The collapse of socialism and the fall of the Berlin Wall allowed for vast amounts of information that was previously classified to be revealed to the public. One of the many favorable consequences of this is that at least three outstanding movies were made portraying life in East Germany and during the Nazi regime, based partly on information held in formerly classified documents.
The first is Sophie Scholl: The Final Days, which documents the arrest, trial, and execution of Sophie Scholl, a founder and leading member of the White Rose Nazi resistance movement. This movie is an unofficial sequel to The White Rose, a movie that dealt with the actual anti-Nazi resistance activities Hans and Sophie Scholl and a number of accomplices undertook in 1942 and 1943. Sophie Scholl: The Final Days is based on transcripts of the arrest, interrogation and trial of Sophie that were uncovered from once classified documents held by the Stasi, the German Democratic Rebpublic's (GDR) ("Democratic" - huh!) secret police. The film, which is primarily about Sophie Scholl, shows the courage and principle she portrayed throughout her ordeal.
The second movie is Der Tunnel (The Tunnel), a film (loosely) based on the true account of Hasso Herschel who dug a tunnel under the Berlin Wall that allowed a number of East Germans to escape to the West. The movie is well done and does a good job of exposing the uncivil and inhumane actions of the Stasi and the East German army that murdered innocent people whose only crime was the desire to escape the authoritarian regime in East Germany.
The final movie is The Lives of Others, a semi-fictional account based on the life of the scriptwriter. The story is about the covert spying by the Stasi on an East German playwright accused of passing information to the West. In real life the scriptwriter alleges that his former wife provided information about his resistance activities to the Stasi while they were married.
All three are worth viewing.
Mark--good calls on the last two--both are excellent films. Haven't seen the first one yet.
Posted by: Frank | September 20, 2009 at 07:08 AM