Labyrinth of Lies

Things seem dated and the behavior in this movie almost feels like it. But there was a time where people seemed to want to forget rather than face certain things in public. Speak about cruelties makes things real, rather than just saying it's a story. But just the fact, that people were talking about things happening, remembering them (for better or worse) made it personal. And while the movie is not really surprising in its structure or where it's heading, it's still manages to build some tension (character secrets and values and more things that are revealed along the main story/themes). Never forget and never repeat ... but is this problem/issue that easy to overcome?

Labyrinth of Lies deals with a pretty much forgotten chapter in German history—the 1963 Frankfurt Auschwitz trials. State prosecutors in the German city of Frankfurt brought former mid-and-low level functionaries of the Auschwitz death camp to trial despite opposition from Nazi sympathizers and an apathetic public. Perhaps the most surprising thing one learns from the film is just how ignorant the general population was of Auschwitz and the Nazi era when the story begins in 1958. The protagonist is a composite character, Johann Radmann, based on three real-life prosecutors, played by the popular German actor, Alexander Fehling. When we're first introduced to Radmann, he has a low level job in the prosecutor's officer handling traffic violations. His by-the-book demeanor immediately becomes apparent when he refuses to allow a pretty Fraulein, to pay a reduced fine for a traffic infraction. Through the efforts of Tomas Gnielka, a journalist obsessed with Germany's embrace of Nazism, Radmann soon gets wind of a former Auschwitz guard now working as a school teacher. Radmann is rebuffed by the lead prosecutor in the office who disparages him for taking an interest in the former Auschwitz guard—in the lead prosecutor's view, this will only open up a can of worms. But a higher-up, Fritz Bauer— the Attorney General-- is sympathetic toward efforts to uncover the crimes of the Nazi past, and appoints Radmann as the special prosecutor responsible for prosecuting those responsible for crimes at the death camp. Radmann gets his first leads from Simon Kirsch, an Auschwitz survivor, introduced to him by Gnielka. Kirsch is uncooperative at first but later, along with other survivors, provides important testimony that will aid Radmann in his quest to bring various Auschwitz functionaries to justice. Radmann also digs up evidence from files at an US Army base. Director Giulio Ricciarelli does well in chronicling the extreme state of denial many Germans were in as they grappled with the legacy of Nazi horrors. There are also sympathizers who do everything they can (including throwing a rock with a swastika on it, through Radmann's window), to derail him from finishing his job. You would never guess that the actual Auschwitz participants who now have ordinary jobs were stone-cold killers, just a little over a decade before. Labyrinth of Lies gets bogged down when Radmann becomes obsessed with tracking down the notorious "Butcher of Auschwitz", Dr. Josef Mengele, in spite of orders to desist from his boss Bauer. Radmann's efforts to capture Mengele prove fruitless, despite having learned that Mengele has been returning to Germany from South America to visit his relatives. Since we already know that Mengele was never captured, there is very little point in chronicling Radmann's unsuccessful quest for a good part of the second half of the narrative. Radmann has his "dark moment" of the second Act, when he becomes overly self-righteous in holding his fellow Germans to account for their indifference during the Nazi years. It turns out that Gnielka, the fanatically anti-Nazi journalist, was actually a 17 year old worker at the death camp; and Redmann's girlfriend, Marlene, has been making profits in selling clothes to the wives of former Nazis. At one point Radmann quits the prosecutor's office and signs on with a hot-shot attorney but eventually sees the light and agrees to finish his prosecutorial duties. Labyrinth of Lies is a valuable film in that it paints an indelible portrait of a society coming to grips with its dark past. While not everything works in the film (the Mengele sequence is particularly overdone), the exploration of this largely forgotten chapter in German history, is most welcome.

It's 1958 Frankfurt, West Germany. Johann Radmann is a young by-the-books prosecutor toiling in traffic court and believing his father to be anti-Nazi. Reporter Thomas Gnielka brings the case of Charles Schulz, a teacher suspected of being a Nazi guard in Auschwitz. Nobody cares about what happened there and actively ignores the collective Nazi past. He starts a relationship with Marlene Wondrak. Gnielka introduces him to camp survivor Simon Kirsch. Radmann starts digging into the past and building a case against many. His main obsession is camp doctor Josef Mengele who experimented on the prisoners. The history is very compelling. However, the story lacks danger or intensity. It needs some additional drama. There is some professional and personal drama but none of it is that intense. The production and acting is first rate. It is a very compelling watch although there are no big surprises.

Major Parker (Tim Williams). Originally in German in the movie (the American Major speaks German to Johann Radmann): "You were all Nazis. In the Eastern sector, now you are all communists. Jesus, you Germans! If little green men from Mars landed tomorrow, you would all become green". Finally a movie that shows the culpability of the common German people in the Holocaust! The Holocaust didn't happen just because of 4 Nazi psychos, but thanks to millions of ordinary men (90% of the Germans from 1940-41) who supported the Nazi ideology and happily collaborated in the massacres of millions of innocent men, women and children. By the way, two books that brilliantly demonstrate the collaboration of the vast and overwhelming majority of Germans in the gigantic Nazi killing machine are Rethinking the Holocaust, by Yehuda Bauer (a masterpiece) and Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust, by Daniel Goldhagen. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens shows the fast oblivion in Germany of the atrocities committed by the Germans just 10 years after the liberation of the Nazi concentration and extermination camps, and the impunity millions of murderers enjoyed, people who tortured, massacred and gassed millions of Jews and non-Jews in the 1940s. Only very few Germans heard about Auschwitz before the famous Eichmann trial in 1961. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens focuses on the the period prior to the trials that took place in Frankfurt between December 20, 1963 and August, 1965 (called in German der Auschwitz- Prozess) against very few SS members who operated in Auschwitz. The trials were ridiculous and a spit on the 1,100,000 victims who were massacred and gassed in Auschwitz. From the 7,000 SS members who operated in Auschwitz during the war, only 22 dogs were judged at the Frankfurt Trials. Nevertheless, the attempt for a pinch of justice was important. From the 22 SS members, only 6 got life imprisonment, many got ridiculous sentences ranging from 3 to 10 years, and 5 were simply released. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens shows the extreme difficulty of judging the murderers because of the silence the Germans kept and their attempt to hide the truth. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens got many prizes (although none were extremely important) and it was the film that Germany presented for the category 'Best Foreign Language Film' (Oscars, 2016), although it was not nominated. I always believed that the only way Germans (and Austrians) have today to clean the blood their parents and grandparents spilled is to be deeply anti-Nazi. But how many Germans and Austrians are there today who are deeply anti-Nazi? "Schweigen" is "silence" in German. The correct translation of the title would be: "In the Labyrinth of Silence". In English the title has been poorly translated as Labyrinth of Lies. The best: the fact that the culpability of the German common pig in the Holocaust finally arouses. The worst: that even when the film shows Fritz Bauer (the judge who made the Frankfurt Trials possible), the character of Johann Radmann (brilliantly performed by Alexander Fehling) is fictitious.

In 1958, the German people had very little knowledge of the death camps of World War II. A Jew, whose children were experimented upon, demands to be heard but is ignored by the legal system. A young lawyer hears his pleas but doesn't know what he can do. When he proposes action, he is ignored or scolded by those that would be of the most help. He finds a small group of people that are working on the cases in the camps. He wants the big fish, Joseph Mengele, and forgets about those who were in the SS or who acted like savages in the camps. This is about a man who is so driven that he can't come to grips with the idea that most of the country were Nazis, including those close to him. He get very emotional in his all-or-nothing quest and alienates people. He even dismisses the children of Nazis, even if they had nothing to do with anything. He is angry with all of Germany but doesn't ask why this all happened. This is a film about seeing what is most important in our lives--what can be changed and what can't. The ultimate trial proved to be one of the most important in modern history.

It's always fascinating to see how WWII still lives on. The question of remembering vs letting bygones be bygones is still as relevant as ever. It seems like every year or so another film on the Holocaust is released. All the more interesting then when it's Germany releasing such a film. Im Labyrinth des Schweigens takes a (for me at least) little explored subsection of postwar Germany, the Frankfurt Auschwitz Trials that started in 1963. Johann Radmann is a typical protagonist: young and ambitious; he's also a lawyer. Besides the fact he, like many of his countrymen, is oblivious to the horrors of Auschwitz and the Holocaust is his only character flaw. When an angry journalist alerts him to this fact, he starts to pursue the case of the unprosecuted SS officers with unmatched zeal. Time and again, however, he finds himself with confronted with a society either too ignorant or too unwilling to air its dirty laundry, to really get its troubled past out in the open. Nevertheless, after a herculean effort on the part of Radmann and others, the trial did eventually took place which led to the conviction of 17 people—Gestapos, dentists, adjutants and so on—who were involved in the horrors of Auschwitz. If there's anything Im Labyrinth des Schweigens does well, it's conveying the very silence conveyed in the title. The notion that Nazism was rooted out with the Nuremberg trials is treated with great disdain by the film. The film conveys the naiveté of many of Germany's citizens at the time as well as their reasons for doing so. There's a short scene that perfectly encapsulates this idea: Radmann and his superior are at odds with two colleagues. One of them states that digging up this part of Germany's past can only do more harm than good. Just now, when we're 'trying to move on', a case like this might force every German child to look at his parents with suspicion. Such an effect is toxic he claims to which Radmann's superior responds that it's precisely the forced silence which is toxic, particularly in a democracy which is still so young. In a single short scene we're treated to a convincing representation of both sides of the argument. The film has two weaknesses: strange tonal shifts and a boring, irrelevant romance. The first one is difficult to describe as it makes it sound like I wanted Im Labyrinth to be a melodramatic trauermarsch of sorts with zero comic relief. This is not the case. Aptly timed humor and other non-dramatic content can add greatly to character development and so on, but with Im Labyrinth I felt there were certain tonal inconsistencies. It also doesn't help the film features an incredibly forced romance between Radmann and a young woman. I get that the romance is there to generate a conflict not dissimilar to Fincher's Zodiac, where the investigator's family life is threatened by his obsessions. Im Labyrinth tries to do the same thing, but—save for a few moments—the romance is never really connected to the main storyline, so it feels like an afterthought. There's also some really cringe-worthy writing: during their first (and thankfully only) lovemaking session, she for some reason tells him that 'life's good'…uhh, okay. You see where I'm going with this? It just feels like it's going through the motions. The filmmakers first create the obligatory romance and then threaten to disrupt it to make us feel for Radmann, but it never works. This is made all the more strange by the fact that a certain plot twist regarding Radmann's own family is far more convincing in making us feel for him. All in all though, despite the occasional cringe, Im Labyrinth des Schweigens is very interesting to watch. In the end, it undeniably succeeds at what is undoubtedly its main task: illuminating the why and how of Germany's postwar silence on the Holocaust.

I congratulate the Germans for their courage to treat their history this way. A film with an excellent scenario and great "non Hollywood actors". The experience the director gained producing documentaries in the past was transferred successfully into his first feature film. The atmosphere of the fifties in Germany was well recreated. Till I saw the film I was under the impression that the "Entnazifizierungsprozess" started right after the Nurnberg trials. This film proves that it actually started in the early sixties. The question always remains, how a nation that produced Goethes, Schillers, Beethovens and others like them could commit these crimes against humanity. Let's not forget that the Nazis were voted to power.

Holocaust stories from Schindler's List (1993) to Son of Saul (2015) penetrate our emotional defences by dragging us right into the horror zone. In Labyrinth of Lies (2014) we are spared this entirely because the horror is of a different kind. The focus is on a nation in denial, desperate to block the collective memories of the generation responsible and prevent the following one from ever knowing. The historical timeframe depicted is critical to grasping the power of this story. Set in 1958 Germany, thirteen years after the war, the economy is booming but the nation's older generation struggle with guilt and anger while the young have not even heard of Auschwitz. Produced in Germany, this film is an illuminating piece of the historical puzzle and part of a nation's prolonged self-atonement. The storyline is linear and uncomplicated. A journalist recognises a former Nazi commander of Auschwitz now working as a schoolteacher, but he cannot elicit any interest from public prosecutors. He befriends young lawyer Johann Radmann who processes parking fines but is desperate to take on serious cases. Despite ridicule from colleagues he is made lead investigator and gradually learns about the secret killing factories of Auschwitz. The labyrinth he encounters is one of silence and lies, as large numbers of public servants and others in positions of power were former members of the Nazi Party and many were morally complicit in Hitler's Final Solution. Along the way, he becomes the obsessive hunter as the investigation keeps getting bigger until it is all- consuming. A romantic sub-story is awkwardly woven into the plot both to humanise Radmann and show the destructive impact that the investigation has on his life. The filming and sets convey the period with authenticity, and the directing is tight although the script is heavy. It takes almost the entire film to expose the full-scale truth, and the results of the investigations are dealt with swiftly as a cinematic necessity. No doubt some people watch Holocaust films for entertainment, but many more do so searching for understanding of this extraordinary period of history. Labyrinth of Lies is important because it fills the gap between war's end in 1945 and the world's slow awakening to what happened at Auschwitz. In particular, it explains how the truth was kept from young Germans oblivious to what their parents did in the war and shows powerful hands on the blanket of silence. Like Spotlight (2015), the story starts by looking at the tip of an iceberg that grew until it overwhelmed a nation and it maintains an engaging thriller quality to the end.

It is 1958. Fledgling lawyer Johann Radmann hears of an instance that took place some time in the past during WWII, and of which he has little knowledge. Seems a man complained about abuse of some sort during detention in the war, but the issue was dropped due to lack of interest. Radmann, however, is interested and decides to investigate. He is soon overwhelmed by a mountain of facts in which few people are interested or talk about. War Crimes is the topic, and Radmann can't find anyone among contemporaries who has even heard of Auschwitz. "Labyrinth Of Lies" is a story about truth, not distorted but obscured or ignored. Life in post-war Germany did not include talk or discussion of wartime concentration camps, since it was old news and the war is over; everyone was doing what they had to do. Radmann is astonished at what he finds and at the magnitude of the atrocity, and whom it encompasses, and at the resistance he encounters. The film is well-done in all respects and told in a semi-documentary aspect that lacks a sanguine feel, as a storyteller detached from the gruesome material. Nevertheless, it is an absorbing film and revelatory for those of us who have wondered how life transpired in Germany after the war. It is the second German-language Holocaust-related film I have seen recently, and personally I thought "Phoenix" was a better picture.

"Labyrinth of Lies" (2014 release from Germany; original title "Im Labyrinth des Schweigens" or "In the Labyrinth of Silence" 122 min.) brings the story of the events leading up to the so-called Frankfurt Auschwitz trials in 1963. As the movie opens, we are told it is "Frankfurt-am-Main, 1958", and we get to know a young prosecutor named Johann Radmann, who is just starting his career, doing traffic violations. But soon he gets (and seizes) the opportunity to look into the case of a Waffen SS soldier who was a commander at Auschwitz and is now teaching in grade school as if nothing ever happened. Radmann soon finds that there is widespread resistance to his efforts to prosecute ex-Nazis. At this point, we are 15 minutes into the movie but to tell you more would spoil your viewing experience, you'll just have to see for yourself how it all plays out. Couple of comments: this movie is an important reminder that the sentiment in Germany wasn't always what it is nowadays and has been for decades. It appears that after WW II, the entire country went about its business as if nothing had happened, and collectively tries to whitewash Auschwitz from memory. But as Radmann points out, "to remain silent is to poison our country's democracy". So he speaks up. It is an incredible story. Kudos to the movie's producers for bringing us this important historical reminder. Besides the important moral and historical aspects, the movie does a great job portraying what daily life in the late 50s and early 60s was in West Germany. Check out the great looking cars! "Labyrinth of Lies" was Germany's submission for this year's Best Foreign Language Movie Oscar nominations, which should give you an idea how well the movie was viewed in its home country (the fact that it didn't get the Oscar nomination doesn't diminish the merits of the movie). "Labyrinth of Lies" was released over a year ago. I have no idea why it is just now finding its way into US theaters, but better late than never. The movie showed up this weekend at my local art-house theater here in Cincinnati, I figure this won't stick around for long. The Sunday matinée screening where I saw this at was surprisingly well attended, I am happy to report. If you are in the mood for a top-notch quality foreign movie that has a very important lesson and reminder, I urge you to check out "Labyrinth of Lies", be it in the theater, on Amazon Instant Video or eventually on DVD/Blu-ray. "Labyrinth of Lies" is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!