Carl Zuckmayer

France under German occupation in 1043. While a French Resistance group celebrates Christmas in a castle, it is sourrounded by German field police and a fire is lit. The French men burn to death singing the Te Deum like the biblical men in the furnace. This event (which actually took place) gets enhanced by Zuckmayer into a parable beyond all nationalities: German and French soldiers are played by the same actors; two angels denounce the sacrilege and urge for reconciliation. “Father Wind”, “Mother Frost”, “Brother Fog” symbolise cosmic forces. A French chaplain speaks Zuckmayer’s message: “We have to choose, here and now, whether we want to debase life to a blind function – or whether we can love it as God’s gift in everyone of his creatures, even in the enemy, even in death and destruction!”