The Tears of the Clown

Max Mayer (52), a hard-drinking, anti-Semite circus clown struggles to make ends meet in Germany during World War II. His relationship with his much younger, beautiful wife Ingrid is strained due to her eagerness to become a mother. Max doesn’t like the idea of having a baby during the war and while he struggles to put food on the table.

Max finds himself alone in the bar, drowning his problem in alcohol. When a speech of Hitler is broadcasted over the radio, a drunken Max dares to do a mockery of Hitler. But as bad luck would have it, two SS Officers happen to be in the bar.

Max’s situation is dire, and it seems certain that he is sent to a long stint in prison, but the Commandant gives him a chance to reduce his sentence. All he must do is to give him names of traitors or Jews. When Max declines, his fate is sealed.

In prison camp, the other prisoners bully Max due to his age and his profession. They want him to perform for them, but he declines because his last performance brought him to jail. His reluctance to perform leads to a severe beating by the bullies.

Rather by accident, Max does a little performance for the Jewish children that are imprisoned on the other side of the camp. When he realizes the positive impact of his performance on the frightened children, he continues to clown around for them despite of the danger he puts himself in. When they children are deported to the concentration camp, Max is tasked to accompany them to the train station. By accident, he finds himself locked up in the boxcar together with the children, on his way to the concentration camp.

In the camp, Max states his case. The Commandant of the camp gives him a chance to prove that he is a loyal German; he has to accompany the children into the gas chamber. A shattered Max musters what is left of his strength and walks the frightened youngsters into the gas chamber. Once in there, Max decides not to abandon the children but rather comforting them as good as it gets until the end. Max is ready to die but fate has other plans for him. An unconscious Max is dragged out of the gas chamber by a German guard who hands him his release papers. Crying and mourning in front of the gas chamber, Max is shocked when a little girl approaches him from the barracks. Her oversleeping saved her from certain death.

Max successfully smuggles the little girl out of the camp and goes with her to the farm of his in-laws where he meets his wife.