The Cherry Queen (German: Die Kirschenkönigin) is a 2004 German historical drama miniseries directed by Rainer Kaufmann and written by Justus Pfaue. It adapts Pfaue's own novel of the same name and stars Johanna Wokalek, August Zirner, Marc Hosemann, Jürgen Tarrach, Delphine Sérina, Adele Neuhauser, Richy Müller and Jürgen Vogel.
The story is set in the first half of the 20th century in Germany. Ruth Goldfisch (Wokalek) is the daughter of a Jewish banker. She marries an impoverished non-Jewish baron, Albert von Roll, in 1913, and turns his dilapidated estate near the town of Bleicherode into a flourishing cherry farm. Albert is mobilized during World War I and gets injured, and Ruth does everything she can to help him get back into shape, only for him to die by accident. Ruth then loses both of her parents (her mother by accident, her father by suicide).
When the Nazis take power in 1933, Ruth decides not to leave the country, preferring not to abandon her cherry orchard, even as Jewish people are being more and more persecuted. She ends up going into clandestinity as World War II breaks out.
The Cherry Queen provides examples of:
- Bittersweet Ending: Ruth survives World War II, but not her Second Love, and Gretchen has perished in a Death Camp.
- Book Burning: The second episode ends with the infamous May 1933 Nazi book burnings at Bebelplatz in Berlin.
- Broken Bird: Ruth's life is marred by tragedies, but she keeps going.
- Character Narrator: The youngest of the Goldfisch sisters, Käthe, narrates at the beginning.
- Day of the Jackboot: January 1933, obviously enough. Then Brownshirts start appearing in Bleicherode.
- Determinator: Ruth is determined to stay on the estate in Bleicherode even if it's increasingly difficult and perilous for her after the Nazis take over the country.
- Determined Homesteader: Ruth is determined to stay on the Bleicherode estate no matter what, harvesting cherries until the day she's forced to hide as dark times are falling on people like her.
- Driven to Suicide: Ruth's father Samuel Goldfisch commits suicide sometime after World War I when he gets bankrupted.
- Dropped a Bridge on Him: Albert dies crushed by a falling tree sometime after World War I, which devastates Ruth.
- Heteronormative Crusader: The Brownshirts of Bleicherode pester two lesbian friends of Ruth.
- Hillbilly Moonshiner: Ruth gets rapidly bored when hiding in the basement of her home during World War II, so she decides to build herself a distillery in said basement, and then consumes her own homemade booze. She also distillates alcohol because she can't stand being inactive after it's become very clear she can't harvest her beloved cherry orchard anymore, lest she wants to get caught and deported.
- Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Ruth's mother tragically dies when trying to remove a birdcage from a framework on which scythe blades (used for harvests in the orchard) are hanging. She trips and falls on the ground, and the scythe blades fall on her, pointy end first, much to Ruth's horror.
- Impoverished Patrician: Albert von Roll has a nobility title, but his family has been impoverished. Then Ruth takes matter in her own hands and turns his estate into a profitable cherry orchard.
- Jewish Mother: Ruth's mother is quite invasive.
- Living Out a Childhood Dream: Owning a farm and working on it has been Ruth's dream since her childhood and she gets to live it.
- Officer and a Gentleman: Albert is as gentlemanly an officer as they come.
- Opening Monologue: The youngest of the Goldfisch sisters, Käthe, narrates at the beginning.
- Playing the Heart Strings: Violin is often used on the soundtrack for the sad/tragic moments.
- The Roaring '20s: Crossdresser chanteuse Tina from Berlin gives a show in Bleicherode in the late 1920s. Just when she's finished, the local group of Brownshirts comes with torches and their own chants to loudly interrupt the party.
- Standard Snippet: Among the Brownshirts' chants, the most recognizable is the "Horst Wessel Lied", the Nazi party's anthem which immediately indicates what they are and what they're up to.
- Those Wacky Nazis: "Wacky" in the sense of "pathetic fat shell of a man". The local Brownshirts leader engages in antisemitic slurs directed at Ruth. One night, while he's drunk, Ruth's friends beat him up.
- Train-Station Goodbye: Ruth has to say goodbye to Albert at the train station as he departs for the war in 1914.
- Undying Loyalty: Ruth's non-Jewish friends help in protecting her in clandestinity during the war. Without them, she would have likely died.
