''The Ninth Day'' is a 2004

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

historical History (derived ) is the systematic study and the documentation of the human activity. The time period of event before the invention of writing systems is considered prehistory. "History" is an umbrella term comprising past events as well ...

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. Drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular super-g ...

directed by

Volker Schlöndorff Volker Schlöndorff (; born 31 March 1939 Friday) is a German film director, screenwriter and producer who has worked in Germany, France and the United States. He was a prominent member of the New German Cinema of the late 1960s and early 1970s, ...

and starring

Ulrich Matthes Ulrich Matthes (born 9 May 1959) is a German actor, possibly best-known for having played Joseph Goebbels in the 2004 film '' Downfall''. Life and work Matthes was born in West Berlin and educated at the Evangelisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Klost ...

and

August Diehl August Diehl (; born 4 January 1976) is a German actor, primarily known to international audiences for playing Gestapo major Dieter Hellstrom in Quentin Tarantino's ''Inglourious Basterds'' and Michael "Mike" Krause, Evelyn Salt's husband, in the ...

. It was released by

Kino International The Kino International is a film theater in Berlin, built from 1961 to 1963. It is located on Karl-Marx-Allee in former East Berlin. It hosted premieres of the DEFA film studios until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Today it is a protected ...

. The film is about a

Catholic priest The priesthood is the office of the ministers of religion, who have been commissioned ("ordained") with the Holy orders of the Catholic Church. Technically, bishops are a priestly order as well; however, in layman's terms ''priest'' refers only ...

from

Luxembourg Luxembourg ( ; lb, Lëtzebuerg ; french: link=no, Luxembourg; german: link=no, Luxemburg), officially the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, ; french: link=no, Grand-Duché de Luxembourg ; german: link=no, Großherzogtum Luxemburg is a small lan ...

who is imprisoned in

Dachau concentration camp , , commandant = List of commandants , known for = , location = Upper Bavaria, Southern Germany , built by = Germany , operated by = ''Schutzstaffel'' (SS) , original use = Political prison , construction ...

, but released for nine days. The story is based on a portion of '' Pfarrerblock 25487'' (), the diary of

Father Jean Bernard Jean Bernard (13 August 1907 – 1 September 1994) was a Catholic priest from Luxembourg who was imprisoned from May 1941 to August 1942 in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. He was released for nine days in February 1942 and allowed to retur ...

(1907–1994), which was translated into English by Deborah Lucas Schneider as ''Priestblock 25487: A Memoir of Dachau'' ().

Synopsis

Henri Kremer, a Catholic priest from Luxemburg, is imprisoned in Dachau. He experiences the horrors of the camps, including the

crucifixion Crucifixion is a method of capital punishment in which the victim is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross or beam and left to hang until eventual death from exhaustion and asphyxiation. It was used as a punishment by the Persians, Carthagin ...

of some of his fellow prisoners, when one day he is given an unexpected leave of nine days. He returns to his native city, where the young SS officer Gebhardt tells him that he should convince his

bishop A bishop is an ordained clergy member who is entrusted with a position of authority and oversight in a religious institution. In Christianity, bishops are normally responsible for the governance of dioceses. The role or office of bishop is ca ...

to cooperate with the

Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in ...

s. Gebhardt, himself a former candidate for the priesthood, tries to convince the priest that the role of

Judas Judas Iscariot (; grc-x-biblical, Ἰούδας Ἰσκαριώτης; syc, ܝܗܘܕܐ ܣܟܪܝܘܛܐ; died AD) was a disciple and one of the original Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ. According to all four canonical gospels, Judas betraye ...

is just what God wants from him. Kremer is confronted with a hard decision: Should he betray his Church or should he return to the concentration camp?

External links

Official Website
*
Press book

The Ninth Day Web site in Luxembourg

Detailed review in Opuszine

2004 films 2004 drama films German war drama films 2000s German-language films Czech war drama films Luxembourgian war films German World War II films Films directed by Volker Schlöndorff Films shot in the Czech Republic Luxembourgian drama films 2000s German films Czech World War II films {{2000s-Germany-film-stub