08/15 - In der Heimat (1955)

The film depicts the end of the war and how, afterward, Nazi officials and “commissar types” suddenly became resistance fighters and opponents of the regime, and returned to positions of authority in the American occupation zone. In the spring of 1945, Kowalski’s battalion, along with von Plönnies, now promoted to major general, and Asch, now promoted to lieutenant, hopes to get through the looming defeat with as little damage as possible. Meanwhile, two members of the SS Security Service (SD), SS-Standartenführer Hauk and his adjutant, SS-Obersturmführer Greifer, exploit the general uncertainty about the course of the war to get their hands on a shipment of platinum. Posing as a Wehrmacht colonel and first lieutenant, they murder Staff Paymaster Brahm and his wife. Asch sees through them and sets off in pursuit with Kowalski. As American troops advance, the Germans try to adapt to the new postwar circumstances. All signs of any connection to National Socialism are hastily removed, and soldiers pass themselves off as civilians to avoid capture. Hauk tries to escape from captivity and is shot by Major Hinrichsen, who is also a prisoner of war and has an old score to settle with him. Meanwhile, the wife of Captain Fritz Schulz, who had previously been so devoted to the regime, manages to present her husband to the new authorities as a future mayor; and Sergeant Platzek, a former hard-driving drill instructor, black-marketeer, and Nazi escape facilitator, manages to get the Americans to appoint him food commissioner. Major General von Plönnies, by contrast, who had Greifer hanged shortly before the end of the war after a hastily convened court-martial for the two murders, is arrested by the Americans as a supposed war criminal, since they believe the executed man was a resistance fighter. The former soldiers loyal to the major general, led by Asch, want to free him, but he refuses so he can face his responsibility and tell the truth.