The Tasters

Based on the adaption of the novel ‘The Wolf’s Lair‘ by Rosella Postorino, this is the previously untold story about a group of German women chosen to taste Hitler’s food during World War II. In cinemas from 13 March 2026 (German with subtitles).

It’s 1st November 1943 during the Second World War, Rosa Souer (Elisa Schlott) is a German Secretary fleeing Berlin to live with her in-laws in Eastern Prussia without her conscripted husband. Their rural house is visited by German army officers and Rosa is escorted to an awaiting truck containing an equally worried looking group of German women who are taken to Hitler’s headquarters, known as the Wolf’s Lair. There they are corralled and filed into the building receiving health checks each before being shown into a large room. The women stand in the doorway gobsmacked as there, laid before them is a perfectly presented banquet dining table.

Famished from the war effort this is too good to be true and whilst some are keener than others to tuck in their scepticism and fears are realised when the chef, in pristine whites, tells them their job. They are there to taste Hitler’s food for poisoning, putting their lives on the line for the Führer and country in the most privileged yet banal way, but also dangerous as the war continues in the background with increasing uncertainty.

The film directed by Silvio Soldini focuses on this band of women thrown into this sedate yet oppressive situation. Some of the women know each other and others not, but are all in it together making intimate friendships and allegiances sharing their relationship woes, and secrets, and where loyalty and betrayal go hand-in-hand.

The cinematography captures the stark war time conditions and bleak outlook vividly despite the stately setting and aided by the period costume design. It follows the women around the grounds, squeezing them into frames at every opportunity, especially around the dining table as they eat under armed guard, often forcibly. The intimidating presence of the German soldiers keeping watch on the women is led with an iron grip by Lieutenant Ziegler, who takes his meal time orders deadly seriously and is certainly not one to be argued with at the dinner table. The story goes further into the characters’ lives particularly at Rosa’s in-law’s farm house where they gather round the dinner table and radio for updates on the war, and keep a look out for letters from her husband and news of his return.

Based on the unverified stories of Margot Wölk who at the age of 95 told her story to a German journalist for the first time in 2012, claiming to be the only survivor of the 15 tasters. Details of Hitler’s favourite meals (a vegetarian) make for strangely fascinating insights during what we now know as the climatic period during the War that included a failed suitcase bomb assassination at the Wolf’s Lair.

The film makes for an unusual side dish to the war sagas, and is ably arranged and executed with finesse.