Der Mann, dem man den Namen stahl (1944)

In the “good old days,” the records office of an old-fashioned German government department discovers that a certain Fridolin Biedermann is wanted by the police for several offenses: marriage fraud, forgery, failure to pay child support, impersonation, and bigamy. All government offices, especially civil registries, are to be informed, the senior official declares. This is the starting point of a story about the thoroughly respectable Fridolin Biedermann, who is busy making arrangements to marry his fiancée, Elvira Sauer. Biedermann is a truly, staunchly German model citizen: he runs a department store and even manages, with his characteristic charm, to sell a fussy middle-aged customer in the hat department a coffee cozy with a fabric rooster on top, passing it off as the latest Parisian hat design. Fridolin’s beloved Elvira is the boss’s daughter, and her father is quite pleased by the idea of her marrying his best employee. At the registry office, however, the future spouses get a nasty surprise. According to the police records, the registrar snaps at the “libertine” Fridolin, he has already been married for seven years and has three legitimate and five illegitimate children. To clear up the mistake, Fridolin willingly goes to the police, but, as everyone knows, in German government offices everything is always in order and documents are never wrong, so they believe the records rather than the innocent accused. Fridolin B. is arrested and taken away in a ramshackle prison wagon, wearing striped clothes; during the journey, its wooden rear wall even falls off. At police headquarters, it quickly becomes clear that Biedermann is not the wanted crook. Fridolin remembers: there was once a waiter, a certain Max Vieregg, who “quite by accident” splashed him with red wine in a restaurant. Someone helped him out with salt, and then a somewhat disreputable-looking woman named Hella joined them. Vieregg and Hella worked together to steal Biedermann’s wallet, along with his personal documents. Since then, Vieregg had committed numerous crimes as “Fridolin Biedermann.” Now that the matter has been cleared up, the police chief orders the real Biedermann’s criminal record cleaned of the crimes, while the impostor Fridolin enters into another bigamous marriage and gets paid for it by his new father-in-law with a bank check. But the real Fridolin’s attempt to finally marry Elvira fails again because of bureaucracy. The registrar informs him that the false Fridolin’s previous marriages must first be “properly” dissolved; until then, Fridolin cannot be married. The registrar also offers Biedermann a brilliant piece of “good advice”: he should track down the thief who has stolen his name and make him “properly” dissolve his marriages, so they can be “properly” removed from the registry. Fridolin and Elvira leave the registry office, exasperated and bewildered. Fridolin turns in confidence to the Röntgenblick Detective Agency and its eccentric boss, Dr. Heimlich. At a gangsters’ hangout, a seedy dive, he uses a trick and Fridolin’s help to outsmart the city’s crooks and find out the address where the name thief and bigamist Vieregg is supposed to be staying. There Fridolin encounters Hella, Vieregg’s gangster girlfriend, who runs a matchmaking agency and puts on quite a show when Biedermann lets her know that he has seen through her scams. Together with Dr. Heimlich, Fridolin visits the gangster joint “Bar Kap Horn,” whose entrance door bears a request to use firearms only with silencers so as not to disturb the artistic performances. While singer Marlen Weber performs the sentimental hit “Mamatschi,” the tough guys present are so moved that some of them give up their evil intentions after the song and vow never to pull another crooked deal. Meanwhile, Vieregg’s new accomplice, Swea, breaks off their partnership, whereupon Vieregg tries to shoot himself—but the pistol fails every time. Only after he lays the revolver on the table in frustration does a shot go off … and fatally hits Max Vieregg. Now “Fridolin Biedermann” can be removed from the criminal register. But that makes him officially dead, and so, officially, the real Biedermann is no longer alive either. Where there is no Biedermann, no marriage can take place. Once again, Fridolin cannot get married! In horror, Biedermann rushes to his government and asks the head of the cabinet to instruct the bureaucracy to list him again as a “proper entry,” in officialese. This is done, and Fridolin thinks he has finally reached his goal. But the registrar explains that, as a kind of “newborn,” he will have to wait another 21 years. As a bureaucratic entry, he has existed only since today, and may therefore marry only upon reaching the age of majority—which at the time was 21. Wait a full 21 years? Fridolin loses his temper and, in front of Elvira and the registrar, shouts that he has no desire to get married at all anymore and would rather join the gangsters and embark on a criminal career himself. Elvira bursts into tears and finally gives her longtime secret admirer, Heini Bock, a chance to win her over. Biedermann now seriously decides it is time to turn his life upside down: he really wants to become a crook! So he goes back to the Bar Kap Horn, where he meets the singer Marlen again. She was one of the false Biedermann’s marriage victims and is therefore, bureaucratically and formally speaking, the widow of the real, still-living Fridolin. Marlen, who comes from a very respectable family, starts flirting with the would-be crook Fridolin and teases him when he announces that he is finally going to pull a “real job.” Marlen already has an idea: she knows of a fine house belonging to a rich man, Consul Weber, the salt-almond king. Fridolin has no idea that this is Marlen’s father and that she is only pulling his leg. They break into the villa, and Fridolin wonders why the two guard dogs, Great Danes, run past Marlen—who has naturally come along—with their tails wagging. Marlen helps herself to everything that isn’t nailed down and stuffs it into a sack. But then Fridolin’s honesty gets the better of him, and he tells Marlen to put everything back where it belongs. During this thwarted robbery, they both realize they have feelings for each other, and Fridolin immediately proposes to Marlen. But the Biedermann widow truthfully replies: “Getting married is the one thing neither of us can do.” She then confesses that she is the consul’s daughter and is in fact already married to him, Fridolin Biedermann. Now that the bureaucracy has been satisfied, nothing stands in the way of the two of them leading a “respectable” life together—even from a bureaucratic point of view.