Roberto Rossellini’s film ‚Germania anno zero‘ / ‚Germany, Year Zero‘ (I 1947) is not only a cinematic documentation of the destruction of Berlin in 1945, but also a neo-realist view at a possible new beginning, apparently without pathos and sentimentality. Already one year earlier, the rubble film ‚Irgendwo in Berlin‘ (D 1946), directed by Gerhard Lamprecht and set in the East of Berlin, casts a view at the rubbles, that is sometimes carried by strong pathos. Above all ‚Germania anno zero‘ literally reflects the thesis of the French philosopher Edgar Morin of a supposed new beginning in the so-called year zero. But ‚Irgendwo in Berlin‘ is also carried by comparable themes and reflections. Morin’s thesis, which dates back to 1946, seems to be still valid today: Recently, Alexander Kluge also located Point Zero and placed it not on May 8, 1945, but on April 30, 1945, the day, or ‚De[n] Tag, an dem Hitler sich erschoss und die Westbindung der Deutschen begann‘. In the paper, Morin’s theses about the year zero and more recent theories of pathos are applied to the above-mentioned objects.