Conscience in turmoil

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Movie
Original title Conscience in turmoil
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1961
length 385 minutes
Rod
Director Hans-Joachim Kasprzik ,
Günter Reisch
script Hans-Joachim Kasprzik ,
Hans Oliva ,
Günter Reisch ,
Rudolf Petershagen
production DEFA studio for feature films, group “Roter Kreis”
on behalf of the DFF
music Günter Klück
camera Hartwig Strobel ,
Otto Hanisch ,
Horst E. Brandt
cut Lena Neumann
Bärbel Weigel
Hildegard Conrad
occupation

Conscience in turmoil is a 5-part mini-series by DEFA for German television . It was created in 1961 based on the autobiographical report of the same name by Rudolf Petershagen .

action

Colonel Joachim Ebershagen than German soldier of the 6th Army in Stalingrad included. The experiences make him begin to doubt the meaning of the war. He is flown out with one of the last aircraft as a wounded man.

Back home, he becomes the commandant of Greifswald . Towards the end of the war he surrendered the city to the Soviet Army on April 30, 1945 without a fight . The death sentence pronounced by a court martial will not be carried out. After the end of the war, Ebershagen and his soldiers were taken prisoner by the Soviets . His fellow prisoners call him a traitor and avoid him. A former SS officer tries to kill him because Ebershagen identified him as a war criminal after his stay in the hospital in 1942 .

Ebershagen returned to Germany in 1949 and, as the district councilor of Usedom, helped to rebuild the area. In 1950 he traveled to West Germany to speak to former comrades. In the American zone of occupation he falls into the clutches of the American secret service. He resists their attempts at blackmail, which are related to the rearmament of the FRG . Then Ebershagen is by a military court to six years in prison convicted. In the Landsberg War Crimes Prison , he experiences how well the Nazi war criminals live, who are gradually being freed and preparing for a new army. After almost three years he was released due to his poor health and is now finally returning home to his family in the GDR .

Production and publication

Title and first broadcasts of the individual episodes:

  1. Decision on the Volga (TV premiere (DFF): September 5, 1961)
  2. When the bells fell silent (Premiere: September 7, 1961)
  3. Where the paths separate (Premiere: September 10, 1961)
  4. On the Other Side (Premiere: September 12, 1961)
  5. Second homecoming (premiere: September 14, 1961)

On September 24, 1961, the five parts, shot as a black and white film, were shown for the first time in a row in the Babylon cinema in Berlin . This form of performance was practiced several times in various cinemas. For the normal start in the GDR cinemas , the film was divided into two parts, which could be seen from November 3 and 10, 1961.

criticism

In the daily newspaper Neues Deutschland , Katja Stern remarks after broadcasting the five episodes:

“It is to the great merit of the creators of television films that they have withstood all the dangers of exaggeration, false pathos or pompous dialogue, which could have degraded even such a big topic to mediocrity. On the contrary, the artistic mastery of this television novel is expressed in a downright measured and disciplined modesty in the means with which each scene was designed. This gave the whole thing its exciting atmosphere and strong expressiveness. "

The lexicon of international films writes that the exciting, emotionally moving "TV novel" was conceived as an answer to the West German series "As far as your feet carry". As one of the first successful multi-part series on East German television, it was rejected by the DEFA management prior to its TV adaptation on the grounds that the period of World War II was not worth portraying from the perspective of a German officer. "

Awards

literature

  • Rudolf Petershagen: Conscience in turmoil , Verlag der Nation, Berlin 1957

swell

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Berliner Zeitung of September 22, 1961, p. 12
  2. ↑ Neues Deutschland from September 19, 1961 p. 4
  3. ↑ Conscience in turmoil. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed September 2, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used