Käutner fashions a unique love story between a West German border guard and an East German factory worker who can meet only in the ruins of a train station in the no man’s land between the divided sectors. As the film heads toward its tragic conclusion, Käutner makes a stirring moral plea against the unnatural partition without engaging in the cold war polemics that often dominated such discussions. Unusual for its direct commentary on contemporary problems, Sky Without Stars was a commercial failure but a critical success.