This film takes place during the Seven Years' War. The Prussian Major von Tellheim has become engaged to the Saxon noblewoman Minna von Barnhelm. After the war, the King - in an unwarranted move - deprives the major of his honor. Von Tellheim becomes impoverished and, filled with shame, breaks off his relationship to Minna. An innkeeper in Berlin, who is a police informer, makes the Major move to a shabby little attic because he cannot pay his debt. In the meantime, Minna has also arrived at the inn. She and her lady's maid Franziska are questioned and spied on by the nosy innkeeper. Minna has followed her beloved Tellheim and she now cunningly manages to elicit a new declaration of love from him...
Acting
Marita Böhme's deliciously manipulative Minna steals every scene
Production
Sumptuous GDR-funded period detail with theatrical intimacy
Writing
Lessing's 1767 dialogue still lands its punches
Director
Martin Hellberg
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Lessing's original 1767 play was banned in Nazi Germany for its anti-militarism, making this 1962 GDR adaptation politically loaded.
Director Martin Hellberg cast Manfred Krug before his stardom; Krug later defected to West Germany in 1976, becoming a symbol of GDR cultural fractures.
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