The bald gang

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Movie
Original title The bald gang
The bald gang Logo 001.svg
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1963
length 74 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Richard Groschopp
script Lothar Kreutz , Richard Groschopp
production Willi Teichmann
music Helmut Nier
camera Siegfried Hönicke
cut Helga Krause
occupation

The bald gang is the title of a crime film produced by DEFA , which was shown in the cinemas of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) from February 15, 1963 . Extensive advertising at the time gave the impression that the film would be based on actual events. As research in the years after the fall of the Wall in 1989 showed, however, there is little reference to real events. Rather, some comparatively harmless incidents were portrayed in a highly dramatized manner in the film, which can be classified into the political realities of the time. With around 2.2 million visitors in a total of five years, it was one of the most successful films in the history of DEFA.

Story of the movie

The film takes place a few days after the construction of the Berlin Wall on August 13, 1961. An accident occurs on a construction site in which two people are killed. Lieutenant Lothar Czernik, an employee of the People's Police , determined botch as the cause of the accident. One of those responsible is a worker from West Berlin , called King by his friends , who previously served in the Foreign Legion . As a result, King hangs around with other young men on the island of Usedom on the Baltic Sea . They have their bald heads shaved, nicknames themselves as camouflage and start harassing the guests of a campsite in Bansin with their mopeds, loud music and violent attacks. After the theft of tire valves, the police are alerted. The resulting situation escalated and the gang acted increasingly brutal in the period that followed. Lieutenant Czernik and his colleagues finally succeed in establishing a connection between the accident on the construction site and the gang. Its members are arrested, including King, who tries unsuccessfully to leave for Sweden.

Actual events

What exactly happened at the Bansin campground in the summer of 1961 can no longer be reconstructed with certainty. However, based on today's knowledge, it can be assumed that the portrayal of the events shown in the film is highly dramatized and exaggerated. There was never an organized gang of young people who terrorized campsites on the Baltic coast for weeks with acts of violence. The 2001 television documentary The True Story of the Bald Gang by Jürgen Ast and Inge Bennewitz made a significant contribution to clearing up the actual events .

The following presentation is based on the statements of those affected and witnesses, as they were researched in the years after 1989. According to this information, the party took place in the beer tent of the campground on the evening of August 1, 1961, a few days before the Wall was built. Among the guests were five young people, some of whom did not even know each other and who were completely bald for no deeper intention or political reasons. The innkeeper, however, felt this and the rock'n'roll music played by the young people to be Western non-culture. Some of the young people were then arrested and taken away by the People's Police. As a result, several hundred campers surrounded the People's Police barracks and, in addition to protesting against the arrests, also expressed their displeasure with the unsatisfactory supply situation prevailing at the time. After the police present on the spot felt threatened and believed that the situation was getting out of hand, task forces were alerted. They put an end to the riot and more arrests were made. 69 of those arrested, most of whom were teenagers, were released the following day after questioning.

Charges were brought against seven of the young people arrested for breach of the peace, and against four others for acts of violence that were dangerous to the state. Their actions were seen as an attempt to instigate a coup and were accordingly rated propagandistically. The term bald gang soon began to prevail in media coverage . The defendants were sentenced in public trials on August 11, 1961 in Wolgast and on September 4, 1961 in Rostock, to a total of 27 years in prison, eight of which were for the main defendant. A judge lost his license after being sentenced to several months in prison because of too mild sentences. Three of the convicted left the GDR after their release from prison.

Reception and aftermath

The film, which was produced in black and white , was primarily part of the subsequent propaganda legitimation of the building of the wall . The reviews in the press with regard to the technical realization of the film were reserved, for example by Fred Gehler the article The day when the bald heads appeared in the March 1, 1963 issue of the daily Das Volk . The success of the film was probably due, on the one hand, to the effect of the propaganda, but on the other hand also to the fact that some of the visitors sympathized with the young people and their attitude to life depicted in the film. The fact that the film was cast by a number of well-known DEFA actors who were popular at the time, and that Richard Groschopp, one of the most famous GDR filmmakers, co-wrote and directed the screenplay , also contributed to the exceptionally high audience figures .

In the traditional cabinet of the Wolgast Volkspolizeikreisamt, which was responsible for the investigation at the time, the events surrounding the alleged bald gang were shown in detail. The processing in a historical-documentary style essentially corresponded to the representation shown in the film. Until after 1990, many people in the region around Wolgast and on the island of Usedom held the opinion that the events depicted in the film actually happened that way.

Building on the film, the film " Discharged on probation ", also directed by Richard Groschopp, followed in 1965 . This shows in a propagandistic style the return of Conny, a member of the bald gang, to society.

In 2004 the Theater Vorpommern staged a series of Glatzkopfbande. Memory of Rock 'n' Roll a stage piece by Werner Buhss based on the events of that time . In this there is an attempt to come to terms with what happened through a fictional encounter between three members of the bald gang and the people who brought them to prison over forty years ago.

In the lexicon of international film , the film is described as follows, among other things:

“[...] After authentic events, a freely designed film, partly in an expressionist style, which blatantly expresses its educational intentions and identifies the rowdies as members of a sloppy bricklayer brigade. The misconduct of the young people is largely explained by Western influences. [...] "

Icestorm Entertainment released the film on VHS video in January 1999 and on DVD in August 2005 . The documentary 'Revolte' on the Baltic Sea beach. The true story of the bald gang was published on DVD in 2008 on behalf of the Federal Foundation for Coming to terms with the SED dictatorship .

literature

  • Inge Bennewitz: The bald gang - a DEFA feature film and its background. In: Heiner Timmermann (Ed.): German questions. From division to unity. Series: Documents and writings of the European Academy Otzenhausen. Volume 97. Duncker & Humblot, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-428-10715-2 , pp. 339-352

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