Director Wolfgang Staudte was the most notorious social critic of the complacency of West Germany in the Adenauer era. Several of his films focused on the ways in which average postwar Germans continued to live their lives exactly as they had before, unaffected by all the country had endured. Kirmes opens in a small village in 1945, where a young soldier who has deserted from the nearby front returns home. From fear of the Nazis, the village authorities, the church, and even his father, all refuse to offer him refuge. Fifteen years later, in the same village, the skeleton of the young deserter is found, and once again nobody wants to assume responsibility: the old times are gone and should not be remembered. The film sparked protests throughout the country and was called a slander against the German people. Götz George, who played the young deserter, is today one of the most popular actors on German television.