Cheer up, Johannes!
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Cheer up, Johannes! |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 1941 |
| length | 78 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK no ( reservation film ) |
| Rod | |
| Director | Viktor de Kowa |
| script |
Toni Huppertz Wilhelm Krug Felix von Eckardt |
| production | Conrad Flockner |
| music | Harald Boehmelt |
| camera | Friedl Behn-Grund |
| cut | Lena Neumann |
| occupation | |
| |
Cheer up, Johannes! is a National Socialist German feature film by Viktor de Kowa , which premiered on March 11, 1941 in Berlin's Tauentzienpalast . It is the third and at the same time last directorial work by the actor de Kowa. The short film Youth Flies, produced by Ufa in cooperation with the National Socialist Aviation Corps , was shown in the opening program .
After the Second World War , the propaganda film got cheers up, Johannes! in Germany put on the list of films not released for public screening by the Allies . To this day, the film belongs to the group of reserved films and is therefore only accessible in closed events.
action
The German von Redel family has lived separately from one another for ten years. The mother with her son Johannes as an expatriate German in Argentina , the father as the owner of a manor near Berlin . Johannes, who is called Juan by everyone in his new homeland, grows up prosperous in his mother's relaxed lifestyle. After her sudden death, aunt Julieta Merck fulfilled her sister's last wish and brought the now 15-year-old boy back to his father in Germany. Johannes again has difficulties with the severity of his bitter father, which also led to the separation of his parents, and rejects the new environment. He asks his aunt, who helps his father to get used to Johannes, to return to Argentina together. His negative attitude climaxed after an argument with the local children, in which a mountain of straw caught fire in a field. The neighbor boy Wilhelm Panse wanted to take revenge for the fact that he had to serve as a target for a slingshot , but Johannes takes the blame after a short discussion with his father in the hope of being sent back to Argentina. However, Wilhelm explains to his father that same evening that he and the other boys only wanted to scare Johannes with a firework and that the straw accidentally caught fire.
Father Panse reports this from Redel and says that his son Wilhelm is not allowed to go to the National Political Education Institute (NPEA) in Oranienstein as punishment . He encourages von Redel to send Johannes there instead.
But there are also integration difficulties in the NPEA. Johannes finds no contact with the comrades and the educators; he is threatened with sacking. Only the platoon leader Dr. Angermann discovers his passion for music and believes that over time he will be able to bring Johannes closer to the value system of the new National Socialist Germany . First of all, he is supposed to lead the band, which at first ignites a new dispute with his comrades, since he ousts the unmusical parlor elder Vorwerk from his place as conductor. But his self-composed march convinced everyone involved and became the institution's anthem. During a visit by his aunt Julieta and his Argentine guardian Don Pedro, who tried to convince him to come back to Argentina, Johannes rejects this proposal. Slowly Johannes gets to know the sense of real youth companionship, which culminates in the fact that he and the elder in the shower are on the duo and Karl offers Johannes the soap.
Wilhelm Panse is now allowed to attend the National Political Education Institute. During a test of courage in which one is supposed to jump from the springboard into the water, Wilhelm pinches. Johannes observing the scene explains to the train driver that Wilhelm had to watch his older brother drown in the village pond. Encouraged by the successes in the NPEA so far, Johannes wants to surprise the director of the institution and teach Wilhelm to swim, although he was expressly forbidden to go into the water because of his trauma. The exercise in the water gets out of control and Wilhelm has to go to the hospital because of the hallucinations caused by shock. The renewed lack of discipline on the part of Johannes forces the director of the institution to think about whether he should expel him from the institution. Eventually, however, John is forgiven because he has a bad conscience. His comrades get together in the garden of the institution in such a way that they form the sentence "HEAD UP / JOHANNES /!" For him.
During the institute's summer maneuvers , Johannes proves his worth as a military tactician. As a commendation, he is given a knife and he is allowed to make the vow.
During the holidays, Johannes and his father finally find each other, who was released from his bitterness at Julieta's side.
Emergence
The shooting took place from June 10, 1940 in the Tobis studio in Berlin-Johannisthal . This was followed by exterior shots on the former manor (today Kartzow Castle) in Kartzow , west of Berlin , in the Oranienstein Educational Institution (now Oranienstein Castle ) in Diez an der Lahn , which was opened in 1934 , in the Arnstein Monastery and in the Runkel Castle . On November 16, 1940, work on the film was finished. The production cost of the film was 747,000 Reichsmarks; by the end of 1941 the film had already “grossed 1,344,000 Reichsmarks”.
censorship
The production of the film was closely monitored personally by the Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda (RMVP) and especially Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels . This attention was based, among other things, on the fact that the genre of political youth films in Germany since 1933/34 ( Hitlerjunge Quex ; Die Bande vom Hoheneck ; Ich für dich - Du für mich ) was essentially idle. Director de Kowa expressed himself accordingly euphoric:
"The task of creating an image of the life of this young generation, of this future leadership of Greater Germany - that is a job for which one can be enthusiastic honestly and without reservation."
Goebbels was not completely enthusiastic about an early cut version (diary entry from August 12, 1940: "Too loud and not very good at the direction, but good on the subject" ). In the diary entry of November 25, 1940, the criticism becomes clearer: “A Napola film“ Cheer up, Johannes! ”Very bad and, under the direction of de Kowa, completely failed. It will hardly be able to be saved. ” Rescue attempts were made anyway; Scenes had to be removed, others had to be re-shot.
Above all, the too pronounced propaganda aspects of the film were disturbing: Goebbels preferred subliminal propaganda in the feature film. In addition, the film's portrayal of the NPEA focuses on play, physical fitness and character development, while the nature of the institution as an elite school (excellent academic performance was already a prerequisite for admission) is barely recognizable. Even in the finished cut, the actual school learning in the classroom hardly occurs. An originally existing scene in which John's bad grades are even explicitly mentioned has been cut out.
On February 5, 1941, the film was submitted to the Berlin Film Inspection Office under test number 54995. In view of the massive internal criticism, it was not surprising that cheer up, Johannes! only got the rating "youth free".
In the following three years, a handful of other films were made that addressed the topic of Heads Up, Johannes! (an independent, freedom-loving boy is converted to discipline and obedience in a Nazi youth organization). As can be seen from the ratings, three films that were made from books by Alfred Weidenmann or under Weidenmann's direction were highly valued : Jakko (1941, "State-political and popular", "Youth value"), hands up! (1942, “State-politically and artistically valuable”, “youth value”) and Junge Adler (1944, also “state-politically and artistically valuable”, “youth value”).
Reception and criticism
The RMVP issued the instruction not to report on the film "in words or in pictures" up to a week before the premiere and after this blocking period "objectively and not too extensively". In addition, official support for the shooting could not be mentioned.
Overall, the film was largely positively rated in the synchronized press:
“In the title role, Claus Detlef Sierck gives a test of his unconventional skills. The boy, Gunar Möller, is an excellent guy. [...] This film successfully tries to convey an excerpt from the new form of education that was implemented in the National Political Educational Institutions. "
"The film breathes" presence and freshness "and is" ready to make all hearts beat faster. ""
“The plot of this film is so simple, plausible and humanly moving that every visitor has to be touched. [...] If it is the point of such a film to show that the selection of German youth is to be trained in these educational institutions and, accordingly, also the intention to describe the manner of this training and clever systematic development, then it is the authors as the game master Viktor de Kowa succeeded. "
See also
Individual evidence
- ↑ While Eckardt, who became Adenauer's government spokesman in the Federal Republic of Germany, is often mentioned as the screenwriter of the film, the opening credits only mention Huppertz and Krug.
- ↑ a b c d e f Barbara Stelzner-Large: The youth for joy? Investigations into the propaganda youth film in the Third Reich . VDG, Weimar 1996, ISBN 3-932124-02-2 .
- ↑ Federal Archives / Cultural Office of the City of Koblenz (ed.): Exhibition on the film series "Youth in the Nazi State", Koblenz 1978, p. 24.
- ↑ Gustav Hummelsbeck: Cheer up, Johannes. "Current film books" Volume 125, Verlag Karl Curtius, Berlin 1941
- ↑ Tobis press booklet for the film; quoted from: Bogusław Drewniak: The German Film 1938–1945. A complete overview . Droste, Düsseldorf 1987, ISBN 3-7700-0731-X , p. 588.
- ↑ a b Elke Fröhlich (Ed.): The diaries of Joseph Goebbels. Records 1923–1941. Part 1, Volume 8. KG Saur, Munich, New York 1998, p. 267.
- ↑ Bianca Dustdar: Film as a propaganda instrument in the youth policy of the Third Reich. Coppi-Verlag, Alfeld 1996, ISBN 3-930258-31-5 , p. 101.
literature
- Friedrich Koch : School in the cinema. Authority and education. From the “Blue Angel” to the “Feuerzangenbowle” . Beltz, Weinheim / Basel 1987, ISBN 978-3-407-34009-2 , pp. 113–119: "A German boy is put on the right track."
Web links
- Cheer up, Johannes! in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Cheer up, Johannes! at filmportal.de