Secret Reich Matter (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Secret Reich business |
| Country of production | FRG , Austria |
| Publishing year | 1988 |
| length | 206 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Michael Kehlmann |
| script | Edmund Wolf |
| production | Satel movie |
| camera | Elio Carniel |
| cut | Irene Tomschik |
| occupation | |
| |
Geheime Reichssache is a German-Austrian two-part television series from 1988, which was first broadcast on Bavarian television on December 10, 1988. Directed by Michael Kehlmann based on a script by Edmund Wolf.
The film deals with the events of the Blomberg-Fritsch crisis in 1938, during which both Reich Minister of War Werner von Blomberg and Army Commander-in-Chief Werner von Fritsch had to give up their offices. After her departure, Hitler formed a new Wehrmacht top level tailored to his needs. He left the office of Reich Minister of War vacant, but took over his powers. As a kind of military office, he created the Wehrmacht High Command , which he occupied with General Wilhelm Keitel . Colonel General Walther von Brauchitsch became the new commander in chief of the army .
The film ascribes the events very much to the intrigues of Hermann Göring and the SS under Heinrich Himmler and Reinhard Heydrich , who - each pursuing their own interests - saw primarily institutional competitors in Blomberg and Fritsch, while Hitler - according to the opening sequence of the film - on the intrigues against the Wehrmacht leadership had entered into because Blomberg and Fritsch had not supported his war intentions resolutely enough.
action
First part, subtitle: "Two out of the way"
The first part of the film begins with the conference on November 5, 1937 in the Reich Chancellery, at which Hitler first revealed his war intentions against Czechoslovakia to the military leadership of the Reich (Blomberg, Fritsch, Göring) and Reich Foreign Minister Konstantin von Neurath (cf. Hoßbach transcript ). Since Blomberg and Fritsch also consider war with the Western powers to be inevitable in this case, they contradict Hitler, while Goering and Neurath remain silent. Hitler later complained to Goering about the non-warlike attitude of the two generals. Göring then worked towards the fall of Blomberg in order to take over his post himself.
In doing so, Göring comes to pass the marriage of Blomberg's widower to the young Luise Margarethe "Eva" Gruhn, who has a criminal record for a moral offense at a young age (pornography). Blomberg, who only vaguely knows about a “certain past” of his bride and believes in a few simple affairs, confidently betrays this to Göring and asks Hitler to mediate, as he initially only fears the criticism of his general colleagues with their dusty views of honor. Göring encourages Blomberg while he is conferring behind his back with Himmler and Heydrich in Karinhall on how to get rid of Blomberg and at the same time his potential successor from Fritsch. Heydrich refers to a file process from 1936, when a protocol was drawn up about Fritsch, in which he was accused of homosexual acts that were still punishable at the time under Section 175 of the RStGB . At the time, the protocol was destroyed on Hitler's orders, but, according to Heydrich, a cynical and ironic copy was still preserved.
Goering and the SS are now launching the explosive information about Blomberg and Fritsch on more or less tortuous paths to Hitler, who rises into deliberate outrage and initially confronts Blomberg with the alternative of losing his office or annulling his marriage. Goering, who acts as the messenger of the news, does not tell Blomberg the possibility of remaining in office if the marriage is annulled. Blomberg therefore decides in favor of his wife and Hitler drops Blomberg. Blomberg, on the other hand, who worships Hitler, believes in intrigues on the part of the generals.
Since von Fritsch, as a commander-in-chief, generally respected in the army, would be the given successor, Hitler now rushes to the 1936 protocol fictitious by the SS. He speaks to Colonel Hoßbach, who, as an army adjutant, is a liaison between the "Führer" and the commander-in-chief of the army, in a rage and now allegedly considers the document destroyed in 1936 to be genuine. He also forbids Hoßbach to inform Fritsch now. In response to Hoßbach's objections, he implores: "Hoßbach, I am your conscience!"
At a meeting between Hitler, Fritsch, Göring and Hoßbach, at which an alleged witness appears, Fritsch defends himself awkwardly, while Hitler rejects his word of honor and initiates an interrogation by the Gestapo - an unjuristic procedure, since Fritsch as a member of the Wehrmacht claims the investigation by the armed forces justice.
In the meantime, Blomberg, who is only in office pro forma, advises Hitler to leave the post of Reich Minister of War vacant so that Hitler becomes "de jure and de facto Commander-in-Chief of the Wehrmacht". For the “necessary staff work”, Blomberg recommends Wilhelm Keitel that, according to Blomberg, he is “not a general, but a good office manager” and “wholeheartedly” loyal. Hitler is clearly taken with the proposal. In the event of war, he promises Blomberg a prominent use.
The first part of the film ends with the killed Commander-in-Chief Fritsch riding out together with Joachim von Stülpnagel, who is critical of the regime. He concludes that Hitler is now alone on the stage of German politics "with a gas canister and a burning fuse, almighty enough to set fire to the world".
Second part, subtitle: "To the last man"
The second part depicts the aftermath of the affair, including above all the trial of Fritsch before the Reich Court Martial, and begins with his last day in office, on which Fritsch rejects both a military coup and an action by the army generals against the regime, as he fears a civil war . A scene follows in which Hitler describes the crisis before the military leadership (without Blomberg and Fritsch) in his sense, while on the radio there is the official statement that only a revision in the sense of an optimized leadership structure of the Reich has taken place.
Investigations by Judge-Martial Dr. Bürron and Fritsch's lawyer von der Goltz finally lead on the trail of a Rittmeister Achim von Frisch, who was actually observed and blackmailed by the witness Otto Schmidt. Confronted with this, Schmidt claims, even under pressure from the Gestapo, that he observed and blackmailed both Fritsch and Frisch during homosexual acts. Despite this turn, Hitler insists on the process being carried out and threatens Himmler with consequences if Fritsch is acquitted.
When the court martial meets under the direction of Göring, the latter initially works towards a conviction of Fritsch. After being interrogated by von der Goltz, the witness Schmidt gets entangled in ever new contradictions. On the occasion of the "Anschluss" of Austria, the negotiation is interrupted. Fritsch speculated to a confidante that Göring had initiated this foreign policy coup in order to divert the dissatisfied generals from the shameful proceedings against Fritsch.
When the trial was later continued, Göring's conduct of the negotiations changed noticeably: since an acquittal for Fritsch after the military success of the occupation of Austria has lost a good part of its explosiveness, he is now putting pressure on the witness Schmidt himself, after other witnesses ( Achim von Frisch, among others) have shaken the prosecution more and more. Fritsch is now acquitted and resigned with the appointment as chief of Artillery Regiment No. 12 as a symbolic minimal gesture by Hitler. In a new speech to the military leadership (again without Fritsch), Hitler stylized himself as the actual victim of the affair, who had been "shamefully lied to". The scene ends with stormy calls from the generals to Hitler.
In a thoughtful conversation with his successor Brauchitsch, Fritsch ponders the opportunity he did not use to shake the regime through an act of resistance and whether history will one day thank him for his behavior. The German chances in a war against Czechoslovakia, which both see as imminent, is viewed by Fritsch with gloom; at the same time he oracles about his death, through which he no longer has to live to see the bitter end of Hitler's "irrevocable decisions". The death of Fritsch at the front in the course of the Polish campaign is portrayed as suicide: Fritsch walks with his head held high into Polish rifle fire. Original recordings from the newsreel show Fritsch's state funeral, which Hitler listens to on the radio.
The life of Blomberg while traveling abroad and during the last years of the war in the Allgäu is shown in several short scenes. Blomberg initially admires Hitler's successes and hopes that it will be reused. When Blomberg visits the cinema, other original recordings of German war reporting are shown, possibly also from the film “Sieg im Westen”. Blomberg comments on the pictures of French colonial troops shown in a racist way. The hoisting of the swastika flag on the Eiffel Tower and Hitler's victory celebration in Berlin led to calls for salvation in the audience; Blomberg rises too. Shortly thereafter, two scenes with Blomberg address Stalingrad and the Allied bombings.
This is followed by the arrest and interrogation of Blomberg by the Americans. A doctor in custody briefly addresses the murder of millions of Jews. During the interrogations, Blomberg played down his role and the crimes of the Nazis during his tenure. The men of July 20, 1944 were "mutineers and traitors" for him at the time. Blomberg's health deteriorated noticeably in custody. He died of cancer on March 13, 1946 after a last visit from his wife. In the corridor of the hospital prison an officer recognizes her as Mrs. Blombergs. A dialogue ensues: Blomberg also cheered Hitler, whereupon another prisoner asks thoughtfully: "Who doesn't?"
criticism
The "top-class" film, which largely dispenses with outdoor shots, has the effect of a chamber play for a long time, which could also be due to the fact that the director Kehlmann had also made a name for himself as a theater director, including at the Burgtheater in Vienna. The main actor Alexander Kerst also worked there, while Hans Schulze took part in the Salzburg Festival and later became director of the Bochum drama school.
background
Adolf Hitler is played in the film by the Jewish actor Michael Degen. For the “Jüdische Allgemeine” this is “A nice case of poetic justice. Because if it had been up to the "Führer", Michael Degen would not have survived 1943. He was eleven years old when the remaining Berlin Jews were put on the deportation trains to Auschwitz from the Grunewald train station. The boy went underground with his mother. His father, a professor, had died three years earlier as a result of torture in Sachsenhausen concentration camp. "
Awards
Edmund Wolf received the television award of the German Employees' Union in 1989 for the script for the film .
Web links
- State secret in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Secret Reich Matter. Retrieved November 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Died: Michael Kehlmann . In: Spiegel Online . tape 49 , December 5, 2005 ( spiegel.de [accessed November 29, 2019]).
- ↑ Died: Alexander Kerst . In: Spiegel Online . tape 50 , December 13, 2010 ( spiegel.de [accessed November 29, 2019]).
- ^ Salzburg Festival Archive. Retrieved November 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Michael Wuliger : Michael Degen. From Brecht to the dream ship. Jüdische Allgemeine, January 31, 2017, accessed November 29, 2019 .
- ↑ Ursula Seeber: Time gives the pictures. Writers who had Austria as their home . Ed .: Documentation Center for Newer Austrian Literature. Vienna 1992, p. 147 .