Wiedersehen mit einem Fremden (2010)

Liesbeth Steiner lives with her young son in a village in the High Black Forest. She had met the boy’s father, Max Steiner, in Berlin in 1945 and became his wife just a few days later in a wartime marriage, since his leave from the front was ending the following day. Back in the Black Forest, where Max had taken over his parents’ farm, Liesbeth found shelter with his family. But the young woman and their son are merely tolerated on the family farm; Steiner’s sister Margarete in particular considers his bride a fortune hunter. At the end of the Second World War, Max Steiner was taken prisoner by the Soviets and presumed missing. The only thing Liesbeth has left from her marriage, apart from her son, is a wedding photograph. She waits in vain at the station for his return whenever a new transport of returning prisoners of war arrives. As long as the brother entitled to inherit is unable to look after the farm, Margarete runs the agricultural business on his behalf. But the longer Steiner remains absent, the more Liesbeth’s status as his wife diminishes. When Grandfather Steiner, who was very fond of his grandson and daughter-in-law, dies, Margarete claims the house for herself, her husband Georg, and their mother. Liesbeth has no choice but to move with her son into the room above the stable, demoted to the status of a servant. When Max Steiner returns to his home village in 1955, after the “Return of the Ten Thousand”—the return of the last German prisoners of war, negotiated in Moscow by Chancellor Konrad Adenauer—Liesbeth is overjoyed. But she finds a man utterly changed by war and captivity. After their long separation, the two cautiously begin to grow close again. Once a swaggering man known for his quick temper and a staunch Nazi, he now seems reformed, quiet, and almost gentle, unsettling some members of the village community. Only little Josef, who approaches him without guile after initially being shy, is at ease with him; the returning man takes tender care of the boy. He seems to have difficulty recognizing old acquaintances, yet Max remembers details of the family history well. His mother, who has carefully kept all his wartime letters, is convinced that her beloved son has returned. His sister, however, doubts the man’s identity. For instance, during an argument with her brother about the future management of the farm, she speaks too harshly and, taken aback by his reaction, tells him outright that the old Max would have driven her off the farm by now. Liesbeth suspects that the man she believes to be her husband may not be who he claims to be, but she has longed for his return for so many years. Regine, too, who once worked as a servant on the Steiners’ farm, grows doubtful when the man who once assaulted her suddenly treats her kindly. One day she summons all her courage to find out for sure, and realizes from physical features that are missing that the man before her is a stranger. Eventually, he admits to her that he is a comrade of Max Steiner’s and that Max did not survive his captivity. Regine is so relieved that she not only keeps the truth to herself but publicly takes his and Liesbeth’s side against Margarete. Just as even the skeptics are beginning to make peace with the supposed Max, an old wartime comrade of his named Heinrich turns up in the village one day. He recognizes the imposture and tries to blackmail him. When the false Max refuses to meet Heinrich’s demands, Heinrich makes what he knows public. Margarete believes she has found an ally in Heinrich. After their mother dies, she plays her last card: In letters to his mother, Steiner had once described his involvement in German war crimes in Greece. While Liesbeth continues to stand firmly by the man she claims as her husband, the late-returning prisoner of war is now to be put on trial. The teacher Gottfried Reincke, from Transylvania, suddenly finds himself facing charges as a war criminal. During his years in Soviet captivity, he had dreamed himself into the life of his fellow prisoner Max; robbed of any future prospects in his homeland by the war and the decisions of the Potsdam Conference, he assumed Steiner’s identity after Steiner’s death.