2007]

Man's inhumanity to man; it's a subject that has been perplexing our species since the time of Cain and Able. We just never can figure out just what it is that makes an otherwise seemingly "normal" person mistreat, inflict pain and ultimately kill, using so many degrading and disgusting manners.

So, our story has no time barriers crossed, no Alien Beings, no Space Travel. If anything it is a more "realistic" and down to Earth tale, set here on Planet Earth in the then contemporary world.

Our Story: Former Nazi SS Captain Lutze (Oscar Beregi) returns from leading a life with a bogus name in South America to the sight of the Nazi Concentration Camp. Here he had been a staffer during World War II. He seems enthused, exhilarated even delighted to be back there. It seems that this had been the most memorable time in his life. He had been in charge. The hellish political and social conditions in Germany had been a windfall for men like him.

That was the method that the Nazi Regeime used to accomplish their mission of forced labor, which soon weakened an inmate rendering him now useless to the Nazi Master Plan. That meant death.

Well before too long the former Captain Lutze meets up with one of his former charges, named Becker (Joseph Schildkraut) who is amazingly still present at the Camp and still wearing his striped prisoners' uniform. Soon a rapid series of events occurred in which Lutze was charged with crimes against mankind and tried by a number of now deceased inmates.He runs, but cannot escape. He falls down, unconscious.

We then cut to the next scene in which the still unconscious, nearly comatose state. The local Doctor has him taken to be committed in a hospital for the criminally insane. There he will doubtless spend the rest of his life, a prisoner to his own mind and his own hideously evil deeds.

In the end Mr. Rod Serling leaves it up to the viewer to decide if the old former SS man was really tried by the Ghosts of victims in the Death Camp or if the entire episode took place in the mind of this miserable, hateful petty bureaucrat-killer.

Virtuoso performances by the two principal Actors, Messers Schildkrasut and Beregi are so very powerful that one forgets we are in process of viewing a half hour episode of a weekly anthology series. In fact, the time goes by so very quickly. We are left in a breathless state, emotionally if not physically.

DEATHS-GATE REVISITED is a gem of a story. It's at once a Morality Play, a Horror Story and an Indictment against Totalitarian Rule, anywhere, under any name.

This was a most satisfying and substantive entry in the long line of TWILIGHT ZONE gems. And it had no Alien beings, Time Warps or Out o=f Sync lives. Thank you, Mr. Serling.

The Need To Remember...For All Of Us

[theowinthrop · 10/10 · 9 March 2008]

I can't make up my mind about the best TWILIGHT ZONE episodes, but this one is up there. It was one of the few where Serling (whose stories broke down the fourth wall of imagination and reality for his characters) broke down a fifth wall (if you will) by explaining the need to remember, even if the item used to remember was something hideous. In this case it was the death camps that exist throughout middle Europe since World War II, and are now museums dedicated to their millions of victims.

Oscar Beregi made a career as a general type of character actor, frequently in comic parts, but equally in villains. And as a villain he was never more superb than in this episode as an unrepentant Nazi S.S. man. Assigned to Dachau during World War II, he lorded over the inmates, killing them at his various whims. Somehow he has managed to avoid a date with an execution shed, and now (sixteen years after the war ended) he has returned to see the place where he was a king.

It's obvious that he is full of contempt to everyone who is in his way. He forces a landlady of an inn (Kaaren Verne) to reveal the hateful name of the camp nearby (enjoying her discomfort). At the camp (oddly enough pretty empty - usually there are tourists at these camps examining the crematorium and gas chambers and such) he is strutting about as though still in his Nazi military uniform and jack boots. Then he comes across a familiar person: one Becker (Joseph Schildkraut), a former Jewish prisoner. But Becker is still in his prison clothes. Delight at finding Becker - a victim still in his victim uniform - slowly changes to dismay and fear. Beregi is soon imprisoned and facing a trial for his life from a jury of the spirits of his victims (led by the long dead Becker). They present the history of his cruelty, and he meets it with arrogance and pride but it gradually crumbles. Soon he is mumbling the same arguments used at Nuremburg by the Nazis, and with no better effect. At the end he is struck down as guilty. He is found in great pain and incoherent - obviously insane but feeling more pain than anyone can stand.

At the end the doctor (Ben Wright) who sees Beregi is taken to an asylum looks at the camp. He wonders when they will tear down this awful place. As he leaves we hear Serling speaking to us - that we can never tear down places like Dachau and Auschwitz, because of the lesson they teach that once a bunch of people tried to turn the world into a graveyard...and nearly succeeded. It is a powerful commentary on a fascinating situation.

An Important Retelling of The Holocaust

[kenbarr-ny · 10/10 · 1 February 2013]

This episode of The Twilight Zone deals with a subject the series often visited, Nazism. It aired during a time when many wanted to forget the horrible crimes and put them in the past. Along with "Judgement at Nuremberg," "Death's Head Revisited" explores attitudes as well as history.

Former SS Captain Lutze (Oscar Beregi) returns to Dachau under an assumed name, wishing to glory in his memories. There, he is haunted by a prisoner, Alfred Becker (Joseph Schildkraut), who places him on trial for his crimes against humanity with the ghosts of Lutze's victims as his jury. He awakens from his nightmare just as he was sentenced, a raving lunatic. In the final scene, a character regrets that the concentration camp has been preserved and wishes it had been destroyed. Rod Serling's closing narration takes issue with this, demanding the preservation of all the Dachau's to remind us of the evil that lives amongst us.

Both Mr. Beregi, who made a career of playing villains, and Mr Schildkraut (Otto Frank in both original stage and screen versions of The Diary of Anne Frank) play their roles expertly. Having both been émigrés from Nazism, they bring personal experiences to their roles, a Hollywood tradition that ran from Conrad Veidt to Werner Klemperer and John Banner. While the story has been told over and over again, it needs retelling since their are still those who would either deny it ever happened or want to bury it as "ancient history." Therefore, "Death's Head Revisited," whose title derives from the German "Totenkopf," the name of the concentration camp guards regiment, is an important part of the retelling as well as an excellently written and acted episode of this outstanding series.

Punishing Evil

[AaronCapenBanner · 10/10 · 28 October 2014]

Oscar Beregi plays former S.S. Captain Gunther Lutze, escaped Nazi who returns to the "glories" of his tyrannical reign as commander of the infamous concentration camp Dachau, where he is confronted by a man he tormented and thought killed named Becker(played by Joseph Schildkraut) who taunts his former tormentor with promises of long overdue trial and punishment, which had sadly evaded him in the real world. Lutze is disbelieving of this, but when put on trial then punished with feeling all the pain and misery he inflicted on the prisoners, comes to know otherwise... Powerful episode about punishing evil has two fine lead performances, stark direction, and searing script by Rod Serling that packs a wallop.

A brilliant, chilling portrait of evil

[nchaudha19 · 10/10 · 4 July 2006]

Minor spoilers, but read it anyway...

To me, this is *the* defining episode of the series. If you want to see this series' greatest writing and acting performance (and possibly some of the best filmed anywhere or any time), watch the first couple of minutes of this episode.

It's been mentioned in other posts, but I'll restate it here: it's when the Nazi captain asks the name of the town. And asks about "the buildings up on the hill". He is referring to a concentration camp, which he knows quite well, but forces a (presumably Jewish) innkeeper to tell him anyway.

The delight he takes in extracting this painful information from the woman takes maybe a minute on screen, but has stayed with me since the first time I saw it many years ago.

I don't want to give any more details away, but if you are even a slight fan of this series, make it a point to see this episode. It will haunt you.

One of my favorite episodes. Still powerful nearly 56 years after it aired.

[ndwolfwood3769 · 10/10 · 21 April 2018]

Oscar Beregi Jr makes his second of three appearance on the Twilight Zone. Before this he was in season two's The Rip Van Winkle Caper and later he was in season four's Mute. Here he gives an amazing performance as a Nazi SS Captain who was hiding out in South America years after WWII. He decides to pay a visit to Dachau the concentration camp he was assigned to during the war in an attempt to relive his glory days. As he walks around the remains of the camp he takes great joy in reliving horrifying memories of tortures he's inflicted on others. For example he looks back fondly at denying a prisoner water and laughs after reminding the prisoner that he hasn't given him food in days either. While he walks around the camp he suddenly sees a former prisoner named Becker (an amazing performance by Joseph Schildkraut who also appears in season three's The Trade-Ins). After talking with Becker he asks if Becker was a caretaker. After dismissing the hell he put the prisoners through as "a little mistake" the SS Captain runs to the defense "following orders". Becker puts the SS Captain on trial. I don't want to give away where it goes from here. The episode masterfully deals with an extremely sensitive issue. People were put through unimaginable tortures and endured pain and suffering beyond what anyone can imagine. When dealing with that subject matter it is crucial not to downplay what they went through or make light of the situation. Rod Serling wrote this episode and handled it masterfully. The bulk of this episode relies heavily on Oscar Berigi Jr and Joseph Schildkraut and both actors turn out amazing performances. Excellent episode from an excellent series. Highly recommended.

Dachau! Why does it still exist! Why do we keep it standing!

[sol-kay · 7/10 · 5 July 2010]

**SPOILERS*** Coming back to visit the Fatherland after a sixteen year absence former SS Captain Gunther Lutze, Oscar Beregi Jr, takes a taxi ride outside of Munich to a place very near and dear to his heart; The notorious Dachau Concentration Camp.

It was at Dachau, hundreds of miles behind the battle-lines, where Lutze spent most of the war and had his most pleasurable experiences. In him beating torturing and killing inmates in the camp where he had the power of life and death over them. With Lutze only thinking about the good times at Dachau and all the fun he had there up pops literary a ghost from the past the camp "caretaker" Alfred Becker, Joseph Schidkraut! All of a sudden Lutze who was so happy to see the camp that he worked in and enjoyed himself so much started to get second thoughts about him being there. Not in what he did there but in what the presences of "caretaker" Becker reminded him of those that he did it to! Like Alfred Becker!

A return to the scene of the crime Twilight Zone episode that very obviously was inspired by the on going Adolph Eichmann Trial that was taking place in Jerusalem Isreal at the very same time, 1961, the it was filmed. You just couldn't help getting over what a jerk Lutze was in him being so brainless in not realizing that he by going back to Germany from the safety of his, very possibly Argentina, South American hideout wouldn't put his freedom as well as life in jeopardy in being arrested tried and convicted as a major war criminal. In him being responsible from the cold blooded torture and murder of some 17,000 inmates under his command!

***SPOILERS*** What's even more astounding is that the wild eyed and somewhat deranged Lutze didn't even realize that Becker, who didn't seem to have aged a day in the sixteen years that he last saw him, was actually murdered, strangled, by him the day before the Americans liberated the Dachau Concentration Camp on April 29, 1945! In the end Lutze after being tried and convicted by the very persons that he murdered got all that was coming to him with, after 16 years, compound interest.

P.S No Captain Lutze didn't receive the death penalty that he inflected on so many o his innocent victims. He got a hell of a lot worse for the crimes that he was convicted of. Lutze was to feel the pain that he caused on other that in the end drove him completely insane in him finally realizing what horrible and unspeakable crimes that he committed!

Best Tzone Episode of All !

[nika01 · 10/10 · 3 July 2011]

The idea of "retribution through the mechanism of God's Creation" was glimpsed by this excellent episode. If only all the evil do'Er's knew that in reality this is indeed their fate, the world would be a different place. You cant run, you cant hide, God's justice will be meted out whether you want it to or not. Serling is a genius for not pushing the content beyond the simplistic. If Rod would have increased the length of this episode to 1 hour, it would not have worked as well. It would have been as if he needed a certain length to satisfy the producer.

Thanks Rod, I love you for putting this out there.

No hard feelings?

[BA_Harrison · 7/10 · 27 March 2022]

Seventeen years after the end of World War 2, former SS captain Gunther Lutze (Oscar Beregi Jr.) returns to the concentration camp at Dachau to reminisce about the good times; while there, he meets an old acquaintance, prisoner Alfred Becker (Joseph Schildkraut), not realising that the man he now believes to be the caretaker is in fact a ghost seeking retribution for the captain's many atrocious crimes against humanity.

Anyone who has been working their way through all of The Twilight Zone like me will by now be well aware of Rod Serling's absolute hatred of totalitarianism, both fascist and communist, and of war in general. In WWII, Serling enlisted in the US Army hoping to fight Hitler, but ended up in the Philippines, his experiences nonetheless helping to shape many of his later stories. Deaths-head Revisited is a tale of justice from beyond the grave, a sadistic Nazi finally getting what he deserves, punishment meted out by the spirits of his victims. It must have felt like a form of catharsis for the series' Jewish creator, and the message - that places like Dachau must remain standing as a reminder of the horrors of war and extremism - is a potent one.

An emotional and provocative episode, but not one that I care to rewatch that often: I prefer my excursions into The Twilight Zone to be less grounded in the horrors of reality.

Bad.

[bombersflyup · 1/10 · 27 September 2019]

Deaths-Head Revisited and this topic always make me think of having an agonizing internal pain and not getting any help and not even having the option to end one's life or stop another from the infliction, the brutality of that. Serling asks questions about his own made up story and then answers them as usual. Lutze felt no remorse, in fact he felt a high being there. So what you're asking me to accept is a ghostly spirit finding a small amount of justice, well that's just stupid and pointless. You said it yourself, he wasn't a soldier and it doesn't get washed away, this is who he is.

This is an incredible episode... but perhaps only if...

[dwwow · 26 August 2008]

you've actually visited Dachau, which I did in April 2008. It was amazing, and incredibly horrible. You could feel the ghosts, and the evil that made them so. I've watched this episode over a dozen times since then, and as far as I can tell it was made on site, though I can't find any documentation to verify it, but the "entrance" gate (of which there was no other exit) and the detention center had exactly the same dimensions. As did the cell block "sleeping" arrangements. The "main house" looked different on the outside but had the same dimensions and footprint. However the Block 6 prisoner quarter was not/no longer there relative to the main house; but then none of the prisoners "quarters" were, other than a replica of one of a dozen or so in a part of the camp not shown in the episode. Note there are no remains of hangposts that are shown in the episode, but there is the "trench of depth" (my words) that some threw themselves across to deliberately electrocute themselves is still there. Incredible, horrible, and it must NEVER happen again.

And to think this was the first concentration camp (and used as the model for all others, including the supposedly never used incinerators, and DEFINITELY as the training grounds for all the other camp commandants. Yet it was not even made for extermination but for the "confinement" of political prisoners in the mid 1930s Germany - and they (not it) yet killed over 32,000 people boggles the mind about how much evil there was even then, the seed of which obviously grew horrendously.

If you have the opportunity, I strongly recommend you visit Dachau (and the other camps - I thought there were only a dozen or so - in reality there were over 200!). The stories, and photos, and yes videos, that the camp museums told eclipsed what I had seen and read previously, and as I said boggles the imagination. Thank God to Mr. Serling and his backers to have told this story, and in particular using the real context of the actual camp.

Anybody who criticizes this episode as mere drama is a lost, uneducated or misguided soul... As the woman at the beginning of the episode said, and the doctor at the end said - why is it still standing? The answer as Rod Serling said - to paraphrase - because it must.

Dave Williams

Very powerful and effective episode based on sad real life events

[richspenc · 9/10 · 9 May 2017]

This was a very powerful intense episode with a man, an ex Nazi, revisiting his old stomping grounds. The man, who starts off checking into a bed and breakfast in the town of Dachau, Germany is immediately recognized by the inn keeper and not in a good way. She is still traumatized by the events that were always going on around the corner from the inn, at the camp. She swears that she remembers him as one of the officers at the camp that were always coming by the inn, even though he tries to deny it and says that he spent the war on the Russian front. The man asks her pretending not to know "what kind of camp was it?". She says "a concentration camp!" with an obvious quiver and a fear in her voice, and you can see that the man is completely enjoying it. Like Rod Sterling said during his opening narration about Nazis taking total pleasure in giving others fear and pain. The man then leaves the inn and walks down the road to visit memory lane, his sick and demented memory lane. We (the viewers) are taken aback by the camp grounds, the hanging posts, the barbed wire fences, the firing ranges, the assortment of buildings that were once used for the Nazis's torture, the furnaces, the gas chambers, the lock ups where they completely starved them of food and water. It's from here that we really enter the mind and the memories of the Nazi, seeing memory clips of his (such as a clip where the captain told a deathly weak and sick man "you don't need any water. It's only been five days since you last had water. Five little days!") What makes this even more of a powerful, haunting, and chilling episode is that even though the captain in this episode is a fictional character, it's all based on real life Nazi WW2 Germany.

SPOILERS BELOW

The captain runs into one of his old "friends" Becker. Very intriguing dialogue between them two. Becker reminds him of what he used to really be doing to people and that he created more damage, emotional and psychological, than anyone can possibly comprehend. Becker organizes a "trial" for the captain for the inhumane acts against mankind. It becomes too much for the captain to now handle and says "I must leave you now Becker!" Becker: "why'd you come back, captain?" Captain: "I thought that through the passage of time, one could forgive and forget the little mistakes of the past". Becker: "you ask too much, Captain. You may as well ask the earth to stop revolving around the sun. Don't ask what just cannot be done." Just the fact that the captain is calling all that happened the "little mistakes of the past" alone says something about the man. Only a true Nazi could look at torturing and killing on the same level that other people would look at shoplifting or getting a parking ticket. I was quite intrigued by the way the viewers are able to look into the madness of this man. The memories and hallucinations that the captain's now suffering some 17 years later of which he and his fellow officers had done to so many people at the camp during the war. We also find out the revelation, SPOILER, that the captain did in fact kill Becker near the end of the war. Becker (or the ghost of Becker) pointed out to the captain that he was quite safe in South America, why would he have come back? The captain said it's because he missed his fatherland. Even in spite of what would happen if he came back. Surely the captain was aware of the ongoing trials in the 1960s against some of the Nazis of the former concentration camps for all that they had done. I personally don't think any punishment in the world for what they did is harsh enough. They tortured and killed many many men, women, children, and babies in the slowest most suffering and horrifying ways. There has never been a worse evil.

Social commentary at its darkest and finest

[marcusq22 · 10/10 · 3 August 2015]

I've watched numerous Twilight Zone episodes with my daughters. On International Holocaust Remembrance Day this year, I watched the episode "Death's Head Revisited" with them. In this installment, a former concentration camp captain returns to the ruined remains of Dachau 17 years after the war only to find the ghosts of the people he killed. They try him for his crimes against humanity, and sentence him to insanity for the rest of his life. I could tell it had an impact on my daughters.

I gave them this backstory: In 1960, Adolf Eichmann, one of the chief architects of the Holocaust, was captured from his hiding place in Argentina. In 1962, he was executed. However, in 1961, during the time that he was on trial, this episode aired. And so, judgment was handed down to Eichmann, not only from the courts of men, but from the shadowy courts of the Twilight Zone.

Reminder of A real nightmare

[DKosty123 · 9/10 · 29 December 2018]

Living through an era of a world controlled by tyrants is covered here, and Sterlings experience with that reality is done in vivid detail. This world always needs a reminder of what happened when an economic depression gave rise to people put into power who had no moral compass.

This is the Nazi Death camps, for all the horror that they were. The only thing missing here is the other half that Serling had no knowledge of- these same camps being run by Uncle Joe in Siberia. When Serling died, the facts about those camps were still hidden from the public. They are the valuable lesson 2 the public needs to be reminded of in addition to this one. For Socialism's polar opposite of Nazism has just as ugly a face as this one.

There are so many reminders of how horrible the world was during this time. Yet, in spite of all this terror, in recent years we are still doing it again and again in smaller bursts with brutal beheadings and mindless shootings now. Can we ever get this message out and stop these brutal beings, or are we going to always be destined to repeat this torture? Here the criminal gets justice, but the real Uncle Joes of the world have too often gotten away with it. Life without conscience is pitiful.

Those good old days

[bkoganbing · 9/10 · 3 January 2019]

Traveling under an alias Oscar Beregi stops at Kaaren Verne's inn in a small village and he seems familiar to her. He should be because Beregi was a captain in the SS during the war and the village gave name to the concentration camp he worked in as a labor of sadistic love, Dachau.

When he gets there the place seems deserted, but some strange noises keep coming from out of nowhere and then Beregi meets Joseph Schildkraut who was a guest at Dachau and enjoyed some of Beregi's special hospitality.

As Rod Serling said in his eloquent narration Dachau was sadly not something out of his Twilight Zone. It was real and horrific and a testament to the depravity which humanity can sink to. Most of the episode is dialog between Schildkraut and Beregi and it is some of the best writing ever done on the Twilight Zone series.

This one is excellent and its message should be required viewing.

Ahead of Its Time

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 24 November 2008]

If there's a criticism of this episode, it's that it doesn't cover much new ground. It allows us to see a horrible man put to the test for his crimes. The acting is quite excellent, especially the prisoner who confronts the evil former SS Man. Given a bit of revision, the script could have actually put him on trial, expanded the issue, allowed him to speak more. There is nothing here that shouldn't be said. There is nothing here that is not despicable. Yet, it takes the ball so out of the evil man's court, that there is no suspense to speak of. Still, it is cleansing at times because this man doesn't represent a thousandth of pain his kind inflicted.

"You will be tried for crimes against humanity".

[classicsoncall · 8/10 · 16 May 2010]

My timing in watching this story is oddly coincidental to beginning a series of reviews on this board for the World War II documentary series "Victory at Sea" produced in 1952. The episode I just viewed had to do with German submarine attacks on American cargo ships in the Atlantic during the early stages of America's involvement in the war (#1.3 - Sealing the Breach). My interest in World War II comes in large part to my father's service during that conflict, and his brother's (my uncle) imprisonment in a German concentration camp.

What makes this episode of The Twilight Zone compelling is Serling's portrayal of Captain Lutze (Oscar Beregi Jr.), who rather summarily dismisses his guilt in the extermination of prisoners under his command as something he was told to do. That was the standard defense of many Nazi officers and soldiers eventually brought to trial for crimes against humanity. What makes Lutze so terrifying is the way he recalls his past barbarism as nostalgia for the good old days, when 'we had some good times in this building'. Confronted by Becker (Joseph Schildkraut), Lutze is called to task for the thousands he had murdered, and the delight he took in administering personal retribution to a handful of prisoners.

The setting of the story at Dachau in retrospect is also coincidental. On a trip to Europe in 1977 I visited Dachau, finding it hauntingly occupied by the ghosts of all those innocent dead victims. One senses a strange stillness there, as I'm sure is true of all the other concentration camps that have been preserved for their value in reminding the world that 'Never Again' must stand for more than a mere slogan.

There was an ominously satisfying sentence passed on to Captain Lutze, one which rendered him insane for the rest of his life. Upon reflection however, that measure begs the question - when was Lutze ever not insane? One must seriously reflect on the nature of evil inherent in the world that gives rise to a 'monster who derives pleasure from giving pain'. Serling's treatment here is one of his most daring, reflecting as it does on man's unique predilection for inflicting undeserved punishment on fellow human beings.

Disturbing but brilliant

[misterzook · 10/10 · 2 August 2006]

I have seen every episode of The Twlight Zone but this episode still gives me chills each time I view it. This is the story of the Holocaust and a sadistic former Nazi revisiting a concentration camp where he had tortured thousands of "racially inferior" people. This included mostly Jewish, Catholics, Homosexuals and many other minorities. Joseph Schildkraut, who views these memories fondly, is soon confronted by one of his victims, Oscar Beregi Jr. The ghosts from the past have all come back to put the Nazi on trial for his crimes against humanity. The performances by both Schildkraut and Beregi are simply brilliant but the lesson of hatred and prejudice that we still should be teaching to future generations is what is the most powerful. I just watched it again on a local cable station and it still sends shivers down my spine and brings a tear to my eyes.

Possibly the darkest of the series

[leoocampo · 7/10 · 17 January 2023]

Possibly the darkest of the series. Only because it is based in real history and doesn't flinch at discussing true horror... The kind that doesn't just exist in the twilight zone.

Powerful performances are the core of this onem. If there's a Hell this is it and it is well deserved.

It's a bit on the chin, this one. Not at all subtle... But maybe rightly so. No twist, not at all coy, or clever. Just brutally direct and unflinching in it's gaze. This one may be slightly overated, but is also a time capsule of an age no so far removed from the subject matter as we are today.

A good watch, but not in my rotation.

We can never forget

[Woodyanders · 9/10 · 3 April 2018]

Former German SS captain Gunther Lutze (superbly played to the slimy hilt by Oscar Beregi Jr.) returns to the Dachau concentration camp to revel in the memories of his glory days in the Third Reich only to be put on trial by the ghosts of the people who died at his hands.

Director Don Medford ably crafts a stark somber mood and vividly captures the abject horror of the Holocaust. Rod Serling's bold and confrontational script makes a potent point on how the atrocities committed by the Nazis can never be forgotten or else we run the risk of possibly repeating them. Character actor Beregi gives his juicy role his considerable all and astutely nails the vile sadistic nature of his incredibly arrogant and unrepentant monster. Joseph Schildkraut likewise excels as the vengeful and haunted spirit of slain Jew Alfred Becker. Moreover, it's very rewarding to see Lutze receive an appropriately painful comeuppance towards the end. A powerfull show.

Excellent acting...

[planktonrules · 8/10 · 2 October 2009]

Oscar Beregi Jr. Stars as Alfred Becker, a Nazi commandant who has snuck back into Germany to reminisce about the good old days--back when he was in charge of the Dachau concentration camp! While the idea of such an evil man leaving his sanctuary in South America to walk down his sick "memory lane" is exceptionally hard to believe, what follows is an excellent discussion of the horrors of such prisons. This occurs when an old prisoner (Joseph Schildkraut) appears in the camp as Becker is walking through the old remnants of the camp. He recounts the many horrors that Becker was responsible for and convenes a trial of the dead to pass judgment on the man and his actions.

I agree with Hitchcoc in their review that there really isn't any new ground covered in the episode but also agree that the acting was excellent. This makes the episode worth seeing and a standout.