Die Flucht (1977)

Senior physician Dr. Schmith has little interest in politics. He is only a member of the FDGB and is not active in it, but he devotes himself wholeheartedly to his work with premature babies. He would like to conduct research aimed at reducing the mortality rate among premature babies, but he is denied the 60,000 Deutsche Marks needed for a machine required for the work. His boss accuses him of dealing only with a marginal aspect of everyday medical practice. Frustrated, Schmith decides to flee to the West. He has been offered a position of his own and freedom to make decisions at the children’s clinic in Inntal. He accepts the job and makes final preparations with the people helping him escape. They plan to contact him within the next four weeks and tell him the date of his escape. Changes take place at the clinic. Katharina, a young woman, joins Schmith’s ward as a new colleague. He falls in love with her. Colleague Wendt is arrested while attempting to flee across the Austrian-Hungarian border, and is now regarded by his colleagues as a traitor. Finally, thanks to his colleagues’ efforts and similar research in Czechoslovakia, Schmith’s project is approved—on a larger scale than he had expected. Schmith asks for a day to think it over, since he has meanwhile learned the date set for his escape. He is to be picked up on October 30. Two days later, as project leader, he would be allowed to travel to a congress in Cologne anyway. Schmith lets the agreed escape date pass and accepts the position as project leader. A little later in Cologne, he runs into der Runde, the organizer of his escape. He explains that he did not show up because the congress had allowed him to cross the border without risk, and that he had therefore let the escape helpers down. He goes to Inntal and looks around the clinic. In the end, however, he returns to East Germany. Der Runde keeps coming to see him and pressures him to honor the agreement he made with the escape helpers. Although Schmith wants to stay, he sees no way out, especially since going to the police would mean the end of his scientific career. He confides only in Gudrun, his former girlfriend and current colleague, but sees no alternative to going West as originally planned. Since he had told der Runde that his girlfriend was the reason he felt tied to East Germany, he is told to escape together with her. Shortly before the agreed time, Schmith pretends to Katharina that they are going on an outing together to a cabin in the woods. They spend the night there, and Schmith wakes the startled Katharina during the night. He drives her to the place agreed with the escape helpers, where he reveals that he wants to flee to the West with her. Katharina is astonished and horrified. When Schmith takes the suitcases out of the car, she runs away. The escape helpers fear that Katharina will expose the escape, so they refuse to take Schmith to the West alone. When he refuses to get out of the vehicle, one of the escape helpers knocks him unconscious with a flashlight and pushes him out of the car. The escape helpers disappear. Schmith collapses not far from his car and dies a short time later.