Hammer or Anvil

1972

2h 37min

This is a political picture about the Bulgarian revolutionary Georgi Dimitrov. In 1933 during the Reichstag Fire Trial trumped-up charges of having set the Reichstag on fire were brought against him. At the trial Dimitrov exposed the machinations of the Nazis and turned from a defendant into an accuser. Central to the story is the face-to-face political duel between Dimitrov and Goering. Dimitrov's interactions with ordinary Germans, the memories of his wife Lyuba Ivoshevich, and the meetings with his mother Parashkeva alternate with documentary shooting scenes from the time of Nazi Germany.