On the green beach of the Spree

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Movie
Original title On the green beach of the Spree
Country of production FRG
original language German
Publishing year 1960
length 497 minutes
Rod
Director Fritz Umgelter
script Reinhart Müller-Freienfels , Fritz Umgelter
production Walter Pindter , NWRV television Cologne
music Peter Thomas
camera Kurt Grigoleit
cut Marie-Anne Gerhardt
occupation

On the green beach of the Spree is a five-part television film by Fritz Umgelter , which was produced by NWRV television in Cologne. It was based on the book On the green beach of the Spree - As good as a novel (1955) by Hans Scholz and was one of the early " street sweeps " of German television. Since it was first broadcast in the spring of 1960, it has been repeated several times on ARD , the third programs and on 1 PLUS . Under the same title, Südwestfunk (SWF) had already published a radio play based on the book in 1956 , in which Scholz himself also participated as a speaker.

On 29 April 2009 the film version appeared on five DVDs with the five-part radio play SWF as bonus material on MP3 - CD .

General information about the television series

Of the seven great stories in the book, six have been made into films. Just like in the radio play version, the story of former Jockey Club employee Stefan Cesnick, who fell in love with a member of the US Army while being a prisoner of war and is now about to leave for Los Angeles , was left out To marry loved ones. Of the many shorter stories, several have been built into the series and very cleverly assigned to other people.

The first two stories are self-contained. A red thread runs through episodes three to five, which can be tied to the person Barbara Bibiena, known as Babsybi. In episodes 3 and 4, some actors appear in two different roles; once in the 1759 story, the other in the period from 1939 to 1954. There seems to be a kind of invisible relationship between the two roles. In episodes 2 to 4, a speaker in the background names the participants in the round table, and he gives Hans-Joachim Lepsius the first name "Martin", which does not appear anywhere else. In the third episode, the prop master Kurt Squarra plays a supporting role as a baker. In the fourth part, according to Peter Koslowski, the windows of a bus should have been fogged up, but at the time in question you had the best view. In the 5th episode, one of the main actors, Gerhard Just (Director Gatzka), is not noted in the end credits.

The round table

On the evening of April 26, 1954, the advertising film producer Hans Schott, the painter and film consultant Fritz Georg Hesselbarth and the actor Bob Arnoldis met their friend, ex- major Hans-Joachim Lepsius , who had recently returned from Soviet captivity . The host is Lepsius' cousin Matthias Brabender, who cannot be present in person due to another invitation. The meeting takes place in the familiar jockey bar in West Berlin . The real purpose of this meeting is to help Lepsius get used to the civil life of the post-war period . First, Lepsius reads out the diary sheets of a friend who is still missing. Other stories follow, and slowly a mosaic of Berlin and the young GDR emerges , which at that time in the west was only referred to as the Eastern Zone or Soviet Occupation Zone , even after the state was founded.

The actors listed in the infobox play in all episodes and are therefore not mentioned separately in the other cast lists.

The individual consequences

Jürgen Wilms' diary

action

Length: 96.38 minutes - First broadcast: Tuesday, March 22, 1960 at 8:20 p.m.

In the first episode, Lepsius tells of meeting their mutual friend Jürgen Wilms in a prison camp in Tikhvin, Russia . While Lepsius is marching towards Frankfurt (Oder) , Wilms has to remain in captivity. However, he manages to give Lepsius some diary entries. Lepsius reads from this to the group.

The description begins on June 5, 1941 in the Polish town of Maciejowice and ends in the last days of October of the same year in Orsha on the Dnepr . He reports on the incursion into the Soviet Union , on the fighting and events on the fringes, but also on atrocities, especially by the SS and their helpers. He develops feelings for a young Jewish woman who is transported away with her family. In the end he witnessed a mass shooting of Jews in a cemetery in Orsha; among them is the young Jewess.

Remarks

"Although on the green beach of the Spree the [wrong] dichotomy of the 'honorable Wehrmacht' and the 'criminal SS' was adhered to, with this production the WDR achieved a new realism in the cinematic representation of the National Socialist extermination policy during the Russian campaign."

- Michael Aschenbach: Holocaust and Film. The reception of popular feature films about the Shoah in the Federal Republic of Germany and its influence on the culture of remembrance.

actor

The general

Length: 101.14 minutes - First broadcast: Tuesday, April 5, 1960 at 8:20 p.m.

action

This story is told by Hesselbarth. He reports on his last division commander, a general with the resounding name Johann Beatus Freiherr von Hach und zu Malserhaiden. The story takes place in Northern Norway . In the summer of 1944, the general took over a division that was in a sense "polar retirement" as there had been no fighting since 1940. Very few officers still believe in National Socialism, although no one openly expresses it.

The quiet life of the staff comes to a head when the general discovers during an elk hunt how Lieutenant von Sternberg is guiding some Norwegians across the heavily guarded border into neutral Sweden . He arrested him immediately, in the presence of Captain Matthew. In the following trial, von Sternberg is expected to be sentenced to death. In the wake of the assassination attempt on July 20, 1944 , which took place shortly before , the rapid execution is understandable. But the evening before the planned execution, he manages to escape. At the end of February 1945 the general learned from Captain Matthäus that Sternberg had not yet managed to escape to Sweden. He wanted to dare to cross the border with the help of his girlfriend Swanhild the next night. On behalf of the general, who is disaffected with the Third Reich due to various incidents and shortly before received the news that after his first son his second and last son had also died in France, Captain Matthäus indirectly helps the former Lieutenant von Sternberg to Escape by planning the border security for which he is responsible that evening in such a way that Sternberg can reach Swedish territory unmolested .

actor

Prussian fairy tale

Length: 97.14 minutes - First broadcast: Tuesday, April 19, 1960 at 8:20 p.m.

action

Hesselbarth once again answers the question about Barbara "Babsybi" Bibiena, who is known and admired by everyone, by taking a manuscript from his portfolio and telling two stories from it. Barbara, who willingly made the material available to Hesselbarth, reports how, in August 1939, at the age of 16, she and her tutor Dr. Förster visits the castle of the Zehdenitz family in Döberin and falls in love with the family's son, Hans Wratislaw. In the evening Barbara reads to the family from the Bibiena Chronicle.

There it is reported how the ancestor Barbaras Ettore Galli da Bibiena, a Chilean grandee and subject of the Spanish crown, got into the middle of the battle near Kunersdorf on his trip to Europe in August 1759 . While he was working as a medic after the battle, the dying ensign Wenzeslaus Bogdan von Zehdenitz asked him to greet a lady named Rosalba. By a happy coincidence he succeeds in locating the lady in Berlin and he finds out that it is a distant relative from the house of the famous builder of the Galli da Bibiena . The lecture ends with the wedding of the two.

The next morning, Barbara and Dr. Forester accompanied by Hans Wratislaw to Kunersdorf to visit the former battlefield. Barbara asks Hans to leave Germany with her in order not to have to go to the threatening war. Although he is madly in love with Barbara, he refuses. At the end of the story, Hesselbarth reports that Hans died in the last days of the war outside Berlin and that Barbara wanted to go to look for his grave.

actor

Bastien and Bastienne 1953

Length: 108.48 minutes - First broadcast: Tuesday, May 3, 1960 at 8:20 p.m.

action

Late at night, the former actor Peter Koslowski from Breslau , who lost a leg in the war, a friend of Schott and Arnoldis, enters the bar. He reports how he met a mysterious young woman at the beginning of October last year in his home town of Markgrafpieske near Fürstenwalde , whom he called Bastienne because she did not want to give her real name. Koslowski helps Bastienne to find the grave of the fallen soldier Hans Wratislaw von Zehdenitz, because she would like to have the deceased transferred to West Berlin. The next day the grave suddenly disappeared. It only reappears a month later.

When Bastienne arrives at Koslowski again in Markgrafpieske, she notices that someone has hastily tried to make the traces of the grave disappear again. However, the two succeed in finding the “protector” of the grave in the shepherdess Bärbel Kroll. Bärbel tells the couple how she met the seriously wounded soldier in April 1945 and stayed with him until his death. Bastienne refrains from her plan to reburied. Koslowski has not seen Bastienne since that day. Letters from her, sent through a lawyer, with a considerable fee, are returned because he, in love with Bastienne, does not want to be the subject of an aid operation. When he finishes his report, the four friends start to laugh and tell the perplexed Koslowski that Bastienne could only be her valued and long-term friend Barbara Bibiena and that they really want to bring them together again. Koslowski refuses.

actor

Capriccio Italy

Length: 93.40 minutes - First broadcast: Tuesday, May 17, 1960 at 8:20 p.m.

action

Meanwhile, the morning of April 27th has dawned and Director Gatzka and his wife from Oberkassel near Bonn appear in the jockey bar, which a small car accident has brought there. Gatzka, an enthusiastic NSKK man during the war and now a highly respected economic miracle captain , is a factual person. For him, Berlin is a pure subsidy business at the expense of the West German taxpayer. For Ms. Gatzka, West Berlin and the East Zone are one and the same. Bob Arnoldis, whose turn it is now to tell, quickly invents a story that could be associated with Ms. Gatzka.

So, so begins Arnoldis, in October 1935 a certain Hans-Werner Hofer goes on an amorous trip to Italy. First he spends a few days with the beautiful art historian Elisabeth Maag in Pistoia . Then his mind goes to the Dutch girl Ankie and in the end he only has eyes for a certain Cornelia, who runs a guesthouse near Florence and who could well be identical to Ms. Gatzka, because according to her own statements, she actually this year ran a guesthouse in the area. When Gatzka is angry that such a silly story could be linked to his wife, Arnoldis assures that the lady in question was a completely different person and that Hofer, i.e. himself, at the end of the day Narrative could hardly be called the winner. Finally reconciled, the couple leave the bar.

As the group slowly wants to get ready to leave, Bastienne suddenly stands in the doorway. During a morning ride from Brabender, she found out that a certain Peter Koslowski was also present. Koslowski, initially still angry, is cleverly guided into their car by his friends. And when Barbara / Bastienne asks where he is going, he smiles at her and says: "With you, dear miracle, until the end of the world and all days".

actor

Production staff (general overview)

Voices on the film

“The fabric of the“ green beach ”is a woven carpet with motifs from Berlin, Germany. Love encounters that are swept away by the flow of time go under, which then reappear as longings and residual dreams. Brutal paths are cut into destinies, people who appear several times or whose children unexpectedly meet again centuries later. A cloud atlas over Brandenburg, a kind of dream course book through German suffering and loving and getting astray in oneself. But with unexpected tenderness and restraint that has never been seen since. Sensitive, without clichés, fantastic mixing of comedy and drama. "

- Dominik Graf : Men in love in war. In 1960 Fritz Umgelter shot the five-part TV series "On the green beach of the Spree"

The radio play

The author of the book, Hans Scholz, played a dual role in the radio play that the SWF produced back in 1956. On the one hand he wrote the script, on the other hand he was the spokesman for one of the main roles, namely Hans Schott. Since he gave his book the additional title "As good as a novel" and wrote like a true story in which he named Hans Schott as an author, he would have presented himself as it were. Because his book addresses Barbara and Peter Koslowski, as well as some friends who have something to do with the stories, directly in a dedication. The radio play, just like the later TV version, was produced in five parts. The individual episodes had different titles, but a similar structure.

  • Part 1: One is missing in the round
  • Part 2: The O1 plays Sinding
  • Part 3: The Chronicle of the House of Bibiena
  • Part 4: Chestnuts and turnips from Brandenburg
  • Part 5: Do you know the country ...?

In the radio play, as in the book, several short stories are told, which is probably better possible with this medium than in a cinematic representation.

The main characters spoke:

The following were involved in the production:

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Master's thesis (PDF; 716 kB), University of Hanover , Historical Seminar, 2004, pp. 44–47. Brackets not in the orig.
  2. ^ Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , April 2, 2013.