Der Teufelskreis (1956)

Shortly after Adolf Hitler’s seizure of power in early 1933, preparations are underway to silence members of the socialist and communist parties. After being bribed by SA men, clairvoyant Erik Jan Hanussen prophesies that he sees a large building in flames. The SA group leader, Count Helldorf, wins the confidence of Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutchman who appears radical but is in fact mentally ill and convinced that a great fire will send out a signal to begin. Soon afterward, the Reichstag building is ablaze. Along with Marinus van der Lubbe, SA men were chiefly responsible for setting the various fires. That same night, at Count Helldorf’s instigation, the SA carries out mass arrests of KPD and SPD members. Although his son Paul warns the Social Democratic deputy Wilhelm Lüring, he refuses to flee: he has never held radical views, he believes, and the National Socialists respect him as a person. Shortly afterward, the SA arrests him. Along with numerous other KPD and SPD members and the Jewish doctor Dr. Meyerheim, he is held for several months in a communal cell, without charge or interrogation. Later, the accused are taken for questioning one by one. After the Communist deputy Theo Neubauer is brought back to the communal cell beaten, it is Wilhelm Lüring’s turn. The National Socialists want to make an example of the Reichstag fire and stage a show trial, publicly condemning those responsible for it. Besides van der Lubbe, they have identified five other suspects, but they have no evidence of a conspiracy—one that never actually existed. Wilhelm Lüring is questioned about the day of the fire and about certain people. He admits that he saw a man considered a suspect talking with an older gentleman in a corridor of the Reichstag. But that man, he says, was not van der Lubbe, who was far too young. Only after being tortured does Wilhelm Lüring say that he saw the suspect with van der Lubbe. He is now considered the trial’s key witness and is held in special detention in Leipzig, where his wife is allowed to visit him. The Reichstag fire trial becomes a farce. Van der Lubbe is unable to give a coherent account because he has been sedated in custody. One of the five suspects, the Bulgarian exile and committed Communist Georgi Dimitrov, who has already been sentenced to death in his homeland, speaks out against the lies and slander, exposes the prosecution witnesses, and acts as his own defense attorney. After a few days, the live broadcast of the proceedings is cut off. Dimitrov even proves Count Helldorf and Hermann Göring to be liars and backs them into a corner. Wilhelm Lüring is impressed by Dimitrov’s courage. His wife visits him in prison and, at the urging of his children Paul and Marta, tries to persuade him to retract his testimony against van der Lubbe. In the end, Wilhelm Lüring retracts his testimony in court, explaining that Dimitrov’s conduct gave him the courage to tell the truth. He is deported to a concentration camp, where the other socialists are already imprisoned. After being brutally abused, he dies in the arms of his comrades. Meanwhile, the trial continues, and at its conclusion Dimitrov delivers an appeal for the victory of the working class.