[7][8] The documentary explores the redevelopments in culture, transport, health care and education, industry and trade, compiled using newsreel footage of eyewitnesses.
[9] It also explores the marked social changes since the fall of Nazi Germany; in one scene a Jewish carpenter is helping a German man on a rooftop reconstructing it.
However in making the film, like Joop Huisken, who was assigned to make a similar film of Potsdam entitled Potsdam baut auf,[8] Maetzig was careful not to exaggerate the achievements and courage of the people, keeping it realistic.
[10] Like other similar "Aufbau" films, this one begins with a brief German history, and provides a narrative showing how the disordered past can be put back into order, and how through their diligent labor, the German people can be seen as productive members of a post-war society.
[11] The film also highlighted post-war perceptions of gender in that females were typified as being wives and girlfriends while also being acceptable as equal partners in the workforce.