Gerhard Klein was a native Berliner (born 1920) whose film work keeps coming back to his fascination for that city. He was arrested during World War II for being part of the Resistance against the National Socialists. Self educated, he turned the after the war to work as a cartoonist and in documentary filmmaking. He joined the DEFA company in the East as a screenwriter in 1946 at first for short subjects and documentaries and then starting in 1952 on fiction features.Several of his later films did not meet with regime approval, such as his depiction of rebellious 50s teens or his recreation in The Gleiwitz Case of the justification for the Nazi invasion of Poland. He died in 1970 at age 50.