From Berlin the sickly Eduard brings his wife Lucie home to Schabbach. Lucie is an extremely ambitious woman and wants her husband to rise politically. She constantly henpecks poor Eduard to figure out a way to become more and more successful. Eduard's real love, however, is his photography. He is always taking pictures of all kinds of village events and village people. But Lucie pushes him to become a prominent local person in the Nazi Party. Lucie gets Eduard to borrow money from a Jewish banker (despite the hatred of Hitler for the Jews) with which she builds her "dream" house which is the most prominent house in the village. Eduard soon becomes mayor and Lucie revels in her role as the village's first lady, constantly entertaining Nazi party officials so that Eduard will be able to rise even higher in the fascist power hierarchy. Christmas Time, 1935 Lucie is sitting pretty and considers it the best Christmas ever. 1935 -- the Nuremberg Laws strip Jewish people of their basic civil rights. The Jews are becoming legally, socially and politically separated from the non-Jewish Germans. Inter-faith marriage, or even sexual relations, with Jews is strictly forbidden.

• Edgar Reitz

• Henry Arnold
• Salome Kammer
• Marita Breuer