Das Kindermädchen (2012)

Lawyer Joachim Vernau is on the verge of being admitted to Berlin society’s highest circles. His marriage to Sigrun von Zernikow, a member of an old-established family with a long lineage, is all but settled. His future father-in-law, Utz, also intends to bring him into his prestigious law firm. One day, an old woman turns up at the family estate and asks Utz von Zernikow to sign an official Russian form she needs for the Russian authorities. Vernau takes the old woman’s side and supports her request in front of the family. A short time later, he reads in the newspaper that the old woman has been pulled dead from the Landwehr Canal. Vernau has the document translated by his university friend Marie-Luise Hoffmann, who has also become a lawyer. It is from Natalja Tscherednitschenkowa of Kyiv, who says she was forced to work for the Zernikows during the Second World War. She wanted compensation for this. Naively, Vernau believes he can get a signature from the highly respected and ever-politically-correct Zernikows. But he is turned away everywhere. Even the family patriarch, Utz, claims not to remember. Vernau therefore investigates the family’s history in the 1940s on his own, provoking ever more resistance from the family. Even his future wife, Sigrun, turns against him. But Vernau continues his investigation with Marie-Luise’s help and discovers that, during the final days of the war, when Berlin had been bombed to ruins, the Zernikows were staying with friends in a villa in Grünau. Something must have happened there that has been covered up for 60 years. In the process, Vernau learns firsthand that every member of the Zernikow family has a reason for keeping the truth from coming out: the more he investigates, the more he loses. When he refuses to bow to the family’s wishes and incurs their displeasure, he loses his job, his home, and the love of his life. Sigrun, who has nothing to do with the past, would rather keep up appearances and stand by her family than support Vernau. Now Vernau can no longer stop and presses on all the more determinedly. He finds two different floor plans of the old house. There is an old, bricked-up room that holds the secrets of the war’s final days. As he gets closer to what happened back then, he not only stirs up old ghosts but also puts himself in danger. In the end, Vernau’s investigation uncovers a war crime. The Zernikows were close friends with the von Lehnsfeld family. The Lehnsfelds were among Göring’s art plunderers and had seized large quantities of looted art, hiding it in the cellar rooms of their villa. Natalja Tscherednitschenkowa had seen these artworks at the time, and when Natalja’s former friend unexpectedly turned up, Aaron von Lehnsfeld feared that his treasure and his ancestors’ actions might be discovered. So he silenced the old woman.