Most East German war films are described as being anti facist films, however I have struggled to find a simple academic description of anti fascist film. So I had to write one.
Anti-Fascist Genre,
Purpose and Elements
Purpose
Following a brief overview of anti-fascism, we can now turn
to a review of the genre’s purpose, elements and style. A clear and concise
description of the genre’s purpose was given by the director of the first of
the genre’s films, Wolfgang Staudte who declared that,” honest confrontation
with the military and moral catastrophe that in his view, the Germans had
brought on themselves[ ...]” (Barnouw
,2008, 48). His most famous anti-fascist films, Die Mörder sind unter uns, (The Murderers are Amongst Us) 1946, and
Rotation, 1949, both explore guilt
for and reasons for National Socialism. Following the exploration a conclusion
is that justice must been seen to be done, with the guilty brought to justice,
and that only a socialist future will prevent the catastrophes of the past
being repeated. This intense
exploration of the causes and remedies for National Socialism became a Leitmotiv for the genre, with the
GDR’s Culture Ministry stating in 1973, „DEFE
began its way in film and made it, its goal, to awaken the people’s understanding
of the past, which could only be dealt with when they understood in all clarity
the causes, connections and forces that had caused this development“ (Barnert,2008,11)
As genre developed we see a Bildungs process take place where the protagonists on the screen
learn about their mistakes, recognise them and then are reborn as socialists.
In the literary movements the Bildungsroman
become the “socialist Entwicklungsroman” (Rider,
1995, 358), while the term refers to the novels of the period it is just as
relevant to DEFA’s output.
A further subtext to the genre is the role of grief and the
expression of grief for the losses occasioned by war, which had no other outlet.
Pinkert suggests that in a nation where it was impossible to take in the
enormity of the loss caused by the war, “ the […] antifascist DEFA films
produced[…]performative and visual modes that enable new public and private
encounters the war through ever-changing processes of melancholic mourning”
(Pinkert, 2008, 11). This develops space to mourn where the state has assumed
all elements of victimhood to itself and there is no public sphere in which
personal loss or victimhood can be expressed.
When the genre developed from its origins in the 1940’s in
to the 50’s and 60’s it took on a darker purpose than just discussion the past
but with the second wave DEFA of directors who had been educated in the GDR it
become partly a way “of the older generation […] legitimising […] political
power” (Mückenberger, 1999, 70) and partly a way of commenting on the post
Berlin Wall GDR (Mückenberger, 1999, 71).
Elements
As with any genre, this one has a number of elements, of
which any film will contain some or all. In this case the elements also give
clues as to how the makers want the National Foundations of their state to be
understood.
The first element of the genre is that the action is centred
around the National Socialist experience and the fight against fascism. This
was a central reality for those that had created the GDR and were in its
leading organs, such as DEFA. Those such as Wolf had this battle at the centre
of their youth and the as the core element that had forged their characters.
They had kept their souls clean fighting the Nazis in the KPD, fascists in
Spain, at home underground, in the Concentration Camps and in exile. This
sacrifice was not going to be forgotten. This sacrifice also led to the second
element of the anti fascist film, that of a hierarchy of victims (Kannapin,
2001, 31) with socialist victims at the forefront of victimhood and all other
victims, such as the Jews, standing in the shadows or invisible.
The third element is that protagonists are almost
exclusively male. Die Mörder sind unter
uns, is part melodrama, part expressionist film with the central action
taking place around a couple slowly falling in love, however it is the male
lead around which the story turns. This continues in to films such as Irgendwo in Berlin, (Somewhere in Berlin) Gerhard Lamprecht,
1946, and Staudte’s Rotation. These use the melodramatic situation of a family, however
as with Die Mörder the action turns
around a leading man.
As the genre develops the family is introduced, such as Ehe in Schatten, (Marriage in the Shadows) Kurt Maetzig, 1947 or Die Buntkarierten, (The Gingham Dress) Maetzig, 1949 but the key figure remains male in
the genre. Women have the role of either helping the male lead to come to terms
with his failed past or acting as a siren educating him as to the real state of
the world.
The final element of the genre is it division between “good”
and “bad” German soldiers. A “bad” German is not one who served in the
Wehrmacht, that would exclude 95% of the male population, but a character who
is serving in the SS, as shown in both the films under discussion, or who had
committed a war crime, such as Hauptmann
Brückner in Die Mörder. Wolf
summed up the genre saying that it was not a case that „We should not speak of the disadvantages of those that
lived in Germany under the Nazis, however we should speak more of how under the
leadership of German Anti Faschists and with the self sacrifice of the Soviets struggled
in to the feelings and thoughts of the Germans“(Wolf, 1985, 15).
That is in recognising their mistake and supporting the
state the viewer can move forward.
