Four of the earliest post-war German movies dealing with World War II are packaged together here in this new release from First Run Features.  The Anti-Nazi box set, however, is more than just a historic curiosity or a collection of films more notable for when and where they were made than for anything else.  No, it’s a collection of four quality movies.  Which are as follows:

  The Murderers Are Among Us (********8/10)

Year:  1946
Genre:  Drama, Romance, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Ernst Wilhelm Borchert, Hildegard Knef, Arno Paulsen 
Director:  Wolfgang Staudte
Run time:  85 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     The first movie made in post-World War II Germany, The Murderers Are Among Us follows two people trying to rebuild their lives following the war.  Susanne returns home to Berlin after being released from a concentration camp to find a man named Dr. Mertens living in her apartment.  His home has been destroyed by bombs, and neither of them has anywhere else to go.  They find a way to live together, then form a sort of tentative bond, then eventually fall in love.

     They fall in love, I think, because it’s a movie and that’s what people did in movies in 1946.  He loves her because she’s super hot and waits on him hand and foot and tends to his every need.  She loves him because…he broods a lot and drinks to ease his tortured psyche?  No…Susanne falls in love with Dr. Mertens because it’s in the script.  That’s it.

     That’s my one complaint about the film.  But setting the implausible love affair aside, it plays only a small part in an otherwise stark but excellent movie.  The two protagonists aer interesting.  Dr. Mertens has come back from the front where he was a soldier.  Susanne has returned from a concentration camp.  And yet she seems vastly less damaged, mentally, by the war than he is.  She is the one who provides the strength for him to conquer his demons.

     His one, biggest demon, it turns out, is his former army commanding officer Captain Bruckner.  Bruckner ordered the massacre of dozens of people, including women and children, on Christmas Day in 1942 in Poland.  It’s a little simplistic to think that killing Captain Bruckner will exorcise all of Mertens’ demons, but that ends up being his plan when he meets up with Bruckner again by chance.  The captain is now selling pots in Berlin (pots made from what used to be Nazi helmets).

     And that is the best reason to see this movie.  Horrible, inhuman monsters return home to become pot salesmen.  The city of Berlin is a complete ruin.  (The movie was shot in the real ruins of Berlin, which is something incredible to see.)  And the awkwardness between all the people – the two main characters and the secondary ones and the bit players who pass by – is tangible.

     Susanne is played by Hildegard Knef, who has an amazing story herself – she was a POW during the war where she disguised herself as a boy, and after this movie she did the very first nude scene in German movie history.  No nudity in The Murderers Are Among Us though.  Just harsh, brutal reality.

  The Gleiwitz Case (********8/10)

Year:  1961
Genre:  Drama, History, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Christoph Bayertt, Hannjo Hasse, Georg Leopold
Director:  Gerhard Klein
Run time:  70 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Perhaps the most interesting movie in the box, from a historical perspective.  This is the true story of ”The Gleiwitz Incident“, an attack on a German radio station staged by German soldiers posing as Poles in 1939.  That way, Germany could say they were “attacked” by “Poland”, and respond with force – the invasion that led to the start of the second World War.

     This wonderfully shot black-and-white movie lays out the German plan meticulously in great detail, without becoming stale or feeling like one of those made-forTV re-enactments.  While the outcome of that plan is a foregone conclusion, the politics and personalities that put it into action are fascinating, and this one is a must-see for those who are into the history of World War II.

  I Was Nineteen (*********9/10)

Year:  1968
Genre:  Drama, History, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Jaecki Schwarz, Vasili Livanov
Director:  Konrad Wolf
Run time:  115 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     A semi-autobiographical movie from director Konrad Wolf, I Was Nineteen is the story of a 19-year-old (obviously) German soldier fighting for the Russian army.  Gregor Hecker fled the Nazi regime with his family, settling in Russia.  Now a lieutenant in the Russian army, he returns to Germany as part of the victorious Russian force, and deals with some craziness. 

      That craziness includes Germans who refuse to surrender, and Germans who do surrender and then turn guns on their own army to help the Russians.  When young Gregor gets on the phone to try to convince a German officer that yes, in fact, the Russians have captured a platoon, that officer thinks he’s a German soldier who is drunk and refuses to allow the platoon to surrender.  Gregor, as the best German speaker in the Russian unit, makes the loudspeaker announcements trying to convince the Germans to surrender.  He is also the one sent in as a translator to the most perilous situations.

     There are angry citizens, happy citizens, and philosophizing Nazis all over the place.  The film does a wonderful job of capturing the chaos surrounding the fall of the Third Reich, from a Russian soldier’s point of view and also from a native German’s point of view.  Gregor, of course, is both.  There is a blind German soldier who believes Gregor to be one of his fellow infantrymen because all he can hear is his voice.  There is a surprise attack from German forces who have stolen Russian army uniforms and a tank.

     It’s chaotic, it’s confusing at times, but that’s appropriate.  I Was Nineteen is the best film in this box set, and one of the great war films I’ve seen from post-war Germany.

  Naked Among Wolves (*********9/10)

Year:  1963
Genre:  Drama, War
Country:  Germany
Language:  German w/ English subtitles
Starring:  Armin Mueller-Stahl, Fred Delmare, Erwin Geschonneck, Krystyn Wojcik 
Director:  Frank Beyer
Run time:  116 minutes
DVD distributor:  First Run Features

     Naked Among Wolves is the only film on this box set with a star most people might recognize.  Armin Mueller-Stahl is a well-known actor thanks to his recent work in Eastern Promises, The Game, The Peacemaker and many other Hollywood movies.  This is one of his earliest films, and it is also the first post-war German film to depict life in a concentration camp.

     Mueller-Stahl plays Hofel, a prisoner at Buchenwald in the closing days of the war.  The prisoners suddenly find themselves with a problem – a young Jewish child has been smuggled into the camp by a Polish prisoner (presumably because NOT smuggling the child into the camp would have ensured death).  Now Hofel and the other prisoners must protect the kid while still working on their own resistance plan.

     The most interesting part of Naked Among Wolves is the dynamic between the prisoners and the guards.  As it becomes increasingly clear that the war is unwinnable for Germany, the prisoners start to become more and more powerful – if the camp is liberated, and the freed men say that one officer in particular was kind to them, that officer might be treated better by his eventual captors.  The prisoners now have the power to threaten their jailers, and it’s a fascinating relationship that develops. 

     It’s another magnificent movie, wonderfully acted and actually funny at times.  Another must see on an excellent box set.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 8:54 am and is filed under 1946, 1961, 1963, 1968, Drama, History, Romance, War. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.