Heimat: 7 Home - Soldiers and love (1944)

HEIMAT consists of eleven parts and has a total running time of 15 hours, 40 minutes, and 10 seconds. Heimat tells the story of one family, the Simons, through for generations and six decades, from 1919 to 1982 in their village of Schabbach in Hunsrück. What is exceptional about Heimat is that is associated for over three and a half years, the whole village together with the director of the series, in the process of writing and directing the film. The eleven episodes are the fruit of the collective imagination and memory of Edgar Reitz and the inhabitants of Husnrück. This episode takes place at he end of the third Reich. By the winter of 1944, no one really believes in victory anymore and the activities of the propaganda unit, Anton is assistant cameramen for, are correspondingly voracious. During movie screening for the soldiers, the sound of artillery often drowns out Zarah Leander singing “That won’t be the end of the world”. Otto has arranged a trip to a bomb he is to defuse so that he can spend the night in Schabbach. Maria and Otto are reunited. Katharina introduces Otto to his four-year old son, Hermann. That night, allied bomber squadrons fly over Hunsrück as Maria and Otto cuddle in each other’s arms and reminisce about how happy they were before the outbreak of the war. When they part the next morning, Maria stays calm and collected. A few hours later, Otto begins to defuse the bomb. “It’ll only take ten minutes”, are his last words. Death takes its toll in Schabbach, too. Mathias dies that very night and allied bombers hit the flak gun, Killing the soldiers quartered in Maria’s house. When he American march in, Lucie’s villa is commandeered, but as she looks into the faces of the smiling black Gis she can’t help thinking, “they look like people you can do business with”.