World War II · Film · 2008
A Woman in Berlin
Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin
As the Red Army takes Berlin, a journalist sheltering in her apartment building's cellar survives repeated assaults by seeking the protection of a Soviet officer, and writes it all down.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 1 places.
Stop 1: Berlin-Tempelhof
Key location
From the cellar to the ruined flats upstairs, the residents of one building live through the arrival of the Soviet troops and the weeks that follow.
What really happened
The film adapts the anonymous diary 'A Woman in Berlin', which covers 20 April to 22 June 1945, the fall of the city and the first weeks of Soviet occupation. Its author, identified after her death as the journalist Marta Hillers, described mass rape by Soviet soldiers and women's strategies to survive it.
Historians estimate that at least 100,000 women were raped in Berlin in those months, and many more across eastern Germany. When the diary first appeared in German in 1959 it was attacked for 'shaming' German women; its republication in 2003 became a bestseller and opened a long-suppressed chapter of the war's end.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- Anonyma – Eine Frau in Berlin
- Directed by
- Max Färberböck
- Countries
- Germany, Poland
- Languages
- German, Russian
- Released
- 2008
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Home front
- True story
