Der Bockerer

Summary

This film adaptation of the eponymous folk play was made with the collaboration of poet H.C. Artmann. The Viennese butcher Karl Bockerer witnesses the "Anschluss" – Austria's incorporation into Germany – in 1938 but only realizes after some time the gravity of the situation. His son Hans joins the SA and it is only when due to his denouncing a friend of the family is carried off to Dachau and killed in the camp that he changes his stance. He is then sent to the front and dies in Stalingrad. His father Karl falls severely sick after the War but picks himself up again when he learns about his son's orphaned child. He takes in the grandchild and raises him together with his wife.