Approach Alpha 1
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Approach Alpha 1 |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1971 |
| length | 93 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | János Veiczi |
| script |
Wolfgang Held (scenario) János Veiczi (screenplay) |
| production | DEFA studio for feature films , Babelsberg group |
| music | Günter Hauk |
| camera |
Eberhard Borkmann Günter Heimann (aerial photographs) |
| occupation | |
| |
Approaching Alpha 1 is a German feature film of the DEFA of János Veiczi from 1971. Like its counterpart Close to the wind , he served on the advertising of the National People's Army and was developed in close cooperation with the air forces of the NVA . The subtitle reads: "A film about courage, love and probation".
action
Day after day, the "Heinrich Rau" fighter squadron of the NVA air force flies in practice missions. Five men from a flight squadron are the focus of their conflicts. The ambitious lieutenant Dieter Lenz suddenly has “illusions” in the clouds, that is, disturbances of perception. He has to catapult himself out with the ejection seat and ends up in the hospital with uncertain prospects of whether a cure is possible. In the worst case, he is threatened with permanent paralysis. His girlfriend, the student Anka, sticks to him even though he doesn't want to tie her to him at first.
Sub-lieutenant Jochen Kullas, for whom Lenz is like a brother, has to prove himself as the fourth pilot of the squadron as a replacement for Lenz after successfully attending the officers' school. Since the incident, Kullas has been grappling with feelings of fear. Should he simply suppress it or express it openly and thereby risk being banned from starting?
At the same time, chain commander Major Thomas Milan has to accept the age-related goodbye to active flying. The annual aero-medical check also confirmed that he had insufficient eyesight. A hard but not unexpected blow. In the future, Milan should take on a responsible ground post in the management group.
Lieutenant Roland Herzog is in love with the teacher Sigrid. He wants to get married, but after the tragic death of her husband two years ago - a bomb defuser whose death is portrayed at the beginning of the film - she doesn't feel strong enough to be the wife of a "hero" again. For Herzog there is no question of giving up flying. Nevertheless, he hopes for a happy family with Sigrid and her son.
Captain Helmut Wendland is the pilot in the Milan chain and the party secretary - an obviously socialist person who apparently knows his comrades well. Wendland's attitude is the subject of many discussions with his brother, who is also positive about the GDR, but sees his future not in the NVA, but in civilian studies.
Aircraft shown
The film mainly shows MiG-21 fighter planes . The tactical numbers, which were three-digit and red for NVA combat single-seaters, were alienated by adding another number for reasons of confidentiality. This procedure was common practice for the publication of images on GDR military aircraft. The added digits are partly clearly recognizable in the film. During an exercise demonstration, a Soviet Yakovlev Jak-28 is shown, which acts as a target display aircraft. Another scene also shows Soviet Antonov An-8s supporting the NVA fighter regiment in a transfer exercise. At the time of filming, the NVA did not have its own transport aircraft with rear loading ramps that could have picked up the anti- aircraft guns shown . In the same context, NVA transport aircraft of the Ilyushin Il-14 type are shown, which, however, did not belong to the fighter squadron , as the film suggests, but to the transport squadron 24 in Dresden . Furthermore, helicopters of the types Mi-4 and Mil Mi-8 can be seen in the film.
production
Approach Alpha 1 was an extraordinarily expensive film that had a budget of over four million marks. This exceeded the average for DEFA film productions by around one to two million marks. The idea for the film did not come from the NVA, but from the Babelsberg group. It was also not shot on official party orders. The first ideas were collected in February 1968. The first exposé of the film was titled Between Heaven and Earth , the second, in 1969, then with the chain Milan . The research took place with the support of the NVA at Jagdfliegergeschwader 8 in Marxwalde . DEFA shot the film from summer to early autumn 1970 in and with Jagdfliegergeschwader 9 , which was stationed at Peenemünde airfield .
The film pursued the goal of “promoting the military readiness of young people” and conveyed a “subliminal ... advertisement for the socialist air force”. Approach Alpha 1 is the only DEFA feature film production in which the enemy appears in the form of NATO . According to the film plan, the jet aircraft flying in should have been a Bundeswehr starfighter "with a clearly recognizable national emblem", but presumably only images of US Air Force aircraft were available. In the book - in 1973, after the film, screenwriter Wolfgang Held published the novel Schild überm Regenbogen in the GDR military publishing house , which was reprinted in 1984 - this aircraft is referred to as the “West German Phantom ”.
In the literature, the representation of the NVA, the illusions in flight and the flight medical examination are described as "extremely realistic", especially since the real doctors and nurses appeared in the Institute for Aviation Medicine in Königsbrück . The activities of the party group organizer and the relationship between superiors and subordinates are also classified as correct. The illusions in flight are shown by fading in, in that first the pilot is shown in his actual flight position and then his “perceived flight position” is faded in in several stages. The viewer can understand the irritation of the pilot well. The (forbidden) low-level flights of the MiG-21 chains on the beach were assessed as unrealistic .
Before and during the filming there were coordination problems, unfulfillable demands and confidentiality problems, especially on the Soviet field airfields. Due to the various delays, the film could not, as originally planned, be released on the 15th anniversary of the NVA on March 1, 1971. The film premiere finally took place on June 25, 1971 in Frankfurt (Oder) on the Erich Weinert open-air stage. The 8th party congress of the SED was held at the same time. The film was released in GDR cinemas on July 2, 1971. Overall, the film only had an audience of 224,000 in the cinemas, which was considered to be moderate by GDR standards. The film stayed in the program for 13 weeks and grossed 250,000 marks. However, two million marks in revenue were planned. It is therefore referred to in the literature as a “financial disaster” with “amateur script adaptation” and “one of the most unsuccessful DEFA films”. The dramaturge for the film was Walter Janka . It was first broadcast on television in the GDR on September 12, 1973 on DFF 1 . In August 2014 the film was released on DVD by Icestorm .
criticism
The contemporary criticism of the GDR saw the film as differentiated. Renate Holland-Moritz praised the “documentary material it contained about the dangerous yet beautiful work of our pilots”, which was “informative and interesting, and certainly not only for technically ambitious and adventurous youngsters”. About the representation of interpersonal relationships, the actual feature film, "we want to put on the mantle of charity [...] in silence," says Holland-Moritz smugly. The Junge Welt wrote that the screenwriter transferred the "necessary brief ... and not very poetic ... expression of the soldiers" to interpersonal relationships: "The dialogues seem stiff and wooden, sometimes superficial in agitation".
"Despite successful aerial shots and revealing insights into the everyday life of the National People's Army, the conflict management was superficially and artistically unsatisfactory," wrote the film service .
Award
The participants in Approach Alpha 1 were awarded numerous medals of merit by the National People's Army in 1971:
- Medal of Merit of the National People's Army in gold: Wolfgang Held, Michail Uljanow
- Medal of Merit of the National People's Army in silver: Walter Janka, Eberhard Borkmann, Günter Heimann, Alfred Müller
- Medal of Merit of the National People's Army in bronze: Stefan Lisewski, Klaus-Peter Thiele, Peter Aust, Ingolf Gorges, Wolfgang Bransky, collective of trick shots
Siegfried Nürnberger was awarded the Silver Medal of the Brotherhood of Arms in 1971 , while director János Veiczi was also awarded the GDR Medal of Merit in 1971 .
literature
- F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 33-34 .
- Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” . In: Bernhard Chiari , Matthias Rogg , Wolfgang Schmidt (Eds.): War and the military in the film of the 20th century . On behalf of the Military History Research Office . Contributions to military history. Oldenbourg, Munich 2003, ISBN 978-3-486-56716-8 , pp. 543-568.
- Gerhard Wiechmann: "We are here to protect our homeland" - The staging of the Volksmarine in the DEFA feature film " Hart am Wind " . In: Hans Ehlert, Matthias Rogg (Hrsg.): Military, State and Society in the GDR: Fields of Research, Results, Perspectives . Links, Berlin 2004, ISBN 978-3-86153-329-0 , pp. 651-684.
- Christian Klötzer: The military area of our society in film art. Soldiers of the NVA in feature films , Potsdam (VEB Defa-Studio for feature films, company academy) 1971 (From the theory and practice of film, 1971, no.1)
- Stefan Kahlau: People's Army in Transition? The depiction of the NVA in the DEFA feature film from the 1950s to the 1970s , Munich (AVMpress) 2015. ISBN 978-3-86924-627-7
Web links
- Approaching Alpha 1 in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Approach Alpha 1 at filmportal.de
- Approach Alpha 1 at the DEFA Foundation
Individual evidence
- ↑ On film poster in: Das große Lexikon der DEFA-Spielfilme, p. 34
- ↑ Detef Cheap / Manfred Meyer: Aircraft of the GDR, Vol 1, TOM Model 2002. ISBN 3-613-02198-6 , p 7f
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 544.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 557.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 558.
- ↑ F.-B. Habel : The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-89602-349-7 , pp. 34 .
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 546.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 555.
- ↑ Wolfgang Held: Schild überm Regenbogen, Military Publishing House of the GDR, 1973
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 556.
- ^ A b Gerhard Wiechmann: "Top Gun" in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 562.
- ^ Cf. Gerhard Wiechmann: Volksmarine in DEFA feature film . In: Hans Ehlert, Matthias Rogg (Hrsg.): Military, State and Society in the GDR: Fields of Research, Results, Perspectives . Links, Berlin 2004, p. 668.
- ↑ Gerhard Wiechmann: “Top Gun” in the GDR? The Cold War and the NVA in the feature film using the example of “Approach Alpha 1” , p. 563.
- ↑ Approach Alpha 1 . In: Renate Holland-Moritz: The owl in the cinema. Movie reviews . Eulenspiegel, Berlin 1981, p. 85.
- ^ Günter Görtz: Silver Arrows and the men around Major Milan . In: Junge Welt , July 6, 1971.
- ^ Criticism in the film dictionary
- ↑ See list of film prizes on defa.de