Original subtitles

*loud ticking* *suspenseful music*

Hey, you there!

Where are you going?

Inside.

Come here.

Oh, SA.

What do you want here? / Making a delivery.

Not tonight.

It's closed, this joint. End of business.

*music builds gradually*

We need to get over there.

This is where she has to go.

*music continues*

*rapid clock ticking*

(porter) Herr Jacoby. Good evening.

*rapid clock ticking*

*Jacoby sighs*

*quiet murmur of conversation*

*he whispers indistinctly*

Herr Nyssen, we can begin.

Yes, let our guest of honor have another sip first.

*music becomes more ominous*

But he doesn't drink alcohol.

Exactly. Every three minutes he has to refuse.

(Helga) Alfred, please.

This pompous ass of a... / No, thank you.

My dear lady, your glass appears to be empty.

I'd be happy to bring you a fresh one.

(Helga) Please, restrain yourself.

(whispers) Trust me.

(Göring) You're quite right.

*tense music*

Long live our new Reich Chancellor, Adolf Hitler!

Three cheers!

(all) Hear, hear!

*clinking of glasses*

*engine sputters*

*he groans*

Charlotte!

There.

*glass shatters*

(Gräf) Night watch!

Criminal Police. Someone climbed in over there.

Where? / Up there!

(Gräf) Oh, God.

Alert the fire station on Unter den Linden. Hurry! Come on!

*loud whistles*

*fire crackles*

*quiet conversations*

*conversations fall silent*

*water gurgling*

(whispers) Ten more minutes.

Beloved Helga, honored guests,

and last but not least, dear Herr Hitler!

It has been nearly a full month now

since we appointed you chairman of Deutschland AG.

If I may introduce, from left to right,

Günther Quandt, Friedrich Flick,

Carl Bosch, Alfried Krupp,

Ferdinand Porsche, Karl Merck,

Wilhelm von Opel, Hermann von Siemens,

Franz von Papen and Alfred Hugenberg.

Yes, I know all of you, gentlemen.

I thought I needn't introduce the board of directors

of this corporation to you,

but does the dog remember the hand that feeds it?

*indignant murmuring* *Helga laughs*

(Hitler) What did you just say, Nyssen?

Yes, what did I say?

I'm referring to my ten-point plan,

which I had delivered to you in support of your campaign.

Point one: economic policy.

It shall and will be guided by the state.

The state dictates what the nation needs,

and industry — all of us here — will deliver.

You will find that it isn't entirely wrong...

*she retches*

*Helga groans*

*low, menacing music*

(whispers) Frau Nyssen.

Helga?

*quiet murmuring*

Come along, I'll escort you outside.

Helga?

*Helga groans*

I'm sure she'll feel better in just a moment.

Where was I? Right. Economic policy.

It shall be national, but...

(Wegener) Please come with me.

Wegener, what is this?

Pardon me, ma'am, but we need to go this way.

Where to? / This way.

(Edgar) Where are you taking her? / Out.

*Helga continues retching*

That isn't entirely wrong.

*music becomes more dramatic*

*he sighs*

What is it? What are you waiting for? The connection is down.

What?

Damn it!

The timed detonator?

*he sighs*

Let's go.

*Helga groans in pain*

(Wegener, whispering) What happened? / Gereon?

We have to go back in.

What? / Yes.

Gereon, what are you doing here?

What are you up to?

Frau Nyssen... / Let me go!

Ma'am, you must... / No!

Frau Nyssen! / No! No, Gereon! No!

Alfred! No! Let me go! That's enough, Helga!

Alfred! No! Alfred! / Please come with me.

Alfred!

You, your jacket. Quickly! / Gentlemen, the white wine.

Point six, one of the most important.

And if you'll permit me to note,

one of the points closest to my heart personally:

autarky.

One moment, please. I'm not finished yet.

We consider it vital that the sustenance of our people

is secured within our own borders.

Well, now the timing works out quite nicely, doesn't it?

Let us now turn to the subject

that presumably interests you all the most: weapons.

Watch out! / Pardon me.

Oops.

(guest) My trousers are wet.

As you know, my engineers have been developing

various types of rockets for quite some time.

Especially when it comes to colonization,

we should harness this technology.

Consider this: from outer space,

we can reach any point on Earth

in a matter of seconds.

Any point, any country, any continent.

The union of military weaponry

and technological progress

will propel Germany to the top of the world

in the shortest possible time.

The Nyssen Corporation stands ready, ready, anytime and anywhere,

to unleash the elemental forces

for the subjugation of the enemy and of gravity itself!

*eerie music*

*rhythmic music*

*fire bell rings*

*chaotic clamor of voices*

Hurry up, let's get out of here!

You can't go any farther. It's on fire.

We have to get through. / Not now.

This could blow at any second.

Who are they? What's in those canisters?

*he hisses*

Get lost!

That wasn't the fire brigade.

You go up top, I'll take this floor, all right?

Yes.

...this will be the Germany

that we, in this circle, have newly envisioned,

made reality.

Minister of Economy will be Alfred Krupp,

though the Defense Ministry is probably in the best hands

with me,

as I was already able to lay out for you under point six.

*Wendt whispers indistinctly*

Yes, that brings me directly to...

to point nine.

I beg your pardon, but we are confronted here

with an extraordinary situation.

The Reich Chancellor and Reichstag President

are urgently needed in the city.

*confused murmuring*

Perhaps we should continue our consultation

at another time.

Out! *murmuring stops*

Everyone out!

Out! Outrageous!

*indignant clamor of voices*

*quiet ticking*

(Annemarie) What a pathetic worm.

*ominous music*

The mightier your will to grandeur, the more obvious

your destiny to total irrelevance.

You are nothing, an infantile wannabe,

a pitiful nobody. / Silence, Mother.

You will not shut me up.

Shh! What is this?

*rapid ticking, dripping*

Do you hear that?

Something's ticking.

Nonsense, you're the one ticking.

And not quite right, at that.

Something's there.

That is a bomb.

An explosive charge, no doubt.

You have to defuse it, boy!

In less than a minute, the charge goes off.

We have to get out of here! Move!

You're coming with me!

No.

You'll do as I say! No!

*somber music*

Go on, then.

(sobbing) Come with me.

What? Come with me.

I'm begging you.

You're begging me?

Yes, with all my heart.

Leave this room.

*music grows more somber*

You want to keep me in this world as long as you can,

so you won't have to face me in the next.

I'm imploring you.

My dear boy,

my dear, my dear, dear boy, I...

I love you so very much.

Please.

*he sniffles*

It's all right, Mother.

We'll go together.

Both of us.

*glass shatters*

*Edgar gasps for breath*

*tense, pulsing music*

*upbeat music playing*

Jacoby? Forget something?

*door handle rattles*

What is this? Open the door!

*crackling*

*muffled rumbling*

Hands up!

Freeze!

*fire bell rings*

*agitated clamor of voices*

There will be consequences. You are aware of that, yes?

(Harry) Herr Jacoby. / Przybylski!

Open the door!

What are you still doing here? / Przybylski!

I said open the door!

Do you trust me?

Yes.

What are you planning?

*music cuts off*

*radio static*

Citizens of the German Reich.

In a few days, you will elect a new parliament.

Who you give your vote to is your decision.

The people are the sovereign of a nation, and no one else.

Any political force that opposes this principle

must be stopped.

Today, we have stood up against

the false path of a Führer principle.

The Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler is dead.

He and his followers forced us to this act of violence.

For the alliance of fascism and capital has only one goal.

War.

In war, a person loses his soul, his compassion.

His love of nature and the world.

What remains is a specter,

shattered in body and mind.

We, we ourselves are these specters.

We,

the former comrades, the ghosts of war.

*mournful violin music*

Today, we have killed one of our own.

It was our final duty to this country.

Even a hundred years from now, people will marvel

at what we accomplished in those few years after the war.

The achievements of science and medicine,

of psychology and pharmacology, of film and literature,

the rights of women, a free arts and free press,

free speech and constructive debate,

and not least of all,

the unwavering stance against war.

Hatred, envy, violence,

all of this arises only

from the oppressive nature of authoritarianism.

*clamor of voices*

*mournful piano music begins*

*he breathes in a panic*

(Anno) Our deed

will prevent the German people from degenerating

into human machines, without feeling, without mercy,

and without love.

*tires screech*

We are not machines.

We are only the broken automata of the last war,

and we now step back into the darkness.

Open up! Unlock the door!

*door handle rattles*

What is going on here?

*sounds of struggle*

(Anno) But with this deed, we have made room

for the new and the free in Germany,

for the open and the vast in the world.

It is now up to you, the German people,

to chart the path ahead.

Choose it...

*radio static*

In the name of humanity.

Potocznik, do something.

In the name of dignity

and in the name of freedom.

*van der Lubbe breathes shakily*

(van der Lubbe) Get me out of here!

I'll end this!

Police! Drop it, now!

Put it out, damn it!

*draft of air*

*rustling, crackling*

*dark, dramatic music*

*Gräf coughs*

(firefighter) Everyone out, immediately!

There, got you! / Charlotte!

*van der Lubbe groans*

Come on! Come, out! / Go, move!

*muffled bang*

*startled cries*

*she coughs*

Gereon, stay here!

Let me go!

*he coughs*

Get out of here!

*music builds dramatically*

Anno, come on!

He's alive!

Hitler! He survived!

*he coughs violently*

We have to go!

*loud creaking*

Anno!

Over there! Come on!

*he breathes nervously*

(Anno) Gereon?

*music fades*

Gereon.

*heavy, droning music* *snapping fingers*

(Anno) Shh, shh!

*muffled bang*

Gereon!

Breathe calmly.

In.

And out.

Let go of your thoughts.

And breathe very deeply.

In.

And out.

*gentle flute music*

I will guide you.

Step by step.

Step by step.

All the way...

to the end.

*gently drifting piano music*

Gereon!

*muffled bang, crashing*

*music swells emotionally*

*muffled banging*

*echoing collapse*

*music fades*

*faint rumbling*

"Ladies and gentlemen,

we apologize for the false report.

The Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler is unharmed.

We have, however, received word

that the Reichstag is in flames.

Communist agitators have set a fire,

thereby expressing their contempt for the German people

in no uncertain terms.

Our Reich Chancellor Hitler..." / Arrest them!

"...calls upon the German people for the greatest possible unity.

Quote: 'Let none of these arsonists

or the communists behind them escape.

They want to destroy our state

and subjugate our country to the Soviets.

Let us hunt them down to every last corner,

to the ends of the earth.

Let none of them get away.

Tonight, they have shown us their true face.'"

*eerie music*

*groaning*

(Litten) Hans Litten, arrested on the night of the Reichstag fire.

As a fierce opponent of Hitler, Hans Litten

was tormented in various concentration camps,

until he took his own life at KZ Dachau on February 5th, 1938,

rather than face another interrogation.

*Dutch language*

(Gennat) Ernst Gennat remained head of Homicide Investigations

even under the National Socialists

and was promoted to Senior Government and Criminal Counselor in 1935.

He died in August 1939 in Berlin.

(SA man laughs) Let's go.

(Helfers) Rosa Helfers.

In 1933, she was dismissed from all public offices.

Beginning in 1935, she was surveilled by the Gestapo,

arrested in 1944,

and interned at the Buchholz Labor Re-education Camp,

where her health was permanently damaged.

From 1945 onward, she played a decisive role in rebuilding the SPD.

(Thälmann) Ernst Thälmann,

leader of the Communist Party of Germany,

arrested on March 3rd, 1933.

In August 1944, after over eleven years in solitary,

he was shot, presumably on Adolf Hitler's direct orders.

(Wels) Otto Wels, party chairman of the SPD.

Under his leadership, the Social Democrats

on March 23rd, 1933,

as the only party, voted unanimously against Hitler's Enabling Act,

upon which the National Socialist dictatorship was founded.

Otto Wels died in exile in Paris,

two weeks after Hitler's invasion of Poland.

(Heymann) Immediately after the Reichstag fire,

all fundamental constitutional rights were suspended.

Newspapers that did not conform to the Nazi line

were systematically banned, journalists persecuted.

One of the most prominent victims was Carl von Ossietzky.

The later Nobel Peace Prize laureate

died after five years of detention from the effects of mistreatment.

(Doris) In what was no longer a free election on March 5th,

the NSDAP did gain ground,

but failed to achieve the hoped-for absolute majority.

It was the last election in Germany until 1948.

*quiet scratching*

(Blank) In early July 1934,

Hitler had numerous intra-party rivals murdered

in the course of the so-called Röhm Putsch.

*scream, gunshot*

(von Schleicher) Among the victims of these events,

also referred to by propaganda as the Night of the Long Knives,

were former Reich Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher

and his wife Elisabeth.

*calm, foreboding music*

(Wendt) Rudolf Diels, founder of the Gestapo,

handed his post over to Heinrich Himmler in 1934

and subsequently became Regional President in Cologne.

In 1957, he died in a hunting accident.

We'll wait outside.

(Forster) Dr. Edmund Forster returned to Germany

after his journey to Paris.

On August 31st, 1933, he was suspended from duty

for alleged statements against National Socialism.

A few days later, he took his own life.

*gunshot*

(Weiß) Ernst Weiß based his final novel,

"Der Augenzeuge" ("The Eyewitness"),

on Dr. Forster's records and conversations.

After the entry of German troops,

he slit his wrists in his hotel in Paris in 1940.

(Helga) For the business elite, their engagement

with the National Socialists paid off handsomely.

Not least through the massive use of forced laborers,

they were able to multiply their private fortunes

and prove themselves willing executioners for the terrorist state.

Hardly any of them were held accountable

after the war.

"Charlotte.

It is unpleasant enough

when the air above the land turns poisonous and acrid.

But this air can be shut out, to a certain extent.

One can seal one's windows tight

and retreat into the four walls

of a private life carved out for oneself.

One can withdraw, put flowers in one's room,

and hold one's ears and nose shut in the street.

The temptation to do so is great, even for me.

My brother said that in 100 years,

people would look back on us and our time

and marvel at how far we'd come,

how many new and good things we had tried.

And how much we had also failed.

Perhaps.

But what is now everywhere called the Thousand-Year Reich

will make all of that forgotten.

Until even we forget what we once were.

But one thing I know for certain:

that I will never forget what you were to me.

So I think of you today and tomorrow.

And I already miss you so much,

like nothing else in my life.

Your laughter,

your eyes,

your radiance.

Even the city has turned gray without you.

The city of Berlin,

the city you showed me,

where we were happy for a time.

The city that no longer exists.

Our Berlin."

*suspenseful, dynamic music*

*"Zu Asche, zu Staub" by Severija Janušauskaitė*

*jazz music with spoken word*

# To ashes, to dust #

# Stolen from the light #

# But not just yet #

# Miracles wait until the last #

# Ocean of time #

# An eternal law #

# To ashes, to dust #

# To ashes #

# But not just yet #

*lively clarinet melody*

# To ashes, to dust #

# Stolen from the light #

# But not just yet #

# Miracles wait until the last... #

*

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