I cannot exactly remember when I first saw this film, but it was quite some time ago, and I believe it was on like a late, late movie. I never forgot it, but many years passed before I saw it again on television. In more recent times, it has been shown on TCM (Turner Classic Movies), and somewhat ironically, I was working on this article, when I saw that it was scheduled to be shown on TCM over the Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately, I could not finish the article before it aired, but they do air it periodically and they also have it on TCM on Demand from time to time. It is well worth seeing. There are many good points made in the movie; things some folks have let slip from their memories as the years since 1945 have passed; or, political philosophy and tactics are just not recognized by many younger people born long after Hitler's defeat.
The movie was really "ahead of its time;" I mean literally, as it was filmed in late 1944, and it was only completed in early 1945, with its release coming in March of that year (Germany surrendered in early May). The central idea of the movie was the approaching end of the war in Germany, and since it was made while the war was still ongoing; and in fact, Hitler had unleashed a failed, but powerful offensive in mid December 1944, known to Americans as, "The Battle of the Bulge," the film's whole premise could have quickly dissolved in the face of real events. We have to remember, while we can look back now and see the German situation as totally lost, back then no one knew for sure what would happen, only that if the situation went forward as it was, Hitler's end was not far off. So the producers of the movie did take a gamble. There are no specific references in the movie to where the Allied and Soviet forces are, so the situation was left vague enough so as not to be painted into a corner. This is really a pretty good movie, with its major shortcoming being that they tried to cram too many characters into a 98 minute movie, but the characters of General von Dahnwitz and Professor Koenig are very good (see more below).
This film is based on the novel "Hotel Berlin '43" (yes, '43), by Vicki Baum,* but updated to a setting as the war nears its end in 1945. Like an earlier Baum novel which was made into an Academy Award winning movie, "Grand Hotel," this movie deals with a number of people at the hotel, including a German anti-Nazi escapee from Dachau concentration camp, Martin Richter, played by Helmut Dantine,** who is hiding out there, helped along by some anti-Nazis of the hotel staff, who give Richter a waiter's uniform, figuring that between the air raids and the busy hotel, he won't be noticed. The headwaiter sends him to actress Lisa Dorn's room (see further below), since she is so well known, he assumes the Gestapo will not search her room, although they do show up for a quick search, and one of the Gestapo men steals a bar of her scented soap, something that was likely a great luxury at that point in the war. Dorn is suspicious of her new waiter, but she thinks he is an undercover Gestapo agent, until she sees Richter's photo on a wanted poster in the hotel lobby. The Gestapo pursues Richter and others amidst Allied air raids, as Berlin prepares for the end. The Nazis are seemingly more concerned with their homegrown enemies, than with their enemies on the front lines. At one point, three Japanese officials, and allies of Germany, choose to leave the hotel and return to Japan, with the clear message that Germany is doomed.
General von Dahnwitz, played by Canadian-American actor Raymond Massey, is an army general known to have been a participant in the plot to kill Hitler. He is to be arrested, and then executed, but only if he will not handle matters himself; that is, commit suicide. Initially the general only knows that he is under heavy suspicion. Von Dahnwitz, whose son was recently killed while serving with the Luftwaffe (he very coldly says, "He did his duty"), is not against the war, he's only against the way Hitler has directed the war ("a little corporal," he calls Hitler***). At one point he says how the war is lost, but that, "We must not lose another" (he's already thinking of the next war!). We also learn that Dahnwitz is on the Allied war criminal list for possible war crimes in Kharkov, in the Soviet Union. After von Dahnwitz is told to commit suicide or he will face arrest and execution, the general, who is in love with actress Lisa Dorn (see below), asks her to marry him and to go to Sweden (a neutral country) with him on a plane he has waiting. The Gestapo finds out about the plane, grounds it and arrests the pilot.
General von Dahnwitz is to be given his "options" by the ever present Gestapo and its commander at the hotel, Commissioner Joachim Helm, played by English actor George Coulouris (his father was from Greece). When General von Dahnwitz mentions that he has a bad tooth, Helm recommends a dentist, even though he knows the general will soon be dead, either by suicide or by Gestapo execution. Helm says, "I have to get some fun out of my work."
Then there's "Tillie," played by American actress Faye Emerson (she was married for a time to Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt's son, Elliot), who is the hotel hostess and an informer for the Gestapo. Her main concern is to get a new pair of shoes, which in war ravaged Germany was not an easy thing to do. She'll do just about anything to get new shoes and she calls all the guys "Shhhnooky," hoping they can help her achieve her goal. Later in the story, Tillie gets to see actress Lisa Dorn's suite (see below), along with the maid, who still believes Hitler is the only way to win the war. Tillie sees the waiter's coat worn by Martin Richter and she goes to Commissioner Helm to give him the information, in hopes of getting new shoes, but while the commissioner likes her information, he rejects her request.
And there's Lisa Dorn, played by American actress Andrea King, an actress and the love interest of General von Dahnwitz. She is often in the general's company and she has a luxurious suite at the hotel with a closet full of clothes from Paris. After seeing a wanted poster with Martin Richter's photo, she confronts Richter in her suite, where he has been hiding by acting as her waiter (covered above). Richter offers to help her get out of Germany, something she says she would like very much, although she had just turned down General von Dahnwitz's marriage proposal and flight to Sweden. Hm, is she just playing one of her roles to fool Richter? With Gestapo men all over the hotel, Richter stays in Dorn's room all night, ah, undoubtedly just to be sure she'll get breakfast in the morning. When Dorn leaves the hotel for rehearsal, two Gestapo men follow right behind her and also upon her return. Richter meanwhile climbs through the window to get to Professor Koenig (see below) in the next room. Later Richter is given an SS officer's uniform by the anti-Nazis, in hopes this will help him get out of the hotel. Dorn will help, but then Commissioner Helm comes to her suite and finds Richter. The two men fight and Helm is either killed or knocked unconscious (it's unclear to me), but it doesn't matter, because Richter throws Helm down the elevator shaft, as in, express service to the basement and appropriate for a Nazi low life. Richter says he'll ask the German underground to help get Dorn out of Germany too, but they send back word saying, "No." Richter tells her he'll convince the underground members personally and that he'll contact her after all is set. Dorn decides to use Major Kauders (see below) as a way to get Richter out of the hotel. The Gestapo troops find Helm's body and call in another detachment of Gestapo men. During an air raid alarm, Dorn has Richter, who is dressed as an SS officer, act as if he's drunk and she asks Kauders to take him outside, which he does, as the Gestapo men do not ask to see the drunken SS officer's papers. Baron Stettin comes to Dorn and tells her he'd like to take her with him, because he's leaving Germany (he had promised his friend von Dahnwitz to look after Dorn, but then again, maybe he just wants to make sure she gets breakfasts, too), but that the Gestapo suspects her in Commissioner Helm's death. So she tells Stettin that she can get Richter for them, and all of the anti-Nazi underground, as Richter will be contacting her with an address for her to go to him. All of this is overheard by one of the waiters, an anti-Nazi, who reports it to the main group. So they send word to Dorn with a false address. When she leaves her room, the bellhop tells her he'll operate the elevator for her, but one of the underground men is waiting on the elevator, drugs her and takes her to the real underground address, where Richter can't believe she was going to sell him out to the Gestapo. When Dorn sees him, she is happy at first, and she turns on her charms, but then she sees Richter has a gun and he kills her. No more staying overnight with you to make sure you get breakfast, Fräulein Dorn, you Nazi chameleon!
There is Baron von Stettin, played by English actor Henry Daniell, who is in the German diplomatic corps. Stettin is friends with General von Dahnwitz, and is something of the go between for the general and the Nazi authorities (hey, I said he was in the diplomatic corps). Stettin and others are thinking ahead of how to plan for Germany's rise from defeat by going to the United States and blaming everything on Hitler. "Americans forgive and forget easily," he says, and Stettin is scheduled to leave soon and he wants Professor Koenig to go along (see below). At the end, the Baron is leaving the hotel to go to the United States to further a postwar Nazi cause once the war ends, but without using the name "Nazi." He and his associates want to blend in to make themselves acceptable. Damn! I wonder if later he ever wore a "Make America Great Again" cap?
Nazi official Hermann Plottke, played by Alan Hale, Sr., father of the Skipper, from Gilligan's Island, is a thief, but he's worried about what will happen to him if the Allies capture him, as he is on the list of wanted Nazis. Plottke too has been planning, as he has opened bank accounts in various foreign countries with money he has stolen over time, something that has not gone unnoticed by the Gestapo and Commissioner Helm, who threateningly tells Plottke to return the stolen money within 48 hours.
Sarah Baruch, played by Helene Thimig, **** a Jewish woman, whose son had been romantically involved with Tillie (mentioned above) before the Nazis put him in a labor camp. Sarah comes to the hotel for Tillie's help in getting pain medication for her husband, who is dying of cancer. She wants him to die more peacefully. She also tells Tillie that her son has been freed by the American forces and that he sent word to his parents by way of the underground. During her time at the hotel, Nazi Hermann Plottke (above) recognizes her and orders her to put on her Star of David patch, something mandatory by Nazi law. Tillie takes a stand against Plottke, outing him to the gathered crowd for the thief he is. The Gestapo takes him into custody for questioning in Commissioner Helm's death, since Helm had threatened Plottke about the large sum of money Plottke had stolen. Naturally the Gestapo men wonder if Plottke killed Helm because of this.
Major Otto Kauders, played by German-Swiss actor Kurt Kreuger, is a Luftwaffe pilot on leave who demands a room and wants to have a good time before heading back to fight. He takes up with Tillie, an old acquaintance, who wants to use him to get new shoes, but he sees a picture in Tillie's room of Max, Sarah's son, and the love of Tillie's life. Kauders says Max looks like a Jew, which brings a slap from Tillie and Kauders walks out.
Greatly disillusioned Professor Johannes Koenig, played by Peter Lorre***** is the German intellectual and scientist of the film, who comes to see his own complicity with the Nazis. Early on during an air raid, when the hotel front desk clerk asks, "Why can't we admit we are beaten and end this horror?" Koenig answers, "We are getting what we deserve, it serves us right, absolutely right." He is admonished to mind his words of "defeatism." We find out later that Baron von Stettin wants Koenig to leave Germany for South America, where Stettin will see to it that the professor gets a new laboratory and staff, all provided by what will then be a Nazi underground movement. Later, however, when Martin Richter is with Koenig, who has been drinking heavily, the professor says how science has now changed under the Nazis, so that human beings, not animals, are worked on directly for research, and that science has made it possible for 6000 people a day to be murdered in Birkenau camp.****** Martin says he still believes there are good Germans to carry on after Hitler's defeat. Koenig wonders aloud where these good Germans are. He looks around the room, "Where are they?" He goes to the closet and opens the door, "Are they in here?" Koenig asks if Martin has read the Bible, and he goes on to say that God would have spared Gomorrah if there were just ten righteous people, but there weren't ten, so Gomorrah was destroyed. "And now there aren't ten good Germans left, so Germany will be destroyed." Richter tells Koenig of one of the professor's former students who had been inspired by Koenig, but that he had been beaten to death by the Nazis in Dachau, but that before he died, he said he thought that Professor Koenig would be proud of him. This causes Koenig to break down sobbing. This helps Koenig come to his senses and he goes back to the anti-Nazi underground. He reads a leaflet to be put out by the underground, which is a speech by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, about how Germany will have to earn its way back into the confidence of nations.
There are some other interesting characters in the film. One is the bellhop, also called "#6," his badge number at the hotel, played by young American Richard Tyler (he was only about 13 when the movie was made). His father, Walter Baumler, played by German-American actor Wolfgang Zilzer, is one of the leaders of the anti-Nazi underground. The teenage bellhop helps in many of the anti-Nazi activities at the hotel. And then there is the front desk clerk, Kliebert, played by Hungarian-American actor Steven Geray, who has his hands full keeping up with all of the goings on at the hotel, including the air raids, Gestapo investigations and people wanting him to get them out of bomb ravaged Berlin, where communication and transportation is often crippled. Finally, there is Dr. Dorf, the hotel physician, played by German actor Erwin Kalser (he lived in the United States during the war years and for a time thereafter, and he played the Red Cross inspector in "Stalag 17," if you've seen that movie). Dr. Dorf likes to remind people that defeatist talk will get them into trouble.
All the cynicism is then contrasted with the ending of the movie, which shows a written statement by the Allied leaders, Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin, saying that Germans aren't totally to blame.
* Vicki Baum was an Austrian Jew, born in Vienna. She moved to the United States not long before the Nazis took power and she then became an American citizen. Of course, her works were banned by the Nazis in Germany (and Austria, when it became part of Germany in 1938).
** Helmut Dantine was a long time anti-Nazi, and indeed, he was arrested by
the Nazis after Hitler moved into his native Austria, where Dantine,
too, was born (Vienna). After his release by the Nazis in the late
1930s, he emigrated to the United States where he pursued an acting
career; ironically, often playing Nazi roles in Hollywood films. He died
in the U.S. in the early 1980s.
*** Hitler only rose to the rank of corporal (German: "Gefreiter") in World War One; thus later, some of his opponents, especially in the German military, disparagingly referred to him in private by his previous rank.
**** Helene Thimig was married to Austrian theater/movie producer and director Max Reinhardt, who was Jewish. They left Germany and settled in the United States in the late 1930s, where Max died during World War Two. Helene later returned to Austria, where she died in the mid 1970s.
***** Peter Lorre was born in Austria-Hungary, and he learned his acting in both Vienna and Berlin. He became famous for his role as a child killer in the 1931 German film, "M." Lorre was Jewish and left Germany when the Nazis took power in 1933. He eventually ended up in the United States, where he became well known for movie roles, especially because of his prominent sad eyes and expressions.
****** This was quite dramatic information to be included in this movie, which was filmed before the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau; later, much more commonly known to most people as Auschwitz, the most infamous of all Nazi concentration camps.
Photo is of the disc from "rarewarfilms"
WORD HISTORY:
Wretch-This noun, related to "wreak," goes back to Indo European "wreg," which had the notion, "to hunt, to chase, to drive against, to shove." This gave its Old Germanic offspring "wrekanan," meaning, "to chase, to drive against, to shove;" and by extension, "to punish by driving out (exiling);" thus also, "to avenge." This produced West Germanic "wrakjon," meaning, "an outcast, one chased out as punishment." This gave Old English (Anglo-Saxon) "wrecca," meaning, "an outcast, someone banned from a region." This then became "wrecche," before the modern version, with the meaning gradually changing to, "an unfortunate, unhappy person," from the idea of an outcast being miserable. There is also a further meaning of, "a nasty person," often paired with "ungrateful" in usage to mean, "someone so nasty and miserable as to be unappreciative." The other Germanic languages have: German has "Recke," its ancestor was also spelled with a "w," and its meaning was also "outcast," but later, the meaning changed dramatically from the point of view of a person driven out of a territory, to "warrior, hero," perhaps from the notion of "one who drives out enemies," although the initial change seems to have maintained the connection to an outcast, as it meant "wandering warrior." Low German Saxon no longer uses a form of the word, but as of a few hundred years ago, it had "Recke," with the "outcast" meaning, and its ancestor too was spelled with a "w," and this was also the same with Dutch, which also had "recke." So only German and English still have the related words in use, but now with decidedly different meanings in modern times.
Labels: Andrea King, Berlin, English, etymology, Faye Emerson, Germanic languages, Germans, Helmut Dantine, Hotel Berlin, Nazis, Peter Lorre, rare films, Raymond Massey, Vicki Baum, World War Two
WORD HISTORY:
