The murderers are among us
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The murderers are among us |
 | |
| Country of production | Germany (Soviet Zone) |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1946 |
| length | 85 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 (original: 12) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Wolfgang Staudte |
| script | Wolfgang Staudte |
| production | Herbert Uhlich |
| music | Ernst Roters |
| camera |
Friedl Behn-Grund , Eugen Klagemann |
| cut | Hans Heinrich |
| occupation | |
| |
The Murderers Are Among Us is the first German feature film in post-war history and the first German debris film . Direction and script are by Wolfgang Staudte . Hildegard Knef , Ernst Wilhelm Borchert , Erna Sellmer and Arno Paulsen are cast in the leading roles .
action
The film is set in bombed Berlin in 1945 . The young photographer and illustrator Susanne Wallner ( Hildegard Knef ), a concentration camp survivor, is returning to Berlin after the war . In her old apartment in an apartment building, she finds the former military surgeon Dr. Hans Mertens ( Ernst Wilhelm Borchert ) and the circumstances forced them to both become roommates. With broken windows, few possessions and the other deficiencies in the post-war period, only a very meager life is possible in the apartment.
Hans suffers from terrible war memories and is an alcoholic . He only has sarcasm for his fellow human beings. While Susanne tries to return to normal, Hans is not yet ready and gets drunk regularly. Only slowly does he develop friendly and then loving feelings for her. Susanne also falls in love with him and waits for him to open up to her.
Susanne accidentally falls into the hands of a farewell letter for the wife of Hans' former captain Ferdinand Brückner. When Susanne asks him whether he has forgotten it, Hans reacts aggressively and screams to her that he deliberately did not deliver it. Later, Hans apologizes to her, and Susanne brings the letter to Brückner's wife ( Erna Sellmer ). In the process, she learns that Brückner ( Arno Paulsen ), who was believed to be dead, survived, and Hans is shocked when he hears this again from Susanne. Nevertheless, he agrees to meet Brückner again.
Brückner is a popular citizen and successful businessman who produces saucepans from old steel helmets. He is delighted to see his "war comrade" Mertens again and invites him to dinner. Together with his wife and sons, he leads a good middle-class life again. At a later occasion, Brückner suggests that Hans go to a dance hall with pretty girls. Hans guides Brückner through a lonely area where he wants to shoot him. At that moment they meet a worried mother who needs a doctor for her sick daughter. After some hesitation, Hans performs an emergency operation to save the girl. Meanwhile, Brückner has fun with the ladies in the dance hall.
The feeling of having saved a life leads to a lightening of Hans's mood. But on Christmas Eve 1945 his mood darkened again. He leaves the shared apartment and tells Susanne that he still has something to do. The memory of Christmas Eve 1942 comes back to Hans. Brückner shot 121 civilians - men, women and children - from a Polish village. Hans had tried in vain to dissuade him. Then Brückner celebrated Christmas Eve carefree with his soldiers. Hans waits for Brückner's Christmas party and announces that he will be shot. Brückner, who considers himself innocent, is saved by the appearance of Susanne. She had read Hans' diary and had an inkling of what he was up to. As if purified, Hans concludes that one cannot judge oneself, but must accuse. In the final scene, various motifs are superimposed: murdered civilians, Brückner in prison, soldiers and mass graves.
Film shoot
Filming began on March 16, 1946 (two months before DEFA was founded ). and lasted until August 1946. The shooting took place in the Althoff studios in Babelsberg , the Jofa studios in Berlin-Johannisthal and at numerous outdoor locations (Stettiner Bahnhof, Andreasplatz , Kleine Andreasstraße, Petri-Kirche, sample samples on the Brandenburg Gate and in front of the Parliament).
The film crew shot right in the ruins of the city. The result was impressive images that reinforce the effect and plot of the film. The working title was The Man I Will Kill , which had to be renamed because the script was rewritten. In the original version, Mertens kills his old captain, but the Soviet censors feared that the audience might see it as a call to vigilante justice.
The film was premiered on October 15, 1946 in the Soviet sector of Berlin in the Admiralspalast , which at that time housed the German State Opera ( see also: Cultural-political events in 1946 in the Soviet zone of occupation ). The film was first shown in the western occupation zones on April 10, 1947 in Baden-Baden .
On television, the film was by the German television broadcast of the GDR even during the "official test program" aired on November 1, 1955; in the Federal Republic of Germany first on December 18, 1971 by ARD .
Reviews
Wolfgang Staudte received mostly positive reviews for the film. He dealt not only with the German past, but also with his own past - Staudte had played a supporting role in the Nazi propaganda film Jud Suss . It is sometimes criticized that the appearance of film characters in suits and fashionable clothes did not correspond to the living situation of the Berliners of the time (especially the rubble women and the concentration camp survivors), an accusation that is not credible in view of the production period.
Quotes in other films
Lars von Trier quoted several scenes from Staudte's film in his feature film Europe .
literature
- Rudolf Aurich: The murderers are among us. Analysis, work instructions, materials. Series Film and History of the Lower Saxony State Media Office and Society for Film Studies eV, Hanover, 1: German feature films of the post-war years 1946–1950, Volume 1. Friedrich, Seelze 1995.
- Heinz Baumert, Hermann Herlinghaus (ed.): 20 years of DEFA feature film. An illustrated book with 400 photos: from “The murderers are among us” to “As long as there is life in me”. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1968.
- The murderers are among us (audio recordings). 1946 - the first German post-war film ; a film by Thomas Pfaff and Paul Eisel. West German Broadcasting Corporation, Cologne 1996.
Web links
- Murderers Among Us in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The murderers are among us at filmportal.de (including world premiere posters, contemporary articles, photos)
- The murderers are among us at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ Eva Orbanz & Hans Helmut Prinzler (ed.): Staudte. P. 265, Berlin 1991, ISBN 3-89166-096-0 .
- ^ CineGraph - Lexicon for German-language film - Wolfgang Staudte
- ↑ The murderers are among us at deutscher-tonfilm.de ( Memento from December 13, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Martin Lampprecht: Layers of debris, layers of text. Lars von Trier's early neo-rubble films . German as a foreign language, November 2014, ISSN 1470-9570 , p. 110 (pdf; 230 kB).