In search of the locations for Germany, Year Zero: how Roberto Rossellini’s Berlin looks today
One hundred and twenty years after the birth of Roberto Rossellini, we go looking for the original Berlin locations of one of his searing neorealist classics, which was filmed in the bombed out streets of the post-war city.
The cities of Italian neorealist films were often brutal, bombed-out and broken. Few film movements portrayed such stark and uncompromising visions of urban life; hardly surprising with the dust still settling from the destruction caused by World War II. While the majority of the films focused on the unforgiving hustle and bustle of life in Italian cities after the war, one turned its eye towards what remained of Berlin for one of the movement’s most hard-hitting releases: Roberto Rossellini’s Germany, Year Zero (1948).
Germany, Year Zero follows the tough life of 12-year-old Edmund (Edmund Moeschke) and his family in post-war Berlin. Shot to pieces and with much of the surviving population surviving through the black market alone, the city has become a racketeering nightmare. Becoming involved in an increasing number of schemes in the hope of bringing his family money for food and support for his bed-ridden father (Ernst Pittschau), Edmund plumbs the depths of the city in search of ways to make ends meet. With his older siblings refusing to help, Edmund goes to great lengths as he tries to navigate the dangerous terrain in his search for opportunities.
Rossellini was uncompromising in his filming around Berlin. Bombsites, debris and the scars of the war make up the majority of the locations, the director never shying away from the destruction of the city. Previously picturesque buildings have been reduced to hollow shells, streets are filled with rubble – it was truly a year zero for a city which has since been built up rapidly again from the ruins.
Below are some of the key locations as they look today.
The riverside
For a great deal of the film, Edmund wanders around the battered, rubble-strewn streets. The state of the locations makes finding the exact sites today somewhat tricky. The shot below, for example, showing Edmund wandering across a bridge, highlights the difficulty of finding the film’s locations. The bridge over the Spree has since been demolished. Its rough spot can be ascertained by some original markings on the riverbank.
I found the previous location due to its proximity to the Märkisches Ufer, a riverside thoroughfare also featured in the film. Running alongside the Spree, it is still recognisable due to the buildings in the background of the shot.
The scales
Later in the film, Edmund tries to sell some scales for his neighbour. The place where he tries to sell them is the famed Alexanderplatz. Though dramatically changed, the location of the shot is clearly near the entrance to the vast square on Otto-Braun-Straße.
The wider shot shows some of the buildings still standing and, today, they are fully refurbished.
The fountain
Some of the film’s most distinctive shots are taken of Edmund wandering around an ornate fountain. The fountain stood on Schloßplatz outside of the Humboldt Forum. Edmund can be seen wandering in front of the building as he runs his hand along the edge of the fountain.
This wider shot gives a view of the building and the cobbled walkway in front of it. As can be seen, the fountain from the film has since been removed, but the building itself has been fully restored.
After further researching the fountain, which includes a sculpture of Neptune by Reinhold Begas, I discovered it still exists and now stands in a park under the shadow of Berlin’s famed Fernsehturm, the brutalist tower that haunts the city centre’s skyline.
Sadly, with a Christmas fair setting up around the fountain, it couldn’t be photographed properly, though the fountain is featured on the fair’s advertising.
Hennings’s house
The vile racketeer Hennings (Erich Gühne) takes Edmund back to where he lives in order to recruit him into his own black market trading. He lives in a vast, decrepit mansion block that once sat on Stauffenbergstraße.
Only a fragment of the street’s original architecture is still standing (in the form of a segment of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin art museum), while the main house of the film has since been demolished and replaced with a new build as part of the museum.
U-Bahn robbery
Another of the scams Edmund becomes involved in concerns a petty theft in Berlin’s U-Bahn. The scam involves stealing a purse from a woman while she thinks she’s buying soap. The scene starts outside of the U-Bahn station, which is the Zoologischer Garten stop on Hardenbergstraße. The entrance to the station now sits in the shadow of various shops.
The scene unfolds in the U-Bahn’s ticket hall. Jo (Jo Herbst) leads Edmund and another child Christl (Christl Merker) in the scam as passengers are disorientated while leaving the platform. The station is surprisingly similar to how it’s seen in the film.
Escaping from the woman who tries and fails to give chase after her purse is snatched, the children run back up the stairs of the station’s exit. This is again surprisingly recognisable and, apart from the obvious modern additions, is structurally as seen in the film.
In the streets
Many of the streets from Rossellini’s film have changed beyond recognition. However, a few markers seen in even the most derelict of shots provide evidence of where the director filmed. This shot, for example, is marked by the spire of the Flüchtlingskirche which places it somewhere in the vicinity of Wassertorstraße.
The church
Rossellini features another of Berlin’s churches more prominently in a later scene in the film. Edmund hears someone playing an organ, discovering that it is being played in a bombed-out church with no roof. This church is the St Matthäus-Kirche on Matthäikirchplatz.
Today, the church has been fully restored and is now used in part as an arts venue.
