Küss mich, Genosse! (2007)

The young radio employee Jenny Lütjens is accidentally hit on the head by a soccer ball, falls unconscious, and travels through time from 2006 back to 1974, the year she was conceived. There, she wants to witness how her parents—Alexandra, a young woman from West Germany, and Frank, a young man from East Germany—meet. From her mother’s stories, Jenny knows she was conceived at the moment Jürgen Sparwasser scored the decisive goal during the 1974 World Cup match between West Germany and East Germany. Frank later dies while attempting to escape across the inner-German border. Mistaken for Erich Honecker’s niece, FDJ secretary Holzapfel, Jenny throws the course of events in the past into disarray and struggles to bring her parents together after all. During an outing by a West German school class, student Alexandra and her prim, occasionally mean classmate Dietmar—Jenny’s future stepfather, whom she dislikes—miss their onward journey after their bus breaks down on the transit route. They then make their way through the forest to the FDJ camp on LPG farmland in Bantikow, where Jenny has also ended up. Initially bewildered, Jenny quickly realizes what is going on and recognizes her mission, which she pursues with determination. Frank, who works as a disc jockey and plays records at a party in the evening, is at first more interested in Jenny than in the visitor from the West. But thanks to one of Jenny’s tricks, Alexandra and Frank do have a romantic encounter. It is interrupted, however, before Jenny can be conceived. The People’s Police apprehend Alexandra and send her back to Hamburg. An employee of the State Security Service is on Jenny’s trail. He knows she is not FDJ secretary Holzapfel. When he tries to arrest the suspects, Jenny and Frank, they take him by surprise and knock him out. At Jenny’s insistence, Frank puts on the Stasi officer’s uniform. Her plan is for the two of them to cross the border by train to the soccer match in Hamburg, so to speak, on official socialist state business. The staunchly loyal Stasi commanding officer Pfefferkorn is unwittingly drawn into the plan by Jenny’s charm. It comes in very handy that Jenny already knows the result of the politically crucial match (East Germany–West Germany 1–0; see Sparwasser’s goal). Jenny manages to visit Alexandra at her family home, making it possible for Frank and Alexandra to meet again and for Jenny to be conceived. The two eventually get to the stadium, where Jenny’s strength is steadily fading (the point of no return—her point of conception, or non-conception—has to be reached quickly). Jenny succeeds in bringing about her own conception before she is captured and interrogated by the Stasi. Because of the circumstances, her passport is now blank, and Pfefferkorn takes her for a secret agent. Meanwhile, in the stadium catacombs, Alexandra and Frank fall into each other’s arms after being reunited, thereby making Jenny’s future birth possible. While Frank scouts the area and tries to find out whether they can escape without being noticed, Stasi men overpower and take him away. Alexandra, meanwhile, gets dressed again, unaware that Frank is in trouble. When she finally goes to look more closely, she finds Dietmar, who has been searching for her, rather than Frank. Jenny is still trying to convince Pfefferkorn that she really came from the future and is not an agent. She only succeeds when she shows him the 2006 news footage she found while researching—footage that will not be broadcast live in the past for another two hours. Jenny then tells Pfefferkorn about what lies ahead, including German reunification, and events from her own time, such as the introduction of the euro as currency in many European countries (the Eurozone). As the young woman shares what she knows, she ultimately convinces Pfefferkorn that she is telling the truth and makes him understand that he should defect while he still has the choice. He is persuaded—but in the meantime, her future father and her future brother Patrick are caught and locked up. Shortly after their conversation, Pfefferkorn and Jenny help Frank and Patrick escape by setting them free. Soon afterward, they run into Pfefferkorn’s now-former subordinates, whom he and Frank overpower, and set off for Alexandra, who is at home weeping over Frank and his apparent arrest and telling her parents what really happened. To Alexandra’s surprise, both her parents understand her actions and comfort her. Even Dietmar realizes he was in the wrong and apologizes to Alexandra. A little later, Frank and Jenny arrive at Alexandra’s home on the Elbchaussee with Pfefferkorn and Patrick. Jenny witnesses her future parents fall into each other’s arms, much to Dietmar’s displeasure. Alexandra’s parents see the two young adults embrace. But it is only when Jenny exposes Dietmar as the one who betrayed the two of them, in front of Alexandra’s parents, that those present learn the truth about him. He is not at all the noble knight and rescuer he pretends to be. The young couple, Alexandra and Frank, reunited at last, throw Dietmar out. Those present then witness another historic event: Pfefferkorn officially declares that he will no longer serve the East German regime and pointedly removes his lapel pin. Happy in their love and newly restored life together, Alexandra and Frank spontaneously decide to adopt Patrick, the orphan boy who has grown very dear to them—much to everyone’s surprise and Patrick’s delight. The young couple’s plans leave Alexandra’s parents stunned and speechless. A little later, Jenny is hit on the head by another soccer ball and returns to her own time while still trying to explain that she is a time traveler from 2006. Moments later, a young man finds her lying on a couch, speaks to her and wakes her by calling her by her first name. She seems to have been asleep on the couch. Disoriented, she recognizes the young man who woke her. She is back in 2006. The young man, who looks concerned and seems to know her, then asks her in confusion whether she really slept in the armchair where she had earlier woken up. To Jenny’s great astonishment, as they talk he turns out to be little Patrick, now grown up, whom her parents really did adopt. Jenny asks Patrick the date and realizes it is the same day as before her time travel. She understands that everything she experienced really happened. In her bag are also the original recordings she made at the FDJ holiday camp and afterward. They are the final proof Jenny needs to believe that she truly traveled into the past, brought her parents together, saved her father from being shot at the “Wall,” and caused a great deal of commotion. But more surprises are in store for Jenny… She is drawn to the newsroom to write her report. Patrick offers to drive her there, and Jenny gratefully accepts. Outside the newsroom, Patrick reminds her that their parents are having a party that afternoon. Still somewhat disoriented, and wanting to know whether she really did save her father retroactively, Jenny asks her brother what their father’s name is. Patrick tells her the truth: his name is Frank. He is still puzzled by his sister’s strange behavior as he says this and studies her thoughtfully. Jenny begins to understand that everything she planned has worked: Frank is alive, and her mother never married Dietmar. And together, her parents really did adopt little Patrick back then. Jenny finally realizes she has awakened in a completely different reality. Patrick also tells her that their father really did fulfill his dream and now produces music. The newsroom, too, is nothing like Jenny remembers. Everyone likes her. Tony tells her she is an editor and apparently a very good one. When she entered the newsroom, he had crept up behind her and kissed her. Jenny can hardly believe it. She addresses him formally, and Tony is greatly amused. His words suddenly make her realize that even more has changed. This was not their first kiss. Tony and Jenny were a couple. The man she had secretly been in love with before her time travel was her boyfriend—and, as the two of them establish in conversation, had been for a year. Everything around Jenny had changed. Her father was alive and with her mother; her mother was happy; she had a brother; she was a radio editor and no longer spent her days in the sound-effects archive. All her colleagues liked her—everything she had always wanted. She writes her piece, and Tony is thrilled with her article. Jenny can hardly believe it: she has achieved her goal. Tony really does broadcast her report, delighting himself, the editorial team and his listeners—including former Captain Pfefferkorn, whom Jenny had told about the fall of the SED dictatorship during her bizarre time-travel adventure. As it turns out, in 2006 he works at the radio station’s reception desk. After the broadcast, Tony and the whole editorial team celebrate Jenny’s sensational report. She can still hardly believe it. She is a successful, popular journalist, just as she always wanted to be. Then Tony kisses her. He also surprises her with a trip to Rome for their first anniversary. That evening, Tony and Jenny attend the party Alexandra and Frank, her parents, had mentioned. There, in Frank’s arms, Alexandra looks back over what happened back then. Jenny listens intently to her mother’s story in Tony’s arms. Her father begins to play the saxophone, and Jenny snuggles into the arms of the man she loves.