History vs Hollywood
How much truth remains in this story of a bereaved German couple, Otto and Elsie Hampel, spreading anti-nazi leaflets in World War II?
Alone in Berlin goes under the microscope — how accurate is it really?
01 Based on Hans Fallada’s fictionalised account of the real-life rebels, some of the film’s inaccuracies can be traced back to Fallada’s novel. In reality it was Elise’s brother who died, but both the novel and the film have changed this to the couple’s son. 02 Otto and Elise had been married for less than five years when war broke out and were in their mid and early 40s respectively when they died in 1943. At 62 and 58 years old, Gleeson and Thompson are almost 20 years older than their real-life counterparts. 03 For a city in the midst of a brutal conflict, Perez’s vision of Berlin looks surprisingly picturesque. It’s clean and bright, with one or two bucolic scenes that look as though they belong in the glossy pages of a travel brochure rather than a wartime drama! 04 The film and novel both show Otto’s execution. The book spares Anna the guillotine by having her die in a bombing raid, while her screen counterpart is last seen on death row, awaiting her fate. In fact, both Otto and Elise were guillotined in April 1943. 05 The novel’s Escherich is a Gestapo officer, while the movie shows him as a conflicted but dedicated policeman ashamed of his part in the couple’s fate. His final scattering of their postcards and suicide might be dramatically satisfying, but it never happened.