Kästner und der kleine Dienstag (2016)

The young writer Erich Kästner finds success in Berlin’s “Golden Twenties” with political poems and becomes a star of the literary pages. On a whim, in 1929 he writes the children’s book *Emil and the Detectives*, winning the hearts of a younger readership—a surprise even to him, since he does not see himself as a children’s author. He receives an enthusiastic letter from eight-year-old Hans-Albrecht Löhr, who soon visits him at home and later acts out the book with friends. Kästner is touched by the fatherless boy’s enthusiasm, and Löhr’s dream comes true when *Emil and the Detectives* is to be made into a film in 1931 and he is cast as “Little Tuesday.” A close friendship grows between Kästner and Löhr, who sees Kästner as a substitute father, until the Nazis seize power and Kästner’s books are banned and publicly burned. Kästner is now a danger to the boy, who nevertheless remains devoted to their friendship, until Kästner breaks off contact himself to protect Löhr, even though he knows this will deeply disappoint him. While many intellectuals emigrate abroad, Kästner stays in Berlin and gets by on the proceeds from his books sold abroad and on screenwriting commissions he takes under a pseudonym. After a false report of Kästner’s death, the now-grown Löhr seeks the author out again and remains loyal to their friendship, just as he does to his friend Wolfi, whose father is Jewish—a fact that repeatedly gets Löhr into trouble. They begin meeting regularly again and talk about the difficult times. During a Gestapo search of Löhr’s home, his collection of Kästner’s books and letters, including a drawing expressing contempt for the Nazis, does not bring about his downfall only because his sister Ruth, actually a committed Nazi, spontaneously takes his side. When hopes for a quick end to the war are dashed after the outbreak of the Second World War, Löhr is eventually drafted into the Wehrmacht and becomes a “schoolboy in uniform”—something Kästner, a committed pacifist, can hardly bear. Löhr shares Kästner’s convictions and does not want to go to war either, but there is nothing more he can do to prevent it. Kästner himself was rejected for military service because of a weak heart. After his friend Erich Ohser—the artist and caricaturist known by the pseudonym e.o.plauen—commits suicide while in Gestapo custody, and Allied bombing raids destroy his home, Kästner finally leaves Berlin. While in Tyrol for a sham film shoot, he hears from passing Americans that the war has ended—and receives a letter from Löhr’s mother telling him that Löhr has fallen on the Eastern Front. Text shown at the end states that Kästner never forgot “Little Tuesday” and that the irreplaceable loss of the boy made him understand what Hitler had on his conscience, multiplied millions of times. Of the many child actors in the first film adaptation of *Emil and the Detectives*, only two survived the war.