Summary
- Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds is an alternate version of World War II, with fictional characters based on real people, like Frederick Zoller.
- Matthäus Hetzenauer and Audie Murphy, real-life soldiers, served as the inspiration for Zoller's remarkable military achievements in the movie.
- While the film is mostly fictional, Inglourious Basterds includes real-life figures such as Adolf Hitler and Winston Churchill, adding to the heightened reality and changing the course of history.
Though Quentin Tarantino plays very loose with history in his World War II epic, there are Inglourious Basterds true story inspirations. Inglourious Basterds explores an alternate version of WWII, and while its main characters are fictional, many of them are based on real-life people, among those Daniel Brühl’s Fredrick Zoller. Throughout his career as a filmmaker, Tarantino has explored a variety of genres, all of them with his signature narrative style and generous doses of violence and blood, and he has also given the audience a look at alternate versions of history with Inglourious Basterds and Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, two of his most critically acclaimed (yet controversial) works.
Set during World War II, Inglourious Basterds involves a group of soldiers known as the “Basterds,” led by Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt) but the more central story follows Shosanna Dreyfus (Mélanie Laurent), a Jewish cinema owner seeking her own revenge on the Nazis. Frederick Zoller is a German army sniper and star of a new propaganda film by Joseph Goebbels (Sylvester Groth). Becoming infatuated with Shoshanna, he pushes to have the film premiere at her cinema leading to the epic finale where Shoshanna's revenge plan plays out. Although Zoller, his story with Shosanna, and the movie Stolz der Nation (Nation's Pride) are fictional, Zoller was based on two real-life men: Austrian sniper Matthäus Hetzenauer and actor Audie Murphy.
Who Were Matthäus Hetzenauer And Audie Murphy?
Forming a partial basis for the Inglourious Basterds true story, Matthäus Hetzenauer served in the 3rd Mountain Division on the Eastern Front of World War II and is credited with 345 kills. Hetzenauer received the Knight's Cross of the Iron Cross in 1944 and was captured by Soviet troops in 1945, serving five years in a Soviet prison camp. He died in 2004.
Audie Murphy was an American soldier and actor who received every military combat award for valor available from the U.S. Army, such as the Medal of Honor. At the age of 19, Murphy single-handedly held off a company of German soldiers for an hour at the Colmar Pocket in in 1945, then led a successful counterattack while wounded and out of ammunition. After the war, Murphy became an actor, and while most of his roles were westerns, he also played himself in a movie based on his memoirs. Murphy even inspired movie soldier Rambo, one of Sylvester Stallone's most iconic characters. He died in a plane crash in 1971.
Inglourious Basterds, Fredrick Zoller’s military achievements were also outstanding but obviously terrifying: he told Shosanna he killed 68 people on the first day he was in a bell tower in a walled city, then killed 150 people the second day and 32 on the third day. This caught the attention of Goebbels, who asked Zoller to play himself in Nation’s Pride, and so he did. Nation’s Pride is what ultimately led Zoller to his death, as the movie premiered at Shosanna’s theater, where she (and the Basterds, unbeknownst to each other) set a trap for all the Nazi attendees, but Zoller ended up being killed by Shosanna and killing her as well. The inspirations behind Inglourious Basterds’ Fredrick Zoller are a bit of a stretch, but nonetheless very interesting.
Where Inglourious Basterds Was Accurate: Lots Of WW2 Heroes Were Snipers
While Frederick Zoller and the movie Nation's Pride are fictional, the Inglourious Basterds true story aspects can be seen in how it depicts WW2 snipers as heroes. At the time, sharpshooters like this were very highly regarded by their respective countries and did indeed often feature in propaganda materials. Even to this day, movies are still being made about famous WW2 snipers. Soviet sniper Vasily Zaitsev, for example, was the subject of the 2001 movie Enemy at the Gates.
While the Soviets had a monopoly on WW2's most successful snipers, Simo Häyhä of Finland had by far the highest kill count, with a total of 542 confirmed that may have been as high as 705. Nicknamed White Death by the Soviets, Häyhä is still being talked about today, which illustrates just how famous snipers could become during World War 2. This is one aspect in which Inglourious Basterds is very true to real life, and Zoller's inspirations highlight this link.
Are Other Inglorious Basterds Characters Real People?
Despite taking place in an alternate reality, Inglourious Basterds' true story aspects can be seen in other characters. Unlike Frederick Zoller being a fictional amalgamation of different people, several characters are real-life figures of the era. Of course, the most notable example is Adolf Hitler (Martin Wuttke), he chief villain of the movie. Tarantino uses Hitler's presence sparingly, showing him frustrated by the Basterds Nazi-killing tactics. However, it pays off with the bold and crowd-pleasing idea of Hitler being killed off at the end of Inglourious Basterds, along with his underling Joseph Goebbels.
However, it is not just the German side of the story that features real-life figures. In one sequence, the audience is introduced to British commando Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender) who relayed the plan of teaming with the Basterds to attack the movie premiere. While Hicox is told the plan by his commanding officer General Ed Fenech, Hicox is more surprised to see Prime Minister Winston Churchill (Rod Taylor) sitting in on the top-secret meeting.
Tarantino clearly doesn't expect people to leave the movie thinking Inglourious Basterds is pure fact, however, he uses those real-life figures in the story brilliantly to convince audiences they are watching a WWII story. The fictional characters in the movie have an outlandish, albeit entertaining, way about them that could make it seem like this is a heightened reality from the beginning. The appearances of Hitler and Churchill allow the audience to experience the fun of seeing these fictional characters operate in the real setting of the war and subsequently changing the course of history.
