Im Zeichen des Kreuzes (1983)

Friday, May 5, 1990. The married couple Christine and Dr. Jörg Bensch, who live in Hanover, are driving with their 15-year-old son Michael to Schlebusch in southeastern Lower Saxony. Michael is supposed to spend a few days enjoying a “holiday in the country” with the friendly farming couple Eva and Gerd Wiechmann and their daughter Veronika, because the Bensches are having marital problems and want some time to think things through. Mrs. Bensch is considering a divorce, which her husband opposes. On the way, after Bensch makes a driving error on a country road, they are stopped by an unmarked patrol car escorting a truck carrying barrels. Once in Schlebusch, the Bensches plan to buy flowers for the Wiechmanns at a small shop. A tanker truck bearing hazardous-material placards is parked outside. When Michael asks its cigarette-smoking female passenger what the truck is carrying, she replies, “Milk.” The boy does not believe her, since he knows that the truck’s hazardous-material number indicates explosive gas. When they arrive at the Wiechmanns’ farm, Michael is initially angry that he has to spend his holiday there against his will. It now emerges that Eva Wiechmann is seven months pregnant. The Wiechmanns also have worries of their own: their small farm is in financial trouble, they owe money to the bank, and they fear they may have to give up the business. Michael’s parents want to return to Hanover immediately to reopen their medical practice. Then a tremendous explosion lights up the sky. Gerd Wiechmann, captain of the volunteer fire brigade, is immediately picked up by a fire engine. Shortly afterward, he calls and asks Dr. Bensch to come to the accident site as a doctor. Bensch sets out alone in his car. It turns out that the hazardous-material tanker and the specialized truck carrying barrels collided on the country road just outside Schlebusch. By the time emergency crews arrive, the drivers and passengers of both trucks, as well as the police officers escorting the specialized truck, are already dead. Dr. Bensch can no longer help anyone, and he returns to Hanover with Christine. The local emergency crews do not know what is in the barrels and notice that they are emitting an orange-colored gas. Shortly after reaching Hanover, the Bensches are lured out of their practice by a criminal police officer who conspicuously avoids physical contact with Dr. Bensch—he visibly and nervously refuses to shake his hand—under the pretext of questioning them about the accident. They are then abruptly “abducted” by police officers in a civilian police van, dressed in protective suits for nuclear, biological, and chemical hazards. A patient whom Bensch had examined shortly before is also arrested outside the practice. The couple and the patient are confined in a hospital, with all contact with the outside world cut off. It also emerges that the telephone lines to Schlebusch have been cut. Christine is determined to escape with her husband so they can check on their son Michael in the village. She outwits a nurse and frees her husband. Together they overpower a police officer standing guard and manage to escape from the hospital. They take a taxi to their practice, but find that their car has been removed in the meantime. At Hanover’s main railway station, they discover that train service to Schlebusch has been suspended. They decide to take a train to the district town nearest to Schlebusch—and only just manage to board an empty train that is officially closed to passengers. In Schlebusch itself, the entire population is confined in the church. They are allowed to relieve themselves only in the sacristy, never outdoors. Mayor Süchow and Pastor Lause try to calm the people. Journalist Kaiser uses a Polaroid camera and a cassette recorder to document the mood among those confined. By now, the emergency crews have left the village, leaving behind only tablets. With Michael’s help, Eva Wiechmann has meanwhile survived a premature birth, while her husband Gerd, who came into contact with the poisonous barrels at the accident site, dies. The Bensches arrive in the district town on a train on which they are the only passengers. Total chaos reigns there. The station is occupied by the Federal Border Guard. An officer tells them that Schlebusch has been completely sealed off and nobody is allowed to enter or leave. Bensch then decides to break through to Schlebusch in a Range Rover he has just stolen. But the Bensches run into a Bundeswehr roadblock. When Christine gets out at the soldiers’ command, Bensch fools the guards and crashes through the barriers at full speed. The incident appears to have unsettled the Bundeswehr captain in command. He phones a higher-ranking official at the disaster-control headquarters, whose exact position is not specified, and demands to speak to the minister responsible. The official refuses; although he cannot assess the military situation, he insists on the primacy of politics: the officer must carry out the orders he has received to seal off the area, whatever the circumstances. Bensch reaches the church. The people confined there, who are showing ever more signs of radiation poisoning, now realize that they cannot expect rescue from outside. They decide to break through the cordon. On an empty highway, they encounter a Bundeswehr checkpoint. The captain stationed there orders them several times to turn back. They continue forward regardless, intending to use a white flag to signal that they want to negotiate. The captain finally gives the order to fire, also pointing out that the soldiers do not want to be contaminated by radiation from the people confined there. The soldiers do not respond. The captain then pulls one soldier forward, and the soldier reluctantly opens fire on the civilians with his submachine gun. They collapse under the hail of bullets. The film ends with the desperate scream of a radioactively contaminated patient in an ambulance, who heard the gunshots.