The Lives of Others

“The Lives of Others”
“The Lives of Others“, or the original title „Das Leben der Anderen“ is a movie by a
German film director Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck made in 2006. This movie
with an uncommon story took three years for Donnersmarck to write, direct and
complete, but it eventually paid off.
His work was great success and it was recognized from the worldwide
cinematography. He won the Europan Film Award for The Best Film, Best Actor
and Best Screenplay the same year the movie was published. Furthermore, he
won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's award for Best Foreign Film, won
the Academy Award for Best Foreign Lanuage film and was also nominated for the
Golden Globe in 2007. There are also some recognitions like from the German
Film Award, NY Film Critics Circle, Academy Award and Cesar Award, that prove
Donnersmarck had made an impact not only on his audience, but also the experts
among cinematography.
This movie was the first drama realeased with a serious theme, 17 years after the
fall of the Berlin Wall, so publishing it was a bold move. Some of the public
criticized him for dealing with such subject, even though the writer himself wasn't
from East Germany. In addition, he was only 16 when the Berlin wall fell.
Considering that, the minority of audience had questioned the credibility of the
facts in the movie, expecting that the foreign audience could get the wrong
picture about the German history. These disagreements between the critics didn't
stick too long. The unmistakeable fact is that the main topic of the movie really is
Germany and German history.
Germany, a country with the strongest, biggest and the most developed economy
in Europe. Also, a country that is included in the G8 Summit of the world's most
developed countries in the world. However, like many other, this country also had
a rough past. If we go back to the period after World War II, we will see that
Germany was devasted and destroyed. Huge financial, civilian, infrastructual
losses happened because of the inability of making Hitler's „Great Germany“.
In the middle of the 20th century, Germany was divided into two parts: the
Federal Republic of Germany that originally had twelve federal states and the
German Democratic Republic. For understanding the situation that Donnersmarck
was describing, it is important to say that Germany was split between Great
Britain, France, USA and the Soviet Union. The capital city of Berlin was also
divided between four states in occupation zones. On one side, there was Great
Britain, France and USA that made the West side and the East side was occupied
by the Soviet Union. The residents of the East side were the ones that were
doomed. It was nearly impossible to excape due to them being literally detained
by high walls, and this zone made great conditions for socialism to be born. The
times were rough and the moto was every man for himself. The division fell apart
with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. The wall that divided the side of the good
West life and the not so good East life. The aftermath of the division is still
noticeable, for example, the salaries in the East are smaller by 20 percent. But all
in all, the unicification was a huge and a joyful event.
Donnersmarck wanted to show the reality of a normal life in that time, but
included love, drama, betrayal and most important, to portray the authentic
workings of the police state.
Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, also known as The Stasi, was formally an

independent service of the East Germany. In reality, Stasi worked in the system of
KGB (Committee for State Security in English), because the Russians kept their
people in the services of the German secret police. Stazi was a service that
interfered in every aspect of the East-German life and was probably the nearest to
embodiment of Orvel’s vision in the book “1984”. In the eightees, every building in
the East had at least one tenant that was a part of this secret service. Every action
and every word against the regime of that time was registered and analysed. The
spying was mostly done by recording through the small holes in the apartment
and when enough evidence was collected for further investigation, the apartment
was wired. By doing this, they could record every suspicious word of the “suspect”
in every minute of the day. Stazi was probably the most efficient and the most
brutal service in that time. Ideological enemies, artists, that were often rebellious
towards those regimes would disappear without a trace or clue.
Stazi was officialy off in 1989 with the Germany unification. After the unification,
the documents that were hidden, were realesed to public. Although many
assumed there would be a chaos with people seeking revenege because of their
destroyed privacy, no incidents really happened. The studies revealed that nearly
every 7th person was a Stasi member. On the other side, there were people who
wanted to meet people who tracked and stalked them or people who accidently
met them, this case we have seen in the movie itself.
The whole story was based on a stoic officer of the Secret police, captain Gerd
Wiesler. He was ordered to do a spying operation against a playwriter Dreyman.
They suspected that he was not the person he seemed. After installing a
numerous microphones in his apartment, Wiesler spends his days and nights
sitting in an attic listening to Dreyman’s and his girlfriend Christa’s evey word and
intention. Spending that much time listening to them, I assume he started to feel
like he knew them. He starts to warm up for the couple and finds out Minister
Hempf’s intentions. After a friends of Dreyman commited a suicide, he decides to
write a secret article about the suicide rates for the West publications. Wieslers
symphaties were growing and he decided not to report the actions and the hidden
place of Dreymans typewriter. The betrayal eventually came from the one person
he truly trusted-his girlfriend Christa-Maria. But fate took care for the revenge of
her actions.
Understanding the movie requires a lot of background knowledge. Moreover, it’s

not just the time they were living in we need to understand, but so many different
emotions and stories twisted into a big one. In my opinion, two opposing motives
are the actuators of action-selfishness and unselfishness. Driven by these two,
everyone acts in their own way. Wiesler felt the emptyness of his life and tried to
at least make a difference for someone else, sacrificing his job. On the other side,
there is Christa-Maria, driven by the will to success, would sacrifice everyone
except for herself. Donnersmarck included so many motives and genres into one
master piece that can completely change your perspective on life, but can also
entertainingly educate about a serious period in the history of Germany.

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How was Germany divided after World War 2?

What was the Stasi and what role did they play in East Germany?

“The Lives of Others”

Ministerium für Staatssicherheit, also known as The Stasi, was formally an

Understanding the movie requires a lot of background knowledge. Moreover, it’s

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