Talking to the God of Tanks

The mysterious German “White Tiger” tank charges forth to ambush the protagonists from within a ruined Russian village.

Recently I started a post label called “Pagan-ish.” Now maybe I should make one called “animist-ish,” having watched the 2012 Russian movie White Tiger.

That is Tiger as in Tiger tank, not the big cat. This is a World War II movie. If you don’t like war movies, stop. If you are the kind who reacts with “T-34s in the mud. Cool!” then keep reading.

After an engagement with the Germans in which a Red Army armored unit is mostly destroyed, a Russian driver is found in his tank, badly burned but still alive. He makes a miraculous recovery but loses his memory—he remembers his military skills but forgets his name, personal history, and so forth.

He also talk to tanks. In one scene, he walks along a line of railroad flatcars carrying damaged Red Army tanks to the rear, and each one tells him, somehow, how it was knocked out.

A seemingly invincible German Tiger tank is wreaking havoc with Russian units, and the mysterious driver is given command of an upgraded T-34 and told to locate and destroy “the White Tiger.” Naydënov, the driver, believes that the Tank God warns him when he is in danger, and he also comes to think that the White Tiger is itself animated, not needing a human crew. Although he eventually engages and damages the White Tiger, it escapes.

After the German surrender, a Russian officer finds Naydënov still hunting the White Tiger.  He tells the tanker that the war over now. To quote Wikipedia,

But Naydënov disagrees, saying that the war will not truly end until the White Tiger is destroyed. Naydënov believes the White Tiger has gone into hiding and has been recovering from its wounds since their last battle. He claims it will return in several decades unless it is completely destroyed. Naydënov then vanishes along with his tank, seemingly into thin air.

At this point the movie becomes strange. In our normal linear history, Adolf Hitler is dead by then, but the final scene is a monologue between Hitler and some shadowy figure, sitting in an elegant office, in which the German leader talks about the “eternal struggle,” how all of Europe inwardly wanted Nazi German to attack the USSR, and how war is the normal human state.

It’s like additional dialog by Julius Evola. “The blood of the heroes is closer to God than the ink of the philosophers and the prayers of the faithful” — that kind of thing.

Considering that this is a Russian movie, it is the kind of twist that makes me wonder sometimes that although Germany lost the physical-plane war against the USSR, if it did not win on some other plane of existence. Eternal struggle . . .

2 thoughts on “Talking to the God of Tanks

  1. Pitch313

    Two additional pop culture takes on tanks:

    1.) DC Comics The Haunted Tank series. The spirit of J.E.B. Stuart is assigned to watch over and advise a namesake commander of a WWII tank. Sort of paranormal war stories.

    2.) The BOLO universe created by Keith Laumer. Through a long span of time, a series of increasingly capable and self-aware armored vehicles generally assist and even preserve the humans against a variety of hazards and enemies. Sort of techno/A.I. war stories.

    The White Tank reminds me most of Stephen King’s Christine–familiar technology possessed by malevolent forces.

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