Der verlorene Bruder (2015)

The Blaschke family lives in Westphalia in the early 1960s, where they were able to build a new life after fleeing the German eastern territories from the “Russians” at the end of the Second World War. During their flight, the Blaschkes lost their first son, Arnold, when he was a toddler. Elisabeth Blaschke had never got over it, while her husband devoted himself wholeheartedly to his grocery business, though he did not completely forget his family. Every Sunday, he would take Elisabeth and their second son, Max, on a drive. One day, Elisabeth Blaschke hears about a foundling who was left at a home in Germany on the day her family fled, and she is firmly convinced that it can only be her son. Max suffers as she makes feverish efforts to find her lost son, because he receives hardly any attention anymore. He imagines what it would be like to have an older brother soon. But he does not like the idea at all: perhaps his parents would acknowledge him even less, and he might even have to share his room with Arnold. Fortunately for Max, it takes time for the authorities to approve his parents’ visit to the orphanage. Until then, he still has a chance to finally win more of his parents’ attention. But nothing he tries works. His father retreats further and further into his business, which he has by now expanded into a wholesale grocery operation, and his friendship with his classmate Milli does not seem to be progressing either. At least he can talk to her about his worries. In the same way, his mother confides her worries to the police officer Frank Rudolf whenever her husband is too busy again. Shortly after Ludwig Blaschke inaugurates his new wholesale business, for which he has even taken out a loan, he also buys a new car. He intends to drive his family all the way to Heidelberg to commission an assessment from a renowned professor. He hopes this will finally get him permission to visit the foundling. Max is not at all pleased, because he had arranged to meet Milli that very weekend, and “Arnold” has now ruined it for him. Furious, Max tries to prevent the trip and plans to cut the new car’s fuel line so they cannot go anywhere. But his plan fails: the new car drives just fine. It is not until they reach Heidelberg that he realizes why—unintentionally, he had cut the handbrake cable. After his father discovers the fault, they have to stay in Heidelberg for another day while the car is repaired. This greatly angers his father, as does the fact that the examination did not produce the hoped-for result. Back home, Ludwig faces an even more unpleasant surprise. While he was away, someone broke into the cold room and then left the door open. All his meat products have spoiled, and he suffers a circulatory collapse. Shortly after he is taken to hospital, Ludwig Blaschke dies of a heart attack. From then on, Frank Rudolf takes even greater care of Max and his mother. Elisabeth Blaschke, meanwhile, throws herself all the more intensely into the hope of finding her Arnold. Unable to watch this any longer, Rudolf indirectly helps her contact the boy in secret. As a police officer, he has access to the address of the adoptive parents with whom the foundling is living. He accompanies Elisabeth and Max to the address they have been searching for so long. Arnold works in a small butcher shop in the town of Rehberg, which makes getting in touch with him straightforward. But in the end Elisabeth does not dare approach her Arnold and sends Max in instead. At first sight, Max senses that the young man is his brother, but he does not tell him. Like an ordinary customer, he buys a mark’s worth of sausage and leaves the shop. Back in the car, he tells his mother only briefly: “He’s there.” Elisabeth Blaschke seems satisfied with this, so the three of them drive back home. At last she knows where her lost son is and that he is doing well. Significantly, he even works in a butcher’s shop—just like his father, whom he has never met.