IT was the misfortune of Hande Hoch Oder Ich Schiesse (Hands Up Or I'll Shoot) to have been made at a time when humour control was given a high priority by the central committee of the Communist Party of East Germany (GDR). This comic film, which gently mocks the premise that crime ceases to exist in a fully fledged communist state, was banned in 1966 by the regime's thought police.

It has now been put on general release for the first time, to the delight of German cinemagoers — who have made much of the fact that this is the last remaining banned film from the old East Germany. It's particularly sweet for the older generation of former GDR citizens, who now have the chance to watch previously unseen footage of some of their favourite comic actors, such as Rolf Herricht, Eberhard Cohrs, Gerd Schafer and Manfred Uhlig.

When it was made, Hands Up was described by Defa, the GDR's film production monopoly, as a “gangster comedy”.

It tells the story of an under-employed crime inspector played by Herricht (fittingly called Holms), who resorts to seeing a psychiatrist to help him deal with the dearth of crime on his beat and the resulting lack of self-worth he feels. Walter Mitty-like, he spends much of his time fantasising about the cases he might be given to solve.

In one daydream, Scotland Yard sends him to investigate a break-in at the Bank of England. While the GDR, we learn, has the lowest crime statistics in the world, Wolkenheim (literally Cloudland), the town where Holms is stationed, boasts the lowest crime statistics in the GDR.

Even the disappearance of a pet rabbit causes him excitement — he hopes it has been taken hostage — until he discovers it has merely escaped to a nearby lettuce patch. So, when Holms' drinking acquaintance Pinkas hatches a plan to snatch a monument from the plinth in the main square and flog it to an antiques dealer, Holms seizes the opportunity to make his mark — and of course, discovers love in the process.

When Hands Up was originally proposed to the authorities by director Hans-Joachim Kasprzik, they gave the project their blessing. He and the scriptwriters intended that it should explore the question “How should our criminologists adjust their working practices in the light of the fact that the GDR is bottom of the crime statistics table?”

Then came a tightening of the rules. In 1965, at a meeting of the central committee of the Communist Party, Erich Honeker declared “Our GDR is a clean state ... of unshakeable ethics and morals.” A new era of repression set in. State censor Franz Jahrow condemned Hands Up for “defaming in a grotesque form the societal achievements of our republic”, and it was added to a long list of banned books, plays and films.

Herbert Kofer cut a lonely figure when he walked up the red carpet for the film's premiere in Dresden. The 88-year-old actor, who plays the criminal Heuschnupf in the film and was also a presenter on GDR state-controlled TV, is believed to be the only member of the cast or crew still alive. “I've waited the best part of half a century for this,” he says.

“People expected that, because under socialism everyone had the same as everyone else and therefore had no reason to steal from one another, criminality would disappear,” he adds. “True, I never locked my front door. I knew no one would break in. But that was because everyone knew that if you got caught committing a crime in the GDR, you'd never get out of jail.”

— The Guardian, London