Und wieder 48 (1948)

Berlin, 1948: Students at Berlin University take part as extras in a feature film about the revolutionary year of 1848. Director Hoffmann puts his artistic ambitions above everything else and portrays the bourgeois revolution as nothing but a comedy. Young Else Weber, who studies history at the university, disagrees with him: the revolution, she says, was the path to creating a united Germany on a democratic basis. Its failure was not comic but tragic. To portray it otherwise, she argues, would mean saying that Bismarck’s troops were right in the end. Hoffmann, who has already heard similar objections from his production designer, Ring, and other members of the film crew, dismisses the students from the production. The students’ anger now turns against Else, since they could all have used the money they would have earned from the film. Medical student Heinz Althaus, in particular, takes a strong stand against her. At a discussion that has been arranged, Else is to explain herself to her fellow students. Else lives in a small apartment with her sick sister Betty and Betty’s son. She lost her husband and child in the war, while Betty is unsure whether her own husband will return. Else knows that Betty’s husband has been killed, but keeps this from her sister out of concern for her health. She is often accused of being emotionally cold, though she merely puts on an emotionless front. In the past, she says, she has had to grieve too often. Now she throws herself all the more intensely into her country’s past and researches the Revolution of 1848. Inspired by the filming, she plans an exhibition about 1848 with a group of like-minded students. She also wants to stage a historical cabaret about the revolution at the student dance. Heinz Althaus sees Else again in the library. He takes the books about the Revolution of 1848 that she has just returned and begins reading up on the subject. Before long, he realizes that Else is right. He is especially fascinated by the student Gustav Adolph Schlöffel, who knowingly placed himself in his enemies’ hands and stood up for the rights of the citizens. Else, however, remains suspicious about whether Heinz is genuinely interested in the subject. The historical cabaret at the dance proves a great success. But a neighbor comes to fetch Else because she has accidentally told Betty that her husband is dead. Else now fears that Betty might harm herself. The sophisticated Lissy, who has set her sights on Heinz and sees Else as a rival, spreads the rumor that Else’s sister has died. Everyone is all the more bewildered when Else announces the next number in the cabaret program and only then goes home. A week after the dance, the long-awaited discussion in which the students are to confront Else takes place. Else is outraged that the newspaper has reported her sister’s death: it is not true, she says, and even if it were, it would be nobody’s business. She compares the anonymous writer to the anonymous German who scratches his way forward and bows and scrapes behind him. The students urge Heinz to speak out against Else, but he is cautious: he has not yet read enough about the revolutionaries of 1848 to form his own opinion. On balance, however, he agrees with Else. As a result, his friends now regard him critically. Else, however, does not trust Heinz, a former soldier, and indirectly calls him a reactionary in front of Lissy, adding that he thinks one way today and another tomorrow. Meanwhile, Heinz continues to learn. For example, he attends a lecture by Professor Kortlein, who, among other things, discusses and condemns the criticism of Else. Relations between Else and Heinz improve. Else succeeds in getting the students a second chance to work on the film. Despite his preoccupation with 1848, Heinz has not neglected his studies, contrary to what his fellow students believe, and passes his medical exam with excellent results. But before Else can congratulate him, Heinz runs into Lissy, who tells him that Else still sees him as nothing but a reactionary. Heinz is furious and leaves. He seeks advice from the production designer, Ring, who says there is no need to seek confrontation in love. Ring persuades Heinz to make peace with Else, and she too regrets having mistrusted him. They meet during the filming of the movie, which by now is treating the revolutionary cause much more seriously, and reconcile.