This film starts like any other about architecture – it covers the buildings and streets, preservation and renewal of Dresden, which was bombarded toward the end of World War II, some would say with unprecedented cruelty. The city center was pulverized, tens of thousands of residents were killed, and the ruling regimes – first of the communists and then of unified Germany – undertook a mission to re-create the city as it once was.
Soon enough, a fierce political debate emerges about memory and tributes and about modern-day Germany versus that of the past. One member of the far right-wing AFD party asks, How long will the Germans be guilty? Are Germans allowed to mourn? As he and his supporters demand a memorial be created, leftist opponents say it’s not about memorials. Rather it’s about denying the atrocities of the past and an effort to absolve Germany of its responsibility for what happened during the war.
