The first row

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Movie
Original title The first row
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1987
length 110 minutes
Rod
Director Peter Vogel
script Eberhard Görner
Peter Vogel
Günter Haubold
production DEFA on behalf of
East German television
music Bernd Wefelmeyer
camera Günter Haubold
cut Christine Schöne
Karin Gliffe
occupation

The first series is a DEFA fictional film commissioned by GDR television by Peter Vogel from 1987, based on motifs from the book of the same name by Stephan Hermlin from 1951.

action

A group of light-hearted, young people walk lively across Berlin's Alexanderplatz , past the State Opera Unter den Linden , to pause reverently in front of the Eternal Flame when visiting the Unter den Linden memorial . Here they face six heroes from the front row of the Berlin resistance against National Socialism . They introduce themselves with their biographies : the locksmith Rudolf Schwarz , the bourgeois daughter and student Lilo Herrmann , the printer Heinz Kapelle , the lathe operator Willi Gall and the toolmaker Walter Husemann . In addition to the five authentic main characters, there is the figure of the Spanish fighter Artur Berliner, who is the only survivor who carries the message of his comrades into the new era, assembled from various life stories. Together, these six heroes take part in the premiere of the film Kuhle Wampe and the subsequent celebration. Suddenly a group of SA men entered the hall with clubs and in order to avoid the danger of a fight with the fascists , the group danced out of the hall onto the dark street.

The year 1933 is the year of the seizure of power by the fascists in Germany. Linked to this is that communists and social democrats are being persecuted, the Reichstag is on fire and Opernplatz in Berlin is being used for book burning . The regime’s opponents , which include young intellectuals , workers, communists and other democratic or humanist forces, must go underground . But they act with poster campaigns and the distribution of leaflets to open the eyes of their fellow men to the misanthropy of the National Socialists. But the Gestapo's methods of tracking down and destroying the enemies of fascism are becoming more and more sophisticated. So it won't be long before Rudolf Schwarz is the first of the group to be arrested. Together with three fellow combatants, SA men planned to shoot him “on the run” in the forest.

Lilo Herrmann is excluded from further university visits in Germany because of criminal acts in the sense of communist activities. Her parents do not understand her actions. However, she is not convinced to betray her ideals and friends and is arrested. An action with participation in several countries does not achieve their release. Even the attempted blackmail with her crying little child in an adjoining room of the interrogator cannot dissuade Lilo from her path. She was executed at the age of 31 in Berlin-Plötzensee penitentiary and the parents were sent the invoice with the costs incurred.

Artur Berliner, who is also already in prison, is released by the public prosecutor shortly before Christmas Eve. When the Gestapo wanted to pick him up for questioning, he was already released. His path leads him to his girlfriend Anna. The time of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin came, when the German people wanted to convey the image of a great nation to the world. But even now the young people's conspiratorial work continues. They are ready to take action against Nazi barbarism and preparations for war and risk their lives in the process. Walter Husemann is deported to the Buchenwald concentration camp , but released after many harassments, including a mock execution . The block warden tells him at home in Berlin that he is still under constant surveillance. Artur Berliner travels to Prague to talk to Willi Gall, who on behalf of the party is to lead the establishment of an international alliance to fight the fascists, about further activities. Here he meets again with Anna, whom he tells that he should take part in the Spanish Civil War . In 1939, Willi Gall received an order from the party to go back to Berlin to reorganize the party groups, as a large number of comrades had been arrested in the past. At the Berlin Prenzlauer Allee train station , he meets with Otto Nelte to rebuild the group from Berlin-Adlershof . But he falls into the clutches of the Nazis and is killed two years later in Plötzensee; at this point he is not yet 40 years old.

On September 1, 1939 , the Second World War begins with the attack by the German Wehrmacht on Poland . Heinz Kapelle prints flyers against the war in a printer and distributes them on his motorcycle. That works well until the Gestapo notices peculiarities with a printed "u". After searching the printing works in Berlin, they also find the striking letter and are able to arrest Heinz Kapelle. He must find that the interrogator is well informed about his life. On the way to the execution he shouts: "Long live the Soviet Union". He dies at the age of 28. Walter Husemann was arrested again as a member of the Red Orchestra and sentenced to death at the age of 39.

Artur Berliner manages to escape from prison in civil matters during a bombing raid. He finds his Anna again and immediately joins the resistance again. This leads to the Gestapo interrogator being released from his position and his tasks being taken over by the SS . In the last scene, Berliner walks through a field of ruins where children are playing with weapons. His final appeal is: "Stop the war at last!"

production

Locations were in Berlin among others, the Alexanderplatz , Gendarmenmarkt , the water tower Prenzlauer Berg , Berlin Prenzlauer Allee station , Berlin Friedrichstrasse train station , the Babylon Cinema , Red Town Hall , the Humboldt University of Berlin , Archenhold Observatory , New Guard and parts of the road Unter den Linden .

The first series , subtitled images from Berlin's resistance was to ORWO -Color with several black and white film - sequences shot from archive footage and had its premiere on 22 November 1987 at the first program of the television of the GDR .

In the Federal Republic of Germany , the film was shown for the first time at the end of November 1987 in Stuttgart at the invitation of the Baden-Württemberg state management of the VVN - Bund der Antifaschisten und der Stadtjugendring Stuttgart. On television he was here on November 17, 1989 in the III. The program WDR television broadcast.

The first series was also released on DVD.

criticism

Angelika Rätzke wrote in the Berliner Zeitung :

“Both the narrative style and the visual consistency (Günter Haubold's camera lends truth to the game scenes through color and black-and-white montages of documentary material), the film reproduced signs of time very precisely. Haste, restlessness, insecurity repeatedly highlighted dangerous situations in which the heroes lived. It was communicated objectively and with a brief gesture that none of them could experience "everything that was still unknown, to be expected, the future". Perhaps that is what the viewer finds difficult to cope with. "

The Lexicon of International Films writes that the film is an idiosyncratic, rather introverted GDR television production that breaks the canon of conventional hero images.

Awards

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of December 3, 1987, p. 7
  2. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of November 24, 1987, p. 7
  3. ↑ The first row. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 14, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  4. ↑ Neue Zeit of March 4, 1988, p. 4
  5. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of July 8, 1989, p. 4