Released: 2020

Dir.: Volker Heise

Berlin 1945: Diary of a Metropolis is a 3-part documentary mini-series from Germany about the fate of Berlin from Jan. 1-Dec. 31, 1945. As told through the diaries of average citizens, soldiers, both German and Soviet, POWs used as forced labor to build makeshift defenses, a Jewish woman hiding in the city fearing for the fate of her husband and children, among others, and the arrogant and delusional Dr. Goebbels who misleads the populous that victory is at hand. It is harrowing, hard to watch at times, oddly surreal, and compelling.

As allied bombing raids intensify, the citizens of Berlin go about their lives as normally as possible. They go to the cinema, only to have the film interrupted by air raid sirens. Then 45 minutes later returning to the theater to watch the rest of the film. This sort of thing becomes routine to the people, almost acting as if the raids are an annoying inconvenience. This seeming complacency doesn’t last long.

Not much time is spent on Hitler in the bunker. That part of the story has been documented many times in books, films, and other documentaries. Here it is used as a frame of reference for events happening around the city. What struck me was the second half of Part 2 and Part 3, which focuses on the immediate aftermath of the fall of Berlin.

The aftermath of the fighting is something that is often overlooked, and here we get a more comprehensive view of Berlin in the days, weeks and months following the surrender. The last days of the war found the citizens facing multiple horrors, continued artillery barrages, starvation, rape, brutality, death… The advancing Soviet forces were merciless. Once the fighting is over, the suffering continues.

The documentary goes into the initial Soviet occupation, how the people of Berlin were ordered to begin cleaning up the rubble as punishment for starting the war in the first place. Once the allies arrive, rapes continue, even increase, black market activity intensifies. Accountability is sought, but not everyone can agree on how to clean the mess up.

Watching Berlin 1945 you can’t help but think that not all German civilians were Nazis, many were opposed to what Naziism stood for, but they loved their country none the less. Indeed, there were civilians who were party members, and we do learn that some of these individuals’ ideology had not changed even after total defeat. But the fact remains, this story is about all civilians, just wanting to live. It’s not so easy to just say they got what was coming to them.

We are consumed by inhumanity from all directions. Even though the war is over, a new kind of war begins, the cold war, and Berlin is caught in the middle.

Allowing time to let this film sink in, I come to my own inescapable conclusion, that we humans in the past 80 years have learned absolutely nothing. Heaven forbid if the Nazis had succeeded and destroyed everyone they hated, killing would be so ingrained into their psyche they would inevitably turn on one another. A single race eutopia is a fantasy and the very idea extremely dangerous. Yet single minded individuals still strive for this foolish goal.

Some of the footage in Berlin 1945 is extremely graphic, so be warned. The very production of this film clearly shows is that modern Germany is learning from its past and actively strives never to return to the horrors of the Third Reich. But can the rest of the world say the same?

Berlin 1945: Diary of a Metropolis is streaming on Tubi.