Murderers Among Us

Berlin, 1945, after the capitulation by the Nazis. Susanne Wallner, who was taken away with her father in 1942 to a concentration camp, returns to what is her former damaged apartment building hoping to restart her old life as a graphic artist. While some of her former neighbors are still residing there including elderly Herr Mondschein, an optician who hopes to reconnect with his son whose whereabouts are unknown due to the war, she finds that her apartment is occupied by Dr. Hans Mertens, a surgeon by trade. He has given up on life a result of being a soldier in the war, he not doing much of anything beyond hanging out at the local cabaret to get drunk. She is able to convince him to give her back the apartment as she has a lease, and without he having anywhere to go and not often being there anyway, she offers to split the apartment with him, each taking a room. Spending time with her changes his perspective on life in more ways than one. On one hand, the two mutually start to fall in love with each other. On another hand, she discovers an unopened letter that he has kept that was given to him by who was his commanding officer, Captain Ferdinand Bruckner, dying on the battlefield, it addressed to his wife, Elise Bruckner, to be opened only upon news of his death. The reasons for never having delivered the letter take on new meaning for him and provides him with a new goal in life when he discovers that Bruckner is not only alive but thriving in the post-war economy.