I recently discovered an interesting detail in Saving Private Ryan (1998), which is arguably the best war movie ever made.

Readers familiar with the movie will doubtless remember the brutal scene depicting the landing at Omaha Beach. Once the Americans establish their stronghold, two enemy soldiers throw their hands up and surrender. They plead for mercy, but the responding Americans claim not to understand them, shoot them dead, and mock them afterwards.

The movie has no subtitles when characters speak in languages other than English. But given the context, it’s natural for the audience to assume, as the American soldiers do, that those surrendering were German. However, it turns out what they were really saying was: “Please don’t shoot me! I am not German, I am Czech, I didn’t kill anyone! I am Czech!”

Spielberg included this detail knowing that it would mostly go over audiences’ heads. And I suppose it is beside the point. While Czechs were conscripted into the German army (after it conquered Czechoslovakia in 1939), so were many Germans. Nevertheless, the scene makes their deaths seem even more tragic, since if the Americans had known their nationality, they may have spared them.