- [last lines]
- Buchverkäufer: 29.80. Would you like it gift wrapped?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No. It's for me.
- [Wiesler enters the elevator at his apartment building. A young boy with a ball joins him]
- Junge mit Ball: Are you really with the Stasi?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Do you even know what the Stasi is?
- Junge mit Ball: Yes. They're bad men who put people in prison, says my dad.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I see. What is the name of your...
- [pauses]
- Junge mit Ball: My what?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: [thinks for a few more seconds] Ball. What's the name of your ball?
- Junge mit Ball: You're funny. Balls don't have names.
- Georg Dreyman: You know what Lenin said about Beethoven's Appassionata, 'If I keep listening to it, I won't finish the revolution.' Can anyone who has heard this music, I mean truly heard it, really be a bad person?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: An innocent prisoner will become more angry by the hour due to the injustice suffered. He will shout and rage. A guilty prisoner becomes more calm and quiet. Or he cries. He knows he's there for a reason. The best way to establish guilt or innocence is non-stop interrogation.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Go away. I want to be alone.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Madam Sieland?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Do we know each other?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You don't know me, but I know you. Many people love you for who you are.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Actors are never "who they are."
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You are. I've seen you on stage. You were more who you are than you are now.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know what I'm like.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: I'm your audience.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: I have to go.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Where to?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: I'm meeting an old classmate. I...
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You see? Just now, you weren't being yourself.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: No?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: No.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: So you know her well, this Christa-Maria Sieland. What do you think - would she hurt someone who loves her above all else? Would she sell herself for art?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: For art? You already have art. That'd be a bad deal. You are a great artist. Don't you know that?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: And you are a good man.
- Georg Dreyman: The state office for statistics on Hans-Beimler street counts everything; knows everything: how many pairs of shoes I buy a year: 2.3, how many books I read a year: 3.2 and how many students graduate with perfect marks: 6,347. But there's one statistic that isn't collected there, perhaps because such numbers cause even paper-pushers pain: and that is the suicide rate.
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [enthusiastic] I've got a new one. So... Honecker comes into his office in the morning... opens the window, looks at the sun, and says...
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [starts to worry] ... eh... what is it?
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [startled] Oh, excuse me. That was... I'm just... I...
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [tries to put Stigler at ease] No no no, please colleague. We can still laugh about our state officials. Don't worry.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [almost laughing] I probably know it already anyway.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [encouraging] Come on! Tell it.
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [feeling more comfortable] Well... Honecker, I mean... the General Secretary... sees the sun, and says, 'Good morning dear sun!'
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [with high pitch mocking voice] 'Good morning dear sun!'
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: ...and the sun answered, 'Good morning dear Erich!' At afternoon Erich sees the sun again and says, 'Good day dear sun' And the sun says: 'Good day dear Erich!' After work Honecker goes back to the window and says, 'Good evening dear sun!' But the sun doesn't answer! So he says again, 'Good evening dear sun, what's wrong?' And the sun answered and said, 'Oh, kiss my ass, I'm in the West now!'
- [laughing]
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Name?
- [becoming deadly serious]
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Rank? Department?
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [frightened] Me? Stigler, 2nd Lieutenant Alex Stigler. Department M.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [almost sighing] Don't need to tell you what this means for your career, what you just did.
- Unterleutnant Axel Stigler: [scared, slightly angry] Please Lieutenant Colonel... I just...
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [angry] You just mocked our party! That was political agitation! Surely just the tip of the iceberg! I am going to report this to the minister's office.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [starts laughing] Hahahaha! I was just kidding! Pretty good, huh? Yours was good too. But I've got a better one. What is the difference between Erich Honecker and a telephone?
- [pauses]
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Nothing! Hang up... try again. Hahaha!
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: I have to show you something: "Prison Conditions for Subversive Artists: Based on Character Profile". Pretty scientific, eh? And look at this: "Dissertation Supervisor, A. Grubitz". That's great, isn't it? I only gave him a B. They shouldn't think getting a doctorate with me is easy. But his is first-class. Did you know that there are just five types of artists? Your guy, Dreyman, is a Type 4, a "hysterical anthropocentrist." Can't bear being alone, always talking, needing friends. That type should never be brought to trial. They thrive on that. Temporary detention is the best way to deal with them. Complete isolation and no set release date. No human contact the whole time, not even with the guards. Good treatment, no harassment, no abuse, no scandals, nothing they could write about later. After 10 months, we release. Suddenly, that guy won't cause us any more trouble. Know what the best part is? Most type 4s we've processed in this way never write anything again. Or paint anything, or whatever artists do. And that without any use of force. Just like that. Kind of like a present.
- Georg Dreyman: You are a great artist. I know that, and your audience knows it, too. You don't need him. You don't need him. Stay here. Don't go to him.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: No? I don't need him? Don't I need this whole system? What about you? Then you don't need it either, or need it even less. But you get in bed with them, too. Why do you do it? Because they can destroy you too, despite your talent and your faith. Because they decide what we play, who is to act, and who can direct.
- Georg Dreyman: I want to ask you one thing.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Anything, my dear Dreyman.
- Georg Dreyman: Why wasn't my flat wired? Everyone was under surveillance. Why not me?
- Minister Bruno Hempf: [whispers] You were under full surveillance. We knew everything about you.
- Georg Dreyman: Full surveillance?
- Minister Bruno Hempf: The whole place was bugged. The works.
- Georg Dreyman: Impossible.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Take a look behind your light switches. We knew everything. We even knew that you weren't man enough to satisfy our little Christa.
- Georg Dreyman: [contemptuously] To think that people like you ruled a country.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Did you forget? Bosses sit over there.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Socialism must start somewhere.
- Paul Hauser: [playing a record because the Stasi have bugged his flat] I foolishly rehearsed my speech for the West in here. Since then, I've become very musical.
- [first lines]
- Guard: [subtitled version] Stand still. Eyes to the floor.
- [pause]
- Guard: Walk on.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Hands under your thighs. Palms down... What do you have to tell us?
- Häftling 227: I haven't done anything .. I don't know anything.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: You have done nothing... know nothing... . so you think we just arrest innocent citizens on a whim?
- Häftling 227: No... not
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: If you think our humane system is capable of something like that, that would be a reason enough to arrest you
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: [referring to a cloth on which a prisoner was required to sit during interrogations] Does anyone know what that is? It's the odor sample for the dogs. It must be collected at every interrogation. Never forget it! Your subjects are enemies of Socialism. Never forget that!
- Georg Dreyman: Look at this beautiful backscratcher.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: That's a salad fork!
- Georg Dreyman: Still, it's beautiful...
- Georg Dreyman: Who'd have thought our State Security was so incompetent? Who'd have thought they were such idiots?
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Just you wait...
- Christa-Maria Sieland: [dying] I was too weak. I can never put right what I've done wrong.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: There's nothing to put right! You understand? Nothing. I moved the ty...
- Paul Hauser: [to Hessenstein] We know you're working with the Stasi!
- Georg Dreyman: Paul! No, Paul, I don't know that!
- Georg Dreyman: He hopes that his black... that he can work again soon. Is he right in hoping?
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Of course he is. As long as he lives, and even longer. Because as you know, Dreyman, hope always dies last.
- Udo: [hearing Christa-Maria Sieland and Georg Dreyman having sex] They're already at it! Unbelievable! These artists! They're always at it! That's why I prefer monitoring artists to priests or peace activists.
- Albert Jerska: I can't bear those fat, dressed-up people at premieres anymore. Doesn't sound like me, does it? But maybe this is the real me, not the old Jerska. He was friendly and caring, nourished by success... all thanks to the grace of the bigwigs. But I won't complain much longer. In my next life, I'll simply be an author. A happy author who can write whenever he wants. Like you. What is a director if he can't direct? He's a projectionist without a film, a miller without corn. He is nothing. Nothing at all.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: So we're helping a Committee member get a rival out of the way. You know what this could mean for my career. And for yours. If we find something...
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Is that why we joined? You remember the oath we took? 'We are the Party's shield and sword.'
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: What is the Party, if not its members? And if those members are highly influential, all the better!
- Paul Hauser: You're such an idealist that you're almost a bigwig. It was informers and conformists like that who ruined Albert. Spy, betrayer! If you don't take a stand, you're not human! If you ever want to take action, call. If not, we don't have to meet again.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: What do you make of him?
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Of Georg Dreyman? Maybe...
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Maybe what?
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Maybe he's not as clean as he seems.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Grubitz! That's why you and I are on top. Your average Stasi chump would have said, 'One of our best! So loyal!' etc. But we can see more. You're heading to the very top, Grubitz. There's something fishy about him. I can feel it in my gut.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Frau Meineke... One word of this to anyone, and Masha loses her spot at the university. Is that understood?
- Frau Meineke: Yes.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: [to his assistant] Send Mrs. Meineke a gift for her cooperation.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: A great Socialist, I can't recall who it was, once said: 'Writers are engineers of the soul.' So Georg Dreyman is one of our country's greatest engineers.
- Georg Dreyman: He could work for any theater in the West. But he wants to stay here. Because he believes in Socialism and in this country. His black-listing is...
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Black-listing? We don't do that here! You should choose your words more carefully.
- Georg Dreyman: Comrade Hempf, just between us: My plays are not strong enough to survive Schwalber's direction. I need Jerska, and I think you judged him too harshly.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Well, I don't. But that's what we all love about your plays. Your love for mankind... your belief that people can change. Dreyman, no matter how often you say it in your plays, people do not change!
- Paul Hauser: Tell me again how you got into this position.
- Egon Schwalber: Pure talent.
- Paul Hauser: Of course! But what else did you have to do? Everyone knows you're with the Stasi!
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Do you notice anything about his statement?
- Benedikt Lehmann: It's the same as at the beginning.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Exactly the same. Word for word. People who tell the truth can re-formulate things, and they do. A liar has prepared sentences, which he falls back on when under pressure.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Don't forget, you promised to wear a tie for your birthday.
- Georg Dreyman: I would, but I don't have one.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: [giving Dreyman a tie as a birthday gift] Bon anniversaire!
- Georg Dreyman: A tie?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: You said you didn't want any books. Or can't you tie a tie, you old working-class poet?
- Georg Dreyman: What? I was born wearing a tie! I had to fight my way out of my middle-class fetters.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Then put those fetters on again, just for me.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: About the license plate of the car that brought Ms. Sieland home... It's Minister Hempf's car. Wiesler, we can't monitor top officials. I removed the entry in your report. Nothing written from now on, just oral!
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Comrade Sieland, a beautiful career you had, hm? A pity really. You were good. You were very good indeed. Just too short-lived. Do have a seat. What do actors do when they can't act anymore?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Please... Isn't there anything I can do for you? For... State Security?
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: It's a little late for that.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: I know nearly all our artists. I could find out a lot.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: I believe you. But it won't help you now.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: Maybe there's something else I could do? Something we might both find agreeable.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: [smiling] Unfortunately, you've made an enemy of a very powerful man. Therefore, I have less freedom than would normally be the case.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: It's up to you whether you ruin her or not, but I never want to see her on a German stage again.
- Paul Hauser: But you can't publish using your real name. Unless your idea of fun is a 48-hour interrogation.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: Christa, you forgot our meeting on Thursday. Or did your poet have two birthdays in a row?
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: Remember, you're an informant now. That means responsibilities, like conspiracy and confidentiality, but also privileges...
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: A piece of advice for you: We're not at school anymore. Projects aren't about grades, but success.
- Minister Bruno Hempf: But what's this I hear? You've not written since the Wall fell? That's not good. After all our country invested in you. Although I understand you, Dreyman. What is there to write about in this new Germany? Nothing to believe in, nothing to rebel against... Life was good in our little Republic. Many people only realize that now.
- Oberstleutnant Anton Grubitz: There's one thing you should understand, Wiesler. Your career is over. Even if you were too smart to leave any traces. You'll end up in some cellar, steam-opening letters until you retire. That means the next 20 years. That's a long time.
- Georg Dreyman: I used to be afraid of just two things: Being alone, and not being able to write. Since Albert's death, I don't care about writing or about other people. All I'm afraid of now is losing you.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Don't forget what the state has done for you... Your whole life long. Now you can do something for the state. And it will thank you. Tell me where the typewriter's hidden. Dreyman will never find out. I'll let you go immediately, and we'll strike only after you're back with him. You'll manage to feign surprise, I'm sure. And tonight you'll be back on stage. In your element. In front of your audience. Tell me where the documents are. Where are they?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: I'm just going out for a few hours.
- Georg Dreyman: Where to?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: An old classmate's in town.
- Georg Dreyman: Really, Christa? Really?
- Christa-Maria Sieland: How dare you!
- Georg Dreyman: I know. I know where you're going. And I'm asking you not to go. You don't need him. You don't need him. I know about your medication too. And how little faith you have in your talent. Have faith in me, at least. Christa-Maria. You are a great artist. I know that. And your audience knows it too. You don't need him. You don't need him. Stay here.
- Christa-Maria Sieland: No? Don't I need him? Don't I need this whole system? What about you? Then you don't need it either. Or need it even less. But you get in bed with them too. Why do you do it? Because they can destroy you too, despite your talent and your faith. Because they decide what we play, who is to act, and who can direct. You don't want to end up like Jerska. And neither do I. That's why I'm going now.
- Georg Dreyman: You're right about so many things, and I want to change so much. But I ask you, I implore you: Don't go!
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: Stay awhile.
- Prostituierte 'Ute': I can't, my next customer is at half-past. I work on a schedule.
- Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler: At 1:30? You won't make it.
- Prostituierte 'Ute': Sure I will. Don't you worry. Book me for longer next time. Bye.
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