The Spiegel Affair
The Spiegel affair is a German television - Drama from 2014 by Roland Suso Richter . The script for the political thriller was written by Johannes Betz and deals with the Spiegel affair from 1962, which is seen as an important milestone for press freedom in Germany.
action
On October 26, 1962, the editorial offices of the news magazine Der Spiegel in the Hamburg press building are occupied and searched by the police. Federal Defense Minister Franz Josef Strauss felt so pressured by the journalists that he obtained a search of Federal Chancellor Konrad Adenauer . In the October 8, 1962 edition of Spiegel, an article written by Conrad Ahlers appeared under the title Conditionally ready for defense, in which it is shown that the defense concept of the Bundeswehr represented by Strauss could not ward off a potential attack by the Warsaw Pact . The finding is based, among other things, on the results of the NATO maneuver Fallex 62 . Several Spiegel editors are arrested for treason and bribery , as it is believed that the journalists received their information through monetary payments. The attack on freedom of the press led to violent protests from the population and, in the course of the affair, the Adenauer cabinet, consisting of the CDU , CSU and FDP , broke up . The arrested editors of the Spiegel are successively released, and after a total of 103 days in custody, Spiegel editor Rudolf Augstein is finally free again.
Differences from reality
Franziska Augstein , the daughter of Rudolf Augstein, pointed out numerous points in which the film deviated from reality and sometimes grossly falsified it. In addition to superficialities such as the fact that things were always very formal in the editorial office and that knocking on the floor and friendly behavior were frowned upon, the editors were not as arrogant as shown, but were afraid for their lives when the editorial rooms were stormed, because it was It was about men who all grew up during the Nazi era and who knew only too well what the state and its security forces could do.
Franziska Augstein is particularly critical of the fact that the film only marginally deals with the actual Spiegel affair and that it is extremely focused on the personal conflict between Rudolf Augstein and Franz Josef Strauss, as if it had been a private feud between two men. The actual affair, however, took place in the Bundestag as well as between Spiegel and the federal prosecutor's office . The Federal Prosecutor's Office is represented in the film by Siegfried Buback ; important people who acted against the journalists did not appear in the film or had hardly any meaning in it, including Federal Prosecutor Albin Kuhn, State Secretary in the Federal Ministry of Defense Volkmar Hopf , Federal Prosecutor Walter Wagner and the head of the department for high treason Theo Saevecke .
She described the fact that Augstein was portrayed in the film as "nonsense" as if he had only had the goal of ousting Strauss. In fact, Augstein saw Konrad Adenauer as a bigger problem, as he did not actively take care of reunification and only promoted the stronger ties between West Germany and the West. Augstein respected and valued Strauss as a private citizen; he only considered his politics to be extremely dangerous. The representation that Augstein urged editors to research against Strauss does not correspond to reality. The research on the article was partially ready for defense had started from Conrad Ahlers , Augstein merely skimmed the article and did not consider it particularly important.
One of the reasons why Strauss considered Augstein's policy dangerous was that, contrary to the conviction of Bundeswehr officers, he did not want to put the money from the defense budget into conventional defense , but into nuclear warheads . At his instigation, the Bundeswehr also ordered error-prone starfighters and had them converted to transport nuclear missiles. Franziska Augstein describes the allegation that Colonel Alfred Martin only contacted journalists because he had not been promoted as defamation . In fact, the army officer wanted to make known Strauss' plans for nuclear armament in the country, which were also nonsensical in his view, solely for reasons of conscience.
As blatant misinformation, Franziska Augstein criticizes the text overlay at the end of the film, which reads: "If you had found the secret documents in the safe or the original with sources, the state would have been treason." In fact, the authorities would have the exposé of Article found and with Colonel Martin the information provider was discovered and imprisoned.
Rudolf Augstein's ex-wife Gisela Stelly Augstein also stated: “In fact, pretty much everything is wrong with this film character Augstein. It in no way claims to have the slightest resemblance to the real Augstein. Not in appearance and not as character. "
In 1965 the Federal Court of Justice also refused to open legal proceedings against the main suspects Rudolf Augstein and Conrad Ahlers, as there was no evidence of a betrayal of secrets. And in 1966 the Federal Constitutional Court found that the press fulfilled a public task and that freedom of the press was of enormous importance to the state.
background
- The producer Gabriela Sperl doubted that people in Germany today would take to the streets in a situation comparable to that of then. In view of a felt powerlessness towards politicians and political decisions, she understands the film as a kind of appeal that citizens should get involved again.
- The screenwriter Johannes Betz was supported in his work by Gabriela Sperl, Michael Stürmer and Stefan Aust . However, the classic view with Augstein as a champion of democracy and Strauss as an unsympathetic power politician was deliberately broken. Betz literally: “From a purely historical point of view, the negative sides of Strauss should certainly have been shown more strongly. But we took the liberty of saying: This is not a docudrama. ”In addition, Betz explained that the stations involved had repeatedly raised the question of whether one could not depict stronger female characters when developing the script. Since there was not a single woman in a managerial position in the editorial team at the time the action took place, but only " tips " that at best should have brought coffee to a chief reporter or department head, this would have been too far-fetched. Franziska Augstein also confirmed with regard to the time: "Women in the text editing department only lost something as typists".
- Francis Fulton-Smith gained 20 kilograms for the role of Franz Josef Strauss under medical supervision within a few months and played the role with pathological obesity .
- The film, produced by Sperl Film and Wiedemann & Berg Television for WDR , BR , ARD Degeto , ARTE and Telepool , was first broadcast on ARTE on May 2, 2014. Five days later, the ARD broadcast the film on May 7, 2014 as part of a themed evening on the Spiegel Affair and then showed the documentary Conditionally ready for defense by Stefan Aust with the story behind the affair.
Reviews
“Telling politics in an exciting way - that is an art that is rarely cultivated on German television. So all the more remarkable when it does succeed. The film 'The Spiegel Affair' is an outstanding example of how a complicated historical event dating back decades can be presented in an exciting, rousing and enlightening manner on television. [..] Although designed as a power struggle between Strauss and Augstein, the film shows very clearly the importance of the struggle for freedom of the press. [..] Due to the NSA affair and the state attempts in the USA and Great Britain to prevent informants and the media from publishing the machinations of the secret services, it has become unexpectedly topical. "
“As an analogy, the makers bring the US series ' Mad Men ' into play, this series about an advertising agency in New York in the 50s and 60s. 'Were there' Mad Men 'in Germany? Of course it existed, you just have to imagine it, 'says Johannes Betz, the screenwriter. 'The Spiegel Affair' is at times an entertaining film, but not an exciting one. "
"Even if author Johannes Betz conjures it up in the press booklet: Rufolf [sic] Augstein is not Don Draper and 'The Spiegel Affair' is not 'Mad Men'. [..] And so something amazing happens: As convincingly as Fulton-Smith plays his Strauss, he is actually able to generate something like pity in the audience. This sentiment is of course at odds with everything that the 'Spiegel Affair' stands for in the general consciousness. "
“The film 'The Spiegel Affair', the fictional reconstruction of those almost forgotten events because the rescue of democracy is in the shadow of the building of the Wall and the Cuba crisis , is a masterpiece from the history workshop of television, brilliantly written, brilliantly staged, with brilliant actors. "
“The film is unable to build a bridge between the new, the willingness to protest on the streets, and the old, the finger-wrestling between politicians and journalists, which was once lost here. The fact that Augstein, in a double bed, where he heard about the building of the Berlin Wall, first remembers how useful the bouquet might be, best characterizes the basic structure of this film, which is unrelated to politics. There is little the actors can do to avoid appearing as if they were in the flying classroom . High school students against high school students. Except that in this case Strauss is the high school student and the high school students are the good guys. "
Web links
- The Spiegel affair in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- The Spiegel Affair in the online film database
- Director Roland Suso Richter about his TV adaptation on Deutschlandradio Kultur
- Interview with Stefan Aust about the film on Radio Bremen
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Adaptation of the "Spiegel" affair: The Duel in Süddeutsche Zeitung from April 26, 2014
- ^ TV film "The Mirror Affair": Mirrored in Zeit Online on May 7, 2014
- ^ "Spiegel" affair: attack on the freedom of the press on NDR .de from October 26, 2012
- ↑ a b c The Mad Men from Hamburg in the daily newspaper from May 2, 2014
- ↑ ARD brings "Spiegel" affair on television ( memento from March 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) on NDR .de from May 2, 2014
- ↑ Francis Fulton-Smith feeds himself to Ostrich in Express, April 24, 2014
- ^ "Spiegel Affair": Power struggle between two alpha animals ( Memento from May 3, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in Frankfurter Rundschau from May 1, 2014
- ↑ TV film “The Spiegel Affair” on Tittelbach.tv from April 11, 2014
- ↑ Definitely ready to attack in Der Tagesspiegel of May 1, 2014
- ↑ Man, those were the days! in The Friday of May 1st, 2014