Addio, piccola mia (1979)

Georg Büchner is a medical student in Strasbourg, living in poverty and in love with the young Louise. In 1833, he returns to Hesse and his family. There, he witnesses various revolutionary skirmishes involving small groups, but Büchner senses that a revolution can truly happen only through the masses—and specifically through the peasants, who are burdened by taxes. Among others, he finds an ally in the pastor Friedrich Ludwig Weidig. Other young people, including Karl Minnigerode, son of the president of the Court of Justice, Ludwig Minnigerode, join Büchner, and they found the “Society for Human Rights.” Büchner writes the pamphlet The Hessian Courier, which is to be distributed among the population. Weidig rewrites it against Büchner’s wishes. The group is soon disrupted: Weidig is first transferred as a punishment to Ober-Gleen, where Büchner visits him and accuses him over the rewritten pamphlet; later, Weidig is imprisoned. Minnigerode is arrested while collecting the pamphlets, but is released after feigning mental illness and sent to America by his parents. Ludwig Minnigerode is dishonorably dismissed from state service. By this time, Georg Büchner has already fled to Strasbourg, where he meets Louise again. Although he completes his work Danton’s Death and writes Lenz, he devotes most of his time to scientific research on fish. When the German couple Caroline and Friedrich Wilhelm Schulz offer to take him with them to Switzerland, he agrees. Once again, he has to say goodbye to Louise. In Zurich, he lectures on the nervous system of fish and works on Woyzeck, but increasingly feels ill. He realizes himself that he has contracted typhus. Shortly before his death, Louise visits him, and he is still able to sense her presence. He dies soon afterward. Louise and Caroline visit the apartment Georg Büchner had hoped to rent for the two of them. Before the credits, the titles of the works Büchner wrote and translated are shown.