Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef) returns to the ruins of Berlin from a Concentration Camp after WW2 to discover that someone else lives in her apartment: Dr. Hans Mertens, the war made him depressive and he drinks a lot of alcohol. Susanne asks him to go but he doesn’t want to, so they share Susanne’s apartment and even discover their sympathy and then their love for each other. That encourages him a little, of course. But then he hears that Ferdinand Brückner is still alive and also lives in Berlin. Brückner was his Captain during WW2, he gave the order to kill more than 100 innocent people, many children and women among them, on Christmas 1942 in Poland.

The first film to come out of Germany after the fall of Hitler, Wolfgang Staudte’s “The Murderers Are Among Us” (1946, 91 min) is a moody and artistically valid melodrama, the first ‘rubble film’ shot within the ruins of Berlin. Often visually reminiscent of the best of German expressionism, it’s a socially conscious examination of German guilt, told through a defeated, existentially drained doctor searching for the will to keep living.

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From April to June, Meta screens the best films set in Germany’s capital, from the 1920s up until today. Sunday’s Berlin Film Series at Meta House is presented by “Berlin Bar” @ Meta House. All films are screened in English language versions and / or with English subtitles.