The story takes place in Germany during reconstruction after World War II. Maria Braun manages to climb the social ladder but must pay an excessive price for her professional success. The first film in Fassbinder’s eclectic and critical FRG trilogy ends fatally, just as Germany wins the 1954 World Cup.

Maria and Hermann Braun married in 1943; they were able to spend half a day and half a night together, then he had to return to the Eastern front. When the war ends, Maria searches for Hermann among the returning soldiers, but in vain; at the same time, she also begins to organize her life more effectively, becomes involved in the black market and takes on a job in a club for the American occupation forces.

A returning soldier Willi informs her that Hermann was killed in action. She meets Bill, a black American at the US club, learns English, is given presents and becomes pregnant. While she is lying in bed with Bill one evening, Hermann appears at the door: he boxes her ears and Bill falls against him. Maria finds Hermann's situation intolerable and smashes a bottle over Bill's head.

In court, Hermann takes the blame for the death of the US soldier and is sentenced to several years in prison. Maria wants to live for him and work for a future together. She has already lost Bill's child when she meets the industrialist Oswald. He has returned to Germany to take over his textile mill which had been seized by the Nazis. Maria becomes his assistant and his mistress. Oswald learns of Hermann's existence and concludes a pact with him.

Maria becomes a successful businesswoman. When Hermann is released prematurely, he disappears abroad claiming that he wants to build up a life of his own before he returns. He comes back when Oswald dies. A notary informs the couple that they will jointly inherit the industrialist's entire fortune. But Hermann and Maria are killed when their house is blown up by a gas explosion on the day of the World Cup final in 1954. A voice on the radio can be heard in the ruined house proclaiming that "Germany has won the World Cup!"

DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN was Rainer Werner Fassbinder's first major international cinema success. The idea behind the film first occurred at the time of HÄNDLER DER VIER JAHRESZEITEN, the first time that Fassbinder had consciously approached the subject of German history, not from the official political angle of course, but in terms of a private history concerned, above all, with stories of individual happiness typical of the period.

Maria Braun "is certainly not a realistic figure; she is really what you would commonly refer to as a cinema character, i.e. someone who embodies the wishes, properties and desires of the viewers in very condensed form. You could say that she is courageous and ambitious, a woman who relies entirely on her feelings but without being a lame duck. Instead, she is a clever and astute person, capable of acting and never losing touch with reality, yet someone who nevertheless never lets go of her feelings, which is something that normally would not be allowed." (Peter Märtesheimer)

Fassbinder's narrative is purposeful, full of motifs and moods, a chronicle of Adenauer's era, the period of reconstruction and the beginning of the economic miracle. Although used as a contrast and with considerable irony, the German football team's achievement in winning the World Cup in Switzerland in 1954 is all part of the general setting: this is the moment in which a nation recovered its self-esteem. Fassbinder rounds off his story's finale with a small collage of photographs with portraits of the Chancellors Adenauer, Erhard, Kiesinger (negative!) and Schmidt (changing from negative to positive); Willy Brandt is missing, as though the director wished to exclude him from this continuity and considered him atypical of a national development of which Fassbinder was highly critical. The end of his story is also characteristic of his scepticism: it is left to the viewer to decide whether the gas explosion in Maria Braun's house is due to a careless accident or deliberate suicide. The answer is ultimately irrelevant for the story's catastrophic end. However, Fassbinder considers this catastrophe to be symptomatic of developments in the Federal Republic of Germany. While the state is successful and the economy flourishes, private lives develop very differently. Financially, Hermann and Maria have reached a high point at the end of the film, but personally they are at a very low point because they really have to admit that they have literally sold too much of their lives.

Fassbinder has succeeded in combining the experiences of all his previous work much more extensively in DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN than in any other of his earlier films. His central motifs, his tones, his superb ability to fill exemplary scenes with round, contradictory life, his scepticism and his sense of humour, his knowledge of contemporary history, his political awareness and finally his newly acquired mastery of the art of filmmaking are all combined in this story to produce a type of cinema that is both popular and critical, entertaining and thought-provoking, yet never complaisant. DIE EHE DER MARIA BRAUN is part of a trilogy: "BRD 1", according to the credits. DIE SEHNSUCHT DER VERONIKA VOSS became "BRD 2" and LOLA "BRD 3". Fassbinder had even considered the possibility of continuing the series with exemplary women's fates up to the present day.

Hans Günther Pflaum

Production Country

Germany (DE)

Production Period

1978

Production Year

1979

color

color

Aspect Ratio

1:1,85

Duration

Feature-Length Film (61+ Min.)

Type

Feature Film

Genre

Drama

Topic

Violence, Love, Relationship / Family, World War II

Available Media

DVD, Digital Film

Original Version

German (de), French (fr)

DVD

Subtitles

English (en), French (fr), Spanish (es), Italian (it), Portuguese (Brazil) (pt), Russian (ru), Chinese (zh), Japanese (ja), Arabic (ar), German (partly), German (full)

Digital Film

Subtitles

Arabic (ar), Chinese (short), French (fr), Italian (it), German (full), Portuguese (Brazil), Spanish (Latin America), English (en), Russian (ru), Japanese (ja)