BYE BYE GERMANY/ ES WAR EINMAL IN DEUTSCHLAND

Germany, 2017, 100 minutes, Colour.
Moritz Bleibtreu, Antje Traue.
Directed by Sam Gabarski.

Bye, Bye Germany is the English title of this serious film with comic overtones. Its original German title means: Once Upon a Time in Germany.

This is a film with a serious Jewish- German theme, a focus on Jews who survived the concentration camps and came back to reconstruct their lives, not moving out of Germany, but remaining within. The setting for this story is Frankfurt, a focus on a well-established fabric company founded by the father of the central character, David (Moritz Bleibtreu) who has a plan to re-establish the company and its outlets by seconding his friends and making them travel around, interviewing housewives, persuading them to invest in the materials.

There is something of a comic tone, a light tone, in this presentation of the survivors, the bitterness and unhappiness of their memories, the challenge for them to make new lives after what they have suffered. The main desire for many of them is to be able to leave Germany and to go to live in the United States and make a new life and home there. They need money for the tickets and David becomes a central agent for collecting and saving the money.

However, it is not going to be easy for David. The occupying American authorities are suspicious of him and he is subject to many interrogations, his interrogator being Sarah, originally from Germany, having migrated to the United States with her parents in the 1930s, now seriously committed to order in post-war Germany and interrogating David and finding him guilty of double standards. It emerges that he was in some favour with the Nazis, even travelling to Hitler’s mountain retreat, having two passports, and being a cheerful man who is able to make jokes and ingratiate himself. The tragic side was a joke competition with the loser to be executed. The interrogator at one stage brings in one of the guards from the camps who identifies him as the man who made jokes.

Ultimately, interrogator modifies her harsh attitude towards David, while he is attracted to her.

Finally, David is the one who remains in Germany re-establishing his father’s company while the others travelled to the United States.

An interesting issue for Jewish audiences but also for worldwide audiences asking questions about how survivors of the concentration camps were able to start again and make a future, so many thousands remaining in Germany, others going to Israel or to the United States.


1. The tone of the title? English? German?

2. The film promoted as a comedy, remedy? Serious/comic? By?

3. Holocaust story, post-Holocaust? The Jews in Germany, in the concentration camps? Deaths in survival? The desire of the Jews to leave Germany after the war, to go to the US? The 4000 who decided to stay – and, as the text says, could not explain this to the children?

4. David, in himself, Jewish background, his enterprising father, his brother, their company? Arrested, in the camp? His ability with humour? Going to Hitler’s retreat? The two passports? The ambiguous behaviour during the war?

5. The opening, the dog, one leg, David and his being in some way crippled? Meeting the Jewish merchant in the street, his idea, promoting fabrics, the group, getting the money to go to America, combining, going from door to door, the sales, their pitch, the effect on the women buying?

6. The American dream, the money, each of the characters?

7. Sarah, the interrogation, her role with the Americans? The background her life, her family getting out of Germany, going to the United States, her law studies at Harvard, who work with the military as a contribution to the effort? The interrogation, her personal severity?

8. The attitudes towards David, the question is, the indications from the flashbacks? David in the glimpses of his behaviour?

9. Organising the confrontation with the SS officer? His talking about David and his jokes? David upset, the competition for the best jokes, and the Jew who lost the competition and was sentenced to death? David physically attacking the man? Weeping? Sarah saying the case was closed?

10. The coming to see him, the talk, the attraction, sexual encounter? Possibilities – or not?

11. The money, the documents? The plan? The young black market entrepreneur, their dealings with him, hostility, his running away from the car, there destroying it?

12. The group photo, those going to America, David and his reasons for staying, the shop? His talking to the audience at the end?