The Good German (2006)
Jacob “Jake” Geismer, an American war correspondent for The New Republic, returns to Berlin during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers after World War II was over in Europe (May 1945) but before hostilities ended in Asia (August 1945). Jacob witnesses his murdered driver, a black-marketeering American soldier named Tully, being fished from a river eddy, suspiciously adjacent to the Potsdam conference grounds. The corpse is discovered to be in possession of 50,000 German reichsmarks — which are later revealed to have been printed by the U.S occupying forces.
Geismer becomes entwined in both the mystery of his murdered driver and the clandestine search by both Soviet and American forces for the missing German Emil Brandt (the title character, played by Christian Oliver). He becomes more involved in both mysteries as his investigation intersects with his search for Lena Brandt, a Jew — and Emil’s wife — with whom Geismer had been in a relationship prior to the war. Lena has survived the Holocaust by doing “what she had to” to stay alive — early in the film this is assumed to be prostitution, but Lena (based loosely on the Jewish collaborator Stella Goldschlag) is later revealed to be secretly complicit in the deportation of her fellow Jews.
Date of download: 2015-11-11T17:22:34+00:00
Cast:  George ClooneyJake Geismer  Cate BlanchettLena Brandt  Tobey MaguireTully  Beau BridgesColonel Muller  Tony CurranDanny  Leland OrserBernie  Jack ThompsonCongressman Breimer |
Jacob “Jake” Geismer, an American war correspondent for The New Republic, returns to Berlin during the Potsdam negotiations between the Allied powers after World War II was over in Europe (May 1945) but before hostilities ended in Asia (August 1945). Jacob witnesses his murdered driver, a black-marketeering American soldier named Tully, being fished from a river eddy, suspiciously adjacent to the Potsdam conference grounds. The corpse is discovered to be in possession of 50,000 German reichsmarks — which are later revealed to have been printed by the U.S occupying forces.
Geismer becomes entwined in both the mystery of his murdered driver and the clandestine search by both Soviet and American forces for the missing German Emil Brandt (the title character, played by Christian Oliver). He becomes more involved in both mysteries as his investigation intersects with his search for Lena Brandt, a Jew — and Emil’s wife — with whom Geismer had been in a relationship prior to the war. Lena has survived the Holocaust by doing “what she had to” to stay alive — early in the film this is assumed to be prostitution, but Lena (based loosely on the Jewish collaborator Stella Goldschlag) is later revealed to be secretly complicit in the deportation of her fellow Jews.
