’38 - Vienna Before the Fall 1986

In 1937, the story moves between Vienna and Berlin, following Carola Hell, Sunnyi Melles, as she begins a promising acting career. She falls in love with Martin Hoffmann, Tobias Engel, an assimilated Jewish writer, and the two move into a shared apartment, convinced they can keep their relationship private and apolitical despite the changing political winds. During a Berlin performance, Carola encounters the harsh reality of the regime as she brushes against the Gestapo. When she misses the agreed reporting time, Martin, warned by friends, decides to travel to Berlin but is intercepted and searched on the way.

Back in Vienna, the couple faces a deteriorating climate: antisemitic scrutiny from a caretaker, wary reactions from actor colleagues, and a housekeeper whose socialist husband has already been imprisoned. The housekeeper recalls the February Uprising of 1934 and mentions that Hoffmann could find shelter in her communal apartment if the situation worsens. After Austria’s annexation, Carola tells Martin she is pregnant. The pair makes a last attempt to flee to Prague by train; Carola manages to slip away, while Martin is singled out from the crowd at the station. When he seeks shelter with the housekeeper, she refuses him, explaining that her own son is a Nazi and that taking Hoffmann in would spell disaster. A taxi driver promises Hoffmann a ride to the border the next day, but that plan collapses when he is intercepted by the Gestapo on his way home that same night.