# The Murderers Are Among Us
**The Murderers Are Among Us** (*Die Mörder sind unter uns*) is a 1946 German black-and-white feature film directed by Wolfgang Staudte, and it was the first German feature film made after the Second World War.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) Produced by the newly founded DEFA studio in the Soviet occupation zone, it is considered the founding work of the Trümmerfilm (rubble film) genre and set the tone for the postwar German discussion of guilt and atonement.[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) • [3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Original title | *Die Mörder sind unter uns*; working title *Der Mann, den ich töten werde* (The Man I Will Kill)[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) • [3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) |
| Director and writer | Wolfgang Staudte (1906–1984)[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) • [4](https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/plakat-die-moerder-sind-unter-uns.html) |
| Production | DEFA-Studio für Spielfilme (Deutsche Film AG), Soviet occupation zone, 1946[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) |
| Premiere | 14 October 1946 at the Berlin State Opera in the Admiralspalast; cinema release 15 October 1946[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) |
| Running time | 87 minutes per the DEFA-Stiftung; other listings give 81, 84, 90, or 91 minutes[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) • [5](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-murderers-are-among-us) • [6](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-murderers-are-among-us-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdmwmzm1) • [7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001) • [8](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-murderers-are-among-us) |
| Principal cast | Hildegard Knef (Susanne Wallner), Ernst Wilhelm Borchert (Dr. Hans Mertens), Arno Paulsen (Ferdinand Brückner)[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) • [9](https://filmundgeschichte.com/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1946) |
| Significance | First German feature film after World War II and the first Trümmerfilm; about 6.3 million cinema admissions[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) • [3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
The story is set in Berlin in 1945, after the capitulation. The artist Susanne Wallner returns to the ruined city after three years in a concentration camp and finds her old apartment occupied by Dr. Hans Mertens, a surgeon and former army officer who has come back from the war carrying a deep-seated feeling of guilt.[7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001) • [1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) Mertens is haunted by the wartime execution of Polish civilians, which he did nothing to prevent.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/)
The two share the apartment, and under Susanne's care the broken man gathers new strength.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) By chance Mertens meets his former captain, Ferdinand Brückner, whom he had believed dead; Brückner, who had ordered the shooting of more than 100 civilians during the war, is now a successful industrialist.[7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001) Mertens plans to shoot Brückner on [Christmas Eve](https://www.edgepedia.org/christmas-eve) 1945 to finally create justice, but Susanne convinces him that revenge for such a crime is not a private matter and that the war criminal must be brought before a court.[10](https://www.dhm.de/zeughauskino/vorfuehrung/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1379/) • [7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001)
## Production history
**Origins in the last war year.** Staudte had the idea for the film in the final year of the war but, out of caution, did not put it on paper; he began writing the script in May 1945 under the title *Der Mann, den ich töten werde* (The Man I Will Kill). He later said of his motivation, "I had to make this film. It meant an inner liberation, the inner reckoning with the Nazi era and all its crimes."[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) He had finished his exposé, *Der Mann, den ich töten werde*, before the end of the war and presented it to officials in the British, French, and American occupation zones, who all rejected it.[11](https://www.umass.edu/defa/people/407/)
**Soviet backing and a changed ending.** Only the Soviet cultural officers were willing to finance the film, and they let Staudte realize it largely freely, with one condition: the ending had to change. In the original script Mertens shoots his former captain.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) Staudte, who held a British production license, had sought approval in the western zones in vain; the film was instead produced by DEFA (Deutsche Film AG), then in the process of being founded in the Soviet occupation zone.[7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001)
**Shooting amid the ruins.** Filming began on 4 May 1946, before DEFA's official founding date of 17 May 1946, and the last shooting day was 8 August of that year.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) Most of the footage was shot in destroyed Berlin, with only a few scenes made in the studio; locations included the Bernauer Straße, the Stettiner Bahnhof (Nordbahnhof), and the Andreasplatz in [Friedrichshain](https://www.edgepedia.org/friedrichshain), and the film was also made in the Althoff studios in Babelsberg.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) • [12](https://www.potsdam.de/de/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns) The premiere took place on 14 October 1946 at the [Berlin State Opera](https://www.edgepedia.org/berlin-state-opera) in the Admiralspalast, preceded by an installment of the DEFA newsreel *Der Augenzeuge* and a speech by the writer Erich Weinert marking the day as the rebirth of German film.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
The crew included the cinematographers Friedl Behn-Grund and Eugen Klagemann, the set designers Otto Hunte and Bruno Monten, the editor Hans Heinrich, and the composer Ernst Roters.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) • [9](https://filmundgeschichte.com/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1946) For Hildegard Knef, who played Susanne Wallner, it was her first major screen role.[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
## Style and the Trümmerfilm
The film marked the start of the Trümmerfilm (rubble film) genre, named for the authentic images of ruins rising into the sky, rendered in strong black-and-white contrasts.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) Its film noir style blends German expressionism with an affinity to [Italian neorealism](https://www.edgepedia.org/italian-neorealism): like neorealism it relies on location shooting and attention to everyday routines, but it places more emphasis on a psychological approach that nods to the expressionist films of the Weimar era, examining German guilt, trauma, the psychological repression of crimes committed by ordinary people, and the necessity of accepting responsibility.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) Contemporary critics read the expressionist visual language, which turns the ruins of postwar Berlin into dark psychological landscapes, as a break with the escapist cinema of the Ufa era, and as setting the aesthetic standard for the rubble films that followed, such as *Irgendwo in Berlin* (Gerhard Lamprecht, 1946) and *In jenen Tagen* (Helmut Käutner, 1947).[10](https://www.dhm.de/zeughauskino/vorfuehrung/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1379/) • [3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
## Reception and legacy
About 6.3 million people saw the film in cinemas, and it received much attention internationally.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) It was an Official Selection at the [Venice Film Festival](https://www.edgepedia.org/venice-film-festival) in 1947 and was shown successfully throughout Europe and the USA.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) • [11](https://www.umass.edu/defa/people/407/) Its American and British screenings in 1948 remained, in the view of the DEFA Film Library's historians, an event never again matched by a DEFA film, which was considered to have made "an important contribution to our [American] knowledge of the moral, ethical, and artistic preoccupations of Germany."[13](https://www.umass.edu/defa/sites/default/files/The%20Murderers%20Are%20among%20Us%20on%20US%20and%20UK%20Screens%2C%201948%2C%20by%20Rosemarie%20Stott%20and%20Hiltrud%20Schulz/index.pdf) A contemporary Berlin review in *Tägliche Rundschau* (19 October 1946) called it the film with which, on the eve of the enforcement of the [Nuremberg](https://www.edgepedia.org/nuremberg) verdicts, German art and the German people emphatically demanded a reckoning with the crimes of the war and the prewar period.[7](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001)
**Critical standing.** On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds an 83% Tomatometer score from six reviews and a 77% audience score.[14](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/murderers_are_among_us) Variety praised its "superb camera and montage technique recalling some of the firstrate German productions before the Nazi era," while a New York Times review called it "a confused and rambling study of disillusionment in post-war Germany ... presented in heavily stylized fashion."[14](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/murderers_are_among_us) The DEFA-Stiftung notes that for many years the film set the tone for the postwar discussion of German guilt and atonement, and that *The New York Times* (4/11/02) described it as the "noirish debut of the postwar German film industry, wich baldly confronted issues of guilt for mass murder."[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) The same foundation account observes that the story's lack of explicit references to Jews and their fate at the hands of the Nazis now seems incongruous in an otherwise forthright film and reveals much about the contradictions of the early postwar period.[2](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
**Later life of the film and its makers.** The film has been revived at retrospectives including the Venice and Berlin festivals, MoMA's DEFA Film Week (1975), the Harvard Film Archive (1999), and the San Francisco Film Noir Festival (2014), and a digitally restored transfer was released on DVD with documentary bonus features.[1](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/) Staudte, who had co-founded DEFA in May 1946, worked for the [East Berlin](https://www.edgepedia.org/east-berlin) studio until 1956 and later directed *Rotation* (1949) and *Die Geschichte vom kleinen Muck* (1953) before moving to [West Berlin](https://www.edgepedia.org/west-berlin); he died on 19 January 1984.[3](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/) • [4](https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/plakat-die-moerder-sind-unter-uns.html) • [11](https://www.umass.edu/defa/people/407/) Knef (1925–2002) became the first female star of postwar German cinema.[4](https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/plakat-die-moerder-sind-unter-uns.html) • [15](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/8339/1/II_Library%20Copy_PhD%20Thesis_Verena%20von%20Eicken.pdf)
## References
1. [The Murderers Are among Us, DEFA Film Library, University of Massachusetts Amherst](https://www.umass.edu/defa/film/3572/)
2. [Die Mörder sind unter uns (1946), DEFA-Stiftung](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/en/films/film-search/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
3. [Die Mörder sind unter uns, DEFA-Film des Monats, DEFA-Stiftung](https://www.defa-stiftung.de/stiftung/aktuelles/film-des-monats/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns/)
4. [Plakat "Die Mörder sind unter uns", LeMO / Haus der Geschichte](https://www.hdg.de/lemo/bestand/objekt/plakat-die-moerder-sind-unter-uns.html)
5. [The Murderers Are Among Us streaming, JustWatch (US)](https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-murderers-are-among-us)
6. [The Murderers Are Among Us, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/release/the-murderers-are-among-us-q29sbgvjdglvbjpwwc0xmdmwmzm1)
7. [Wolfgang Staudte: Die Mörder sind unter uns, Goethe-Institut film catalogue](https://www.goethe.de/en/kul/flm/arc/fdb.cfm?filmdbId=1808120416560100001)
8. [The Murderers Are Among Us, MUBI](https://mubi.com/en/us/films/the-murderers-are-among-us)
9. [Die Mörder sind unter uns (1946), Lernwerkstatt Film und Geschichte](https://filmundgeschichte.com/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1946)
10. [Die Mörder sind unter uns, Zeughauskino, Deutsches Historisches Museum](https://www.dhm.de/zeughauskino/vorfuehrung/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns-1379/)
11. [Staudte, Wolfgang, DEFA Film Library](https://www.umass.edu/defa/people/407/)
12. [Die Mörder sind unter uns, Landeshauptstadt Potsdam](https://www.potsdam.de/de/die-moerder-sind-unter-uns)
13. [The Murderers Are among Us on US and UK Screens, 1948, Rosemarie Stott and Hiltrud Schulz, DEFA Film Library](https://www.umass.edu/defa/sites/default/files/The%20Murderers%20Are%20among%20Us%20on%20US%20and%20UK%20Screens%2C%201948%2C%20by%20Rosemarie%20Stott%20and%20Hiltrud%20Schulz/index.pdf)
14. [Murderers Among Us, Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/murderers_are_among_us)
15. [Verena von Eicken, PhD thesis on postwar German cinema, University of York](https://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/id/eprint/8339/1/II_Library%20Copy_PhD%20Thesis_Verena%20von%20Eicken.pdf)
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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 1940s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
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License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license