However, the German Democratic Republic has one of the world's lowest crime rates, and the sleepy town of Wolkenheim, in which he is stationed, is considered tranquil even by the national standards.

Seeing Holms tormented, he enlists several other reformed criminals he knows from the old days in order to steal the antique statue located in the town's market square, so the policeman would for once have a serious challenge.

"[4] Actor Herbert Köfer, who portrayed one of the thieves, said it seemed to present what the authorities would deem a positive notion, "what most people expected of socialism: when some will no longer have too much while others will not lack, would not crime quickly disappear?

"[2] Even the reformed thieves were seen to reject an offer by an American tourist to sell their stolen statue in exchange for dollars, to demonstrate they were "rooted in socialist moral.

[7] While Herricht was immediately given the role of Holms,[8] the producers considered offering that of Pinkas to Erwin Geschonneck, Jan Werich, Jaroslav Marvan and even to West German Arno Paulsen, but eventually gave it to Zdeněk Štěpánek on the director's recommendation.

[11] While work on the film was nearing completion in December 1965, the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany convened for its 11th Plenum, held between the 16th and the 18th, which would become "a grand Auto-da-fé" for the field of culture.

[12] In his speech on the first day, Member of the Politburo and Central Committee Secretary for Security Matters Erich Honecker stated: "few of the films produced by DEFA in recent months...

[10] Ralf Schenk wrote that after the meeting, "in a hysterical atmosphere, in which none knew what was wrong and what right, and what next would be considered an offence by the authorities", Kasprzik and Strahl compiled a list of twenty-two sequences to be removed or corrected.

"[4] They also cut the second half of the sentence "no monument remains forever, new ones are built", spoken by one of the thieves, as they feared it would be interpreted as an allusion to the removal of Stalin's statues during De-Stalinization.

Chairman Franz Jahrow wrote: "in its original version, the film contained openly ironic dialogues, which presented the successes of our Republic in a grotesque manner...

[18] Joshua Feinstein commented that in contrast to most other films banned after the Plenum, which were laid with strong artistic and political messages, Kasprzik's work was one of those that "seem to have fallen victim to bad timing and nothing else" as it was "thoroughly conventional".

[3] Already in the beginning of 1967, after reading a newspaper report that the number of criminal offences registered in 1966 — 124,524 — was the lowest in the country's history, Strahl wrote to DEFA, claiming that his film could now be screened, but was rejected.

During the summer and autumn of the year, the raw cut was edited by a combined team of experts who have already worked on several other East German pictures which were banned before being completed.

The finished version lacked both the sequences which Kasprzik and Strahl removed to make the picture more acceptable — those were not found in the archive — and several colored scenes from Holms' dreams, which were painted in absurd manner to highlight their surrealism.

[26] Daniel Kothenschulte of the Frankfurter Rundschau commented that few films could "outdo the harmlessness" of Strahl's "farce", but perhaps "it was the look of socialism fulfilled, as seen in Wolkenheim, that so terrified the functionaries?

"[5] Kate Connolly of The Guardian wrote "It is particularly sweet for the older generation, who now have the chance to watch previously unseen footage of some of their favourite actors.