Hans Fallada

Alone in Berlin

Berlin in June of 1940. While Nazi propaganda celebrates the regime’s victory over France, a kitchen-cum-living room in Prenzlauer Berg is filled with grief. Anna and Otto Quangel’s son has been killed at the front. This working class couple had long believed in the ‘Führer’ and followed him willingly, but now they realise that his promises are nothing but lies and deceit. They begin writing postcards as a form of resistance and in a bid to raise awareness: Stop the war machine! Kill Hitler! Putting their lives at risk, they distribute these cards in the entrances of tenement buildings and in stairwells. But the SS and the Gestapo are soon onto them, and even their neighbours pose a threat.

Der Trinker

Hans Fallada tells in his published after the war novel "The drinker" the story of the agricultural wholesaler Erwin Sommer, who flees from his narrow bourgeois relations under the burdens of the new times in the kingdom of the king alcohol, whose liberty and independence promises prove a lie - the only truth of the alcohol. On behalf of the WDR television play Ulrich Plenzdorf has adapted Fallada's 1944/45 novel for a film adaptation by Tom Toelle with Harald Juhnke in the main role of Erwin Sommer.

Everyone Dies Alone

When they start losing family members and neighbors due to WWII and the Nazi government's policies, a quiet married couple becomes disillusioned and begins spreading leaflets against the government - a crime punishable by death.

Wer einmal aus dem Blechnapf frisst

After serving five years Willi soon learns that his new life is another kind of prison since no one trusts an ex-convict. His uphill struggle for a job and shattered hopes of a normal existence grind him down to utter despair.

Altes Herz geht auf die Reise

The underage Rosemarie is still too young to run her inherited farm by herself; but she's more than aware that her foster father and the farm's administrator, the farmer Schlieker, is constantly skimming from the farm's finances to line his own pocket. To put an end to Schlieker's scheme, Rosemarie asks her godfather, Professor Kittgus, for help. But when Kittgus confronts Schlieker, the farmer not only proves to be unreasonable but also violent...

Little Man, What Now?

A young couple struggling against poverty must keep their marriage a secret in order for the husband to keep his job, as his boss doesn't like to hire married men.

Kleiner Mann – was nun?

First adaptation of Hans Fallada's novel of the same name.