Starting a few years before the fall of the Berlin Wall in Eastern Germany, Stasi Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler is offered a job to spy on Georg Dreyman. A playwright who’d escaped state scrutiny because of his pro-Communist views. Not long after he starts, Wiesler finds out the real reason why he was given the assignment. What he thought was a pro- communist, turned out to merely be a rival of romance over Dreyman’s girlfriend Christa-Maria Seiland. Bruno Hempf, the man who hired Weisler, wants Dreyman eliminated.
Whistler, now feeling that he’s been pulled into it, decided to try and get involved in the lives of others.
The protagonist, who is played by Ulrich Muhe, is a man named Wiesler. A Stasi who has been given a job to spy on another man who is suspected of being pro-communist. He later then finds out that there’s more to his job than he thought. What he thought what could’ve been a potential communist, turned out to merely be the boyfriend of his current employer’s fascination.
After spying on the couple for a while, he starts to feel sympathy for them. Such as not reporting certain events to his boss or to Hempf.
The antagonist is Minister Bruno Hempf, played by Thomas Thieme. Hemp is the man who hired Wiesler to spy on Dreyman. But it wasn’t for the reasons that he told him. In truth, he is pining for Dreyman’s girlfriend Christa. A struggling actress whose vulnerability he takes advantage of by coercing her to have affairs with him by exploiting it.
He intends to use Weisler to help eliminate Dreyman as his rival, so he can have Christa for himself. He is shown to be incredibly mean and cruel. Even going as far as having Christa arrested for finally denying him and then blackmailing her into telling him of Dreyman’s authorship.
The main conflict in this story is how Weisler is torn between doing is job and doing the right thing. He sees a struggling playwright that has a unconfident actress girlfriend who has to give her body to someone, his employer, to get her gigs. He knows how to do his job and is very good at it, so he doesn’t want to fail his assignment. But when he sees that he had been mislead on the situation, he can’t help but feel compassion for these two people. He actually gets involved on a few occasions to save them from getting hurt, momentarily anyway. But things still end up spiraling downward somehow. To the point where he is forced to serve his remain service years in a dead-end position. However, when Dreyman discovered that he had hidden his illegal activities, is able to publish his book. And dedicating to Weisler by using his codename with gratitude written on the inside.
The first event appeared to be accurate to me was the phone call Weisler’s boss, Obsertleutnant Anton Grubitz was not the phone with someone who appeared to be in a church. That was where people on the East Side were actually allowed to vent and rave about their current predicament.
The second accurate event as the fall of the Berlin Wall. The announcement in the movie was done as well for the exact same date on November 9th, 1989. The wall had brought struggles to the city. And once it was down, things appeared to have improved since. The first thing that I didn’t find to accurate was how Wiesler was sentenced for his betrayal. He was merely sent to be a mailman until he retired in twenty years.
Wiesler takes on his issue by getting emotionally involved with his assignment. Also, he decided to put his morales before his duty. Even going as far as hiding illegal evidence that was done by the man he was assigned to spy on, from his superiors. It’s a lesson to us that duty isn’t always about doing your job. Sometimes it’s about doing what you think is right.
When I saw this film, it was during the period where Germany and Berlin were still split in half by the Americans, British and French, and Soviet Union. This movie takes place on the East Side which is run by the Soviet Union thus Communism. It reminded me a lot of what happened when I saw a documentary about the Berlin Wall. Because the wall is still up for more than half of the movie. Seeing the difficulties going through for everyone who is living on the East side. How life is much harder to live by.
My conclusion is seeing that even though things were hard then, people were able to pull through. And seeing that one man, who was meant to be a spy, ended up changing his path for the better of his compassion for these people he doesn’t even know. The fact that he put his morales before his career at that risk just showed how much he cared. It was something that we could all learn. Also that maybe even we, should we feel that have to, can do the right thing. Regardless of the circumstances.
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