Germany in Autumn
1978 [GERMAN]
Action / Documentary / Drama
86%
TOMATOMETER
· 7 reviews
69%
AUDIENCE
· 100 ratings
6.8/10
1.5K
Plot summary
Germany in Autumn does not have a plot per se; it mixes documentary footage, along with standard movie scenes, to give the audience the mood of Germany during the late 1970s. The movie covers the two month time period during 1977 when a businessman was kidnapped, and later murdered, by the left-wing terrorists known as the RAF-Rote Armee Fraktion (Red Army Fraction). The businessman had been kidnapped in an effort to secure the release of the orginal leaders of the RAF, also known as the Baader-Meinhof gang. When the kidnapping effort and a plane hijacking effort failed, the three most prominent leaders of the RAF, Andreas Baader, Gudrun Ensslin, and Jan-Carl Raspe, all committed suicide in prison. It has become an article of faith within the left-wing community that these three were actually murdered by the state.
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Movie Reviews
Fassbinder's Masterpiece
Germany democracy is facing with a hard challenge
This is a melancholic semi-documentary about the West Germany's traumatic autumn called as "Deutschland Herbst". The prominent businessman Hanns Martin Schleyer who was a member of the board of directors in Daimler Benz and leader in several employer and industry associations was kidnapped and killed by extreme-left RAF. He was formerly SS worked as an important deputy and adviser to Bernhard Adolf, one of the German economic leaders. Schleyer's uncompromising position towards workers made him a target in the West Germany.
The movie plays with different positionalities. Germany democracy is facing with a hard challenge after the WW2. If you do not know much about these events, you better read about it. The Businesman's chic funeral, his ex-SS experience and policies in the West Germany, RAF's actions are all putting you in a mixed feeling. Left and democracy are under pressure with a lack of hope. I felt like RAF was representation of this hopelessness.
It is a very simplistic semi-documentary but very successful. End of the movie was very moving with the song "A Tu Salud". I highly recommend you to see it. Despite you may not know much about Germany or the specific context, it has a lot of relevance to today's democracy and freedom problems.