Wrack and Ruin
Continuing their exploration of the back catalogue of East Germany’s DEFA studio following their Mabuse Lives!, Terror in the Fog and Strange New Worlds releases, the latest Blu-ray box set to join Eureka’s Masters of Cinema collection is Wrack and Ruin, pulled from the immediate postwar period and collectively regarded as Trümmerfilme or “rubble films,” depicting the struggle of a proud nation to rebuild itself and find a new identity.
Included in the three disc set are The Murderers Are Among Us (director Wolfgang Staudte, 1946), Somewhere in Berlin (dir. Gerhard Lamprecht, 1946), Police Raid (dir. Werner Klingler, 1947), Marriage in the Shadows (dir. Kurt Maetzig, 1947) and The Blum Affair (dir. Erich Engel, 1948), the picture quality varying due to the circumstances of the original productions and the nature of the archive material, but all considered “socially, culturally and historically important” and supported by commentaries, interviews, video essays and contemporary newsreels.
The first German feature film produced after the conclusion of World War II, The Murderers Are Among Us (Die Mörder sind unter uns) sees concentration camp survivor Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef) return to the broken remains of her pre-war apartment, now occupied by alcoholic former military surgeon Hans Mertens (Ernst Wilhelm Borchert).
Unable to practice following trauma tied to a specific incident, Hans had believed his commanding officer Ferdinand Brückner (Arno Paulsen) had died in the war, but when Susanne ascertains that he is still alive, an industrialist living in Berlin, Hans determines that he must make retribution for those innocents who were unjustly executed under his watch.
A film of atonement, of regret, of the wounded limping home to the ruins of their former lives, as the artist Susanne, Knef is natural in her honesty and kindness, resolute and as she tries to move forward, the film specifically acknowledging Auschwitz and was crimes committed in the field, while Borchert gives a more anguished performance as Mertens.
Post-expressionist in his tormented flashbacks, she looks to the future as he is held hostage by the past, unable to bear blood or suffering, locked away in his room in a stupor but forced by circumstance to engage with the present, the film pulling itself out of a justified nihilism to a confrontation on Christmas Eve, the anniversary of the incident, Brückner who now profits post-war becoming a symbol of the collective guilt which must be purged.
Similar in setting and style, people scrabbling to rebuild their lives in the ruined city streets in the days and months following the armistice, Somewhere in Berlin (Irgendwo in Berlin) is told through the eyes of children, Gustav (Charles Brauer), his mother Grete (Hedda Sarnow), his friend Willi (Hans Trinkhaus) who stays with a shopkeeper involved in the black market.
His father held as a prisoner of war, Gustav hopes his release will signal a return to the way things were, but Paul Iller (Harry Hindemith) is a broken shadow of a man, exhausted, prone to flights of unprovoked anger, matters complicated by the tangled web of the needy around them, purloined food and goods and a stolen wallet.
A chain of supply and demand, Willi stealing fireworks from his benefactor who stole them in the first place, many of the acts are well-intentioned, but there is a malicious presence in the community, Waldemar (Fritz Rasp) a thief who serves none but himself, taking what he wants with no consideration of the damage he does or for those who carry the grim repercussions.
Another film of atonement and forgiveness, of a society rebuilding not only homes but unity, the cynical elders look down on the children of the streets, wilful, disobedient and violent, but in the circumstances how can they be anything other than what they were made to be, orphans of rubble become the soiled angelic innocence of a wounded nation struggling to be reborn.
The black market a thriving industry in post-war Berlin, trading in food, cigarettes, spirits and now vital medicines, creating a two-tier society where the poor are at a huge disadvantage, stolen goods which should be widely available sold at inflated prices, Kriminalkommissar Friedrich Naumann (Paul Bildt) is in charge of breaking the gangs in Police Raid (Razzia), aided by his lieutenants Karl Lorenz and Heinz Becker (Claus Holm and Heinz Welzel).
Lorenz having lost everything in the war, while he has remained true to his calling and duty Becker is involved with the shrill and manipulative Yvonne (Nina Konsta), ultrasonic singer at the Alibaba, owned by Goll (Harry Frank), mastermind behind the black market which operates out of nightclub basement, Naumann murdered when he comes too close to evidence which would close them down for good.
Still set in the same environment, the third film moves forward to a more “functional” place, or possibly dysfunctional, the authorities trying to establish order but beleaguered and assailed on all sides, even Naumann’s son Paul (Friedhelm von Petersson) tempted by the money on offer when he is unable to find work as a musician, a refusal of all that his father stood for but his options limited in the post-war economy of greed.
The film slow rather than gripping, it is more commercial with aspects of a thriller rather than a social drama, but beyond the opulence of the Alibaba built atop a dripping basement of cold brick the shades of grey are on a spectrum rather than distinct, most everyone a victim in some way, betrayed, compromised, by choice, by necessity, by circumstance, struggling to survive, though fortunately a few have put the greater good ahead of themselves.
Taking place across a period of ten years from 1933 onwards, Marriage in the Shadows (Ehe im Schatten) is technically a significant step up and moves from the slums and the underworld to the theatre, Hans Wieland (Paul Klinger) a successful actor whose wife, Elisabeth Maurer (Ilse Steppat), is marginalised by the creeping restrictions placed upon the Jewish population.
She forbidden from performing and forced to take factory work and he frowned upon for his refusal to do the expedient thing and divorce Elisabeth, the initial promises of “protecting German culture” give way to the inevitable cleansing of anything which is considered against the party interests, Hans relatively protected but at first failing to understand the threat, while Elisabeth’s uncle, a doctor, refuses to leave and abandon his patients.
A more opulent time, even in decay, on the downslide, Elisabeth wearing satin gowns even in her depression, the structure is frustrating with the Kristallnacht of 1938 followed by an five-year jump in the narrative, the outbreak of war and all that followed moving to the nightly bombings of the end days, the Berlin population sheltering but Uncle Louis (Willy Prager) forced to remain unseen lest he be recognised and arrested, hiding out in ruined buildings.
Inspired by the story of the actor Joachim Gottschalk and his Jewish wife Meta Wolff, it is a frustrating film which becomes a maudlin melodrama, Elisabeth supposedly one of the foremost actors of her age yet never thinking to change her appearance so she can attend a premiere with her husband unnoticed and neither she nor Hans able to conceive of contriving an escape, actors who apparently need someone else to write their scenes for them.
Closing the collection, The Blum Affair (Affaire Blum) is also inspired by a true story, the 1926 trial of a German Jewish industrialist, fictionalised as what begins as the missing persons case of Wilhelm Platzer (Arno Paulsen) who responded to a newspaper advert for a role as a rural bank manager but was murdered and robbed by former soldier Karl-Heinz Gabler (Hans Christian Blech), desperate for money, the body buried in his cellar.
The act witnessed by his fiancé Christina Burmann (Gisela Trowe), she is intimidated into silence, and the investigation of Kriminalkommissar Schwerdtfeger (Ernst Waldow) learns that Platzer was allegedly dismissed by his former employer, Jakob Blum (Kurt Ehrhardt), when he discovered discrepancies in the bookkeeping; despite no evidence being found and Gabler being an unreliable witness who is led in his accusations and testimony after his arrest for passing cheques under the guise of Platzer, the guilt of Doctor Blum is presumed and must now only be demonstrated after the fact.
A condemnation of the prejudice of the police and the legal system, only through Blum’s wife Sabine (Karin Evans) using her connections to secure a parallel investigation by Berlin detective Otto Bonte (Alfred Schieske) are questions raised in the case, yet he is unwelcome, denied access by Schwerdtfeger who is convinced of his intellectual supremacy and the guilt of the Jew and his Communist associates, a film which is frustrating in a different way.
An innocent man condemned by circumstance, speculation, lies and the prevailing political temperament, of the five films comprising Wrack and Ruin it is The Blum Affair which speaks most pertinently to the present, well-constructed, intelligently written and with an ensemble who all carry their parts well, some with dignity and others with obstinacy, a warning from the past which continues to ring as loudly as the bell on Platzer’s stolen bicycle.
Wrack and Ruin is available on Blu-ray from Eureka now
