Nicht alle waren Mörder

One of the many attempts by German creators to come to terms with German guilt in World War II and the Holocaust. It's a strong theme, but something doesn't add up for me in the script. Berlin was mainly cleansed of Jews because they were, so to speak, within reach, and also because of their properties, apartments, and belongings, which others plundered. Berlin was the target of systematic bombings, so Jewish apartments would have been a very valuable commodity. It seems highly unlikely to me that the characters were not condemned to deportation to the concentration camp until 1943. The script heavily relies on a stroke of luck, which was hardly possible in reality. Germany was a highly centralized police-totalitarian state and the repressive apparatus successfully caught practically all suspects until the front arrived. Many deserters from spring 1945 would testify to that if they could. Czech resistance fighters with extensive experience in illegality claimed that surviving in illegality was possible for a maximum of two years, and that's only in the anonymity of a big city and if one could rely on an illegal network of helpers. Durable survival in a hiding place was, of course, possible, but it had to be in one place without moving around. Controls on public transportation and, of course, cars were common. There is also a scene in the movie where the mother escapes a confrontation with two Gestapo officers. I strongly doubt that in reality they would have been so naive as to be deceived by a poor-quality counterfeit. The Gestapo functioned as a well-oiled machine mainly because it could rely on a very large army of informants and denouncers. I participated in a historical project on the Protectorate period during my high school studies, searched through archives, and marveled at the advertisements of local Gestapo offices that urgently asked citizens not to flood the Gestapo with trivial denouncements and to focus only on truly serious crimes. The willingness to denounce and harm others not for ideological reasons, but out of envy, anger, and vengefulness, was fascinating. It was quite similar throughout the entire territory of the Third Reich. Otherwise, in terms of acting, it is a decent film, and Nadja Uhl is one of the top German actresses working today. Overall impression: 50%. (28.06.2009)