”The rise of the Nazis seen through the eyes of a young woman.”   —British Film Institute

“A little gem!”   —cinema.de

“Superb cinematography by Werner Bergmann.”   —The National Center for Jewish Film

“Lissy is a precise and cinematically detailed analysis of the lower middle class and its behavior in the face of fascism.”   —Deutsches Filminstitut

“With East German pix probably to get entry into the U.S. soon, this pic brooks interest. It examines the early growth of Nazism via a poor family during 1932-34. Ideological aspects do not swamp a growing drama of awareness, and the people remain real to give this a jolting effect. It is strictly for specialized and language spots in the U.S. Lissy is a young girl whose weak husband turns to the Nazis – where he is unable to find work. Film details her growing hatred of it and her final desertion from her husband because of it, as it grows into a scourge. Sonja Sutter gives depth to the girl character while the rest of the cast helps make this a telling pic of troubled times. Direction is solid, if only surface at times, and technical wrap-up is fine.”   —Mosk., Variety, 1957

“The film grants the title heroine a degree of psychological depth that is atypical for a film of the 1950s. […] Wolf’s film examines how mass unemployment and the recession during the Weimar Republic made the Germans susceptible to Nazi propaganda.”   —Daniela Berghahn, Screening War: Perspectives on German Suffering

“A suggestively photographed, and excellently edited and performed film.”   —Lexikon des Internationalen Films

“This film brilliantly and accurately impresses us with its subtle depiction of characters, with an eye to both the typical and the contradictory.”         —Ulrich Gregor, Konrad Wolf: Film in der DDR, 1977

“This film—masterfully created by a young Konrad Wolf, son of the playwright Friedrich Wolf—captures the dynamics of 1932-33. It prefigures the years of Nazi tyranny. A clear, uncompromising film of high rank.” —Hamburger Echo, 1958

“Lissy was Konrad Wolf’s third film, and his first true classic. Here we see Wolf’s skill as a director in full bloom. Some scenes in this film as so perfectly composed, they could stand alone as photographs. Partly this is thanks to Wolf’s longtime cameraman, Werner Bergmann, who shot all of Wolf’s films until Solo Sunny. Bergmann’s background as a photographer certainly helped here.”   —Jim Morton, eastgermancinea.org