Unforgettable scenes reveal what Falk Harnack may have envisioned when he filmed The Axe of Wandsbek, a film which uses nightmarish black and white images to evoke the inner and outer needs of a petit-bourgeois man who lets himself become the executioner for the slaughterers of the Third Reich. Harnack, who comes from the antifascist resistance, was artistically and morally qualified to make this film about the lacking German resistance.

However, his biography and liberal-humanist position couldn’t save the film and it was shelved after only a few screenings. Harnack’s wife, actress Käthe Braun, along with director Otto Mayer, publicist Gerhard Schoenberner, producer Artur Brauner, and actors Albert Teetjan and Erwin Geschonneck revive a figure through their own memories who has earned the right to never be forgotten.

NOTE: This film is currently only available as part of our non-circulating research collection.