Alone in New York
I just watched an obscure independent film called Alone in Berlin. It starred Emma Thompson and Brendan Gleeson, so maybe it shouldn’t be so obscure. It’s message was somber and serious, but it rings loudly in my ears. It is the story of Otto and Elise Hampel, who in 1940, during the invasion of France, lost their only son in battle for the Third Reich. His death, in a lonely forrest of the Saarland, is made to look insignificant and random. He’s running from the fight rather than running toward it when he gets shot.
The story is about this couple and their loss and grief, and how it transforms into civil disobedience of the mildest but most determined sort imaginable. Their life in mid-century Berlin can be described as strictly middle class. They have a basic apartment and their neighbors are older, caring people for the most part with a few unsavory types. If we take their apartment as a microcosm of German society in 1940, in addition to Otto and Elise, there is a Jew (a single older woman who is well-liked and who’s husband has already been carted away), a public servant (a judge), a postmistress, a thief/opportunist and a Nazi ideologue and his sons. What we are to make of this is that about half of German society was prone to Nationalist philosophy with only half of that for ideological reasons and the other half for opportunistic self-interest. Neither looks attractive in the movie, but it was what happens to the rest that is more interesting.
The judge has a good heart to help those in need, but is afraid of being exposed and put-upon. The postmistress is actively helpful and concerned, but when confronted and threatened by the police/SS she gives up their suspect to them. The stars are Otto and Elise and Elise is a Nazi party women’s brigade worker who makes sure all women are doing their job for the Reich. Of course the Reich only wants those “all must serve the Reich” programs to apply to average members, not the upper echelon. Elise is a frightened and saddened woman who doesn’t know where to turn, so she sits in the corner of her kitchen, stuck between sorrow and duty. Otto is decidedly not a party member and just wants to do his job, but his son’s death affects him deeply and he starts rebelling against the Fuhrer by marking up Nazi postcards with anti-Nazi comments.
Otto starts to place these cards in public places where they will be found and read by others. It seems to be a puny and almost meaningless gesture. But then the cards start to mount up at the police office, who are charged by the SS to solve this heinous act. They call it the Hobgoblin case. They map the growing number of cards placed around the city over three years, suspecting that 90% are being turned in for fear of reprisal. That alone is scary since it shows how fearful people were in the face of an increasingly brutal totalitarian regime. There is one powerful scene where the SS commandant kicks the police detective across this elegant office and shows his disdain for the “intellectual” detective, implying that common men of strength and power will now be prevailing. Pure might over right and even might over intelligence.
Elise quickly joins Otto in his work of getting the small voice message out to their fellow Berliners. He resists her involvement for her own safety, but then embraces it as a clear symbol of their love for one another and their lost child. The small voice gets amplified by the over-reaction of the men of power who are furious that they cannot stop this small voice. The impact of the small gesture compared to the force applied to stop it provides a powerful message to the audience and highlights how wrong the autocracy truly is. The plainness and the general “good citizenship” of the protagonists also leaves one feeling that this is no act of terrorism, this is an act of love or just a cry into the heavens about the wrongs of the world.
If we return to the title, Alone in Berlin, we finds the author’s true intent. Otto and Elise have been left alone in their sorrow by the loss of their son. They start out alone in their grief, but then find each other and are left alone and apart from society. Like the old Jewish woman who starts out with a support network, she quickly finds herself alone to face the horrors of anti-semitism. She kills herself rather than deal with her impending fate at the hands of the SS. Even the police detective resorts to killing a suspect with a bullet to the head rather than submit the man to interrogation by the SS. The detective himself, after solving the case and having read all 285 of Otto’s messages kills himself rather than continue to be a part of the horrific Third Reich.
The elegance of this film, which ends with both Otto and Elise being guillotined for their crimes of sedition and free thought, is that it’s message is eternal and timeless. Most of us are weak and try to deny the reality of cruelty and horror. We all want to be patriotic good citizens, but when the regime turns sour, as happens all too often in history, when power is prized over humanity, nature prized over grace and self-interest prized over mercy, many of us slide slowly and unadmittingly into acceptance and self-preservation. Elise’s last words to Otto as she breaches protocol and holds his hand, is that “it doesn’t matter.” It doesn’t matter that they are dying. It doesn’t matter that they were caught and were labeled traitors. Nothing matters any more when civility and humanity break down because then there is nothing worth living for.
That message should ring true to us all at this time in America and the world. We are eighty years from Berlin-1940, but we are quickly seeing the shadows cast on the street like an SS informant’s dark outline. It’s not just about Trump, but then again, it’s all about Trump or Putin of Kim Jung Un or Xi, Maduro, MBS or Erdogan. It was not just about Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Franco or Hirohito. Trump is a symbol like Hitler was a symbol. They are symbols of man’s intolerance for man. They love their own and their power to the point of hating all else. People care about themselves too much to resist and there we have the slippery slope that these power-brokers trade on the most. We are all alone, Solo en la Immensidad, but we must all understand that we are only alone is we all let ourselves be. New York is ground zero like Berlin in 1940, so let’s all stand strong and refuse to act alone.
I am with you.