The witness house (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The witness house |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Matti Geschonneck |
| script | Magnus Vattrodt |
| production | Oliver Berben |
| music | Annette Focks |
| camera | Judith Kaufmann |
| cut | Karola Mittelstädt |
| occupation | |
| |
The Zeugenhaus is a German television film by director Matti Geschonneck based on the book of the same name by Christiane Kohl , which was first broadcast on November 24, 2014 on the Second German Television . The premiere took place on November 20, 2014 at the Baden-Baden TV Film Festival .
action
In autumn 1945 the Americans set up a guest house in a confiscated villa in Nuremberg. Former Nazi functionaries are housed here together with concentration camp survivors and anti-fascists, all of whom are waiting as witnesses for their testimony or their interrogation at the International Military Tribunal as part of the Nuremberg Trials , which will drag on for months.
For this reason, Countess Belavar, who comes from Hungary, is brought to the headquarters of the Americans. Since she is on the run from communist persecutors, who all nobles would like to exterminate, she doesn't know what they want from her here. At first, she continues to fear for her life, but learns that she is supposed to act as host in the witness house in order to ensure a pleasant atmosphere for the guests, who consist of perpetrators, victims and fellow travelers of the Nazi regime. However, the countess is required to report on the events and conversations in the witness house. She refuses because her upbringing forbids her to do so.
The Countess carries out her new role very professionally and quickly discovers the tensions that exist between the guests. They include the actual house owner Elise Krollmann with her teenage son Werner, Major General of the German Wehrmacht Erwin von Lahousen , Hitler's Reich photo reporter and friend Heinrich Hoffmann with his daughter Henriette , the wife of Baldur von Schirach , one of the main defendants in the trial. Heinrich Hoffmann feels that he is an employee of the prosecution because he is supposed to sift through photographs that are to be used for the trial. In addition, he developed a small black market in the house during his stay . Other inmates are Gisela Limberger, an arrogant and cynical person from Austria, who was Hermann Göring's private secretary, Mr. Gärtner, who everyone thinks was a former concentration camp commandant, and Heinrich Ross, who always explains that he doesn't know what to do here ; confuse him and take him for his SS brother Wilhelm Ross. He is horrified and fears for his life. Gärtner, on the other hand, is suspected by the Nazi-loyal Hoffmann and Limberger of wanting to buy their freedom with statements against other Nazi criminals, and is avoided by everyone.
Rudolf Diels and Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier arrive as the last guests in the witness house; she is supposed to be helping in the process as a translator. Both seem to have a special secret. Rudolf Diels is accommodated alone in a room, without contact with the other residents. He tells the Countess that he was an accomplice in the July 20, 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler. It later turns out that he was the founder of the Gestapo . When it is announced in the house that he is also a guest, displeasure arises because Hoffmann considers him a traitor. Only Gisela Limberger hopes to have an ally in him and smuggles a letter out of the house for him. As a result, Diels can soon leave the witness house again; As a trained intriguer and turning neck, he has also succeeded in winning over the US military.
While all the guests in the witness house wait to see if and when they should finally testify in the Nuremberg trial, Major General Erwin von Lahousen is regularly present at the trial. He clearly suffers from the past of what he has experienced. Nightmares make him want to end his life, but it fails. When the guests learned that he was describing Hitler's crimes in detail during the trial and that it was clear that the Wehrmacht had committed serious war crimes and that the army command had been informed about them in great detail, there were initial escalations in the house. This is exacerbated when Marie-Claude Vaillant-Couturier finally testifies at the trial that she was imprisoned in Auschwitz and describes the atrocities she encountered there personally. When she returns to her quarters, Hoffmann does not want to believe her. He is still convinced that “his” Hitler was basically a good person. The hitherto silent gardener, who has been avoided by everyone, can make it clear to him that Hoffmann knew very well that there were concentration camps and that he also took photos there, because he, the gardener, saw him himself as a prisoner in Mauthausen concentration camp . Gärtner is still traumatized by the experience and ashamed of having stayed alive while many others died. Hoffmann's “Führerbild” breaks more and more and so he tries to hang himself, which fails due to his body.
Heinrich Ross succeeds in convincing the court of his innocence. Shortly before he is allowed to leave the witness house full of joy, Heinrich Hoffmann tells him that he has clearly recognized him as Wilhelm Ross from a photo. Knowing this, he lets him go.
The Nuremberg Trial ends after 218 days of negotiations. The main war criminals were convicted. Henriette von Schirach's husband is sentenced to 20 years in prison. However, her father is now handed over to the Bavarian criminal police because of his months of black market trafficking.
background
The characters in this film are based on historical models. Your private actions and conflicts are fictitious. The housekeeper ran the witness house from 1945 to 1947.
reception
Audience ratings
The first broadcast of Das Zeugenhaus on November 24, 2014 was seen by 5.68 million viewers in Germany and achieved a market share of 17.4% for ZDF.
Reviews
“Magnus Vattrodt (screenplay) and Matti Geschonneck (director) have made a remarkable film (“ based on motifs ”from Christiane Kohl's journalistic research in the mid-1990s). They approach the topic - which can be conceivably voyeuristically interpreted - respectfully, but at the same time take out fictional freedom when looking into the most diverse human abysses. "
“When German filmmakers take on the subject of the Nuremberg Trials, they are faced with the threefold challenge of appreciating the historical significance of the trials, clarifying the topicality of the issues being discussed, and doing justice to the film model. Matti Geschonneck's television film 'Das Zeugenhaus' fails on all three points with a completeness that one cannot deny a certain admiration for. Kramer turned a trial against low batches - the legal trial of 1947 - world theater . Geschonneck turns the trial against the main war criminals into a no-worries theater . Kramer confronted the audience with the moral and political dilemmas of his time. Geschonneck's dilemma is the lack of any moral or political question in Magnus Vattrodt's script. No matter how pregnant the music is, Tobias Moretti as ex-Gestapo man Rudolf Diels can look so gloomy, Udo Samel as Hitler's personal photographer Heinrich Hoffmann wiggles his eyebrows so merrily, Edgar Selge as an ex-concentration camp inmate No matter how doggedly chop wood, an Iris Berben still so - what does she actually do? It doesn't matter: the actors can charge as much as they want, they have nothing to say. However, they express this nothing meaningfully. "
Web links
- The witnesses House in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The witness house. Historical television film based on the book of the same name by Christiane Kohl. ZDF, November 2014, archived from the original on November 24, 2014 ; Retrieved November 7, 2016 .
- The witness house at crew united
- Arno Frank: ZDF film “Das Zeugenhaus”: Hell, that's the others In: Der Spiegel . from November 24, 2014.
Individual evidence
- ^ Certificate of release for The Zeugenhaus . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2014 (PDF; test number: 147 756 V).
- ↑ The witness house. (No longer available online.) In: Premiere. German Academy of Performing Arts , archived from the original on November 29, 2014 ; Retrieved November 22, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ The witness house ( Memento of the original from February 15, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Official ZDF website , accessed on February 26, 2015.
- ↑ Fabian Riedner: Primetime check: Monday, November 24, 2014.quotemeter.de , November 25, 2014, accessed on November 25, 2014 .
- ↑ Claudia Schwartz: Survivors and those who got away. In: television. Neue Zürcher Zeitung, November 24, 2014, accessed on November 24, 2014 : "In this regard, the" Zeugenhaus ", spurred on by an illustrious ensemble of actors, succeeds in providing a discerning cinematic diagnosis of the German post-war period beyond entertainment."
- ↑ Alan Posener: A film that says nothing and wants nothing. In: The compact world. Die Welt, November 24, 2014, accessed November 24, 2014 .
