Marriage in the Shadows

The film spans a ten-year period starting in 1933. Celebrated German film and theater actor Hans Wieland marries the Jewish actress Elisabeth Maurer. As Nazi anti-Semitic policies increasingly infringe on their lives, they struggle to survive. Then Hans is given an ultimatum by a friend who has become a Nazi official: save himself by divorcing his wife.

Kurt Maetzig dedicated his debut film to telling the story of the acclaimed German theater couple, Meta Wolff and Joachim Gottschalk. Director Kurt Maetzig, whose own Jewish mother had committed suicide to avoid deportation, based the script on a novella by Hans Schweikart, a personal friend of the Gottschalks.