Filmed in bombed-out Germany only six years after WWII, it's an exciting espionage film with a great cast. Very suspenseful, if somewhat gloomy. As a six-year-old child, in 1956-7 I spent time in Austria, Germany and about 20 other countries in Europe; and in some places there still were ruins from the war. This film brought back memories of my stay there, although my time there was much more pleasant than the times depicted in this film.

One of the film's cast members, German actress Hildegard Knef, disguised herself as a young man near the end of the war to avoid being raped by Soviet soldiers. She was eventually shipped off to a POW camp from which she escaped, returning to Berlin to continue her early acting career.

Another cast member, Oskar Werner, who was Austrian, served in the German army in WWII, but was by nature a pacifist who hated the Nazis, and managed to get assigned KP duty. Near the end of the war he and his half-Jewish wife had to hide from both the Germans and Soviet invaders in the woods outside Vienna after it was bombed.

I wonder if these two actors' experiences during the war helped to inform their excellent performances in this film.