Banktresor 713 (1957)

Herbert Burkhardt, a late returnee who was only recently released from a prisoner-of-war camp, cannot find his place in the young Federal Republic. No decent work is offered to the no-longer-young man in Ludwig Erhard’s economic miracle. His brother Klaus, considerably younger than he is, is only marginally better off as a car washer. Even so, Klaus lets Herbert persuade him to attempt an unusual bank robbery. In the middle of a busy street, the two men set up a small work tent directly over a manhole cover. This makes it less noticeable that Herbert and Klaus are digging a shaft through the sewers toward the bank vault. Breaking through the final wall into the vault proves particularly difficult. Then a serious incident occurs: a man who recognizes them during their underground activities dies. After that, shortly before the end, Klaus wants to abandon the plan, also so that he no longer puts his future with his girlfriend Margot at risk. He withdraws, leaving behind his brother, who is welding in the vault ever more obsessively. But Klaus forgets that the opening they have forced into the vault lies too high for Herbert to escape back to freedom with his loot on his own, without Klaus’s help. In the distance, police sirens can already be heard.