My School Chum

Premiere: Juni 22, 1960

after J. M. Simmels play

Heinz Rühmann (money postman Ludwig Fuchs)

Loni von Friedl (Rosi)
Fritz Wepper (Paul)

Alexander Golling (Krögelmeier)
Carsta Löck (neighbor Mrs. Wenzel)

Alexander Kerst (Captain Sander)
Ernst Schröder (Captain Kühn)
Hertha Feiler (Mrs. Kühn)

Hans Leibelt (Professor Strohbach)
Margaret Jahnen (Nurse Camilla)
Dieter Cartini (Hanns Sonntag)

Heinz Kargus (Guard)
Mario Adorf (Killer Niedermoser)

Reinhard Glemnitz (money postman)
Wolfgang Reichmann (Dr. Dorn)
Robert Graf (Dr. Lerch)
Carsta Löck (Mrs. Wenzel)
Helga Wiedenbrüg (Mrs. Sander)
Werner Hessenland (Post official)
Heini Göbel (Judge)

Director: Robert Siodmak
Script: R. A. Stemmle
Production: Divina

This is story of the money postman Ludwig Fuchs, whose daughter lossed her boyfriend in an air attack on Munich. He had run outside in fear before a Nazi warden and got killed.

The father feels guilty, he wanted to help before, but in vain. Finally he writes a letter to its schoolmate Hermann Göring, asking him to stop this dreadful war.

Of course, the letter is intercepted and the Ludwig Fuchs goes to prison. Not to believe in the final victory means the death penalty. But his old chum sends an airforce captain, in order to save him by declaring him mentally irresponsible.

The plan succeeds, because the professor Strohbach prevails against a Nazi physician, who found out quickly that the mental sickness was only a set up.

1945, the allied troops invade Munich. Fuchs is unemployed and errs in the ruins of the post office. Everyone has fled - Ludwig Fuchs starts to clean up. He meets the frightened Nazi warden and gives him a post office uniform, so he can flee without being recognized - as a human he cannot help but assist another human being.

But declared mentally irresponsible he cannot exercise his profession even after the end of the war, and now he pursues to revert this judgment, in order to be declared as mentally normal. He is trying to meet again all the people involved in this affair before the war, but he fails for most diverse reasons, unless he uses a method that should not be recommended.

The film is one of the best movies with Heinz Rühmann. It is outstanding by by its characterization of humans during and after the Nazi regime: the warden; the followers; the eternally faithful ones; the Sexual criminal, who do not want to be mingled with the political prisoners; the officials of the post office, for whom the law is more important than human beings. And the honest officer, who wanted to be piano player, and who remains human at the risk of his lifer.

The film lives by the pictures less big words. The movie is build on parallel scenes: Rühmann in the prison during the Nazi times and as a visitors afterwards: the same guard, but the guard was in error as he had expected a switch and that after the collapse "the others" should have arrived in masses: now there is a lot of space in the political section. The former cell companion and murderer Niedermoser, who hoped so much to be declared mentally irresponsible had been passed to death penalty, while the faked mentally ill Fuchs had been released. The lawyer defending Fuchs's rehabilitation after the war, first in a poor room, then in a small apartment, finally in a spacious modern office.

The roles change: the allmighty warden, that wanted to arrest every neighbor lacking faith in the Nazi victory, becomes a throbbing man trying to escape the allied troops, searching help from the one he prosecuted shortly before. But the jacket into which it wants to slip, is too tight: he became to fat under the old regime.

And some do not change: Professor Strohbach, who wanted to help, is now in prison as he had always signed what someone else had decided. He might not have wanted to do so, but he did out of fear for himself. The Nazi physician, who would have gladly sent the simulator to prison and death, returns as former prisoner of war in Russia - he had suffered himself, so why now help someone else?

In the main scene of the movie, Rühmann tries to meet a former officer in a carnival celebration. The man is in fear: he thinks there comes the father of a man he had shot because of cowardice. Rühmann, poorly dressed but with a faked red nose, errs through the wild dancing of the post-war period. Those who had "arranged" themselves enjoyed the fun and pushed away the responsibility.

However the youth, characterized by its daughter, her fiancée or the young money postman, walk unabashedly from the past on to a new future.

If the film received far less attention than e.g. the captain of Köpenick, it is not the fault of the actor. It may be because of the fact that it points the finger to many in the public, and this is more unpleasant than a the fun movies that have been popular at this time. There is none happy end and no fun enrobing the morality of the story. History leaves a set of humans, everyone must cope with his fate.