Young Helmuth watches Nazi Brownshirts march past and boldly tells one he plans to become a soldier someday.

Hitler is appointed chancellor and Helmuth's teacher plays the radio announcement to an excited classroom.

The Reichstag burns and Hitler blames the Communists, while Brother Worbs warns that Germans are losing their free speech.

Helmuth watches Jewish shopkeeper Herr Seligmann get beaten by Nazi soldiers outside his vandalized store.

Mutti's boyfriend Hugo moves in and replaces the household radio with a government-only People's Receiver.

An SS officer arrives at school to enlist the remaining boys into Hitler Youth and Helmuth is forced to join.

Germany invades Poland and the Extraordinary Radio Law bans all foreign radio stations from German homes.

Gerhard returns home from France carrying a contraband radio capable of receiving foreign broadcasts.

Helmuth secretly turns on Gerhard's radio and discovers the BBC broadcasting the truth about the war in German.

Inspired by what he hears on the BBC, Helmuth writes his first pamphlet titled Who is Lying?

Helmuth, Karl, and Rudi agree to distribute the pamphlets and promise not to name each other if caught.

Two Gestapo officers arrest Helmuth and Düwer at City Hall after Werner Kranz and Herr Mohns report them.

The Gestapo torture Helmuth on the second day of interrogation until he gives up Karl and Rudi's names.

At the Blood Tribunal, Helmuth deliberately provokes the justices and is sentenced to death for treason.

Helmuth follows the guards calmly to the execution shed, looks up at the bright moon, and feels himself floating.

Helmuth Hübener grows up in Hamburg as Hitler rises to power, moving from an admiring young boy to a determined teenage resistor. After Hugo replaces the family radio with a government-only device, Helmuth's access to honest news is cut off until he discovers his brother's contraband radio. Secretly listening to BBC broadcasts reveals the lies behind Germany's war reports, inspiring Helmuth to write pamphlets exposing Hitler's deceptions. Alongside his best friends Karl and Rudi, Helmuth scatters his pamphlets across Hamburg under cover of night, each one a small act of defiance. His campaign ends when a coworker turns him in to the Gestapo, leading to arrest, torture, and trial before the terrifying Blood Tribunal. Sentenced to death at seventeen, Helmuth walks calmly to his execution with his faith unbroken, feeling himself float toward God.

The key events that shaped Helmuth's path to the gallows.

Helmuth and Gerhard lie in bed discussing the infinite nature of God and heaven, and Helmuth feels himself floating.

Young Helmuth overhears his grandparents Oma and Opa quietly warning each other that Hitler will start a war.

Helmuth listens to Hitler's energetic radio speech and becomes convinced that Communism is a dangerous threat to Germany.

Teacher Herr Zeiger publicly blames Jewish people for Germany's problems and forces Benno Seligmann out of school forever.

Helmuth hides Gerhard's Wild West novels after a cinema newsreel announces Germany's new ban on non-German books.

Helmuth and Rudi launch the Lord Lister Detective Agency and report Franz Seeman's name to Inspector Becker.

The Gestapo interrogate and slap Rudi for carrying a Lord Lister business card, suspecting him of spying for England.

Kristallnacht begins as Hugo leaves the house with fellow Nazis and sounds of destruction fill the neighborhood outside.

Helmuth walks through the burned and broken Jewish neighborhood the next morning and sees his own reflection as a silent German.

On New Year's Eve air-raid duty, Brother Worbs prays aloud asking God to break the yoke of the Nazi butchers.

Germany declares war on Russia, announced over a pool intercom while Helmuth, Karl, and Rudi are swimming together.

Helmuth finds Brother Worbs emaciated and toothless on the street and escorts him home to hear details of his concentration camp torture.

The Gestapo bring Helmuth home after his arrest to search for pamphlets while Oma watches in distress.

Karl receives five years in prison, Rudi ten years, and Düwer four years at the Blood Tribunal sentencing.

Helmuth finishes writing his final letters home in his death row cell and waits quietly for the guards.

From childhood conversations about God and heaven to the night of Kristallnacht, Helmuth witnesses Germany transform into a nation ruled by fear and silence. His early encounters — hearing Hitler's speeches, watching Benno Seligmann expelled from school, and running a boys' detective agency — show how ordinary life becomes tangled with Nazi ideology. The violence of Kristallnacht and the later sight of a broken and emaciated Brother Worbs mark the darkening of Helmuth's world and deepen his sense of urgency. As Germany's wars expand and the pamphlet campaign reaches its peak, the Gestapo close in and search Helmuth's family home while his grandmother watches in distress. His arrest leads to a courtroom where his friends receive prison sentences while he alone is condemned to death. Helmuth spends his final hours writing letters home, waiting with quiet courage for the guards to arrive.

The world closing in around Helmuth, event by event.

Helmuth wakes from a dream about flying with a sparrow, and Mutti tells him sparrows are sent by God to carry souls to heaven.

Teacher Herr Vinke reprimands Helmuth in front of the class for suggesting a soldier should survive rather than die saving a flag.

Helmuth writes a glowing essay about Hitler to earn a good grade but feels like a traitor when it succeeds.

After Kristallnacht, Mutti defends her silence about Hugo's actions by telling Helmuth that silence is how people get on.

Hugo and Mutti marry, and Helmuth stands up to Hugo at the celebration by condemning the Nazis' crimes against Jewish people.

Gerhard departs for boot camp and urges Helmuth to set aside his hatred of Hitler and pray Germany wins the war.

Helmuth's teacher Herr Meins keeps him after class and warns him quietly that he does not hide his idealism well.

Helmuth secretly removes a banned copy of Geist und Tat by Heinrich Mann from the City Hall basement.

Hugo informs the family that Brother Worbs has been arrested for publicly complaining about a Nazi statue.

Karl jokes that Helmuth's anti-Nazi rants make him sound like a pamphlet, and the idea strikes Helmuth immediately.

Helmuth recruits coworker Düwer by playing him the BBC and showing him a pamphlet they could distribute together.

Helmuth and Düwer approach coworker Werner Kranz about translating pamphlets into French, but Werner reacts with open hostility.

Helmuth endures a full day of Gestapo beatings without breaking and refuses to reveal Karl and Rudi's names.

Helmuth spots Karl being walked through the prison hallway and flashes him a small wink and smile as a warning.

In a cell beneath the courtroom, Helmuth tells Karl and Rudi he provoked the justices on purpose to save their lives.

Helmuth's journey from a conflicted schoolboy to a courageous resistor is driven by a series of personal revelations and moral turning points. Early experiences — writing a pro-Hitler essay against his conscience and being reprimanded for valuing a soldier's life over a flag — reveal the tensions pulling at him long before he acts. His mother's defense of silence after Kristallnacht, his brother's insistence on obeying unjust laws, and his discovery of the banned book Geist und Tat each push him closer to open rebellion. A chance joke from Karl about sounding like a pamphlet sparks the campaign that defines Helmuth's life, while recruiting allies exposes both his growing boldness and his fatal overconfidence. Tortured by the Gestapo, Helmuth first holds firm and then breaks under unbearable pain, but he turns his guilt into a plan to protect his friends by absorbing the full blame at trial. In the end, Helmuth accepts his fate knowing he told the truth and deliberately traded his own life to spare the people he loved most.