One of the most distinguished scriptwriters and directors of the era, Helmut Käutner had begun his career with apolitical comedies and romances in the early 1940s. After the war he focused increasingly on political subjects, even daring to take on such important but controversial themes as the division of the country into East and West. In Sky without Stars he created a love story between a West German border guard and an East German factory worker, a couple who can meet only in the ruins of a train station in the no man’s land between the two pre-Wall sectors. As the film heads toward its tragic conclusion, Käutner makes a stirring moral plea against the unnatural division, although without the cold war polemics that typically dominated such discussions. Unusual for its direct commentary on contemporary problems, the film was a commercial failure but critical success.