A Friendship in Vienna

A Friendship In Vienna is a 1988 Disney Channel film based on Doris Orgel's popular children's book The Devil in Vienna. The film starred Jane Alexander, Stephen Macht and Edward Asner and premiered August 27, 1988.

Plot

Lise Mueller (Kamie Harper) and Inge Dourenvald (Jenny Lewis) are 13-ish year old best friends in Austria of 1938, in the months before and during the Anschluss. Trouble comes since Lise, who is Catholic and whose father is a Nazi sympathizer who travels to and from Germany to join the paramilitary Nazi SA upon the upcoming Anschluss, bringing her mother, who is helpless to do anything about it, and her older brother, Heinz, who is himself a Nazi sympathizer like his father, while Inge is Jewish, the daughter of Franz, a bookseller and Hannah, an editor. After Inge and Lise are caught with wine in Lise's house by both of Lise's parents, Lise's father forbids Inge to visit them anymore and Inge's parents do likewise. But they both meet in secret, ex. the large cathedral in Vienna. Despite his opposition to Inge's friendship with Lise, Inge's father refuses to believe that Hitler would annex Austria and ignores Grandfather Oskar's warnings to apply for immigration quota visas for himself and his family to get them safely out of Austria and out of Europe. Inge's mother stops Lise's brother, Heinz (who she didn't know was related to Lise), from passing out Nazi leaflets and is later tricked by him into falling down a soapsuded stairway at her workplace, breaking her leg in his attempt on her life which causes her to be hospitalized and put in a leg cast while Inge celebrates her 13th birthday. Tommy Lowberg, a Jewish friend of Inge's, is injured in his head by a young Nazi thug during a demonstration between Schuschnigg supporters and Austrian Nazis. When the Anschluss comes in March 1938, Lise's and Inge's school is closed indefinitely amid bloody rioting in Vienna. Afterwards, Lise's father becomes a high ranking Nazi SA officer, requiring Lise to join a girls Hitler Youth organization, wear its uniform, attend the upcoming welcoming procession of Hitler into Vienna and give the Sieg Heil salute, while the Nazis start implementing their bigoted laws, ex. destroying books and other arts materials with non-Aryan characters in them and publicy humiliating Jewish men by making them wash pro-Schuschnigg slogans off Vienna's walls and sidewalks with only their toothbrushes. Tommi dies of a shock induced brain hemorrhage when he heard how the Nazis humiliated his father. The schoolbooks in Lise's and Inge's school with Jewish characters in them are removed and all of the Jewish students are required to sit in the less desirable back seats of classrooms. Lise decides to sit next to Inge after being told not to and is sadistically beaten by her father for it. Hannah is fired from her editing job through messenger boy Gustl, now a Hitler Youth member himself, after 14 years under the claim of "needed cutbacks" and is sure the newly established Aryanization board will eventually keep Jews out of all employment to further isolate them from society. Oskar gets his visa for Yugoslavia and leaves, Hannah's leg improves enough for the cast to be removed two days later and Franz, after seeing Inge associate with Lise after previously telling her not to, warns Inge that Lise's father is high up in Nazi Party ranks and that if he knew Lise was still seeing Inge, he could forever end the embarrassment of his "Aryan" daughter being friends with a Jew by having their whole family arrested in the dead of night, never to return home. Later, Franz is threatened by Gustl's false accusations of "indecorous" (improper) behavior with their Aryan maid, Mitzi, who offers to deny this to the "block warden" and still enjoys working for them despite new laws that will soon make such employment illegal, whether she wants to leave or not. Gustl says he'll "forget" these claims only if the Dourenvalds pay him 10,000 schillings before his scheduled appointment with the "block warden"; money that the Dourenvalds don't have despite Nazi propaganda that says all Jews are rich money hoarders. Later, Franz and Hannah are told by the Yugoslav consul in Vienna that it is now required to be baptized Christians since 1936 or earlier to enter Yugoslovia and to provide baptismal certificates as proof. The Dourenvalds are now at a loss for ways to escape Austria since even if they could "transform" themselves into Christians, they couldn't find a priest that would baptize them and predate their certificates to 1936, until Inge tells them about Father Bernard at the cathedral. Bernard hesitates on respective spiritual and legal laws that such a false ritual and certificate would violate. But Inge convinces him that leaving innocent people in danger would be an even greater violation-of God's laws. The baptism occurs, despite the cathedral being forcibly adorned with swastika flags, the Dourenvalds get their visas, and the next day, bid Mitzi farewell and tell her she can have whatever possessions of theirs that she wants, as they can't take them with them and board a train leaving Austria with Gustl and his friends on their trail. Inge says her last goodbye to Lise and gives her a golden Jewish star. Jean Simmons' voiceover ends the film by saying that she (Inge) wrote to Lise often after leaving Austria but never received any responses, not knowing if it was because Lise's father destroyed Inge's letters when Lise got them or/and kept her from writing back and knew then that that day would be the last day they would ever see each other again but always remembered Lise as her best friend.