Has bouillon become clear soup again?

Misinformation – 1938 vs 2022

“Evil is real. We cannot deny its reality without diminishing the basic seriousness of existence and thus falling into a kind of nonsense, a dreadful buffoonery.” – Gabriel Marcel

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In the movie ‘38 – Vienna Before the Fall, set in the last days before the Anschluss, a German singer and actress named Carola Hell (Played by Sunnyi Melles.) who has risen to fame in Austria returns to Berlin after a years long absence to accept the honor of giving a performance to an audience of elite Germans of the self-styled Third Reich.

The first night back in Germany, Carola visits her favorite restaurant from years past and orders “bouillon.” The waiter remembers her with affection and says he will bring it right away, but that she must know it is now called “clear soup.” Foreign words, he tells her, especially French words, are not allowed under the Nazi regime.

Austria’s first Oscar nominee for Best Foreign Film, 1987

Before her return to Berlin, Carola and her Jewish lover Martin, a renowned playwright in Vienna, are warned by a journalist friend to leave Austria because the Nazis will soon come to power intent on implementing a pogrom against Austrian Jews. Determined to avoid the nasty politics of the day, they dismiss their friend’s dire warnings, ignoring clear signs of the new regime’s lethal malevolence as they continue to focus on their work and personal happiness.

The audience, armed with knowledge of history, knows the danger is real and cheers Carola’s last minute escape, arranged by her lover in Vienna, even as his fate is sealed by the Anschluss.

The movie became Austria’s first ever nominee for Best Foreign Film at the 1987 Oscars. A review from the time described the film’s mission “to explore the inaction of a people when their culture, their lifestyle — their very lives — are in imminent danger.”

Are we living in 1938 Vienna?