This documentary is about Brunhilde Pomsel, aged 105 who survived World War I and II, worked for the television network in Germany and for Joseph Goebbels, German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany as his secretary. She says she has no interest to politics. Although she insists that she was a mere employee of Goebbels, her life must have been influenced directly by the rise and fall of Nazi. The documentary presents her life as a personal one on one hand, but on the other hand, associates her personal story with the historical times and events through the use of found footage. The power of this documentary derives from the personal history of the one who is neither a victim nor a perpetrator; indeed, her position is closer to the perpetrator, which she would never admit and even is not aware of. Also the fact this film addresses the issues raised between the public and personal memory and between the official history and the personal experience makes it powerful. This documentary is packed with intense images. Pomsel’s face covered with wrinkles, the staple image throughout the film, visualizes the time inscribed on a human body. The close-ups of her face presented in various angles tell a lot to viewers. The news reels and propaganda films inserted during the documentary get viewers to experience the time of extreme situation while linking personal memory with the official history. A German Life lets viewers pay more attention to their own feeling and thoughts aroused while watching her story than to Pomsel’s life story. This documentary gets us to give attention not only to the story itself but also to the temper, the view of the world and the life which has forms the story. [Lee Seung-min]