Nightmare in Berlin

Postwar Germany, Berlin. The first months of the city’s life after the country’s defeat in the Second World War. Poor everyday existence in a shattered city. The Germans are ruled by a complicated set of feelings: national humiliation, shame and remorse for committed crimes, fear of punishment, the nightmarish sense of being an object of universal hatred… And at the same time—love for their misled country, this “sick heart of Europe.” The hero Fallada is not personally guilty of war crimes, but he feels guilty for the weakness and lack of will of the whole nation. Listening to the Nürnberg tribunal reports about Nazi atrocities, he tells himself with horror that he didn’t know all of this—while, deep inside, he understands that even if he had known, he would still have done nothing to prevent it. “A Nightmare in Berlin” is a bitter and honest testimony from an eyewitness about the most shameful and tragic pages in the history of the German people.