Fritz Wagner
Wassa Schelesnowa, a manipulative matriarch who will stop at nothing to keep her business afloat and her family together. Infanticide, forgery, murder, blackmail, adultery, exile, and plain old-fashioned greed are the order of the day as Wassa's colorful clan tries to scheme its way out of the house and into financial independence.
The film is based on a true story, concerning a series of robberies on the highways of Germany. At the time of the actual events, there was a controversy over whether or not highway patrolmen should be given permission to use firearms against perpetrators.
After many years on the oceans, sailor Hannes Wedderkamp has finally returned to Hamburg. On St. Pauli, Hannes sings songs from the sea in the hippodrome of his best friend Pitter Breuer on the Reeperbahn with the "Quetschkommode" songs and cares for the audience.
The friends Jochen and Gerd both work at the fashion boutique "Saxonia", which has only recently designed a new collection. Therefore, Jochen and Gerd are shocked when they meet two young ladies during their well-deserved holiday who are already dressed in two of the new pieces. And as if that was not enough, they pass the creations off as their own, even though they are employed at the competing company "Berolina". Naturally, the two men refuse to let the matter rest, although they do not actually want to raise a quarrel with the pretty ladies. After some turbulent entanglements they become aware of the foolishness of their squabbling and, eventually, the four of them present the disputed designs as a co-production at the fashion fair in Leipzig.
This is the directorial debut of Artur Pohl and tells the story of war refugees as they try to settle in a small town in Germany.
Due to complicity in a robbery raid the young Ursula comes to a detention center, in which the education is hard since she is considered a serious offender. In a joint outbreak, she gains the respect of the other girls.
A screenwriter comes up with a story about an affair between a maid and her employer.
Told in seven chapters, Käutner’s first postwar film portrays the lives of average people overwhelmed and traumatized by the impact of fascism. Käutner uses the framing device of an automobile whose various owners serve as the film’s protagonists and initiate its episodic structure. The characters represent an interesting cross-section of the German people including a deserting soldier, a Jewish couple and a composer who has been labeled as subversive. During a time when most Germans wanted to forget the past, Käutner eschewed the controlled setting of the UFA studios and chose to film in the bombed out streets of Berlin, crafting a humanistic rendering of recent history.
After the war, infinite numbers of refugees leave in search of a new home. They now stand in the hall of a large mansion, waiting to receive their deeds of ownership for sections of land that the lord of the manor had left behind after he fled. Among them is the young Jeruscheit who, during her travels, had to bury one of her own children. Her husband has been declared missing, and up until now she has had little purpose in life. But then she discovers it: to work, to build, and to help others. And maybe someday Jeruscheit will find her family.
