For years following World War II Germans struggled with shortages of everything - housing, water, food, clothing.

The natives have clearly mixed feelings about the intrusion into their life, land, and culture presented by the military and its personnel, and both the black market and prostitution flourish.

Truck owner Robert Neidhardt is part of a ring diverting black gravel from base road construction to a private profiteer.

Inge confesses the truth to her husband, who is determined to keep the matter silent, as US intelligence has concluded the couple were spies who defected to East Germany.

Location shooting took place at Hahn Air Base, and interiors filmed at the Tempelhof Studios in Berlin, Käutner attempted to show postwar Germany as it was, gritty, smarting from defeat, internally conflicted, and still encumbered by antisemitism in spite of severe denazification efforts.

[1][2] In an angry exchange highlighting that Germany had still not been demilitarized, an intoxicated old man insists on playing martial music on the jukebox of the bar-brothel where he is a menial, and rudely refuses to stop.

The camera tracks the owner's sleeve as he reaches for the plug, revealing to the audience for a second time he had been a Nazi concentration camp prisoner.

The farmer's outburst caused the Central Council of Jews in Germany to protest the film and file a criminal complaint, charging the invective violated the national law against antisemitism.