Historical Background
The Train is based on the factual 1961 book Le front de l'art by Rose Valland, the art historian at the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, who documented the works of art placed in storage there that had been looted by the Germans from museums and private art collections throughout France and were being sorted for shipment to Germany in World War II.
In contrast to the action and drama depicted in the film, the shipment of art that the Germans were attempting to take out of Paris on August 1, 1944 was held up by the French Resistance with an endless barrage of paperwork and red tape and made it no farther than a railyard a few miles outside Paris.
German veterans' organizations, including the SS veterans' group HIAG, objected to Wehrmacht soldiers being depicted casually executing hostages and Resistance members in the film. They said that SS or uniformed Sicherheitspolizei (the Sicherheitsdienst and Gestapo) personnel should have been used for those scenes.
Read more about this topic: The Train (1964 film)
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