Anonyma - Eine Frau in Berlin

A historical film with an interesting theme, which, however, couldn't grab me as it probably should have. It seems to me that I am already quite desensitized, even though the fate of women is presented here quite cruelly. Nevertheless, it seemed to me that in the end, it becomes a melodrama, disregarding its connection to tragic historical events. (2016.06.08)

The events depicted in the film were by no means unknown to historians, but it took many decades for the social taboo associated with the trauma of mass rape and abuse by the advancing Red Army to be broken. The USSR and its successor Russia naturally had no interest in opening up this inglorious chapter of their troops' actions during World War II. When the Red Army reached the German borders in 1944, they had already experienced the brutal reality of heavy and bloody battles, as well as the awareness of the brutal violence inflicted by the Germans on civilians. The Red Army had retribution to exact, and the population of the first occupied German villages certainly did not fare well. However, this increased resistance from German units and soviet leadership quickly put an end to the most extreme excesses. Rape and looting, however, were inevitable; the exhausted troops simply had to be offered something. While sexual crimes also occurred within Western units, they were much less frequent and in a different atmosphere (as evidenced, for example, by the scene of the mass rape of an Italian schoolgirl in the film Two Women). On the Eastern Front, rape was of a mass nature and represented a systemic failure - and, effectively, a war crime. The victims of these crimes were unable to seek help and did not want to remind others of their pain and shame. Only after the wartime generation died or reached old age was it possible to revisit this issue. The content of the film is controversial for some even today, but in my opinion, it does not attempt to relativize the horrors of Nazism from the German side or even to falsify history. The film does not seek a black-and-white perspective; the Red Army soldiers are not one-dimensional monsters, but people shaped by war and personal experience. Their attitudes and feelings are simply contradictory - the same can be said for German civilians. In the first half, considering the subject matter, I would not hesitate to give it 5 stars, but in the second half, the script starts to become tangled in circles, and many scenes could have been edited out. So, in the end, it gets 4 stars and an 85% overall impression. (2017.07.06)

The WWII seems like a bottomless well of stories. On one hand, that’s not really surprising. A Woman in Berlin might be a very interesting, original story that tells one of the tales that, for a change, took place in Berlin right before the war ended. I absolutely understand why the movie was filmed. I mean, I never really thought about what happened when the Russian army stormed Berlin. In my eyes, the war simply ended and that was that. But when I thought about it, it couldn’t have been as rosy as it’s written in books and that’s exactly why one anonymous German woman wrote a diary that this amazing movie was based on. It’s just a shame it’s so slow-paced. Because at times, it can be awfully boring, which is a common problem with war dramas. On the other hand, it really tried to show the life of the two opposing sides absolutely objectively. The objectivity is fundamental for a movie like this; without it, the telling value is basically zero. Americans but also Russians have something to say about that… We’re all people and we’re all just acting on our instincts and since that’s the truth, then nobody’s good or bad. We’re all just people with good and bad sides. I’m glad I saw a movie like this. The fair-mindedness is the movie’s main currency and it takes the story of this single woman – but also a thousand other women from Berlin – to new heights. (2012.10.30)

A Woman in Berlin offers a truly original look at the atrocities that took place in Germany at the end of World War II. It shows in a very realistic and unbiased way what German women were experiencing when Russian soldiers invaded Berlin. This painful story, which draws on the writings of an anonymous Berliner, made a huge impression on me. After watching the film, I thought about what the end of the war actually meant for the victims of brutal rape. In many cases, there certainly wasn't an immediate burst of joy, and it seems that affected women struggled for a long time to satisfactorily integrate into society. It was a time none of us would have wanted to live in. (85%) (2020.05.23)