***SPOILERS*** Italian director Reborto Rossellini's film depicting post WWII Germany that was a living hell for the German people who survived the war. It's been estimated that as much as 10 million Germans died,mostly from starvation and disease, during the five years after the German surrender in May 1945. A shocking number which was almost if not more then those who died during the entire length,some six years, of WWII. It's Berlin Germany in the Summer of 1947 and life is hell for the German people who live there. Bearly surviving and with death and starvation staring them in the face many Berliners have to steal get involved in the black market as well as prostitute themselves in order to get food and medicine to survive. The Kohel family is one of many whom the movie "Germany Year Zero" focuses on.
With the head of the family Mr. Kohler,Ernst Pittschau, practically on his death bed it's up to his two sons 13 year old Edmund, Edmund Meschke, and 25 year old former Afrika Corps infantryman Karl-Heinz, Franz-Otto Krugr, to bring home the bacon. There's also Eva Kohler, Ingetraud Hinez, who hangs out at the city's bars and nightclubs frequented by US and UK servicemen in order for them to buy her not only a drink but a square meal that she can take home and share with her on the verge of starving to death family.
With Karl-Heinz afraid to get a ration card and work permit in fear that his past as a German soldier who didn't surrender at the end of the war, that ended two years earlier, would be reviled and have him sent to a POW camp it's up to Edmund to go out and find work to support his family. It's Edmund's former teacher Herr Henning,Erich Guhne, who gets Edmund involved in the black market as well as puts Nazi or Darwinian like ideas, the survival of the fittest, into the young and impressionable German youths head that in the end turn out to be fatal for both him and his sickly dad Mr. Kolher. It's only later that Herr Henning realized what he did and tried to put the entire blame on Edmund who was just, like the Nazi leadership at the Nuremburg Trial claimed, following orders!
***SPOILERS*** It was Edmund who thought that he was doing his near dead father a favor by slipping poison in his tea and putting him out of his misery as well as life who ended up paying the ultimate price for his action. By him jumping off a bombed out Berlin building to his death at the conclusion of the movie thus leaving the cruel world that he finds himself in as well as his remaining family members behind.
P.S It was German first time actor Edmund Meschke's striking resemblance to the movie director Roberto Rossellni's recently deceased son Romano, who died in 1946 of appendicitis, that got him the leading part in the movie. In fact the film was dedicated to Rossellini's son in its ending credits.
With the head of the family Mr. Kohler,Ernst Pittschau, practically on his death bed it's up to his two sons 13 year old Edmund, Edmund Meschke, and 25 year old former Afrika Corps infantryman Karl-Heinz, Franz-Otto Krugr, to bring home the bacon. There's also Eva Kohler, Ingetraud Hinez, who hangs out at the city's bars and nightclubs frequented by US and UK servicemen in order for them to buy her not only a drink but a square meal that she can take home and share with her on the verge of starving to death family.
With Karl-Heinz afraid to get a ration card and work permit in fear that his past as a German soldier who didn't surrender at the end of the war, that ended two years earlier, would be reviled and have him sent to a POW camp it's up to Edmund to go out and find work to support his family. It's Edmund's former teacher Herr Henning,Erich Guhne, who gets Edmund involved in the black market as well as puts Nazi or Darwinian like ideas, the survival of the fittest, into the young and impressionable German youths head that in the end turn out to be fatal for both him and his sickly dad Mr. Kolher. It's only later that Herr Henning realized what he did and tried to put the entire blame on Edmund who was just, like the Nazi leadership at the Nuremburg Trial claimed, following orders!
***SPOILERS*** It was Edmund who thought that he was doing his near dead father a favor by slipping poison in his tea and putting him out of his misery as well as life who ended up paying the ultimate price for his action. By him jumping off a bombed out Berlin building to his death at the conclusion of the movie thus leaving the cruel world that he finds himself in as well as his remaining family members behind.
P.S It was German first time actor Edmund Meschke's striking resemblance to the movie director Roberto Rossellni's recently deceased son Romano, who died in 1946 of appendicitis, that got him the leading part in the movie. In fact the film was dedicated to Rossellini's son in its ending credits.