The Roedern affair
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | The Roedern affair |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1944 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 6 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Erich Waschneck |
| script |
Toni Huppertz Gerta Ital |
| production |
Christoph Mülleneisen junior Franz Tapper |
| music | Norbert Schultze |
| camera | Walter Pindter |
| cut | Marte Rau |
| occupation | |
| |
The Roedern affair is a German historical feature film with Nazi propaganda elements from 1944. Directed by Erich Waschneck , Paul Hartmann played the main role of fortress builder Dietrich von Roedern.
action
Prussia, at the time of Frederick the Great . In his service is Major General Dietrich Edler von Roedern, a recognized fortress builder who pursues his work with fanatical zeal and seriousness. He doesn't feel like having women or celebrations. Although he is married to Elisabeth, a woman who has gradually become estranged from him because of his nature, this marriage really only exists on paper. When Friedrich II invited him to a soiree, Roedern met the singer Maria Raven. Both feel connected to each other from the beginning, a fateful, invisible bond that seems to chain the two so fundamentally different people together. For the first time, Dietrich von Roedern experienced something like passionate love.
After drawing up a plan of fortification for the Silesian Schweidnitz, which was regarded as outstanding, his Majesty granted him a holiday as a sign of highest appreciation, which Roedern would of course like to spend with Maria. There were days of intimate happiness that led him to write to his wife Elisabeth for a divorce. When the king called Roedern back to start building the fortress in Schweidnitz, he left Maria at the holiday resort and went back to his actual vocation in the small Silesian town, which for him was much more than just a job. Maria has meanwhile returned to Berlin, where Elisabeth is under no circumstances willing to agree to the divorce for reasons of formal integrity, especially since she wants to remain Major General.
Roedern has also returned to Berlin. In Count Wengen's Austrian embassy, where he hopes to meet General Krusemarck to explain his plans for a fortress, he comes across a certain Marquis d'Orion instead. The blasé Frenchman has nothing better to do than gossip and spread bad rumors. One of these rumors concerns Maria and Roedern. When he feels that the singer's honor has been attacked, he confronts the mocker and slaps her in the face. In the excitement Roedern escaped the fact that the fortress construction plan had slipped out of the roll of documents. When he picks up his plans again, Roedern does not notice that a crucial part of the plan has disappeared. D'Orion finds the document and thinks about how he can take revenge on Roedern for the assault. Since Austria and Prussia were regularly in political and military conflict at this time (18th century), he played the plan into the hands of Count Wengen, the Austrian ambassador at the Prussian court. Although Wengen appreciates Roedern, he passes this important information - duty is duty - on to Vienna.
The marquis, on the other hand, insists on it and denounces the fortress builder himself to the Prussian king. The Austrian courier, who is galloping towards Vienna with the fortress plan, can be intercepted at the last moment. Roedern has no idea what is brewing over him, he is spending a night of love with his Maria. Shortly after he leaves her, he is arrested, removed from office and sentenced to life imprisonment in the Schweidnitz citadel for treason as a result of bottomless stupidity and inattention. Wengen is shocked by where his sense of duty has taken his esteemed friend and lets himself be replaced as envoy. Before that, he, who killed the Marquis d'Orion in a duel, was able to convince the Prussian king to let Roedern continue to work on defense plans himself in his dungeon. In view of the dramatic developments, Elisabeth von Roedern finally agrees to a divorce and drops her husband like a hot potato. Only Maria still stands by Roedern. She can get the king to let her go to Schweidnitz. In the hour of his greatest need, she wants to share his meager life behind bars with him. But Roedern vehemently rejects this willingness to make sacrifices. Thereupon his lover tried her luck in Vienna to get relief for the former master builder there. There is another armed conflict between Austria and Prussia. The Seven Years War (1756 to 1763) has begun.
Schweidnitz is taken by the Austrians, and Wengen has Frederick's noblest prisoner brought to Vienna. Maria is seriously ill in the meantime and her death is near. She rears up one last time and finds her way back to life when she learns from Wengen of the upcoming arrival of her Dietrich. Roedern visits Maria on her deathbed, but she is no longer alive: her weak heart had stopped beating shortly before. Now Roedern doesn't hold anything here anymore. He can make his way to Prussia, and thanks to his excellent fortification plan, his experience and bravery, Schweidnitz is won back for Prussia. In this final battle Dietrich von Roedern is seriously injured and dies the so-called "heroic death". On his deathbed, the Order of the Black Eagle , which was once awarded and revoked in the course of the "Roedern Affair", is returned to him, thus restoring his honor.
Production notes
The Roedern affair began on July 12, 1943 , with outdoor recordings in Potsdam and studio recordings in the Babelsberg Althoff studio. The shooting ended in October of the same year. The premiere of this propaganda film took place on July 14, 1944 in Breslau and Braunschweig. The Berlin premiere was on September 7, 1944, the same day The Roedern Affair started in Potsdam.
Christoph Mülleneisen and Franz Tapper also took over the production management. The film structures come from Alfred Bütow and Heinrich Beisenherz . Carl Erich Kroschke set the tone.
The only song that was played was "Tonight the nightingales sang outside my window ...". The singer in the opera as Theseus is Gerhard Hüsch , the soprano Tiana Lemnitz , a native of Lorraine, could also be heard: She intoned the vocal parts of the actress Annelies Reinhold , who embodied the singer Maria Raven here. Film veteran Hugo Werner-Kahle gave his farewell performance in front of the camera.
The manufacturing costs amounted to 1,873,000 million RM . This made The Roedern Affair a relatively expensive film. But since he grossed 2,608,000 RM by February 1945, Waschneck's production is considered a moderate box office success.
Awards and interesting facts
The film received the following awards from the Nazi state in 1944:
- "Politically valuable"
- "Youth value"
In addition, as reported a trade journal, the strip was given a very special “honor”. The publication stated:
“In order to adapt the program of the German film theaters to the seriousness and size of our time, the distribution companies have been instructed to offer the film theaters reprise films of soldiers and national content with immediate effect. These are the following films: ... The Roedern affair ... "
In 1945 the Allied military censorship banned the film from showing it.
Reviews
“In the feature film“ The Roedern Affair ”… Paul Hartmann embodied the character of the film hero, who was endowed with all Prussian soldier virtues. (...) The women, who at that time made up the majority of the moviegoers in the Reich, did not care about the military theme, but the youth were strongly represented among the audience. For the Austrians, the film was "too Prussian", but it was also ... not received appropriately in Hamburg. "
"A smooth, historically inaccurate melodrama, which in 1944, the year of the war, warned to fulfill one's duty and was recognized as" politically valuable "and" youthful "."
"The monolithic figures in Der imperative Call ( Gustav Ucicky , D 1944), The Roedern Affair (Erich Waschneck, D 1944) or The Heart Must Be Silent (Gustav Ucicky, D 1944) are committed to the famous higher cause, which is all needs for the happiness of love towers. The surgeon, the fortress builder and the x-ray doctor ideally fill their elite positions with the ethical ingredients claimed by the National Socialist leadership. Here victim pathos and the transfiguration of death gain ground again. (...) The women essentially adapt to the male life plan or are integrated into it. "
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Ulrich J. Klaus: German sound films 13th year 1944/45. P. 17 f. (001.44), Berlin 2002
- ^ The Roedern affair in the Lexicon of International Films
Web links
- The affair Roedern in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Roedern affair at filmportal.de