The eyewitness (newsreel)
The eyewitness was the cinema newsreel in the Soviet occupation zone (SBZ) and in the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and was produced by the state film company DEFA . It was published with a length of 15 minutes from February 19, 1946 to December 19, 1980 (issue 52/1980).
timeline
The eyewitness initially appeared biweekly and from August 1946 weekly. The first editor-in-chief was Kurt Maetzig . With the 13/1946 issue, Maetzig's motto: You see for yourself, you hear for yourself, judge for yourself! introduced (up to issue 34/1949).
From issue 12/1946 to issue 1/1949, each episode began with the children looking for their parents campaign , with which a suggestion by Erich Kästner was taken up. With their help, around 400 children were able to find their parents again.
Since Kurt Maetzig was only partially available to eyewitnesses from autumn 1946 due to his filming for the feature film and administrative obligations at DEFA, Maetzig's wife Marion Keller was largely responsible from this time. As a result, she was appointed as acting editor-in-chief in mid-1947 and officially appointed editor-in-chief and head of the newsreel department on December 1, 1947.
From 1947 onwards, contributions from newsreels in western countries were included in an exchange process ( French newsreel Les actualités francaises , MGM week in the USA ). An exchange with the West German newsreel was prevented by the Federal Minister of the Interior Robert Lehr in 1950 ( teaching decree ). From autumn 1949, the SED leadership in the GDR exercised greater influence on the eyewitnesses. It lost its balanced subject matter and became an instrument of state propaganda until mid-1953 - with reports on SED meetings, the exchange of delegations with the Soviet Union and other Eastern European people 's democracies, or actions by activists. After the popular uprising in the GDR on June 17, 1953 , the tutelage of the editors was reduced and the eyewitness became more cosmopolitan again. The course changed after Helmut Schneider became editor-in-chief. With him some of the wit and irony of the early days returned. From 1954, the exchange of contributions with four West German newsreels began.
With Issue 18/1954 which began sports coverage (Section Sport in the picture ). From 1957, the eyewitness was the first and only weekly newsreel in the world to appear twice a week (A edition on Fridays with 480 copies, B edition on Tuesdays with 275 copies). In fact, only 200 out of 3,300 cinemas showed both episodes, as it later turned out. In 1961 they reverted to the weekly publication.
Publications
- Günter Jordan , Ralf Schenk : Black and White and Color. DEFA Documentaries 1946–1990 , 1996, ISBN 3-931321-51-7 .
- Dieter Oeckl: Weltbilder - German / German newsreel stories . Documentation 60 ', WDR / 3sat 1996.
- Sigrun Lehnert: work, leisure and strike in the cinema newsreel in West and East Germany from the 1950s to the mid-1960s . In: Work - Movement - History , Issue I / 2018, pp. 110-133.
DVDs
- The Eyewitness - The DEFA Wochenschau , 8 DVDs, running time 1418 minutes, published in 2004 by Icestorm Entertainment
Web links
- The eyewitness from 1946 to 1980 at progress-film.de
- DEFA eyewitness ferry Sassnitz & the glass station 1959
- Overview of DEFA documentaries from 1946 to 1993 at filmportal.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ DEFA films: Table of contents ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ https://www.defa-stiftung.de/defa/kuenstlerin/marion-auch-im-keller/ . In: defa-stiftung.de, accessed on November 22, 2018
- ^ Matthias Dell: 1946 Schiff, Kind, Tier (about the eyewitness), Friday of March 10, 2016, p. 12
