As his mother begins to recuperate, Alex, Lara, Ariane, Paula (Ariane's daughter), Rainer (Araine's boyfriend), and Christiane take a trip to the country where Christiane reveals that Robert did not abandon his family, but rather fled because he feared political persecution and had planned on sending for his family as soon as he was able to, however, Christiane never coordinated -- and in fact, blew off -- Robert. Christiane almost immediately suffers a second heart attack and is rushed to the hospital where Alex plans to carry out one last con and finally let his mother know that Germany had been reunified, a ruse that Christiane goes along with since she had already been informed by Lara that the Berlin Wall had been torn down and Alex has been trying to shield her from all the changes society has undergone. Through Alex's and Christiane's actions, the viewer is able to understand how political circumstances force people to make...

Alex forces himself and everyone around him to live in the past to protect his mother whereas Christiane allowed her children to believe that their father had abandoned them to protect them from potential political persecution. At the end of the film, Alex and Ariane are reunited with their father and Christiane is informed of Germany's reunification thus demonstrating Alex's and Christiane's sacrifices were not made under selfish pretenses.
Ultimately, Good Bye, Lenin! is a film about separation and reunification, as seen through Alex's family and the division into East and West Germany by the Berlin Wall and the subsequent destruction thereof. The film highlights the sacrifice's Alex's, and countless other families, had to make due to political unrest, and the changes they were forced to deal with after the Berlin Wall was…