The year 1945

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Movie
Original title The year 1945
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1985
length 90 minutes
Rod
Director Karl Gass
script Karl Gass
production DEFA studio for documentaries
music Wolfgang Schoor
camera Dieter Kühne
cut Christel Gass
occupation

The year 1945 is a documentary film by the DEFA studio for documentaries by Karl Gass from 1985 .

action

The film is structured chronologically and shows the period of the last 128 days of the war from January 1945 to the first days after the war in June 1945.

It begins in Berlin when hundreds of citizens report to the Volkssturm under the slogan “Believe, fight, win” and the families bring useful things to the collection point for people's victims . This is also where the premiere of Veit Harlan's Kolberg film takes place . On January 12th, at the request of Winston Churchill , the Red Army began the Vistula Offensive in order to relieve the Western Allies who were under pressure at the time. The battle for Poznan was also fought and the city was liberated. We continue over the Oder and the first bridgehead west of the Oder near Küstrin . On the way there, the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp was liberated. From there u. a. Film recordings of twin children imprisoned for medical experiments.

In early February is on the Crimea , the Yalta Conference conducted. On 13./14. The bombing raids on Dresden take place in February . The advance of the Americans on the western front initially ended on the Rhine , as almost all bridges here were blown up by the Germans. Only the bridge at Remagen remained standing, which means that the Rhine can be crossed and the western front of the German armed forces collapses. The advance is proceeding swiftly, so that on April 11 the Americans marched into the Buchenwald concentration camp , whose prisoners liberated themselves in the hope of the approaching troops. The commanding American general orders that 1000 residents of Weimar , including 500 women, have to run 25 kilometers to the camp in order to be able to convince themselves of the conditions in the concentration camp.

The Battle of Berlin begins on April 16 at 4:57 a.m. Moscow time . On April 25, the American and Soviet troops unite on the Elbe near Torgau . Also on April 25th, the ring around Berlin will be closed by the Red Army. Adolf Hitler committed suicide on April 30th and, in his will, appointed Grand Admiral Karl Dönitz as his successor as head of state and commander-in-chief of the armed forces. In his inaugural address on the radio, he called on the German people to persevere and keep fighting. In the course of May 2, the noise of the battle over Berlin dies. On May 9, at 12:43 a.m. Moscow time, the unconditional surrender of the Wehrmacht was signed in the officers' mess of the Army Spy School in Berlin-Karlshorst (today: German-Russian Museum ). Anti-fascists , returned from illegality , from exile and from the concentration camps are beginning to build a new Germany.

production

The year 1945 was produced as a black and white film , with largely unpublished or forgotten international archive material, under the working title The Year '45 by the Effect Artistic Working Group . The accompanying texts are by Klaus Wischnewski and the music was recorded by the Berlin State Orchestra Chamber Orchestra .

The premiere took place in the presence of numerous personalities of the party and state leadership of the GDR on March 28, 1985 in the Berlin Kino International . The film was broadcast in the second program on May 8, 1987 on East German television.

In 1985, two million viewers saw this film in GDR cinemas, making it the most successful film of the year.

criticism

Horst Knietzsch wrote in Neues Deutschland that the applause after the premiere was strong and sustained. In his estimation, this approval was the recognition of a work that endeavored with passion and faithfulness to the facts to portray the events of 1945, while at the same time expressing the subjective experiences and the political positions of artists and publicists of 1985. The film impressed and convinced through the interaction of journalistic and artistic means.

Helmut Ullrich said in the Neue Zeit that this film was not limited to being a cinematic illustration of history lessons, because it dealt with the lessons of history, but not in an instructive way. The film's creators had found a dialectical relationship for the shock and insight. They turned to the feeling and to the intellect and forced to look closely. - This film made one concerned and thoughtful.

The lexicon of international film calls the film an exciting, cleverly edited and commented documentary that strives for truthfulness, which describes the last 128 days of the war in Europe and the first days of peace with numerous historical original recordings.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Neues Deutschland, March 29, 1985, p. 1
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland, March 29, 1985, p. 4
  3. ↑ Neue Zeit of March 29, 1985, p. 4
  4. ^ The year 1945. In: Lexicon of international film . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  5. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of November 29, 1985, p. 7
  6. ↑ Neues Deutschland, April 12, 1986, p. 10