Kaltenbach in 1951, a Palatinate village, which in the six-part event of the ARD, “A touch of America”, is intended to be the scene of West German post-war developments with an up-to-date connection. Mayor Friedrich Strumm (Dietmar Bär) and his wife, the pious Anneliese (Anna Schudt), live comparatively well. One of the sons died in the war, and Siegfried (Jonas Nay), the other, is still in captivity, but the gifted daughter Erika (Franziska Brandmeier) could one day take over the inheritance. For the time being, you consoled yourself in the most beautiful house in town (which belonged to someone else a few years ago), live in prosperity and maintain excellent relationships with Colonel McCoy (Philippe Brenninkmeyer), whose art-loving wife Amy (Julia Koschitz) has just moved in from Paris and the nose wrinkles at the "German Krauts".

The economic miracle shines

But things are moving forward, the economic miracle is shining on the horizon. For America, the conflict with the "Iwan" moves into the center, for that you also need the former opponent. After a barracks, a US Army hospital is now to be built, with Strumm as the general contractor. The former neighbors, the farming family Kastner, who are living their backwoods existence between raw wooden furniture in dirty clothes and apparently without electricity, were hit worse. The gruff father Heinrich (Aljoscha Stadelmann), the gentle mother Luise (Winnie Böwe), the injured, only seventeen-year-old Vinzenz (Paul Sundheim) and Erika's best friend, Marie (Elisa Schlott), are expropriated. The hospital is to be built on their land. And while the family collects the last potatoes from the ground,little dog Dorle discovers a half-buried aerial bomb. As if the following explosion weren't enough, a GI breaks the ladder truck and the harvest while pulling out the tanks. GI asks George Washington (Reomy D. Mpetho) whether someone is injured.

At this point, “A Touch of America” has only been running for a few minutes (of a few hours), but it is clear where the journey is headed. Through a rocky terrain of prejudice and racism, emancipation and restoration into the hardly better present. However, “A Touch of America” is less interested in historical mentalities after the Nazi era. There are some subplots on the narrative sideline of which the authors Johannes Rotter, Jo Baier, Christoph Mathieu and Ben von Rönne have pushed corresponding topics. Jonas Nay as a late returnee is the broken soldier. GI He hates George because he's not only stealing his country, but his loved one, fiancé Marie. Erika rebels while dancing to swing and rock 'n' roll (as in the much more convincing multi-part "Kudamm '56"),But her flirting as a “Fräulein” also brings her to a reform home with sadistic nuns who torment “fallen girls” like her and Martha (Nina Gummich). The new innkeeper Schwiete (Samuel Finzi) imports the first Wurlitzer jukebox, secretly researches the deportation of a Jewish relative and hires a Hitler impersonator (Godehard Giese) for entertainment. In places it almost looks like a pre-war “cabaret” and at least provides a few moments that capture the grotesque aspects of the time (image design Gero Steffen, director Dror Zahavi).secretly researches the deportation of a Jewish relative and hires a Hitler impersonator (Godehard Giese) for entertainment. In places it almost looks like a pre-war “cabaret” and at least provides a few moments that capture the grotesque aspects of the time (image design Gero Steffen, director Dror Zahavi).secretly researches the deportation of a Jewish relative and hires a Hitler impersonator (Godehard Giese) for entertainment. In places it almost looks like a pre-war “cabaret” and at least provides a few moments that capture the grotesque aspects of the time (image design Gero Steffen, director Dror Zahavi).

The past seems asserted

"A touch of America" ​​is announced as a "chronicle of a turning point" and "multi-faceted moral painting" in a "conflict-laden melodrama".

But you can see main characters whose past is above all asserted.

Propaganda and countermeasures seem to have left the figures without a trace.

From Hitler's “Reichenberger Speech” to the youth (1938, “And they will no longer be free their whole life”) to “Reeducation” nothing resonates here.

Recordings such as those made by Alfred Hitchcock on behalf of the military for denazification - seen in the documentary "Night will fall - Hitchcock's educational film for the Germans" - Marie, Erika and the others have never seen in any "Wochenschau".

Instead, “The Wizard of Oz” is shown in the Filmpalast.

And so “A Touch of America” looks like ahistorical nostalgia TV with contemporary pneumatic mail: George is black, in the army he is tormented by white superiors who use N-words and get excited by sexual stereotypes. A “racial” feeling of superiority lives on in the German population. The main plot catalyst is the "impossible" love of the two "soul mates" George and Marie. Two language talents and highly gifted people, he in German, she in English, two fighters with integrity, two visionaries who look each other in the eye as equals - rarely has there been a couple with more in common.

The ups and downs of their relationship are at the center of this post-war vision, according to the broadcaster group self-praise "the fictional highlight in ARD's autumn program".

Twenty years ago, historical event television looked exactly the same.

Just the portioning of the episodes and the subtitling of the original languages ​​seem contemporary.

Racism, anti-Semitism, integration and emancipation are and will remain extremely important issues.

In this “Romeo and Juliet in the village” variant, however, they are defused nostalgically and melodramatically.

A taste of America at

8:15 p.m. on the First