The captain of Cologne

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Movie
Original title The captain of Cologne
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1956
length 114 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Slatan Dudow
script Henryk Keisch ,
Michael Tschesno-Hell ,
Slatan Dudow
production DEFA
music Wilhelm Neef
camera Werner Bergmann
Helmut Bergmann
cut Lena Neumann
occupation

Der Hauptmann von Köln is a German political satire by DEFA by Slatan Dudow from 1956.

action

The former head waiter Hans Albert Hauptmann is unemployed, penniless and, after a brief argument with his landlady, homeless. All he has left is his suitcase with numerous stickers from different countries and the advice of his best friend to apply for a job as a temporary waiter in the hotel “Prinz Regent” that evening. Excellent participants from the Second World War meet there , old Nazis in disguise , to whom Hans Albert introduces himself as "Captain, Albert" and is promptly courted as a captain . In addition, he is soon confused with the well-deserved but dead captain Albert and is therefore treated as a guest of honor. The mayor also learns of the reappearance of the captain, who is actually wanted as a war criminal, and gives him a position as director of Montan AG, although Hans Albert would much rather work as a waiter again and spend more time with the beautician Hannelore.

The real Captain Albert meanwhile lives under the assumed name Hans Karjanke with his alleged widow Adele. To be safe from criminal prosecution, he even went so far as to swear the death of Captain Albert in 1945 on the battlefield. A short time later he married as Hans Karjanke Adele and believed that he could now lead a new life. But already at the wedding party he learns that a supposed captain Albert is making a career. A visit by Adele to Hans Albert makes him panic, but only briefly. Since Hans Albert has a feeling for the integration of the war system into everyday life - for example, he wants to have chocolate cannons distributed to children - he is appointed a member of the Bundestag . As a “returned war criminal” it is his job to issue a general amnesty for the so-called “submarines”, ie men who live under false names for fear of prosecution for war crimes. In fact, Hans Albert succeeds in getting the amnesty through.

Captain Albert's big hour has now come. Although he was initially arrested as a con man, he was able to assert himself as a true Captain Albert due to his former comrade-in-arms, who have since been released due to the amnesty. Hans Albert is arrested shortly before the wedding with the industrial daughter Horse Apple. In court he cannot show any war crimes that would entitle him to an amnesty. He is sentenced to five years in prison - precisely because he is not a war criminal, as Hannelore's new friend discovered after a look in the newspaper.

production

The Captain of Cologne was shot in the studio and had its premiere on December 7, 1956 in the Babylon cinema in Berlin . In the following year, Henryk Keisch , Michael Tschesno-Hell and Slatan Dudow received the National Prize, Second Class, for the screenplay, which was published as a film text by Henschel Verlag in 1956 and was later performed on theater stages .

The film constructions come from Oskar Pietsch .

The script is based on two true incidents that have been portrayed in a satirical exaggeration: In the "Affair Dr. Richter ”, Dr. Judge as chairman of the "Sudeten German Landsmannschaft" and member of the Bundestag for an amnesty for war criminals who went into hiding after 1945, to which he himself belonged as Fritz Rößler and Reich Main Office Manager in the Reich Propaganda Office. Like Albert in the film, Dr. Richter married his own widow. In the other case, a supposed late returnee and war criminal appeared in Bad Kreuznach and was courted by like-minded people there before it turned out that he was a simple baker's apprentice.

criticism

The time was in 1957:

“The topic is grateful, the film is necessary, but it would be better if the Federal Republic of Germany had pulled it together; because the film is 'right' in many ways. Through his generalizations and some very clumsy scenes, however, he identifies himself as a special propagandistic achievement of those people who like to pour truckloads of pepper into their meals, but at home those who only add a pinch of salt to their soup as a well poisoner behind the castle and bring a bolt. "

- G. Paulsen in Die Zeit 1957

Ralf Schenk wrote in summary that in the film "the wrong person [is dragged] to court, the real person finds entry into the very highest circles: a bitter farce with grim cabaret exaggerations."

For the film service , Der Hauptmann von Köln was “a straightforward and straightforward staged satire that is committed to taking a clear political stand against military and fascist tendencies in the Federal Republic of Germany. Solidly staged, convincingly played, inevitably partisan in its consistent attitude towards the capitalist rival ”.

Cinema called the film a “not always accurate contemporary satire”.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b G. Paulsen: The captain of Cologne. Satire and fake. A DEFA film . In: Die Zeit , No. 1, January 3, 1957.
  2. ↑ Ralf Schenk (Red.): The Second Life of the Film City Babelsberg 1946–1992. Henschel, Berlin 1994.
  3. ^ The captain of Cologne. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ^ The captain of Cologne. In: Cinema . Hubert Burda Media , accessed on January 22, 2018 .