The Escape in the Silent (German: Flucht ins Schweigen)[1] is an East German black-and-white film, directed by Siegfried Hartmann. It was released in 1966.
| The Escape in the Silent | |
|---|---|
| Flucht ins Schweigen | |
| Directed by | Siegfried Hartmann |
| Written by | Edmund Kiehl |
| Produced by | Alexander Lösche, Horst Klein |
| Starring | Fritz Diez, Dieter Wien |
| Cinematography | Rolf Sohre |
| Edited by | Helga Emmrich |
| Music by | Karl Schinsky |
Production company | DEFA |
| Distributed by | Progress Film |
Release date | 27 May 1966 |
Running time | 83 minutes |
| Country | East Germany |
| Language | German |
Construction works carried out in a small village in Thuringia reveal the corpse of a member of the Waffen-SS, who seems to have been buried during the end of the Second World War - although no fighting took place in the area. Two forensics experts from the People's Police Investigations Department, Stetter and Hoffmann, arrive in the village to determine the death cause. At first, they suspect the owner of the lands in which the body was discovered; but after questioning him, he is murdered. A golden coin they found leads them to a local woman named Helga, and they reveal the truth behind the matter.
The script was based on Wolfgang Held's novel, The Death Pays with Ducats, published at 1964.[1]
At 1966, Albert Wilkening wrote that "this thriller continues the honored tradition of DEFA, by combining the genre with contemporary issues, as well as an important historical and political background."[2] The Eulenspiegel magazine's reviewer commented that "Finally... One must see the film, for the sake of the elusive culmination of its plot."[3] The German Film Lexicon regarded it as "a criminal drama, the powerful statement of which is weakened by formalistic deficiencies."[4]