Die Eroberung der Zitadelle (1977)

The German writer Hermann Brucker had led an orderly life, with little contact with the world around him or beyond it. When he causes an accident during a holiday in Italy in which his mother is killed, the deep shock leads him to decide never to go home again or return to his old way of life. Before long, he is both penniless and helpless, and from then on Brucker shies away from no job, however difficult or degrading—even the most miserable under-the-table work. He is humiliated, but refuses to give up. Together with two Italians, a Basque refugee and a Greek refugee, he builds the Citadel for little money and with a great deal of sweat: a villa high in the coastal cliffs for the wealthy and smug financial broker Faconi. During this time, there are brief moments of happiness. Hermann forms a tender bond with Faconi’s daughter Alessandra, who is as beautiful as she is deaf and mute. But ultimately, failure is inevitable here too: the gulf between rich and poor, masters and employees, seems impossible to bridge. At the upcoming topping-out ceremony for the ostentatious building, followed by an inauguration party, a class conflict erupts. The area’s arrogant upper class arrives in flashy luxury yachts and, in their aloofness, carelessly tramples the unfinished work of the five exhausted cash-in-hand laborers. The callousness of some provokes the rebellion of the others. Brucker and his four companions eventually douse the snobbish society of millionaires with buckets of paint and tar, driving them back to their status symbols floating off the coast. The Citadel has been reclaimed, but the small victory is short-lived. Soon the upper class returns, accompanied by the police. The authorities brutally hunt down the lumpenproletariat: one of them is shot, while Brucker himself is beaten and taken away. On the way to the local prison, he finally comes to the realization that his consciousness really has changed now.