Kolp (1985)

In 1947, in the Odenwald village of Lützbach, during the postwar period, the Black American Lieutenant Jack is billeted in the home of the Kolp family. Since Father Kolp is a doctor, the family is relatively well off. While the father despises the military policeman as an occupier and tolerates him only reluctantly, his son Hans sees him as a role model and strikes up a friendship with him. The 18-year-old high school student learns English from Jack, is allowed to drive his military jeep on trips into the forest, and goes hunting with him—something strictly forbidden to Hans but permitted to the American soldiers. When Jack is recalled to the United States, he leaves Hans a revolver and his uniform. Hans’s school friend Ekke, who deals in American cigarettes on the black market, “procures” him a U.S. Army jeep. With the help of the stolen jeep and the uniform, Hans’s disguise as a military policeman is perfect. This enables him to fool not only German police officers but also U.S. Army guards. Hans forms a gang with his classmates, stealing not only cigarettes and whisky but also jeeps and weapons to trade on the black market. Because of the thefts of weapons and military vehicles, the U.S. military now suspects that a nationalist resistance movement is behind the black-market gang and begins tracking them down. Karl, a German employed by the Americans as a civilian worker, offers the gang a deal: they are to steal a truck, and in return they will receive money instead of goods for barter. After the first successful deal, Karl urges Hans to carry on. But in the meantime, the gang has disbanded. The 1948 currency reform also marked the end of the black market, and the students now want to earn money through honest work. Hans, however, is willing to keep stealing trucks for Karl. After his final job, Hans plans to flee west with his new love, Hilde, into the French-occupied zone. But the U.S. military has already set up a roadblock along their escape route. When the couple reaches the roadblock and finds there is no way to escape, Hans shoots his girlfriend and then himself.