Story of a street
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Story of a street |
| Country of production | GDR |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1954 |
| length | 28 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director |
Bruno Kleberg , Walter Marten |
| script | Bruno Kleberg, Walter Marten, Helmut Schneider |
| production | DEFA studio for documentaries |
| music | Ottmar Gerster |
| camera |
Erwin Anders , Harry Bremer , Walter Fehdmer , Hans-Ulrich Männling , Wolfgang Randel |
| cut | Dear Vishnewski |
| occupation | |
| |
The Story of a Street is a documentary film by the DEFA studio for newsreels and documentaries by Bruno Kleberg and Walter Marten from 1954.
action
This film describes the development of a dusty dirt road to a boulevard in the 1950s. This road was originally built as a connecting route from Schloss Friedrichsfelde across the heath to Berlin . Almost at the end point, today's Strausberger Platz , Hans Kohlhase was executed in 1540 , who Heinrich von Kleist used as a template for his novella Michael Kohlhaas . The film tells the story of the next centuries, from the bourgeois period to the battles between Communists and National Socialists , the last defense efforts in World War II and the invasion of the Red Army in 1945. Despite the heavy winter, the sun shone again figuratively over the Frankfurters Avenue. The many ruins were cleared away with the help of rubble women and other volunteers.
And then, in the words of the commentator, came a great moment in the history of this street. On December 21, 1949, this working-class street through which peace had come to this city was given the immortal name of the one who was always a good friend of the German people, it was given the name of Stalin . The first new houses were built on Stalinallee , next to the old ones. On November 25, 1951, the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland published the proposal of the Central Committee of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany to rebuild the German capital, which had been destroyed by the effects of the war, within a few years, larger and more beautiful than it existed. This requires the development of a national initiative.
The citizens of the entire GDR welcomed this proposal and Berlin took the initiative. 45,000 people set out to clear it up on Stalinallee. The architects inspected the street and a short time later the first plans were ready, Professor Hermann Henselmann designed the high-rise buildings on Strausberger Platz and the first models were soon ready. The excavation work was soon completed and on February 3, 1952, the Prime Minister of the GDR Otto Grotewohl laid the foundation stone for the new residential buildings. With the support of the working people from all over the country, progress was made, where only months ago there were ruins, now the houses grew upwards. The new buildings could not be overlooked and attracted curious people from all over the city, including West Berlin .
There was also a lot of new things to experience on the construction site. So Polish masons came from Warsaw and demonstrated their methods. But their own bricklayers also built in a new way, and the apprentices employed in Stalinallee built their own block of flats for which they were responsible. The Volkskammer member Johannes Blender developed a deck crane together with a colleague that lifts itself from floor to floor using its own power. Of course, the multiple attacks on political opponents in West Berlin were not missing in this film either. The Liberty Bell was symbolically referred to as the death knell , while the symbols in Stalinallee consisted of the topping-out crowns .
The first apartment blocks awaited their owners, who have distinguished themselves in particular through their construction work. On January 7, 1953, the first furniture vans moved to Neue Strasse, a worthy home. For the first time, the best worker and activist Ms. Krüger sets foot over the threshold of her new house. Her son Peter confirms, while he turned on the hot water tap, that everything is as they were told, including the intercom from the apartment to the front door. Here you can really feel at home, because the first shops are already luring you to stroll through the street. In the Budapest restaurant there are Hungarian specialties, gypsy music and Hungarian wine.
In a sequence on Block D-South, the speaker recalls the apprentice Helmut Just who was once deployed there and who was murdered in 1952 as a “people's policeman by the enemies of our luck and our successes”. In truth, the murder could never be solved.
The film ends with the words: We all want to live in happiness and peace, in a united fatherland.
Production and publication
The black and white film, shot under the working title Stalinallee , premiered on August 27, 1954. The film was broadcast on February 25, 1955 by the Berlin TV Center (Adlershof) .
Web links
- Story of a street in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- History of a street at filmportal.de
- History of a street on DEFA foundation
Individual evidence
- ^ Information on the history of a street (full content, 0:24:40) in the film database of the DEFA Foundation
- ↑ Berliner Zeitung of February 2, 1955, p. 4