Young Germany (film)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Young Germany |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2014 |
| length | 90 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Jan Hinrik Drevs |
| script | Jan Hinrik Drevs |
| production |
Benjamin Seikel Christian Bettges |
| music | Timo Blunck |
| camera | André Lex |
| cut |
Sebastian Thümler Marion Pohlschmidt |
| occupation | |
Young Germany is a documentary historical film from 2014 by director Jan Hinrik Drevs with Anna Maria Mühe and Kostja Ullmann in the leading roles. The concept of the film is based on the book We want a different world: Youth in Germany 1900–2010 by the author Fred Grimm .
content
The film uses diary entries, letters, photos and sound documents from the relevant period and documentary film material, in some cases with replayed scenes, to show how the life of young people in Germany in the 20th century was presented .
The story begins in 1910, when more than half of Germans were on average under 22 years old. From childhood on, German youth in the German Empire learn to stand at attention and maintain poise. A 14-year-old girl who started as a maid in a middle-class household in Berlin later reported in her letters to her parents about the hard work and sexual assaults of her host. It shows how strict the etiquette was at that time and how widespread the military cult was. But some nonconformists left and founded the Wandervogel Movement, which is considered the first major youth movement of the 20th century. In 1913 the First Freideutsche Youth Convention took place on the Hoher Meissner . Since there were now also groups of girls from the Wandervogel who took part in the camp together with the boys, this was considered scandalous at the time. But usually only young people from middle-class families could join the group. The majority of young people under the age of 20 were already firmly established in working life (78 percent boys and 68 percent of girls) and came from working-class families. For 13-year-olds, 12-hour working days were not uncommon. In Berlin there were 60,000 one-room apartments in which 5 people or more lived.
Even before the beginning of World War I in the summer of 1914, glorification of war was widespread among young people . At the beginning of the war, young men announced how much they were looking forward to the war. In the first year of the war, around 20,000 Prussian high school students volunteered for military service. In autumn 1918 the German army collapsed and there was an uprising against the old elites. In November 1918, the SPD politician Philipp Scheidemann finally announced the end of the monarchy and the beginning of parliamentary democracy in Germany ( proclamation of the republic in Germany ). In the early 1920s, young people wanted to try things out and experience new things. The majority of young people worked, but looked for fun in their free time with music and dancing, going to the cinema or at sporting events. There was also a new freedom of movement. But at the end of the 1920s, Germany was also hit by the global economic crisis . In 1932, 70 percent of all young men in Berlin were unemployed, even well-trained academics. Many joined radical groups out of frustration and desperation. On the evening of Hitler's rise to power in 1933, thousands of young people marched through Berlin in torchlight procession. Students led book burnings and youngsters fought for the SA . When Hitler came to power, the Hitler Youth had 107,000 members, two years later (before there was compulsory membership) there were already more than 3.5 million.
After the invasion of Poland in September 1939, the Second World War began . In addition to enthusiastic supporters of the Nazis, however, there were also brave young people who resisted. In 1942, the White Rose resistance group was formed around the Scholl siblings in Munich . Towards the end of the war, minors were also burned as flak helpers and in the Volkssturm . 33,000 16-year-olds died in the final months of the war for Hitler. In May 1945 the war was over. With the FDJ , the first youth organization after the war was founded in East Germany in 1945. In 1953 the uprising of June 17th broke out in the GDR , which was brutally suppressed.
The first musical revolution of the post-war period was rock 'n' roll . On November 6, 1957, one of the first demonstrations against nuclear weapons took place in Hamburg, a death march under the motto “Better to be active today than radioactive tomorrow”. In the GDR one tried to establish the Lipsi as a counter-movement to rock 'n' roll . In 1960 beat music came to Germany. After beat music was supposed to be banned in the GDR in 1965, the Leipzig beat demo took place . Commune I was founded in West Berlin . In April 1968 Rudi Dutschke , the spokesman for the student movement of the 1960s , was assassinated. In 1973 the GDR hosted the World Festival for Youth and Students in East Berlin. At the beginning of the 1980s, the New German Wave had its peak. Political demonstrations played an important role in the 1980s: in 1981, 80,000 demonstrated against the expansion of Frankfurt Airport, 100,000 against the Brokdorf nuclear power plant , and 300,000 against armament in Bonn. In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster brought the issue of nuclear power back into the headlines. A young party in Germany emerged from the environmental movement : The Greens .
After years in which numerous young people questioned the prevailing structures and criticized consumption and capitalism , many young people in Germany became more conservative again during the time of the Helmut Kohl government , and in some cases the young people were even more stuffy than their parents. After the sexual liberation , the youth also became more restrained sexually, and with the rise of AIDS the time of free love was over. In 1989 the Monday demonstrations began in the GDR , which ultimately led to the fall of the Berlin Wall on November 9, 1989 .
background
- Originally, a film series with at least four parts was planned for the project. For cost reasons it was shortened to three, then to two parts in the course of three years of development, and finally it was combined into a single 90-minute episode. NDR editor Dirk Neuhoff said: “We couldn't manage financially more than these 90 minutes. But we didn't want to give up the project entirely and did what we could. "
- It was first broadcast on ARD on April 21, 2014 at 6.30 p.m. and reached 1.37 million viewers. The film was produced by C-Films Germany and SMP Signed Media Produktion on behalf of NDR and WDR . The shooting took place from April 7th to April 23rd 2013 in Hamburg.
Reviews
“It is nice that Mühe and Ullmann, in the best Forrest-Gump manner, transform themselves into the young people they cite here in small films. [..] Mühe and Ullmann do it very well. The whole thing is also made very technically complex. The films look like real documentary material. So far so good. Unfortunately, the 'spontaneous' and apparently informal conversations between the two actors about youth in the old days seem very artificial. "
“It also doesn't help that both of them are almost 30 but should represent today's generation of young people. On the other hand, the historical footage used between the agonizing loft scenes is very good - especially in the first half. With a few exceptions, it is not the boring standard snippets that have been seen a thousand times, but numerous unspent and sometimes fascinating film documents. "
“Another problem with the film is its extremely fast timing. Since the period covered does not span the '100 years of youth' advertised by the broadcaster, it spans eight decades - from the youth in the German Empire in 1910 to German reunification in 1989/90 - a running length of 88 minutes per decade theoretically amounts to eleven minutes to disposal. And because half of the time is spent for the first 35 years with the two world wars (which is basically understandable), the remaining 45 years have to be dealt with even faster. "
“A project worth seeing, a cross-generational one: This is how the grandparents must have lived, that moved the parents! Already exciting for those interested in history, this is also well-prepared material for school lessons. "
“What sets 'Young Germany' apart from the multitude of comparable productions are the scenic reconstructions, which Drevs has stylistically adapted to the current state of the art. Thanks to the costume, equipment and mask, the game scenes cannot be distinguished from the contemporary recordings; usually you can only recognize them by discovering Mühe and Ullmann somewhere. "
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Too know, too good, too mainstream in Die Tageszeitung from April 20, 2014.
- ↑ Forrest Gump's little heirs in Stern from April 21, 2014.
- ↑ Documentary experiment "Young Germany": Breathless through the history hit parade on Spiegel Online from April 20, 2014.
- ↑ This is how the grandparents must have lived in DerWesten from April 18, 2014.
- ↑ Via Express through history ( Memento from April 27, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) in Frankfurter Rundschau from April 21, 2014.