Flame sign

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Movie
Original title Flame sign
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1985
length 79 minutes
Age rating FSK 6
Rod
Director Franz Seitz junior
script Gabriele Seitz
production Franz Seitz
camera Rudolf Blaháček
cut Gisela Haller
occupation

and Hans-Reinhard Müller , Martin Umbach , Gabi Marr , Claus-Dieter Reents , Werner Grailich , Thekla Mayhoff , Toni Berger, Frank Lenart, Juliane Melchthal and Hansi Kraus

Flammenzeichen is a film drama by Franz Seitz junior , mainly set in the Third Reich , with Dietrich Mattausch in the lead role, made in cooperation with Bayerischer Rundfunk . In this portrait of the life of the Jesuit priest and anti-Nazi adversary Rupert Mayer, producer and director Seitz mixes games with documentary scenes.

action

Rupert Mayer , son of a wealthy merchant family, felt called to be a priest at an early age. He wants an ascetic way of life and seeks profound scientific training in the Jesuit order in order to take up the fight for the Catholic faith. After years as a people's missionary, he became the pastor of immigrants in Munich, where he became known as a tireless preacher, advisor and fighter for the poor. When war broke out in 1914, he was immediately ready to assist the soldiers at the front as a volunteer chaplain. As a division pastor, he comes to the fore. In December 1916 he was hit by a Russian grenade in the Romanian theater of war. Rupert Mayer survived but lost a leg in the process. He can only get used to the wooden prosthesis with great difficulty, which repeatedly causes wounds and growths.

Back at home in Munich, he resumed his work and helped the post-war misery to alleviate the plight of inflation, which hit the arenas and the needy particularly hard. He becomes President of the Congregation for Men of Marians, organizes station services, and attends meetings of political extremists. Here Mayer warns of a state without God, speaks for reconciliation, freedom and inner renewal. For this he is whistled and ridiculed by the extremists who seek their salvation in unrestrained radicalism. A communist spits at him, another fanatic threatens to shoot him from the pulpit. In 1919 Father Mayer met Hitler, recognized him as “a good public speaker who did not take the truth exactly” and described the National Socialist from the start as a “hysteric of the purest kind”. At a large assembly in the Münchner Bürgerbräu, he implores the audience that a Catholic could never be a National Socialist. You yell at him and want to get violent against him. But Mayer is not discouraged by the anti-clerical screams of the Nazis.

As a result, in 1933, after the seizure of power , he was placed on the black list of the new rulers and is henceforth under Gestapo observation. Finally, Mayer was banned from preaching and was arrested for the first time in 1937. After his conviction in the special court, he is temporarily released. All attempts at intimidation against the brave Catholic fail. The faithful crowd to him when he begins to preach despite the prohibition. This resulted in new arrests, incarceration and finally Mayer's transfer to Sachsenhausen concentration camp . But the National Socialists want to avoid Rupert Mayer becoming a martyr for the unshakable belief that his following is already too large. Instead , he was banished to the Upper Bavarian Ettal Monastery , where he remained until the end of the war in 1945. After the American invasion, Father Mayer returned to Munich. His health is weakened and he has little time left to read masses, bring communion to the sick and help in the search for the missing, living space, clothing and food. On All Saints' Day in 1945 he died of a stroke during mass in the Chapel of St. Michael.

Production notes

Flammenzeichen originated in 1984 and passed the voluntary self-regulation on December 20, 1984. For some inexplicable reason, however, the film was withheld for about eleven months and only premiered on November 28, 1985, a good 40 years after Mayer's death at the beginning of November 1945. The first German television broadcast took place on May 3, 1987 on ARD .

criticism

In the lexicon of international films it is said that this film combines "numerous fictional scenes from the game through a brief commentary" and gives "testimony to the courage of a priest who did not lose his faith in God."

Individual proof

  1. ↑ Flame sign. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed January 1, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 

Web links