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| A scene from Das Boot |
"The 2nd World War belongs not in the past but is part of the present. Childern and adults, relatives and friends mourn in their millions. Uncountable millions still carry the suffering of this war. The scars continue to hurt. The war has left behind deep scars of tension and misstrust" (Evangelischen Kirche Deutschland und Bund der Evangelischen Kirchen in der DDR, 1982, 98)
The shadow of the war continued to fall across German film makers of the 1980’s but film makers moved away from examining the perpetrators to the creation of what has been described as the “decade of NS memorials” (Knischewski, 2008, 100). Reitz and other film makers felt that German history had been taken away from the Germans by the broadcast of the TV series Holocaust in 1979. This was the impetus behind Reitz’s Heimat (1981-1984) which brought the lens of German history down on to the detail of one small fictional village.
The shadow of the war continued to fall across German film makers of the 1980’s but film makers moved away from examining the perpetrators to the creation of what has been described as the “decade of NS memorials” (Knischewski, 2008, 100). Reitz and other film makers felt that German history had been taken away from the Germans by the broadcast of the TV series Holocaust in 1979. This was the impetus behind Reitz’s Heimat (1981-1984) which brought the lens of German history down on to the detail of one small fictional village.
Eastern Directors became more critical of the state's Anti Fascist origins, established by the films of the 1940's adding a new dimension to the traditional anti fascist discourse which if it did not slaughter the sacred cows of anti fascism certainly threatened them and put them under close scrutiny.
Homeland, A chronicle in 11 Parts (1981-1984)
Heimat. Eine Chronik in elf TeilenWest Germany
Dir: Edgar Reitz
Wolfgang Petersen, the director Das Boot was described in Der Spiegel as someone who had no experience of war and who made films for those who had never known war in its terrible consequences, its misery and its soaring heights of human endeavour. (Der Spiegel, 1981). His fillmis the sole representative of the Combat genre type in this decade, it is however the most influential German war film of the decade. Based on, Lothar-Günther Bucheim’s, 1973 novel it shows the harrowing experience of ordinary sailors on patrol in a U Boot sailing from France in to the Atlantic. The film becomes a military horror movie, the Kriegsmarine Sailors are trapped in the tight confines of the U Boot as they are hunted by the “other” enemy. The enemy does not have a face but only a “form”. As this “form” hunts the U Boot the audience is invited to associate with the sailors as men, trying to fight the war honourably. These honourable men are presented as victims of the clean cut and superficial Nazis on shore. (Thompson, 1993, 63). It is this film that has probably made the largest impact on the non German speaking world, indeed it is one of the German war films to make Empire’s list and while it is a combat film it fits in well with the 1980’s German war film discourse of “direct emotional engagement” with the characters on the screen.
In British terms we could describe the Heimat series as the Eastenders meets the war film. The individual is once again shown as the state. It is claimed that Reitz made the TV series as a reaction to the US Holocaust series. He wanted to repatriate German history and possibly the right to decide who is guilty and who isn't.
The story tells the story of one family in an imagined town of Schabbach in the German Hunsruck who live through the traumatic period between 1919 and 1982. The families live through the collapse of order in the Weimar period, inflation, the Nazi coming to power, the war and defeat. In concentrating on one small town, we see that each culpable person is an individual. Each person is involved and innocent at the same time, simply because they are their and they cannot get away.
The series is simply amazing even in the UK it was 6th in the BBC 2's poll of the greatest programmes it had aired over 40 years and came 10th a Channel 4 poll of the 50 Greatest TV Dramas. "It has captivated audiences all over the world and will continue to be hailed as one of television's most rewarding and unforgettable experiences"
This series is available from amazon.co.uk here
Das Boot (1981)
West Germany
Dir: Wolfgang Petersen
The film is available from amazon.co.uk here
The Stay (1982)
Der Aufenthalt
East Germany
Dir: Frank Beyer
Beyer’s film brought to life the 1977 novel of the same name by Herman Kant. The film follows the protagonist, Mark Niebuhr a young soldier who is accused of war crimes by his Polish captors and held in a cell with other, older, Soldiers and Nazi Officials. Niebuhr’s fellow prisoners are obviously guilty, whereas he appears to be a young innocent. As the film develops it becomes obvious that the moral of the film is that all Germans bear a measure of guilt, not just those Wolzow’s and Nazi’s who had been appointed as guilty in previous war films. (Berghahn, 2005, 80).
The film is available from amazon.de here
Your Unknown Brother (1981)
Dein unbekannter Bruder
East Germany
Dir: Ulrich Weiß
Weiß' 1981 film is unusual and worth seeing as it turns the story of the heroic communist resistance fighter on its head. Instead of glorious victory he is betrayed by a fellow communist resistor and indoing so it questions the anti fascist myths upon which the nation had been built. These being namely that the Russians had come as humanist liberators and that the Socialist resistance was united against the Nazi’s.
The film is available from amazon.de here (Note this is an NTSC version, but with English subtitles)
Archive of Death (1980) and Front without Mercy (1984)
Archiv des Todes (1980) and Front ohne Gnade (1984)
East Germany
Dir: Rudi Kurz
East Germany with its anti fascist discourse at the heart of the state felt that it was in a different position, morally to the Nazis and the war than its West German neighbours. Its Germans were not responsible for the war and many of its people, so the myth goes, were doughty and brave resistance fighters.
This TV series shows a contrasting image to the dour greys of Your Unknown Brother of the stoic heroism of the BBC's 1970's output of the Secret Army. Here brave and heroic communists are shown in an exciting resistance romp, always just escaping the Nazis always just managing to succeed in the "nick of time".
Archive of Death is available on amazon.de here
Front without Mercy is available on amazon.de here
