Suchkind 312 (2007)

Postwar Germany: After a period of hardship, Ursula married Richard without telling him that she had once been engaged and had a child. She assumes that the child’s father, Achim Lenau, died in the Soviet Union. She lost her daughter Martina while fleeing from the East and believes that she, too, is dead. In the meantime, Ursula has become the mother of a boy named Helmut and is living comfortably. When she comes across a missing-person notice placed by a girl in a magazine, she believes she recognizes her daughter. She is deeply shaken, but is very afraid to tell her husband about this child born out of wedlock after having kept silent until now. When she finally tells him everything, he pressures her to do nothing at first, so as not to jeopardize his upcoming promotion with a scandal. After Richard’s sister Johanna hears about it, she persuades him to adopt the girl, who is living in a children’s home. Since another woman, the wealthy Ulla Krawinke, also claims to be Martina’s mother, the case has to be decided in court (DNA tests did not exist at the time). Achim, believed dead, has meanwhile returned from Soviet captivity, adding further strain to Ursula’s marriage. In court, Martina is awarded to her mother, but Ursula immediately hands the girl over to her father so as not to endanger her marriage or her husband’s promotion. In the end, the marriage fails anyway. Richard Gothe takes Ursula’s young son Helmut away from her and claims that he alone is entitled to decide all matters concerning married life (which was no longer the case; see the decision on the legal-norm status of the principle of equal rights). When the spouses argue, Ursula is seriously injured in a fall down the stairs, although Richard did not intend it to happen. In the hospital, Richard Gothe comes to his senses and lets both his wife and his child go, thereby giving Ursula, Achim, Martina, and Helmut the chance to become a family. The main story takes place in 1954 in Lower Saxony. However, the film was shot in Berlin and Brandenburg. The child’s exact age remains unclear: the notification Ursula opens while heavily pregnant, saying that Achim is missing, is dated March 1944, but he later gives November 1943 as his birth month (a continuity error in the film).