Germany, Year Zero
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Germany, Year Zero (Germania anno zero) is a 1948 film directed by Roberto Rossellini, and is the final film in Rossellini's unofficial war film trilogy, following Rome, Open City and Paisà. Germany Year Zero takes place in Allied-occupied Germany, unlike the others, which take place in German-occupied Rome and during the Allied invasion of Italy, respectively.
As in many neorealist films, Rossellini used mainly local, non-professional actors. He filmed on locations in Berlin and intended to convey the reality in Germany the year after its near total destruction in World War II. It contains dramatic images of bombed out Berlin and of the human struggle for survival following the destruction of Nazi Germany. When explaining his ideas about realism in an interview, he said, "realism is nothing other than the artistic form of truth."
Plot
Twelve-year-old Edmund Köhler lives in devastated, Allied-occupied Berlin with his ailing, bedridden father and his adult siblings, Eva and Karl-Heinz. Eva manages to obtain cigarettes by going out with soldiers of the Allied forces, but she resists others' expectations to prostitute herself. Karl-Heinz is the older son who fought in the war and is a burden to the struggling family, refusing to register with the police and get a ration card because he is afraid of what would happen if they found out he fought to the bitter end. The Köhlers and others have been assigned to the apartment home of the Rademachers by the housing authority, much to Mr. Rademacher's irritation.
Edmund does what he can for his family, trying to find work and selling a scale for Mr. Rademacher on the black market. By chance, Edmund meets Herr Henning, his former school teacher, who still remains a Nazi at heart. Henning gives him a recording of Hitler to sell to the occupying soldiers, entrusting him to the more experienced Jo and Christl. Henning gives Edmund 10 marks for his work. Afterward, Edmund tags along as the young man Jo steals 40 marks from a woman by pretending to sell her a bar of soap. Jo gives Edmund some of his stolen potatoes and leaves the inexperienced boy with Christl, whom another member of their gang describes as a mattress that dispenses cigarettes.
After Mr. Köhler takes a turn for the worse, Henning tells Edmund that life is cruel and that the weak should be sacrificed so that the strong can survive. A kindly doctor manages to get Mr. Köhler admitted to a hospital, where he receives much more plentiful and healthy food. This temporarily relieves some of the pressure on his family. When Edmund goes to see his father, the old man bemoans his misery. He tells his son that he has considered suicide but lacks the courage to carry it out. He says that he is a burden and that it would be better if he were dead. Edmund steals some poison while no one is looking.
A few days later, the father is discharged and returns home. Edmund poisons his tea just before police raid the apartment and Karl-Heinz finally turns himself in. The father dies while his elder son is in custody. Everyone assumes the death is due to malnutrition and sickness. When Karl-Heinz returns, he is crushed by the news.
A disturbed Edmund wanders the city. He turns first to Christl, but she is busy with young men and has no time for or interest in a youngster. He goes to Henning and confesses that he did as the schoolteacher had suggested, murdering his father, but Henning protests that he never told the boy to kill anyone. When Edmund tries to join younger children in a street game of football, they reject him. He ascends the ruins of a bombed out building, and watches from a hole in the wall as they take his father's coffin away across the street. Finally, after hearing his sister call for him, he jumps from the building to his death.
Cast
- Edmund Moeschke as Edmund Köhler (as Edmund Meschke)
- Ernst Pittschau as Mr. Köhler
- Ingetraud Hinze as Eva Köhler (as Ingetraud Hinz)
- Franz-Otto Krüger as Karl-Heinz Köhler (as Franz Grüger)
- Erich Gühne as Herr Henning, the (former) teacher
