What to Do in Case of Fire
The sound of a film reel rolling accompanies credits appearing jerkily on the screen, as if displayed by an old film projector. As the credits continue, voices and clanking sounds are heard. One says…
What to Do in Case of Fire
The sound of a film reel rolling accompanies credits appearing jerkily on the screen, as if displayed by an old film projector. As the credits continue, voices and clanking sounds are heard. One says "Camera - rolling!" and another follows with "Group 36 Training Film." After some more fumbling sounds, the training film begins. A crude map of Berlin in 1987 appears, filmed by an unsteady camera. A narrator, one of the previously heard voices, explains that Allied occupation forces rule the city, and almost every squat has been evacuated. Only one block remains: Machnow Street, zip code SO36, in the American sector. The film then gives way to footage of a crowd of jeering people in a run-down neighborhood. They begin to throw objects at a line of police holding riot shields. For a moment, the camera freezes, and the film's title, "Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt?" (What to Do in Case of Fire?) appears on the screen. Then the rioters rush the line of policemen, jumping on cars, screaming, and generally causing mayhem. The camera focuses on some of the rioters, whose names appear onscreen, introducing Tim (Til Schweiger) and Flo (Doris Schretzmayer). A water cannon, a huge, tank-like vehicle equipped with a high-pressure water hose, begins to rumble down the street. Its spray knocks down several rioters, and they begin to flee. Rioters with signs continue to mock the policemen. Two more new characters appear in the same way as the others, Maik (Sebastian Blomberg) and Nele (Nadja Uhl). Another, Terror (Matthias Matschke) urinates on the policemen from an upper-story window. Yet another, Hotte (Martin Feifel), leads a mob down a street, waving a flag bearing the symbol for anarchy. All the while, the rioters are heard shouting in the streets. The narrator begins to speak again, informing viewers that Machnow street residents live in terrible conditions. A female voice adds that they are always inebriated or on drugs. More voices chime in that these people commit vandalism, resist arrest, and are misguided and sexually depraved. As this last statement is made, the cameraman sneaks up on a couple sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a cramped house. They awaken and gesture angrily at the camera, along with a third man who appears and moons it. "But these people can be helped," the narrator continues, as the camera focuses on a grinning Terror and Maik. "They should do useful work, read a good book or tinker with a little bomb." Tim, Flo and Nele appear and begin to educate viewers on how to carry out an anarchist bomb attack. Tim speaks, while the others hold up placards to match his words. The anarchists take turns listing and demonstrating rules: "Beginners, don't bite off more than you can chew." "No handwritten tracts, throw away fonts and ribbons, and never use your own typewriter." "Buy all materials at large supermarket chains," accompanied by footage of Flo burglarizing a store. "Don't touch anything with bare hands, or rinse thoroughly." The anarchists then give a recipe for making homemade explosives using sugar, saltpeter, and weedkiller. One more rule follows: "Occupy abandoned buildings." The footage then shows the five anarchists (Hotte is absent) tossing a homemade bomb into an abandoned building. They gather in front of the camera. "What to do in case of fire?" asks Tim. "Let it burn!" they scream in unison as they give the camera the finger. "And most important, folks, is timing," adds Tim's voice. "Timing is everything." The film then freezes and the still image burns away, leaving only blackness. The jerky, amateur camerawork is now replaced by standard, professionally filmed scenes. The timer on the bomb which the group dropped into the abandoned building is about to reach the end of its countdown, and sticks. Outside the building, snatches of various conversations and news broadcasts are heard. The weather abruptly changes to indicate the passage of time, and a number on the bottom of the screen indicates years going by. It begins at 1987 and ends at 2000. Two people are seen in the reflection on the mail slot, approaching the front door of the house. The woman, a real estate agent, explains to the man that the house used to be occupied by Americans, who didn't bomb the region of Dahlem in 1945 because they wanted it for themselves. Given all the events in Germany since then, politics in this place seems less troublesome, she says. "Hear that? That's historical silence." Pulling out a ring of keys, she attempts to unlock the door, adding that the house has been unoccupied since 1988 and she doesn't know who owns it. She gets the door open, but the bomb from thirteen years ago is in the doorjamb, preventing her from opening it. The man offers to give it a try. "Oh la la," she says. "Welcome to the new Berlin." The man rushes the door and kicks it in, setting off the bomb and destroying the front of the house. The fate of the two people is not shown. A group of protesters yell and scream from behind a fence outside a Mercedes-Benz office building. A line of police and trucks stands stoically on the other side of the fence. Among the protesters is a much older Hotte, now missing his legs and in a wheelchair, blowing a bugle. He pulls it from his lips and begins to bang on the fence, swearing. Then he holds up a video camera and begins filming an older Tim, who has snuck behind the line of police and begins spray-painting on their cars. Hotte grins and continues to scream. Several policemen inside a van hear a radio broadcast informing all units that a bomb has exploded in Grunewald. Their leader picks up his radio and affirms that they have received the message. Outside the vans, Tim finishes spray-painting them and climbs back over the fence to join the other protesters. When the vans pull out, they are all marked with crude pictures and obscenities. The protesters cheer. Tim wheels Hotte down a deserted Machnow Street. "Man oh man!" cries Hotte. "Just like the good old days!" He tosses the spray can into the street and reminisces about their days as more active anarchists. Tim replies that back then, Hotte wasn't so fat. Wheeling him inside a building, Tim attaches Hotte's wheelchair to a harness that pulls him up to the top of a spiral staircase. Tim begins to ascend the stairs after him. A third man, rotund and wearing glasses, appears at the bottom of the stairs and calls for them to wait. "No time, Bülent," replies Tim. "We've got work to do." Bülent (Aykut Kayacik) protests that he can't demolish the building while they're still inside, and Tim shrugs him off. Still following them up the stairs, Bülent offers them a deal: A place for both of them in Wedding. Hotte laughs him off and says a place in Grunewald would be a different story. An exasperated Bülent asks him for rent, and Tim lazily replies that it's in the mail. "I'll kick you out on the street!" shouts Bülent. The two dismiss him and slam a door behind themselves. As they enter their dingy apartment, one of the two men puts on a record. Hotte laughs that Bülent cannot possibly kick them out, because Hotte is a handicapped citizen. Tim washes his face at a sink. Hotte pulls the tape from his camera and tosses it to him. Hotte adds that a trial involving their home could go on for four or five years, giving them even more time to live there, and that they will still be living on Machnow Street when they're fifty. As he speaks, Tim tosses empty bottles off shelves, apparently searching for something. Closing the refrigerator, he asks if Hotte can lend him a 20. Hotte, now smoking a cigarette, only laughs. Tim stands in a department store, loading chemicals into a bag. In the security room, all three of the store's video cameras are trained on him. Tim glances about suspiciously and begins to run through the store. Three security personnel, skidding awkwardly on the tiled floor, chase after him. Tim dives into a bed on display and pulls the hangings closed. The security men approach the bed and one whips the hangings off, finding no one. A PA system announces that the store will be closing in ten minutes. Mystified, the security men walk away. Underneath the bed, Tim watches them leave and breathes a sigh of relief. It is nighttime. Policemen and other authorities run to and fro outside the house where the bomb went off. It is now a total wreck. A newswoman speaks into a camera, saying that a bomb went off in Berlin and a villa in Grunewald was destroyed by unknown perpetrators. Only two people, presumably the real estate agent and her buyer, suffered minor injuries. The newswoman joins a mob of reporters jabbering at a newly arrived police commissioner (Hubert Mulzer), asking him if there are any recent developments. He answers that the bomb was the work of anarchists sabotaging building projects, and that the police will question "every left-wing fanatic in town." A woman, Pritt (Barbara Philipp), asks if that is legal, and Manowsky (Klaus Löwitsch), an aging detective, hustles her away from him. "Any more questions?" the commissioner asks, and the newswoman asks him if they have any leads on the bombers. As he leads her away, Manowsky tells Pritt that tonight a judge will issue search warrants, and arrest any left-wingers who object on the grounds of human rights. Pritt looks disbelieving. Manowsky stumbles over an object in the rubble of the villa, and picks it up to examine. A man with a camera appears in front of him, and Manowsky shoves the cameraman away, calling for a pair of policemen to get him out of there. Manowsky then takes a closer look at the object, which is a piece of the lid from the bomb. In the department store, now closed, Tim sneaks past the patrolling security personnel. He reaches the front door and kneels down, tinkering with a fuse box. He causes the doors to swing open and all the store's lights to turn on. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Tim strolls casually out of the store, turning back to give it a whoop of victory before walking away. Tim stands inside a telephone booth, banging on the glass. He emerges from it and calls to the woman whose attention he was trying to get, asking her if she has a telephone card he can borrow, as his is used up. She offers to let him use her phone, since she lives close by. "Really?" he replies gratefully. She leads him toward her home. Inside her apartment, Tim whispers into a phone "The Anti-Cement Brigade strikes again. We've liberated the mall to protest the capitalist pigs on Potsdam Square razing low-rent housing by multinationals." As he speaks, people in the street below steal goods from the department store, whose doors he left open wide. He falls silent as he hears the woman, now in her nightgown, enter the room behind him. She smiles at him and leaves him be. "All power to the imagination!" he finishes. A dark window of an upper-story building is seen. A light illuminates the room beyond, and Tim walks into his apartment, moving as if tired. It is dawn. A long line of police vans divides itself along various roads, as a broadcast from headquarters instructs each unit as to which sector it should cover. The broadcast warns the men to be especially careful around Machnow street, where hoodlums have been known to push heavy or burning objects out of windows. The vans park and the police emerge from them. A cluster of bottles sitting on a table begins to shake with repeated vibrations. A gourd falls off a shelf and hits a sleeping Hotte on the head, awakening him. He sits bolt upright, hears the vibrations, and swears. He wheels himself over to the window, where he sees the source of the vibrations: The police are breaking down the front door with a battering ram. Hotte swears again and wheels himself onto the indoor balcony. He hammers at a peg, releasing coils of barbed wire that fall onto the spiral staircase. The police enter and call for wire cutters. "Do something, officer!" shouts Bülent, and the policeman asks him to leave. Hotte knocks out another peg and a sheet of wood falls onto the lowest part of the stairway, forming a ramp. A couple of policemen, having cut through the wire, try to scramble up the ramp, but Hotte knocks out a third peg, sending barrels rolling down and knocking the police back. He then wheels himself back into the apartment, slamming and bolting the door. "Man, he hoards everything!" he complains, probably referring to Tim. Hotte heads for a bookshelf filled with reels of film, and pulls off a stack of them. Behind it is an old photograph of Tim and Flo, taken while they were lovers, back in the days when they all made these films and bombed buildings. "Unbelievable!" exclaims Hotte. "He can't let go." In the stairwell, the police are now using an electric saw to cut through the wire faster, and they manage to lift the ramp out of the way. Hotte frantically piles reels of film on top of the stove, lights a match, and then discovers that the gas has been turned off. A chainsaw begins to cut through his door. Tim sits on a bus. He sees someone sitting across from him reading an article about his old bomb, which destroyed the villa. He leaps up and snatches the paper from the man, ignoring his protests. Inside the apartment, Hotte screams at the police to get their hands off his papers. He demands to see their badges, calling them "dog leashes." One policeman, ignoring his screams, hands Hotte his receipt. Hotte mockingly sticks the paper to his forehead, still swearing at them as they confiscate all the films and papers in the apartment. "Good, get it all out," says Bülent, as he watches the police carry the things downstairs. He asks them to take Hotte too, but a policeman replies that the evening news would love a story of police handcuffing an invalid. Returning home, Tim sees the police vans heading out, and a concerned expression appears on his face. He jogs toward the apartment building and picks up one of the film reels left on the ground. Hotte calls from upstairs that he tried, but "the pigs had me outnumbered." Tim hops on his bicycle at once and follows the vans down the street. Outside the police barracks, Tim watches the police vans pull into an underground garage. He surveys the building's watchtowers, high walls, and imposing security gate before turning and biking away. Inside the police barracks, Manowsky and Pritt are walking down a hallway. Pritt tells him that the task force is in the gym, to which Manowsky replies "Good for us." "I forgot to tell you" begins the girl. She gestures to a taller man in a suit who joins the pair as they walk by. He introduces himself as Dr. Henkel (Devid Striesow), sent by security in Bonn. He volunteers to lend infrastructural support and lists his fields of experience. Manowsky stops walking and interrupts him: "Ever wonder why the commissioner chose not to call in the Nation Guard, but to hire an old watchdog like me?" Manowsky and the woman dismissively walk on without Henkel. "I have, actually," Henkel answers and follows. In their apartment, Hotte explains to Tim that the police searched the entire neighborhood, but here is where they found the evidence. They still haven't screened the films yet. "Once they do, we're screwed," replies Tim. Tossing a tangled reel to the floor, he suggest they go to Poland. Hotte asks what will happen to the others in the films, and Tim shrugs it off as not being his problem. "I thought we didn't betray our friends," says Hotte. Tim points out that they don't even know where their old friends live now. Hotte grins and pulls out an address book, holding it open. Tim reads the page and says he won't set foot in "that rich ghetto." Three people sit at a table in a spacious office with pictures on the walls and a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a fountain. A fourth man paces back and forth, and angrily punches a small punching bag sticking up from the floor on a spring. A closer shot reveals him to be Maik, now older and wearing a purple suit, with a pink ribbon fastened to one lapel. He silently turns to face the three people at the table, pulls out a marker, and draws a cake with a candle on a sheet of paper. He tosses the paper derisively at the three people. "You want a piece of the pie?" he says. "With us you take the cake. I want that slogan in Helvetica and add a line." He sits at the table. The man across from him says that Maik's problem is he keeps changing the campaign around. "I have no problem. I'm the boss, I'm looking out for our shareholders," replies Maik. "We're thirty-two times oversubscribed. I'm ingenious, I'm a genius. And this stuff--" he throws a pile of potential ads into the air "--is bullshit! Or do you disagree?" Tim ambles down a hallway, passing a receptionist's desk. The receptionist follows him and tells him he can't just walk in. Just then Maik's voice gets Tim's attention. Maik is still yelling at his subordinates about advertisements. "Forget it," says Tim, and turns to leave. Just then, Hotte rolls in, screaming triumphantly. Maik looks up. "Oh, shit," he says. He walks across the conference table and approaches his old friend in disbelief. He and Hotte greet each other enthusiastically, and Maik gives Tim a hug. Tim appears less than pleased to see Maik, who realizes this and looks uncomfortable. "What do you want?" he asks. A woman wrapped mummy-like in gauze bandages playfully chases a group of children around an apartment. There are balloons and streamers lying around, as if for a birthday party. The woman kneels to talk to a girl. "Mama, can Sasha and Holger come up too?" the girl asks. The woman replies that the deal was six kids for six years. Her daughter says that when she's as old as her mother, she'll have thirty-three friends over. The woman jokingly wonders if she'll have that many, and she and her daughter hug. The women removes the bandage on her face, revealing herself to be an older Nele. She then looks up to see Hotte and Tim in the doorway. Tim explains to Nele that the whole operation is filmed on those tapes, in close-up. Nele ignores them and tells her daughter, Melli, to stop fiddling with her shoes, and that they are going for a walk. "Did you hear me?" asks Tim. Nele ignores him and fiddles with her daughter's shoe. Tim strides over, pulls out a knife, and cuts the shoelace tying Melli's shoes together. "Are you nuts?" cries Melli. Nele protests that she put all her anarchist activities behind her. On an upper floor of a tall building, Tim and Hotte stand before a third man, who paces. "I don't understand," he says. "That stuff never blew up." "It was a great job," replies Tim. "You really knew your stuff, Terror." Hotte reminds him of something he used to say: "Stay high, be free, it's Terror A to Z." The third man finally turns to face the camera -- it is indeed an older Terror, missing his mohawk and wearing a judge's robes. He asks desperately if they can even see him in the film. Smoke from Hotte's cigarette wafts into Terror's face, and Terror seems to accept that he is in trouble. "That wasn't even a real bomb," protests Nele in her apartment. "We weren't the RAF!" Tim says that she was, and Nele becomes angry at him for saying that. Tim reminds her that they made the films to show their children that they stood up to "the pigs." "It's just that nobody cares anymore," says Tim, now speaking to Maik. "Except the police," says Maik, shaking a bottle of pills. "That's the problem," says Terror in the law office. He cites the section of the penal code covering bombs. His mouthful of legal jargon concludes that the punishment for the friends would be a sentence of at least eight years. "Eight years? But I'm a celebrity!" protests Maik. (It is unclear whether he and the other characters are actually speaking to each other, or they are in different places and the scene is edited to make it appear that way.) "Maybe seven years, with a good lawyer," says Terror. Nele mutters that Melli will be thirteen in seven years. Maik asks if there is a statute of limitations. Terror slams his law book decisively. "Not for attempted murder," he states. Tim, Hotte, and Nele now appear in the room in Terror's building. "A memorial service for the victims?" asks Tim. He says they got the right guys: A real estate broad and an asshole from Bonn. Terror puts his hand over Tim's mouth and drags him to a corner, looking about nervously. Outside Nele's apartment, she tells Tim and Hotte that they almost killed two people. "Don't you have any feelings?" she says, and slams the door in their faces. Inside her apartment, she tells herself that they won't be suspected, because they have changed so much. In his law offices, Terror suggests they turn themselves in to set a good example, but Tim is skeptical. In Maik's office, Maik's associates call to him that the board is waiting. Maik asks Tim if there is anything else. Tim grabs a candy from Maik's desk and turns to leave. Hotte snatches a handful of candies and throws them in Maik's face. In a dimly lit gymnasium, Henkel addresses a group of men about the findings from analyzing the bomb. Manowsky stands and interrupts him, already familiar with the old anarchist recipe for bombs. Striding up and down the room, he tells the group that the ingredients used to make the bomb are at least twelve years old, and that the pressure cooker that housed the bomb came out in 1984. So, he says, the time frame for the bomb is between 1984 and 1988. Though politics have changed, he says, this bomb is from a time when West Berlin was still an island. Manowsky stops moving and faces the group. He tells them to find him every activist splinter group active during that time. Tim and Hotte pull up in front of their apartment in a beat-up van. Tim gets out of the van and takes several suitcases from the curb, loading them into the back. Hotte says that it doesn't matter that all their old friends are assholes now, and Tim has much more going for him than "some stupid ad man." And they really brainwashed Terror, he adds. Tim tells him to shut up, and Hotte reminds him that he's the only friend Tim has left. As Tim heads into the apartment building, Hotte calls to him not to forget Hotte's parka. Tim enters the apartment and gathers up a few odds and ends. He discovers an older Flo in his bedroom, wearing a white coat. Tim stonily says hello. She tells him she couldn't even find this place anymore, because the street is full of new buildings. "And they renamed the Dimitroff!" she adds. There is an awkward silence. "I have long hair now," Flo states unnecessarily. "Flattering, isn't it?" Tim gives a small nod. Flo walks over to catch the water dripping from the ceiling, noting that the roof still leaks. Tim says he's had a lot on his mind and hasn't fixed it yet. "Eleven years," murmurs Flo. She then tells him that "Old Bruiser Manowsky" got the bomb case. He knows the scene and exactly who they are, she reminds him. She says that the others agree they're in this together. "So that means someone sent you," says Tim. Flo says she thought he could go in and get the reels of film, since he saved them and none of the others would recognize them. Tim walks away and Flo follows him outside, calling to him. She reminds him that only he knows which one shows the bomb scheme. Hotte sees her and happily greets her from inside the van. Tim slams the van's door shut and heads for the driver's side. "That's how it is," says Flo. "I can't change it." "What about Poland?" asks Hotte. Tim climbs into the van and drives off without a word, leaving Flo alone in the street. Tim and Hotte drive in silence. "Shut up," says Tim. Hotte replies that he didn't say a word. More silence follows. Hotte breaks it by saying "No pot in Poland, anyway," and grins. Tim looks pensive. The van pulls back up in front of the apartment building it just left. Flo is still standing out front. Tim gets out and quietly tells her he'll do it. She smiles and says "Good." "What about the others?" asks Tim. Flo, Nele, Maik, and Terror enter the apartment building, followed by Tim. They look unsettled at being back in their old home. Hotte happily calls down to them from above. Terror carries a small black dog in his arms. As they ascend the stairs, Nele asks what the smell is. They glance at the ancient graffiti coating the walls. Terror jumps as Maik turns on a loud handheld air horn. He turns it off after a second. Inside the apartment, Maik tells Tim it's good to see him again. Tim doesn't believe him, but Maik insists he means it. Hotte tries to energize the group by pretending things are just as they used to be, but the others only look around uncomfortably. "I won't use violence," says Nele. "I've only got until Friday," says Flo. "I won't break any laws," says Terror. Hotte pulls on a mask, shouting "But I can!" Terror asks exactly what they're doing, and Tim tells him they're breaking into police barracks. The next scene is a montage of the group's planning. Maps of the barracks are unrolled and wooden blocks are moved about upon them. Hotte watches the place from the van through binoculars. Sitting in the apartment, the former anarchists discuss the plan. Nele tells them the barracks used to station 8,000 troops during the Nazi regime, and that one day only seventeen men returned from battle. Tim and Flo briefly make eye contact and then turn away. The group identifies weak points in the barracks and uncovers the schedule for its security. Nele uses a device disguised as a stroller to measure the length of the building's perimeter. Tim sits outside the barracks on a bench and snaps photos while Flo distracts the guards. Sitting down beside him, Nele remarks that men are stupid and easily distracted by women. Tim gives her a look. "Okay, women are no better," she admits. Tim says that they'll never get past the ID check at the gate. Terror, holding a dog leash, runs along outside the fence, calling for Hotte to stop. Hotte laughs and tosses Terror's dog over the fence. Terror uses his dog as an excuse to get inside the perimeter and covertly snap pictures. There are armored doors, tanks, water cannons, and attack dogs. Tim pulls a developing photo from a tub of water. He glances at it; it's one he snapped of Flo while he was photographing the outside of the barracks. Changing her baby, Nele remarks to Tim that it's nice to spend time with people who aren't toddlers. Tim asks how she changed so much from the anarchist she used to be. "You were the best," he says, picking up the baby and bouncing it. Nele tells him that it was hormones and nesting instinct. She grew up, left home, and got a job. Tim asks where her children's father is, and Nele gives him a defensive look. Just then the washing machine jams. Nele angrily kicks it, exclaiming that she only bought it four years ago. "After four years," she says, "everything falls apart." An anchorwoman on TV announces that one of the victims of the bomb was a government employee. The six former anarchists sit around a small table, ignoring the TV. Terror tells Hotte that he can go to night school online now, and offers to lend Hotte his old notes. Hotte asks Terror to lend him the rum instead, and Terror passes him a bottle. Nele gives up trying to offer them tea, and asks who's taking the early shift tomorrow. Terror says he's busy with work and has a cold. Maik says he has to butter up his board of directors. Flo says she's busy, and refuses to say why. She suggests Nele do it. Nele says she did it today, and besides, she has kids. Flo tells her to get a babysitter, and then offers to pay for it. Nele becomes angry and accuses Flo of trying to buy her. "Quiet, the kids," says Hotte. Terror asks how they will get into the fortress, and Maik says they will let experts handle it. He suggests hiring Romanians to go in and get the film. Nele points out that they will just blackmail the group. Maik says they'll just write a check, and he and Terror begin to argue about the best course of action. Terror wants to turn himself in, but Nele says that won't happen. Flo suggests entering the barracks via hot-air balloon. Nele and Maik dismiss the idea, but Tim defends it. Maik tells him to be realistic. Then Maik has another idea: Take the film from inside. "This time," he says, "we use the system." Manowsky sits in a press conference, speaking about a typewritten letter made untraceable by the usual anarchist techniques. The letter is signed "Group 36," with whom the police are unfamiliar. Maik sits among the press. A reporter begins to ask questions, and Manowsky answers that the police received the note in 1987, that notes like these were very common at that time, and that the police did nothing because the homemade bombs didn't usually go off. "Why did this one?" asks the reporter. "Shit happens," says Maik in English, earning laughs. Manowsky answers one last question, that this is all the police have for now, and then ends the press conference. But as Manowsky turns to leave, Henkel motions the reporters back into their seats. He informs them that the letter has been linguistically analyzed, and that they're dealing with determined and clever terrorists, judging by their use of technical jargon. ("I bet something got stuck in the sucking thingy," Nele says to Tim as he tries to repair her washing machine.) Henkel adds that there are also "marked fecal references." (Hotte, holding Nele's baby, sniffs his hand and looks disgusted.) The letter's syntax and prose indicate substance abuse, says Henkel. (Terror, breathing heavily, looks up from a mug containing some kind of inhalant.) Henkel finishes by saying these people are unpredictable because they believe in a cause. Looking satisfied, he ends the press conference. As everyone leaves, Maik approaches Henkel and compliments him on his speech. He asks him to repeat it for "ATV Berlin" in an exclusive interview tomorrow, and hands Henkel a business card. Henkel says it might be possible, and leaves. Maik stands still, apparently amazed at how gullible Henkel is. "You can't snub the press," says Henkel to Manowsky as they walk down a hallway inside the barracks. It's important for making citizens feel secure, and it helps to work with the press, says Henkel, handing Manowsky Maik's card. Manowsky disagrees and tears the card in two, dropping it. "No press," he tells Henkel, and stalks off. Henkel looks after him, then bends to pick up the pieces of the card. Nele, Terror, Hotte, and Maik sit in Maik's office, about to eat. Maik overpays the man who delivered their food, remarking that these days he screws the state through tax evasion. Nele calls him an asshole, and Maik sarcastically says she has a way with words. Nele asks him if he can take anything seriously, and Maik replies "No, can you?" Nele answers that she takes her family seriously and tries to teach her kids not to grow up like Maik. She calls it "a small daily battle not to forsake our old beliefs." She can still look in the mirror, she says. Maik asks her what she sees there. Terror tells him to cut it out, and Maik exclaims loudly "Why team up against me?" He says he isn't all that uptight, and at least he's entertaining. He loves his company, his penthouse, his maid -- his phone rings -- "and I love my cell phone." He answers, speaks briefly into the phone, thanks the person on the other end, and hangs up. As he turns around, it can be seen that his shirt reads "I [heart] Bill Gates." Tim enters the room and looks at Maik. Maik quietly tells the group that a TV crew will be covering the police task force tomorrow. Hotte excitedly says they could join the crew, and Terror informs him they are the crew. Maik stands behind a camera, snapping photos of the other former anarchists. Nele irritably asks if he's still calling the shots. Maik says that's how he got ahead: Endless philosophizing while living on Machnow Street. He then uses his computer to modify the photos. "Now I manipulate speech for my own reasons," he continues, passing out false press passes to the others. "And the other guy thinks it was his idea all along." Tim gives Maik a stony look and rudely knocks into him on his way out. As Flo and Tim walk down a street at night, Flo tells Tim about a guy who worked for an airline, presumably someone she dated. He got her cheap flights all over the world. Africa was her favorite place. She tells Tim he'd like the desert; that it's endless, with no fences in the way, and at night it's freezing. She says you could lie on a rock looking up at the sky and think that the stars belong to you. Tim breaks a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament off a car as he passes it. He says the
What to Do in Case of Fire
Action,Comedy,Drama
Film Details
The sound of a film reel rolling accompanies credits appearing jerkily on the screen, as if displayed by an old film projector. As the credits continue, voices and clanking sounds are heard. One says "Camera - rolling!" and another follows with "Group 36 Training Film." After some more fumbling sounds, the training film begins.
A crude map of Berlin in 1987 appears, filmed by an unsteady camera. A narrator, one of the previously heard voices, explains that Allied occupation forces rule the city, and almost every squat has been evacuated. Only one block remains: Machnow Street, zip code SO36, in the American sector.
The film then gives way to footage of a crowd of jeering people in a run-down neighborhood. They begin to throw objects at a line of police holding riot shields. For a moment, the camera freezes, and the film's title, "Was Tun, Wenn's Brennt?" (What to Do in Case of Fire?) appears on the screen.
Then the rioters rush the line of policemen, jumping on cars, screaming, and generally causing mayhem. The camera focuses on some of the rioters, whose names appear onscreen, introducing Tim (Til Schweiger) and Flo (Doris Schretzmayer). A water cannon, a huge, tank-like vehicle equipped with a high-pressure water hose, begins to rumble down the street.
Its spray knocks down several rioters, and they begin to flee. Rioters with signs continue to mock the policemen. Two more new characters appear in the same way as the others, Maik (Sebastian Blomberg) and Nele (Nadja Uhl).
Another, Terror (Matthias Matschke) urinates on the policemen from an upper-story window. Yet another, Hotte (Martin Feifel), leads a mob down a street, waving a flag bearing the symbol for anarchy. All the while, the rioters are heard shouting in the streets.
The narrator begins to speak again, informing viewers that Machnow street residents live in terrible conditions. A female voice adds that they are always inebriated or on drugs. More voices chime in that these people commit vandalism, resist arrest, and are misguided and sexually depraved.
As this last statement is made, the cameraman sneaks up on a couple sleeping on a mattress on the floor of a cramped house. They awaken and gesture angrily at the camera, along with a third man who appears and moons it. "But these people can be helped," the narrator continues, as the camera focuses on a grinning Terror and Maik.
"They should do useful work, read a good book or tinker with a little bomb." Tim, Flo and Nele appear and begin to educate viewers on how to carry out an anarchist bomb attack. Tim speaks, while the others hold up placards to match his words. The anarchists take turns listing and demonstrating rules: "Beginners, don't bite off more than you can chew." "No handwritten tracts, throw away fonts and ribbons, and never use your own typewriter." "Buy all materials at large supermarket chains," accompanied by footage of Flo burglarizing a store.
"Don't touch anything with bare hands, or rinse thoroughly." The anarchists then give a recipe for making homemade explosives using sugar, saltpeter, and weedkiller. One more rule follows: "Occupy abandoned buildings." The footage then shows the five anarchists (Hotte is absent) tossing a homemade bomb into an abandoned building. They gather in front of the camera.
"What to do in case of fire?" asks Tim. "Let it burn!" they scream in unison as they give the camera the finger. "And most important, folks, is timing," adds Tim's voice.
"Timing is everything." The film then freezes and the still image burns away, leaving only blackness. The jerky, amateur camerawork is now replaced by standard, professionally filmed scenes. The timer on the bomb which the group dropped into the abandoned building is about to reach the end of its countdown, and sticks.
Outside the building, snatches of various conversations and news broadcasts are heard. The weather abruptly changes to indicate the passage of time, and a number on the bottom of the screen indicates years going by. It begins at 1987 and ends at 2000.
Two people are seen in the reflection on the mail slot, approaching the front door of the house. The woman, a real estate agent, explains to the man that the house used to be occupied by Americans, who didn't bomb the region of Dahlem in 1945 because they wanted it for themselves. Given all the events in Germany since then, politics in this place seems less troublesome, she says.
"Hear that? That's historical silence." Pulling out a ring of keys, she attempts to unlock the door, adding that the house has been unoccupied since 1988 and she doesn't know who owns it. She gets the door open, but the bomb from thirteen years ago is in the doorjamb, preventing her from opening it. The man offers to give it a try.
"Oh la la," she says. "Welcome to the new Berlin." The man rushes the door and kicks it in, setting off the bomb and destroying the front of the house. The fate of the two people is not shown.
A group of protesters yell and scream from behind a fence outside a Mercedes-Benz office building. A line of police and trucks stands stoically on the other side of the fence. Among the protesters is a much older Hotte, now missing his legs and in a wheelchair, blowing a bugle.
He pulls it from his lips and begins to bang on the fence, swearing. Then he holds up a video camera and begins filming an older Tim, who has snuck behind the line of police and begins spray-painting on their cars. Hotte grins and continues to scream.
Several policemen inside a van hear a radio broadcast informing all units that a bomb has exploded in Grunewald. Their leader picks up his radio and affirms that they have received the message. Outside the vans, Tim finishes spray-painting them and climbs back over the fence to join the other protesters.
When the vans pull out, they are all marked with crude pictures and obscenities. The protesters cheer. Tim wheels Hotte down a deserted Machnow Street.
"Man oh man!" cries Hotte. "Just like the good old days!" He tosses the spray can into the street and reminisces about their days as more active anarchists. Tim replies that back then, Hotte wasn't so fat.
Wheeling him inside a building, Tim attaches Hotte's wheelchair to a harness that pulls him up to the top of a spiral staircase. Tim begins to ascend the stairs after him. A third man, rotund and wearing glasses, appears at the bottom of the stairs and calls for them to wait.
"No time, Bülent," replies Tim. "We've got work to do." Bülent (Aykut Kayacik) protests that he can't demolish the building while they're still inside, and Tim shrugs him off. Still following them up the stairs, Bülent offers them a deal: A place for both of them in Wedding.
Hotte laughs him off and says a place in Grunewald would be a different story. An exasperated Bülent asks him for rent, and Tim lazily replies that it's in the mail. "I'll kick you out on the street!" shouts Bülent.
The two dismiss him and slam a door behind themselves. As they enter their dingy apartment, one of the two men puts on a record. Hotte laughs that Bülent cannot possibly kick them out, because Hotte is a handicapped citizen.
Tim washes his face at a sink. Hotte pulls the tape from his camera and tosses it to him. Hotte adds that a trial involving their home could go on for four or five years, giving them even more time to live there, and that they will still be living on Machnow Street when they're fifty.
As he speaks, Tim tosses empty bottles off shelves, apparently searching for something. Closing the refrigerator, he asks if Hotte can lend him a 20. Hotte, now smoking a cigarette, only laughs.
Tim stands in a department store, loading chemicals into a bag. In the security room, all three of the store's video cameras are trained on him. Tim glances about suspiciously and begins to run through the store.
Three security personnel, skidding awkwardly on the tiled floor, chase after him. Tim dives into a bed on display and pulls the hangings closed. The security men approach the bed and one whips the hangings off, finding no one.
A PA system announces that the store will be closing in ten minutes. Mystified, the security men walk away. Underneath the bed, Tim watches them leave and breathes a sigh of relief.
It is nighttime. Policemen and other authorities run to and fro outside the house where the bomb went off. It is now a total wreck.
A newswoman speaks into a camera, saying that a bomb went off in Berlin and a villa in Grunewald was destroyed by unknown perpetrators. Only two people, presumably the real estate agent and her buyer, suffered minor injuries. The newswoman joins a mob of reporters jabbering at a newly arrived police commissioner (Hubert Mulzer), asking him if there are any recent developments.
He answers that the bomb was the work of anarchists sabotaging building projects, and that the police will question "every left-wing fanatic in town." A woman, Pritt (Barbara Philipp), asks if that is legal, and Manowsky (Klaus Löwitsch), an aging detective, hustles her away from him. "Any more questions?" the commissioner asks, and the newswoman asks him if they have any leads on the bombers. As he leads her away, Manowsky tells Pritt that tonight a judge will issue search warrants, and arrest any left-wingers who object on the grounds of human rights.
Pritt looks disbelieving. Manowsky stumbles over an object in the rubble of the villa, and picks it up to examine. A man with a camera appears in front of him, and Manowsky shoves the cameraman away, calling for a pair of policemen to get him out of there.
Manowsky then takes a closer look at the object, which is a piece of the lid from the bomb. In the department store, now closed, Tim sneaks past the patrolling security personnel. He reaches the front door and kneels down, tinkering with a fuse box.
He causes the doors to swing open and all the store's lights to turn on. Slinging his bag over his shoulder, Tim strolls casually out of the store, turning back to give it a whoop of victory before walking away. Tim stands inside a telephone booth, banging on the glass.
He emerges from it and calls to the woman whose attention he was trying to get, asking her if she has a telephone card he can borrow, as his is used up. She offers to let him use her phone, since she lives close by. "Really?" he replies gratefully.
She leads him toward her home. Inside her apartment, Tim whispers into a phone "The Anti-Cement Brigade strikes again. We've liberated the mall to protest the capitalist pigs on Potsdam Square razing low-rent housing by multinationals." As he speaks, people in the street below steal goods from the department store, whose doors he left open wide.
He falls silent as he hears the woman, now in her nightgown, enter the room behind him. She smiles at him and leaves him be. "All power to the imagination!" he finishes.
A dark window of an upper-story building is seen. A light illuminates the room beyond, and Tim walks into his apartment, moving as if tired. It is dawn.
A long line of police vans divides itself along various roads, as a broadcast from headquarters instructs each unit as to which sector it should cover. The broadcast warns the men to be especially careful around Machnow street, where hoodlums have been known to push heavy or burning objects out of windows. The vans park and the police emerge from them.
A cluster of bottles sitting on a table begins to shake with repeated vibrations. A gourd falls off a shelf and hits a sleeping Hotte on the head, awakening him. He sits bolt upright, hears the vibrations, and swears.
He wheels himself over to the window, where he sees the source of the vibrations: The police are breaking down the front door with a battering ram. Hotte swears again and wheels himself onto the indoor balcony. He hammers at a peg, releasing coils of barbed wire that fall onto the spiral staircase.
The police enter and call for wire cutters. "Do something, officer!" shouts Bülent, and the policeman asks him to leave. Hotte knocks out another peg and a sheet of wood falls onto the lowest part of the stairway, forming a ramp.
A couple of policemen, having cut through the wire, try to scramble up the ramp, but Hotte knocks out a third peg, sending barrels rolling down and knocking the police back. He then wheels himself back into the apartment, slamming and bolting the door. "Man, he hoards everything!" he complains, probably referring to Tim.
Hotte heads for a bookshelf filled with reels of film, and pulls off a stack of them. Behind it is an old photograph of Tim and Flo, taken while they were lovers, back in the days when they all made these films and bombed buildings. "Unbelievable!" exclaims Hotte.
"He can't let go." In the stairwell, the police are now using an electric saw to cut through the wire faster, and they manage to lift the ramp out of the way. Hotte frantically piles reels of film on top of the stove, lights a match, and then discovers that the gas has been turned off. A chainsaw begins to cut through his door.
Tim sits on a bus. He sees someone sitting across from him reading an article about his old bomb, which destroyed the villa. He leaps up and snatches the paper from the man, ignoring his protests.
Inside the apartment, Hotte screams at the police to get their hands off his papers. He demands to see their badges, calling them "dog leashes." One policeman, ignoring his screams, hands Hotte his receipt. Hotte mockingly sticks the paper to his forehead, still swearing at them as they confiscate all the films and papers in the apartment.
"Good, get it all out," says Bülent, as he watches the police carry the things downstairs. He asks them to take Hotte too, but a policeman replies that the evening news would love a story of police handcuffing an invalid. Returning home, Tim sees the police vans heading out, and a concerned expression appears on his face.
He jogs toward the apartment building and picks up one of the film reels left on the ground. Hotte calls from upstairs that he tried, but "the pigs had me outnumbered." Tim hops on his bicycle at once and follows the vans down the street. Outside the police barracks, Tim watches the police vans pull into an underground garage.
He surveys the building's watchtowers, high walls, and imposing security gate before turning and biking away. Inside the police barracks, Manowsky and Pritt are walking down a hallway. Pritt tells him that the task force is in the gym, to which Manowsky replies "Good for us." "I forgot to tell you" begins the girl.
She gestures to a taller man in a suit who joins the pair as they walk by. He introduces himself as Dr. Henkel (Devid Striesow), sent by security in Bonn.
He volunteers to lend infrastructural support and lists his fields of experience. Manowsky stops walking and interrupts him: "Ever wonder why the commissioner chose not to call in the Nation Guard, but to hire an old watchdog like me?" Manowsky and the woman dismissively walk on without Henkel. "I have, actually," Henkel answers and follows.
In their apartment, Hotte explains to Tim that the police searched the entire neighborhood, but here is where they found the evidence. They still haven't screened the films yet. "Once they do, we're screwed," replies Tim.
Tossing a tangled reel to the floor, he suggest they go to Poland. Hotte asks what will happen to the others in the films, and Tim shrugs it off as not being his problem. "I thought we didn't betray our friends," says Hotte.
Tim points out that they don't even know where their old friends live now. Hotte grins and pulls out an address book, holding it open. Tim reads the page and says he won't set foot in "that rich ghetto." Three people sit at a table in a spacious office with pictures on the walls and a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking a fountain.
A fourth man paces back and forth, and angrily punches a small punching bag sticking up from the floor on a spring. A closer shot reveals him to be Maik, now older and wearing a purple suit, with a pink ribbon fastened to one lapel. He silently turns to face the three people at the table, pulls out a marker, and draws a cake with a candle on a sheet of paper.
He tosses the paper derisively at the three people. "You want a piece of the pie?" he says. "With us you take the cake.
I want that slogan in Helvetica and add a line." He sits at the table. The man across from him says that Maik's problem is he keeps changing the campaign around. "I have no problem.
I'm the boss, I'm looking out for our shareholders," replies Maik. "We're thirty-two times oversubscribed. I'm ingenious, I'm a genius.
And this stuff--" he throws a pile of potential ads into the air "--is bullshit! Or do you disagree?" Tim ambles down a hallway, passing a receptionist's desk. The receptionist follows him and tells him he can't just walk in. Just then Maik's voice gets Tim's attention.
Maik is still yelling at his subordinates about advertisements. "Forget it," says Tim, and turns to leave. Just then, Hotte rolls in, screaming triumphantly.
Maik looks up. "Oh, shit," he says. He walks across the conference table and approaches his old friend in disbelief.
He and Hotte greet each other enthusiastically, and Maik gives Tim a hug. Tim appears less than pleased to see Maik, who realizes this and looks uncomfortable. "What do you want?" he asks.
A woman wrapped mummy-like in gauze bandages playfully chases a group of children around an apartment. There are balloons and streamers lying around, as if for a birthday party. The woman kneels to talk to a girl.
"Mama, can Sasha and Holger come up too?" the girl asks. The woman replies that the deal was six kids for six years. Her daughter says that when she's as old as her mother, she'll have thirty-three friends over.
The woman jokingly wonders if she'll have that many, and she and her daughter hug. The women removes the bandage on her face, revealing herself to be an older Nele. She then looks up to see Hotte and Tim in the doorway.
Tim explains to Nele that the whole operation is filmed on those tapes, in close-up. Nele ignores them and tells her daughter, Melli, to stop fiddling with her shoes, and that they are going for a walk. "Did you hear me?" asks Tim.
Nele ignores him and fiddles with her daughter's shoe. Tim strides over, pulls out a knife, and cuts the shoelace tying Melli's shoes together. "Are you nuts?" cries Melli.
Nele protests that she put all her anarchist activities behind her. On an upper floor of a tall building, Tim and Hotte stand before a third man, who paces. "I don't understand," he says.
"That stuff never blew up." "It was a great job," replies Tim. "You really knew your stuff, Terror." Hotte reminds him of something he used to say: "Stay high, be free, it's Terror A to Z." The third man finally turns to face the camera -- it is indeed an older Terror, missing his mohawk and wearing a judge's robes. He asks desperately if they can even see him in the film.
Smoke from Hotte's cigarette wafts into Terror's face, and Terror seems to accept that he is in trouble. "That wasn't even a real bomb," protests Nele in her apartment. "We weren't the RAF!" Tim says that she was, and Nele becomes angry at him for saying that.
Tim reminds her that they made the films to show their children that they stood up to "the pigs." "It's just that nobody cares anymore," says Tim, now speaking to Maik. "Except the police," says Maik, shaking a bottle of pills. "That's the problem," says Terror in the law office.
He cites the section of the penal code covering bombs. His mouthful of legal jargon concludes that the punishment for the friends would be a sentence of at least eight years. "Eight years? But I'm a celebrity!" protests Maik.
(It is unclear whether he and the other characters are actually speaking to each other, or they are in different places and the scene is edited to make it appear that way.) "Maybe seven years, with a good lawyer," says Terror. Nele mutters that Melli will be thirteen in seven years. Maik asks if there is a statute of limitations.
Terror slams his law book decisively. "Not for attempted murder," he states. Tim, Hotte, and Nele now appear in the room in Terror's building.
"A memorial service for the victims?" asks Tim. He says they got the right guys: A real estate broad and an asshole from Bonn. Terror puts his hand over Tim's mouth and drags him to a corner, looking about nervously.
Outside Nele's apartment, she tells Tim and Hotte that they almost killed two people. "Don't you have any feelings?" she says, and slams the door in their faces. Inside her apartment, she tells herself that they won't be suspected, because they have changed so much.
In his law offices, Terror suggests they turn themselves in to set a good example, but Tim is skeptical. In Maik's office, Maik's associates call to him that the board is waiting. Maik asks Tim if there is anything else.
Tim grabs a candy from Maik's desk and turns to leave. Hotte snatches a handful of candies and throws them in Maik's face. In a dimly lit gymnasium, Henkel addresses a group of men about the findings from analyzing the bomb.
Manowsky stands and interrupts him, already familiar with the old anarchist recipe for bombs. Striding up and down the room, he tells the group that the ingredients used to make the bomb are at least twelve years old, and that the pressure cooker that housed the bomb came out in 1984. So, he says, the time frame for the bomb is between 1984 and 1988.
Though politics have changed, he says, this bomb is from a time when West Berlin was still an island. Manowsky stops moving and faces the group. He tells them to find him every activist splinter group active during that time.
Tim and Hotte pull up in front of their apartment in a beat-up van. Tim gets out of the van and takes several suitcases from the curb, loading them into the back. Hotte says that it doesn't matter that all their old friends are assholes now, and Tim has much more going for him than "some stupid ad man." And they really brainwashed Terror, he adds.
Tim tells him to shut up, and Hotte reminds him that he's the only friend Tim has left. As Tim heads into the apartment building, Hotte calls to him not to forget Hotte's parka. Tim enters the apartment and gathers up a few odds and ends.
He discovers an older Flo in his bedroom, wearing a white coat. Tim stonily says hello. She tells him she couldn't even find this place anymore, because the street is full of new buildings.
"And they renamed the Dimitroff!" she adds. There is an awkward silence. "I have long hair now," Flo states unnecessarily.
"Flattering, isn't it?" Tim gives a small nod. Flo walks over to catch the water dripping from the ceiling, noting that the roof still leaks. Tim says he's had a lot on his mind and hasn't fixed it yet.
"Eleven years," murmurs Flo. She then tells him that "Old Bruiser Manowsky" got the bomb case. He knows the scene and exactly who they are, she reminds him.
She says that the others agree they're in this together. "So that means someone sent you," says Tim. Flo says she thought he could go in and get the reels of film, since he saved them and none of the others would recognize them.
Tim walks away and Flo follows him outside, calling to him. She reminds him that only he knows which one shows the bomb scheme. Hotte sees her and happily greets her from inside the van.
Tim slams the van's door shut and heads for the driver's side. "That's how it is," says Flo. "I can't change it." "What about Poland?" asks Hotte.
Tim climbs into the van and drives off without a word, leaving Flo alone in the street. Tim and Hotte drive in silence. "Shut up," says Tim.
Hotte replies that he didn't say a word. More silence follows. Hotte breaks it by saying "No pot in Poland, anyway," and grins.
Tim looks pensive. The van pulls back up in front of the apartment building it just left. Flo is still standing out front.
Tim gets out and quietly tells her he'll do it. She smiles and says "Good." "What about the others?" asks Tim. Flo, Nele, Maik, and Terror enter the apartment building, followed by Tim.
They look unsettled at being back in their old home. Hotte happily calls down to them from above. Terror carries a small black dog in his arms.
As they ascend the stairs, Nele asks what the smell is. They glance at the ancient graffiti coating the walls. Terror jumps as Maik turns on a loud handheld air horn.
He turns it off after a second. Inside the apartment, Maik tells Tim it's good to see him again. Tim doesn't believe him, but Maik insists he means it.
Hotte tries to energize the group by pretending things are just as they used to be, but the others only look around uncomfortably. "I won't use violence," says Nele. "I've only got until Friday," says Flo.
"I won't break any laws," says Terror. Hotte pulls on a mask, shouting "But I can!" Terror asks exactly what they're doing, and Tim tells him they're breaking into police barracks. The next scene is a montage of the group's planning.
Maps of the barracks are unrolled and wooden blocks are moved about upon them. Hotte watches the place from the van through binoculars. Sitting in the apartment, the former anarchists discuss the plan.
Nele tells them the barracks used to station 8,000 troops during the Nazi regime, and that one day only seventeen men returned from battle. Tim and Flo briefly make eye contact and then turn away. The group identifies weak points in the barracks and uncovers the schedule for its security.
Nele uses a device disguised as a stroller to measure the length of the building's perimeter. Tim sits outside the barracks on a bench and snaps photos while Flo distracts the guards. Sitting down beside him, Nele remarks that men are stupid and easily distracted by women.
Tim gives her a look. "Okay, women are no better," she admits. Tim says that they'll never get past the ID check at the gate.
Terror, holding a dog leash, runs along outside the fence, calling for Hotte to stop. Hotte laughs and tosses Terror's dog over the fence. Terror uses his dog as an excuse to get inside the perimeter and covertly snap pictures.
There are armored doors, tanks, water cannons, and attack dogs. Tim pulls a developing photo from a tub of water. He glances at it; it's one he snapped of Flo while he was photographing the outside of the barracks.
Changing her baby, Nele remarks to Tim that it's nice to spend time with people who aren't toddlers. Tim asks how she changed so much from the anarchist she used to be. "You were the best," he says, picking up the baby and bouncing it.
Nele tells him that it was hormones and nesting instinct. She grew up, left home, and got a job. Tim asks where her children's father is, and Nele gives him a defensive look.
Just then the washing machine jams. Nele angrily kicks it, exclaiming that she only bought it four years ago. "After four years," she says, "everything falls apart." An anchorwoman on TV announces that one of the victims of the bomb was a government employee.
The six former anarchists sit around a small table, ignoring the TV. Terror tells Hotte that he can go to night school online now, and offers to lend Hotte his old notes. Hotte asks Terror to lend him the rum instead, and Terror passes him a bottle.
Nele gives up trying to offer them tea, and asks who's taking the early shift tomorrow. Terror says he's busy with work and has a cold. Maik says he has to butter up his board of directors.
Flo says she's busy, and refuses to say why. She suggests Nele do it. Nele says she did it today, and besides, she has kids.
Flo tells her to get a babysitter, and then offers to pay for it. Nele becomes angry and accuses Flo of trying to buy her. "Quiet, the kids," says Hotte.
Terror asks how they will get into the fortress, and Maik says they will let experts handle it. He suggests hiring Romanians to go in and get the film. Nele points out that they will just blackmail the group.
Maik says they'll just write a check, and he and Terror begin to argue about the best course of action. Terror wants to turn himself in, but Nele says that won't happen. Flo suggests entering the barracks via hot-air balloon.
Nele and Maik dismiss the idea, but Tim defends it. Maik tells him to be realistic. Then Maik has another idea: Take the film from inside.
"This time," he says, "we use the system." Manowsky sits in a press conference, speaking about a typewritten letter made untraceable by the usual anarchist techniques. The letter is signed "Group 36," with whom the police are unfamiliar. Maik sits among the press.
A reporter begins to ask questions, and Manowsky answers that the police received the note in 1987, that notes like these were very common at that time, and that the police did nothing because the homemade bombs didn't usually go off. "Why did this one?" asks the reporter. "Shit happens," says Maik in English, earning laughs.
Manowsky answers one last question, that this is all the police have for now, and then ends the press conference. But as Manowsky turns to leave, Henkel motions the reporters back into their seats. He informs them that the letter has been linguistically analyzed, and that they're dealing with determined and clever terrorists, judging by their use of technical jargon.
("I bet something got stuck in the sucking thingy," Nele says to Tim as he tries to repair her washing machine.) Henkel adds that there are also "marked fecal references." (Hotte, holding Nele's baby, sniffs his hand and looks disgusted.) The letter's syntax and prose indicate substance abuse, says Henkel. (Terror, breathing heavily, looks up from a mug containing some kind of inhalant.) Henkel finishes by saying these people are unpredictable because they believe in a cause. Looking satisfied, he ends the press conference.
As everyone leaves, Maik approaches Henkel and compliments him on his speech. He asks him to repeat it for "ATV Berlin" in an exclusive interview tomorrow, and hands Henkel a business card. Henkel says it might be possible, and leaves.
Maik stands still, apparently amazed at how gullible Henkel is. "You can't snub the press," says Henkel to Manowsky as they walk down a hallway inside the barracks. It's important for making citizens feel secure, and it helps to work with the press, says Henkel, handing Manowsky Maik's card.
Manowsky disagrees and tears the card in two, dropping it. "No press," he tells Henkel, and stalks off. Henkel looks after him, then bends to pick up the pieces of the card.
Nele, Terror, Hotte, and Maik sit in Maik's office, about to eat. Maik overpays the man who delivered their food, remarking that these days he screws the state through tax evasion. Nele calls him an asshole, and Maik sarcastically says she has a way with words.
Nele asks him if he can take anything seriously, and Maik replies "No, can you?" Nele answers that she takes her family seriously and tries to teach her kids not to grow up like Maik. She calls it "a small daily battle not to forsake our old beliefs." She can still look in the mirror, she says. Maik asks her what she sees there.
Terror tells him to cut it out, and Maik exclaims loudly "Why team up against me?" He says he isn't all that uptight, and at least he's entertaining. He loves his company, his penthouse, his maid -- his phone rings -- "and I love my cell phone." He answers, speaks briefly into the phone, thanks the person on the other end, and hangs up. As he turns around, it can be seen that his shirt reads "I [heart] Bill Gates." Tim enters the room and looks at Maik.
Maik quietly tells the group that a TV crew will be covering the police task force tomorrow. Hotte excitedly says they could join the crew, and Terror informs him they are the crew. Maik stands behind a camera, snapping photos of the other former anarchists.
Nele irritably asks if he's still calling the shots. Maik says that's how he got ahead: Endless philosophizing while living on Machnow Street. He then uses his computer to modify the photos.
"Now I manipulate speech for my own reasons," he continues, passing out false press passes to the others. "And the other guy thinks it was his idea all along." Tim gives Maik a stony look and rudely knocks into him on his way out. As Flo and Tim walk down a street at night, Flo tells Tim about a guy who worked for an airline, presumably someone she dated.
He got her cheap flights all over the world. Africa was her favorite place. She tells Tim he'd like the desert; that it's endless, with no fences in the way, and at night it's freezing.
She says you could lie on a rock looking up at the sky and think that the stars belong to you. Tim breaks a Mercedes-Benz hood ornament off a car as he passes it. He says the.