1945, in the final weeks of World War II, in a small village on the island of Amrum off Germany's North Sea coast. Twelve-year-old Nanning Bohm, the eldest child in his family, works in the potato fields or gathers driftwood for firewood to help his mother feed the family. She is a staunch Nazi and in advanced pregnancy. He, his aunt Ena, and his two younger siblings had to flee to the island from bombed-out Hamburg. Nanning's father is an SS-Obersturmbannführer (lieutenant colonel) and is away at war; his wife is left to fend for herself on Amrum, while the villagers secretly listen to proscribed jazz on the radio. As the war draws to a close, Nanning faces new challenges. Since the birth of his sister and the death of Adolf Hitler, his mother has fallen into a deep depression and refuses to eat. Nanning tries to find creative ways to fulfill her craving for white bread with butter and honey. This is no easy task, as the war has left the island with a severe shortage of everything. Through bartering, he tries to obtain the coveted ingredients like butter and sugar.
The boy gets to know the island and its inhabitants better, and the Frisian language spoken there. However, while helping with seal hunting and gutting a rabbit, he has close encounters with death. He learns that his uncle Theo, who gave him a whaling knife at birth, had to stay in America because of the Nazis, and that they murdered his fiancée, Ruth. Theo appears to him in a dream and confronts him: "You are not to blame, but you are still involved." As the younger of the two, he bears no personal guilt for his parents' Nazi past, but he cannot escape their legacy and the questions it raises.
The film was first announced in 2022, and is based on the childhood memories of German director and screenwriter Hark Bohm, a long-standing friend of director Fatih Akin. It is produced by Bombero International and Warner Bros. Film Productions Germany, in co-production with Rialto Film.[5] Bohm had initially planned to direct the film himself before handing directorial duties to Akin, who co-wrote the screenplay.[6]
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