LISSY

"The film opens with a Love on the Dole theme at the end of the 1920's and follows the life of a German working class girl into the Nazi era. Raised in the slums of Berlin, Lissy helps to support her father and unemployed brother, and is working in a quick-service restaurant when the economic crisis starts. Although sustained by the love of her husband, Fromeyer. she begins to fear for the future when they both lose their jobs. She does not take Fromeyer "sympathy with the Nazis seriously until he joins the Storm Troopers and quickly rises to leadership. The couple move to brighter surroundings, but Lissy finds no solace in the realization of her dreams at the expense of happiness. Fromeyer is now a stranger to her, completely engrossed in Nazi idealism. Her friends are arrested for political reasons and she can turn nowhere for advice. The murder of her brother exposes the full brutality of the Fuehrer and she leaves Fromeyer to continue as best she can rather than succumb to the Nazi terror.

Perhaps the story may be taken as typical for that period &ndash: of the younger generation faced with an uncompromising ideology, to which tolerance and individualism must be sacrificed in order to subsist.