Why did Johnny divorce Nelly? I didn't understand what's the story there. What I got was he was imprisoned and questioned and gave in (betrayed her location) out of fear. That's what I assumed. But why divorce her? What does the learning of this fact late in the story make us learn about him?
sharePerhaps your problem is that the film actually does not take place in the US in 2015. It was a different country at a different time. If you bothered to read about the Nazi era in Germany, you might understand this film better and not post silly questions and statements.
But, don't feel too bad, most of the posters here also see this film in American 2015 eyes. And they didn't either bother to read about the Nazi era in Germany. Which is why, probably, this forum is filled with trivia and ridiculous questions.
Trust me, if you knew the history, you probably would have enjoyed the film a lot more.
Since you people are either too lazy or too dumb to look it up yourselves, here is what the German audience knows but Americans don't since your country apparently feels that a war that killed millions of people (including American soldiers) isn't important enough for you to learn about.
In September 1935, the Nazis outlawed marriage between Christians and Jews. When Johannes was brought in by the police, being married to a Jewish woman at that time would have still been illegal.
Secondly, the Holocaust (the attempt to murder all Jews) was never revealed even to the German people - until after the war. The death camps, such as Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor were all located in Poland, there were none in Germany. This is not to say that the concentration camps in Germany were pleasant - just that they were not designed or intended for murder on an industrial scale.
When Johannes turned in Nelly, he certainly knew that bad things would happen to her, but not necessarily that she would be killed. By the time the film take place, however, news of the death camps had been reported and many Germans were aware of them, which is why he thought she was dead.
Once the war ended and concentration and death camp inmates were released, they were a relatively small number. Auschwitz alone, for example, murdered 1.1 million people. Tens of thousand people survived the camps by the end of the war.
So the chances that Nelly would have survived, for example, would have been very, very small.
You seem to be a very insecure prick with regards to your knowledge of certain facts. Of course what you're too self-centered to consider is that people come on an internet message boards from all sorts of different backgrounds (not just Americans, which as a matter of fact I'm not) and each actually has a free life of their own, which is to say various areas they choose to read up on in detail.
shareWell, isn't that nice? This is the Internet. Maybe you're too stupid to understand that, but calling people who you know *beep*-all about names and then making conclusions about them proves which one of us is the insecure prick (whether you have one or not).
shareRight, this is either purposeful trolling or ridiculously dumb that you've just accused me of precisely what you did in your original post. No further replies from me.
sharePretentious much?
shareHello I just watched the movie and since drama queen filmfam here didn't really give you answer here is mine - you could save yourself if you divorced a jew. You were just the same as jew for nazis if you were willingly married to jew.
So when lena gives her divorcing papers that is the last proof for nelly that he did betreyed her for his sake.
Now I dont want to judge Johnny because people must have been scared as hell but it certainly shows flaws in him and in his love.
This is what I assume and remember - there are no stupid questions, there are only hysterical trolls.
Bye.
Thank you.
I don't wanna judge Johnny too harshly either. I would have prefered the story to continue for a couple of scenes after it did to have some resolution to Nelly's quest to test her relationship with Johnny and see if he can recognize her and confess to something, and if she can then forgive him. I guess the way it was done, the filmmakers imply that Nelly does not forgive after learning about the divorce and she's really leaving at the end. It's understandable from her of course but it wouldn't have been out of character for her to be more unsure about it. It would have been more interesting I think.
I find it strange that it is the divorce that broke the camels back for her. I mean lets say there were mitigating circumstances for him to betray her, at that point why would the divorce matter? He had to do it to save himself. If you were going to be angry it should be at the betrayal itself.
shareWhat an embarrassingly judgemental and unpleasant way to respond to a simple question. Way to go!
share