In terms of the war film the 1970’s was a period where for the west films as Seeβlen said, "had to return again and again to the roots of the catastrophe"(Seeβlen, 2000, 265) where film started to look at the heart of the National Socialist corruption and at Hitler himself.
It was a period of urban violence caused by the Baader Meinhof gang and others. Authors and film makers believed that the violence raised the spectre of a return to totalitarianism and expressed these fears in such works as Heinrich Böll’s novel Die verlorene Ehre der Katharina Blum (1974). The end of the decade saw the classic Günter Grass 1955 novel Die Blechtrommel turned in to an Oscar© winning film of the same name in 1979 and in the same year TV broadcast of the American TV series Holocaust. This film has been credited with exposing the Holocaust to the West German public for the first time.
East German film makers experienced another "thaw" following a speech made by Erich Honecker in 1971. This new “thaw” encouraged authors and artists to look at the state, however the reality of the “thaw” was exposed by the removal of singer Wolfgang Biermann’s East German citizenship while he was on a tour of West Germany in 1979. This single move may have fractured the East German state’s relationship with its artists and saw the beginning of an exodus of artists and film makers from East Germany which would include such DEFA personal as Jurek Becker, script writer, Günter Kunert actor and screenwriter, Erich Loest screenwriter, Reiner Kunze director and screenwriter, and actors Manfred Krug and Armin Müller-Stahl. This hemorrhaging of DEFA talent would eventually lead to “star” DEFA films being shelved such as Kunerts Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt.
In terms of warfilms, the key West German theme is the family. Two films stand out showing the war through the eyes not of soldiers but of either a child, in the Marriage of Eva Braun and the (in)famous The Tin Drum. East German film makers, however, seemed unable to move beyond the discussions of the 1960's and are replaying the arguments around soldiers' patriotism and what it means to betray ones country, even when one's country is a totalitarian regime.
The Marriage of Eva Braun (1978)
Die Ehe der Eva Braun
West Germany
Dir:Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder as this directors only war film.
Eva marries her husband in 1943 in the 4th year of the War. They have one night together and he is called back to the front, where he is posted as missing.
Eva spends the rest of the war and the immediate post war searching and waiting for her husband to return. She joins the other widows, bereaved mothers and girl friends waiting at the station for some news of her husband, but none comes.
Eventually a former comrade of her husband returns with the news that her husband is dead and she turns for solace to an "off limits" GI bar. Here she meets a black soldier with whom she starts an affair. All the time she claims that she loves her husband, but desires her black GI. In a twist she is lying in the GI's arms and her "missing" husband arrives back from being a POW. A fight ensues and Maria kills her lover by smashing a bottle over his head, her husband takes the guilt for this act and is sent to prison, leaving Maria to swim in the uncertain seas of post war Germany.
This film is available at amazon.de here
The Tin Drum (1979)
Die Blechtrommel
West Germany
Dir: Volker Schlöndorff
Directed by Volker Schlöndorff in 1979 and very disturbing. When used as part of a course at Reading University in 2011 first year students complained that it was too outrageous and strange for them to study.
Awarded an Oscar© the film tells the story of Danzig, now Gdansk, in the 1920's, 1930's and to the end of the war through the eyes of Oskar Matzerath. The son of either a middle class German green grocer or Polish post man. His identity remains uncertain, but in the chaos of Danzig and the rise of fascism he has to choose. He solves the issue by deciding to remain a boy, jumping down in to the cellar of the family home and sustaining brain damage in the fall. The brain damage retards his growth.
To see a presentation I wrote about the film click here
This film is available from amazon.co.uk here
Mama ich Lebe (1977)
Mother I'm Alive
Dir: Konrad Wolf
Wolf returns to the themes he explored in his 1968 film, I was 19. He asks the audience to consider who is a traitor and who is a patriot. The film follows the fortunes of 4 Wehrmacht soldiers who throw their lot in the with Red Army and are sent back to the Front to help undermine the Wehrmacht.
They turnout be useless turncoats and pathetic partisans, refusing to shot a Wehrmacht soldier and in doing so are responsible for the death of their new Red Army comrades.
The film thoughtfully considers the difficulties of patriotism in a time of oppression and war. Made in a time 30 years after the events it depicts it tries to explore the difficulties of making the right decision.
This film is available from amazon.de here
