# The Marriage of Maria Braun
**The Marriage of Maria Braun** (German: *Die Ehe der Maria Braun*) is a 1979 West German drama directed by [Rainer Werner Fassbinder](https://www.edgepedia.org/rainer-werner-fassbinder), running 120 minutes, in which a woman's rise from wartime ruin to postwar wealth mirrors the reconstruction of Germany after World War II.[1](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002) It stars Hanna Schygulla as Maria Braun and Klaus Löwitsch as her husband Hermann, and it was Fassbinder's biggest commercial success both at home and abroad.[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf) The film is the first part of what became known as the BRD Trilogy, followed by *Lola* (1981) and *Veronika Voss* (1982).[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director, year, country | Rainer Werner Fassbinder, West Germany, 1979, color, 120 minutes, German language[1](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002) |
| Screenwriters | Peter Märthesheimer and Pea Fröhlich; producer Michael Fengler[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_marriage_of_maria_braun) |
| Lead performance | Hanna Schygulla won Best Actress at the 1979 Berlin International Film Festival[5](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/) |
| Production dates | Shot January to March 1978; unofficial Cannes screening in 1978; premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1979[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf) |
| Commercial result | Four million Deutschmarks at the West German box office; over 1.3 million dollars in the United States in its first six months[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) |
| Awards | Multiple Filmband in Gold awards in Germany, for Fassbinder, Schygulla, Gisela Uhlen, and production designer Norbert Scherer[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1118348/the-marriage-of-maria-braun) |
| Trilogy status | First film of the BRD Trilogy, with *Lola* (1981) and *Veronika Voss* (1982)[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The film opens in 1943, as bombs fall on a German registry office where the soldier Hermann Braun marries Maria. The couple spends half a day and one night together before Hermann returns to the Eastern front.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) After the war, Maria waits at train stations for returning soldiers and trades on the black market. A homecoming soldier, Willi, brings word that Hermann was killed in action.[1](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002)
Maria takes a job at a club for American occupation troops, where she meets Bill, a Black American soldier, learns English, receives presents, and becomes pregnant.[1](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002) Hermann returns alive and finds the two together; in the confrontation Maria strikes Bill with a bottle and kills him.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) Hermann takes the blame in court and is sentenced to several years in prison, while Maria resolves to build a future for both of them.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/)
On a train, after losing Bill's child, Maria meets the industrialist Karl Oswald and becomes his assistant, and, during Hermann's imprisonment, his lover.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) She rises in the business world, persuades American investors to put money into Oswald's company, and buys a house.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) She arranges Hermann's early release but arrives too late to collect him; he leaves a letter saying that because he loves her, he needs a life of his own before he can ask her again to be his wife.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/)
In 1954, after Oswald's death, Hermann returns. Oswald's will, which leaves his fortune equally to Maria and Hermann, reveals the pact the two men made behind Maria's back. Maria lights a cigarette; escaping gas explodes and the house is destroyed, at the exact moment Germany wins the 1954 football World Cup.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) The ending differs from the screenplay, in which Maria deliberately drives herself and Hermann to their deaths; in the film, the explosion is left between accident and act of despair.[7](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history)
## Production
Fassbinder had long wanted to make what he called a "German Hollywood film," combining popular appeal with professional craft, and he found the melodramas of the exiled German director [Douglas Sirk](https://www.edgepedia.org/douglas-sirk) a model for keeping a personal signature within a studio system.[7](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history) The idea went back to the period of *The Merchant of Four Seasons*, when Fassbinder first approached German history not through official politics but through private stories of individual happiness typical of the period.[1](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002)
**Writing.** Fassbinder turned to two screenwriters from outside his regular circle, Peter Märthesheimer, a television producer and script adviser at the West German broadcaster WDR, and Pea Fröhlich. Märthesheimer reported that Fassbinder read the finished scenario and said, "It's wonderful as it is," and changed little during shooting except the ending.[7](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history) Earlier drafts had been attempted by others, including Fassbinder's former collaborator Kurt Raab, and in 2001 a twelve-page handwritten treatment by Fassbinder himself, "The Men of Maria Braun," was found; it had originally been given to the actress [Romy Schneider](https://www.edgepedia.org/romy-schneider).[7](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history) Schneider was originally announced for the title role but withdrew after a fight with the director.[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1118348/the-marriage-of-maria-braun)
**Casting and crew.** The title role went to Hanna Schygulla, Fassbinder's leading actress since the start of his career, who had taken a three-year break from him after *Fontane Effi Briest* (1974) but could not resist this screenplay.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) The cinematographer was Michael Ballhaus, in one of his last collaborations with Fassbinder; he used deep focus throughout to emphasize the large empty rooms and streets of the postwar city, and later moved on to work with Martin Scorsese.[5](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/)
## Reception and commercial success
The film premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in February 1979 after an unofficial late-night screening at Cannes in 1978, where Fassbinder flew in an answer print (first corrected color-timed print of a finished film) after the disappointing reception of his previous film *Despair*; the Cannes audience gave it a standing ovation.[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf) • [7](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history) It became Fassbinder's most successful film critically and commercially: four million Deutschmarks at the West German box office, a year-long run at a prestigious Paris cinema, and over 1.3 million dollars in the United States in its first six months, an unusual figure for a foreign-language film at the time.[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf) • [3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) It made Fassbinder an international celebrity and closed the [New York Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/new-york-film-festival) in October 1979.[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf) • [8](https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/fassbinder/curators.essay.html)
Early critics repeatedly called it his most accessible work; Hans-Christoph Blumenberg in *Die Zeit* named it the director's most accessible, most commercial, and most mature film, and that reputation as the "easy" Fassbinder film has followed it since.[5](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/) On Rotten Tomatoes it holds 93% on the Tomatometer from 27 reviews and 90% on the audience Popcornmeter.[4](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_marriage_of_maria_braun) The film won multiple Filmband in Gold awards, and it was assumed to be [West Germany](https://www.edgepedia.org/west-germany)'s likely submission for the Foreign Language Film Oscar until competition from [Werner Herzog](https://www.edgepedia.org/werner-herzog)'s *Nosferatu the Vampyre* and the eventual choice, Volker Schlöndorff's *[The Tin Drum](https://www.edgepedia.org/the-tin-drum-film)*.[6](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1118348/the-marriage-of-maria-braun)
## The BRD Trilogy and historical meaning
After completing the film, Fassbinder decided to declare it the first part of a series about the past of the Federal Republic of Germany from 1945 to the present, saying he wanted each film to be about a woman, each played by a different actress; he completed two more, *[Lola](https://www.edgepedia.org/lola-1981-film)* (1981) with Barbara Sukowa and *Veronika Voss* (1982) with Rosel Zech.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/) The trilogy narrates postwar West German reconstruction through emotionally heightened melodrama, and *Maria Braun* centers the 1950s as a period of bourgeois restoration and sexual-political constraint.[9](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/germany-pale-mother-rediscovered-classic-new-german-cinema)
Critics and scholars read Maria's transformation as an allegory of the country's own. For the film scholar Stephen Brockmann, her rise represents postwar West Germany, a country apparently favored by history and successful but at root filled with emptiness and cruelty; the film begins with an explosion and the picture of a German chancellor and ends with an explosion and pictures of German chancellors.[10](https://filozofia.uni-miskolc.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BrockmannStephen2010-ACriticalHistoryOfGermanFilm.pdf) Roger Ebert, the film critic of the *Chicago Sun-Times*, gave it four stars and read the ending as Fassbinder's summary of the rebuilding of Germany: the stores were open again, but little was known about the customers.[11](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-marriage-of-maria-braun-1979) The film also became one of the key works of the New German Cinema cycle concerned with mastering the Nazi past, alongside filmmakers including [Alexander Kluge](https://www.edgepedia.org/alexander-kluge), Edgar Reitz, Volker Schlöndorff, and [Margarethe von Trotta](https://www.edgepedia.org/margarethe-von-trotta).[2](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf)
## Style
The film adopts the flat tone and physical presence of late-1940s neorealism while keeping a melodramatic plot, portraying the coldness needed to survive under the harshest circumstances.[5](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/) Its soundtrack is a defining feature: snatches of dialogue, machines, and music are divorced from the image and frequently mixed as loud as or louder than the onscreen words, suggesting a world without walls in which everything bleeds into indistinct noise.[5](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/) [François Truffaut](https://www.edgepedia.org/francois-truffaut), writing in *Cahiers du cinéma* in 1980, praised the equalness of the film's gaze on its male and female characters, a quality he compared to the films of Murnau.[3](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/)
## References
1. [Die Ehe der Maria Braun, film catalogue entry, Goethe-Institut](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808111636180100002)
2. [Thomas Elsaesser, "The BRD Trilogy, or: History, the Love Story?", Fassbinder's Germany: History, Identity, Subject](https://www.ssoar.info/ssoar/bitstream/handle/document/31735/ssoar-1996-elsaesser-Fassbinders_Germany_history_identity_subject.pdf)
3. [Robert Fischer, "Die Ehe der Maria Braun", Der Filmkanon, Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (2010)](https://www.bpb.de/lernen/filmbildung/filmkanon/43605/die-ehe-der-maria-braun/)
4. [The Marriage of Maria Braun, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_marriage_of_maria_braun)
5. [Tim Brayton, "The Recovering Romantic: Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun", UW–Madison Cinematheque (2018)](https://cinema.wisc.edu/2018/11/28/recovering-romantic-fassbinders-marriage-maria-braun/)
6. [The Marriage of Maria Braun, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/1118348/the-marriage-of-maria-braun)
7. [Michael Töteberg, "A Market for Emotions: The Marriage of Maria Braun — Production History", Criterion Collection (2003)](https://www.criterion.com/current/posts/1047-a-market-for-emotions-the-marriage-of-maria-braunproduction-history)
8. [Curator's Essay, Fassbinder retrospective, MoMA (1997)](https://www.moma.org/interactives/exhibitions/1997/fassbinder/curators.essay.html)
9. [Erica Carter, "Germany Pale Mother: a rediscovered classic of New German Cinema", BFI (2015)](https://www.bfi.org.uk/features/germany-pale-mother-rediscovered-classic-new-german-cinema)
10. [Stephen Brockmann, A Critical History of German Film (2010), chapter 5](https://filozofia.uni-miskolc.hu/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/BrockmannStephen2010-ACriticalHistoryOfGermanFilm.pdf)
11. [Roger Ebert, review of The Marriage of Maria Braun, Chicago Sun-Times](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/the-marriage-of-maria-braun-1979)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Drama and biographical films (individual works) › Drama films 1970s › Released 1975 to 1979*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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