The police state visit

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Movie
Original title The police state visit - observations among German hosts
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1967
length 45 minutes
Rod
Director Roman Brodmann
script Roman Brodmann
production Süddeutscher Rundfunk
camera Franz Brandeis
Michael Busse
cut Dorrit Wintterlin
occupation

The Police State Visit - Observations Among German Hosts is a German documentary film from 1967 about the state visit of the Shah couple Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and Farah Diba to the Federal Republic of Germany . During the demonstration on June 2, 1967 in West Berlin, this state visit led to police riots against demonstrators, during which the student Benno Ohnesorg was shot by the police officer Karl-Heinz Kurras . The film was shown for the first time on July 26, 1967 on ARD within the series “ Characters of the Times” .

action

The Swiss documentary filmmaker Roman Brodmann first takes a slightly ironic look at the preparations for the state visit. In Rothenburg ob der Tauber , a hotel is preparing for the distinguished visitor. Dances are practiced, the most talented actor on site trains a speech, disguised in knight armor. The security precautions are extreme. A fleet of police motorcycles exercises the Shah's journey with the only Mercedes-Benz 600 Pullmann on site.

On May 27, 1967, the Shah landed with his wife Farah Diba at Cologne / Bonn Airport and was received by Federal President Heinrich Lübke , Federal Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger and Foreign Minister Willy Brandt as well as an honorary formation from the guard battalion at the Federal Ministry of Defense . In the evening Heinrich Lübke gives a gala reception for the Persian guests in the Villa Hammerschmidt . Guests of honor from the best circles in West Germany arrive full of pride and bask in the splendor of the Shah couple. Pahlavi appears in a white gala uniform.

Over the next few days, the state guests will visit the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum in Cologne, a steelworks of the August Thyssen-Hütte in Duisburg , the SOS Children's Village in Dießen am Ammersee and the Bavarian State Opera in Munich . The motorway is closed to arrival, while cars are jammed in the opposite lane. A ghost tour through Germany. The highlight of the trip is to be a visit to West Berlin . There, the students at the Free University prepared to protest against the visit. Bahman Nirumand reports in the Audimax to great applause about the conditions in his home country.

On June 2nd, students and the curious gather in front of the Schöneberg town hall . Before the Shah drives up, a coach with the so-called Jubelperser arrives . When the Shah arrives, a loud fight develops between protesting students and cheering Persians. When the Shah disappears into the town hall, the Persians attack the students with black clubs and wooden slats. The police initially stay aloof. When the mounted police finally appear, the students applaud at first, but one quickly realizes that the police only take action against students. The Persians can board buses for a city tour without being disturbed.

On the evening of June 2, the protests in front of the Deutsche Oper continued. While the Shah is in the opera, massive police forces attack the students. The so-called liver sausage tactic of Police President Duensing comes into play. Suddenly a shot is fired. The student Benno Ohnesorg lies fatally injured on the ground in a backyard in Krummen Strasse ( Charlottenburg ). A young passerby bends over him and is verbally abused by a police officer. The protests then continue on Kurfürstendamm . Another student is injured and taken away by an ambulance.

The next day, on the last day of his journey through Germany, the Shah continues to Lübeck . He hears an organ concert in St. Mary's Church and is bid farewell by the Prime Minister of Schleswig-Holstein, Helmut Lemke , in Lübeck's town hall . Lemke compares the recent history of the two countries, Iran and Germany, and comes to the conclusion that both countries are very similar in their efforts to form a modern state.

background

Originally, two teams were supposed to shoot the Shah's couple's visit. The first team around Roman Brodmann (director), Franz Brandeis (cameraman) and Klaus Schumacher (sound) concentrated on the preparations for the state visit. The second team around Rainer MC Wagner (assistant director), Michael Busse (cameraman), Heinz Hexer (camera assistant) and Rainer Bosch (sound) concentrated on the official process of the state visit to the various cities. The second team sometimes had to split up in order to film the state visit in its entirety, so that a third team was created. The third team filmed the state visit with a 16 mm camera without sound recording. The teams met on the fifth day of the state visit in Rothenburg ob der Tauber.

Originally, the visits to Berlin and Munich should only be shot by one team, as the special events - especially in West Berlin - could not be foreseen when planning the shoot. On the basis of the “little skirmishes” that had taken place in Munich , Roman Brodmann decided: “[...] In Berlin it was clear: it's getting hot here. And then the decision was made very quickly: The minutes are of secondary interest to me, now the film has to be put on two levels. One level is the state visit and the other level is the protest against it ”.

In West Berlin, the team did not stay in the Deutsche Oper or in the Schöneberg Town Hall, but instead filmed the protests in front of the opera or in front of the town hall. The shot that fatally injured Benno Ohnesorg was recorded as the original sound and was not added afterwards. At the time of the shot, the team was approximately "15 to 20 meters from the incident". The image and sound recordings later served as "evidence of the investigations by the public prosecutor in Berlin".

The title of the documentation should first be called “The State Visit”, due to the security precautions and the events in West Berlin, the title was changed to “The Police State Visit”.

“ TV viewers are informed in detail about spectacular state visits through live broadcasts and daily news reports. The “Signs of the Times” editorial team at the SDR in Stuttgart focused less on the guests than on the bells and whistles in order to create a catalog of typical side effects of these elaborate ceremonies. The visit of the Persian imperial couple was chosen as the viewing model; the working title was 'The State Visit'. Two teams accompanied the guests on their trip to Germany from Bonn via Cologne , Aachen , Düsseldorf , Rüdesheim , Rothenburg, Munich, Berlin and Hamburg to Lübeck. While one team in Rothenburg was still watching the final preparations, the other was already on the Rhine with the Shah. The images were alike from Bonn to Lübeck: they were dominated by police marches of unimagined proportions. In Berlin and Hamburg, the need for security culminated in bloody riots , which finally put an unexpected, gloomy accent on the 'Signs of the Times' film, intended as a smirk. "

- SDR press release from 1967

Awards

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d DVD: Signs of the Times - Observations from the Federal Republic (1956-1973) . The films of the Stuttgart school. (2011). absolut Medien GmbH .