As the first feature film produced after the Second World War, Die Mörder sind unter uns (1945) provides bone-chilling insight into the processes of healing and reconciliation after the horrors of the Third Reich. The film consciously breaks from the popular style of the Nazi and prewar eras. Certainly, it borrows from the styles of the German expressionists in its dark themes and its use of light to accentuate the characters emotions, but certain extreme camera angles and bright settings represent a clear break from the kind of film that had been popular up until this point.

The sets are all real scenes of destruction, imagined while the destruction was still taking place. The director, Wolfgang Staudte, was motivated to write the script during the final weeks of the war, while the Nazis still held power and could have punished him, had his manuscripts been uncovered. At the end of the war, he presented his ideas to the occupying forces and was accepted by Soviet officials. They made him make a few changes. For instance, the film was originally entitled “The Man I Want to Kill” to describe the male character’s intentions and Soviet officials feared an outbreak of vigilantism.

The film is set in 1945. The protagonist, Susanne Wallner returns from the concentration camps to her apartment in Berlin to find it occupied by the veteran surgeon Mertens, who drinks to cope with his own traumatic experiences. They decide to share the space and Susanne helps Mertens to regain some sense of his former self, until he meets Bruckner. Bruckner represses his conscience, apparently having no qualms about whether he is turning army helmets in to kitchenware or the other way around. Mertens cannot handle Bruckner’s attitudes. Come Christmas, Mertens feels he must seek atonement for the lives he destroyed under Bruckner’s orders during the war. Bruckner is a war criminal, and with Susanne’s help, Mertens realizes that Buckner should face the postwar tribunals.

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