Quote Originally Posted by rockzmom
Quote Originally Posted by Оля
I can add that I, too, was never be able to understand the plot of "17 Moments of Spring".
Thanks! Now, I don't feel so stupid being lost and rewatching some of the scenes over again thinking, "Did I just miss something?"
If you don't mind, I'll try to put the plot a little more clear for thouse of you who didn't read the book. At first, some prehistory.
In the beginning of the XX century young son of the Russian revolutioner goes to the emigration from tzarist regime with his father. They live in different parts of Europe but mostly in Switzerland and Germany, where young Vsevolod became fluent in German and can speak like a native. They return to Russia in 1917 after February Revolution. Vsevolod's father doesn't comletely agree with Bolshevik's doctrine, but Vsevolod becomes a member of Bolshevik's party and one of the closest man of Felix Dzierzynsky. After October revolution he takes pseudonym Maxim Isaev and becomes Сheka agent in the White army. After the end of Civil War in 1922 he (according to the orders from Moscow) goes with the remains of White army to Harbin (China) and continues his conspiracy work there. In 1933 Soviet secret service feels that Hitler will come to power soon, so agent Isaev recieves an order to infiltrate in the Nazi movement. He goes to Australia and comes to the German consulat in Sidney as German citizen Max Otto von Stirlitz who was robbed and lost all his papers. Than he goes to Germany and becomes a member of Nazi party just before they win the elections and come to power. He makes a career in Nazi intelligence service and completes many successful missions for his covert Moscow patrons...
Now to the plot of the film. The beginning of 1945. It's already clear that Germany suffers defeat. But fanatic Hitler still believes he can win. But the head of SS Himmler is not so naive. He sees only one way to avoid comlete defeat and to escape punishmet for his crimes - to break Soviet-American-British alliance, to ally with the West and than to defeat Soviet Union with the help of U.S. and Britain. So Himmler and the head of Nazi intelligence service Shellenberg (Shirlitz's oficial patron) start to seek contacts with Americans and try to convince them that to prevent a "Red threat" from Europe is far more important than "unnatural" alliance with Russians. So negotiations begin. The contragent from the American side - the head of American Secret service in Europe Allen Dalles, rabid anti-communist. Soviet intelligence learns about that. So Shtirlitz recieves an order from Moscow: his mission to break the Nazi-American negotiations by any means and keep the alliance. So it's the plot in the couple of words .