Ernst Thälmann - son of his class
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Ernst Thälmann - son of his class |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1954 |
| length | 127 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Kurt Maetzig , Johannes Arpe |
| script |
Michael Tschesno-Hell , Willi Bredel |
| music | Wilhelm Neef |
| camera | Karl Plintzner |
| cut | Lena Neumann |
| occupation | |
| |
Ernst Thalmann - son's class is a German biopic about the politician, member of the Reichstag and Communist Party chairpersons Ernst Thalmann , who in 1954 DDR -Filmproduktionsgesellschaft DEFA and directed by Kurt Maetzig emerged. In 1955, the second part of Ernst Thälmann - leaders of his class appeared , which covers the period between 1930 and 1944. According to Langenhahn, models were the Soviet monumental films Micheil Tschiaurelis such as The Oath (Kljatwa, 1946), The Fall of Berlin (Padenije Berlina, 2 parts, 1949/1950) and The Unforgettable Year 1919 (Nesabywajemy god 1919, 1952).
action
The film begins in the first days of November 1918. The young Thälmann was fighting on the Western Front at that time and heard of the revolutionary uprising in Kiel. He deserted to help his comrades in Hamburg . With his slogan “Turn the rifles around!” He significantly influenced the beginning of the November Revolution .
When the revolution is endangered by the betrayal of right-wing social democrats and the fragmentation of the working class , he tries to unite the workers . The obvious misery of the common people is increasing. In this situation, the Hamburg police officer wants to prevent the unloading of a shipload of food from Petrograd . Thälmann opposes this plan. The Hamburg uprising begins in October 1923 . Thälmann brings about the unification of the working class and organizes the general strike and an armed workers' uprising.
The overwhelming power of the Reichswehr finally forced the workers to stop fighting. The “American agent” August Thalheimer is named as the culprit for the failure of the uprising, but he does not even appear in this film.
background
The film was also created by pressure from the SED leadership. Walter Ulbricht admonished the artists in 1952: “The DEFA should start making films about the struggle to build the foundations of socialism (...) and bring out several more such films that depict outstanding personalities in the history of our people in their work . ”The General Secretary of the Central Committee intervened personally in the script and made a very positive judgment: The film conveys“ a vivid picture of Ernst Thälmann's role . ”The work can be rated as one of the most important propaganda films of the GDR, but it was over the years shorter. Since 1961, the audience had to forego the scene with Josef Stalin . Wilhelm Pieck , who made a brief appearance in the film, was portrayed by his son Arthur Pieck .
For the role of Thalmann according to a report which was time from 1954 originally Gustav Knuth , and, after its rejection, Claus Holm provided. However, Holm left the GDR and moved to West Berlin.
production
The work on the Thälmann two-part took five years. With a production cost of ten million GDR marks , it was the most expensive film produced by DEFA up to that point. During the shooting, the popular uprising of June 17, 1953 took place when workers demonstrated against the SED's policies with Thälmann pictures.
The film was shot in the Babelsberg studio as well as in Dresden and Rostock . The buildings were designed by Willy Schiller and Otto Erdmann , and Adolf Fischer was in charge of production .
Reviews
“A historical-biographical sheet of pictures that tries to trace the history of the German labor movement and replaces historical truth with a 'partisan view of history'. The pathetic duels of speech were less successful than the adventurous fight scenes in the Hamburg catacombs. "
Awards
-
National Prize of the GDR 1954:
- National Prize 1st class to Kurt Maetzig (direction and screenplay)
- National Prize 1st class to Willi Bredel and Michael Tschesno-Hell (screenplay)
- National Prize 1st class to Karl Plintzner (camera)
- National Prize 1st class to Günther Simon (actor)
- Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 1954: Peace Prize
Voices on the film
“For me, the leading idea behind these films (Ernst Thälmann I and II) was that this workers leader Ernst Thälmann had said: 'Whoever votes for Hindenburg, votes for Hitler, and whoever votes for Hitler, votes for war.' This clear statement alone justified the film, which, however, is shaped in many details by the Stalinist view of history. (...) The film tries to put Thälmann on a pedestal. And I think that's wrong, by the way, I thought back then. (…) I made the film, and in my opinion the first part can be viewed within limits and also has artistic qualities, while the second part falls more and more off because of the overabundance of material and the idealization of the figure. I'm just embarrassed on many points. "
“... But that is not a biography, not even an excerpt from a biography of Ernst Thälmann, but it is the attempt made by party ideologists and their Soviet censors to turn the truth of German and European history after the First World War into an expedient truth of tendency. It says that Germany's bloody and difficult path of the last 30 years would have been avoided if the Germans, following Ernst Thälmann, had already thrown themselves into the arms of the always friendly helper of the Soviet Union after 1918.
The director Kurt Maetzig, the last remaining master of Defa, shot the impressive film Ehe in Schatten many years ago . The suggestive visual power experienced there is also alive in the Thälmann film - all the more frightening, of course, as it is a posed historical and human backdrop. About a propaganda film that has learned everything from the Russians: from the staffage of their trend films, which eerily want to awaken a life on the screen that has long been frozen in the scheme. "
Web links
- Ernst Thalmann - son's class at the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Ernst Thälmann - son of his class at filmportal.de
- Ernst Thälmann - son of his class with a photo gallery ( Memento from December 26, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
- Ernst Thälmann - son of his class at the DEFA Foundation
literature
- Willi Bredel, Michael Tschesno-Hell: Ernst Thälmann - son of his class . Literary scenario. Henschelverlag, Berlin 1954
- Heinz Kersten: The film system in the Soviet occupation zone . Bonn 1954.
- Sandra Langenhahn: Origins and Formation of the Thälmann Cult. The DEFA films “Son of His Class” and “Leader of His Class” . In: (Hrsg.): Leit- und Feindbilder in DDR-Medien ( series of media advice books, issue 5 ). Federal Agency for Civic Education , Bonn 1997, ISBN 3-89331-250-1 , pp. 55–65.
- Russel Lemmons: Hitler's Rival: Ernst Thälmann in Myth and Memory . Lexington 2012 (for details on the films, Chapter 4, pp. 157-185)
- Russel Lemmons: "Great Truths and Minor Truths': Kurt Maetzig's Ernst Thälmann Films, the Antifascism Myth, and the Politics of Biography in the German Democratic Republic." In: Framing the Fifties: Cinema in a Divided Germany , edited by John Davidson and Sabine Hake. Berghahn Books, New York 2007.
- Ingrid Poss, Peter Warnecke (ed.): Trace of the films, contemporary witnesses about DEFA . Berlin 2006.
- Thalmann. With a robust silver look . In: Der Spiegel . No. 14 , 1954, pp. 38 f . ( online - review of the film).
- W. Beer: The East Zonal Thälmann film ... or the art of faking history . In: Die Zeit , No. 13/1954
- Colored teddy . In: Die Zeit , No. 45/1955
Individual evidence
- ↑ Kurt Maetzig - from propagandist to provocateur mdr.de, accessed on December 22, 2019
- ^ Alfred Bauer: German feature film Almanach. Volume 2: 1946-1955 , p. 407
- ↑ Ernst Thälmann - son of his class. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 14, 2016 .
- ↑ W. Beer: The East Zone Thälmann Film ... or the art of falsifying history . In: Die Zeit , No. 13/1954