Marion Keller

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Marion Keller (actually Irmgard Miriam Keller ; born August 6, 1910 in Bonn ; † January 28, 1998 in Baden-Baden ) was a German physicist and journalist . She was a co-founder and from autumn 1945 to autumn 1949 first editor and then editor-in-chief of the newsreel Der Augenzeuge , whose name goes back to her. A total of 189 newsreels with a volume of eight feature films a year were created under her responsibility.

Life

Marion Keller grew up in Berlin . Her father Siegmund Otto Keller was a professor of law and a library councilor at the Berlin University Library.

From 1929 to 1936 she studied philosophy in Paris and Berlin and, as one of the few women, physics and chemistry . In 1936 she did her doctorate at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität in Berlin with a dissertation on the "Contribution to the standardization of color sensitometry of negative photographic material for pictorial recordings".

From 1930 to around 1939 she wrote various short stories and short stories for daily newspapers and journals as well as exposés for cultural films.

Building on her studies, she worked for several years as a production engineer, laboratory assistant and authorized signatory at the FEKA film copier. When her future husband Kurt Maetzig , who was of Jewish descent on his mother's side, was no longer allowed to work in the film sector, she also left the FEKA and ran the “Photochemical Laboratory Dr. Keller / Dr. Maetzig on behalf of the Forschungsgesellschaft für Funk- und Tonfilmtechnik eV “based in Werder (Havel) . The work classified as essential to the war prevented Maetzig from being drafted into the Todt Organization or granted the postponement of the deportation, which since the so-called factory campaign in 1943 has also affected the group of people who are half-Jews under the Nuremberg Laws.

She and Kurt Maetzig wanted to marry as early as 1939, for which no approval was given due to Kurt Maetzig's descent. They could only make up for this after the end of National Socialism.

In the years up to the end of the war, Marion Keller and Kurt Maetzig helped persecuted Jews and slave laborers to the extent they could. Both were also at risk when Marion Keller was expecting her first child in February 1945. That could have led to deportation for everyone because of so-called “ racial disgrace ”. In this critical situation, Robert Rompe , a physicist friend, helped and confessed to the authorities that he was (allegedly) fathered.

Marion Keller and Kurt Maetzig experienced the end of the war in Werder as a liberation and, due to their "extreme and consistent opposition to the National Socialist regime", made a conscious decision in favor of the Soviet occupation zone as their new residence.

Marion Keller initially worked on various committees. Kurt Maetzig became a member of “Filmaktivs”, a group of people who wanted to check and organize the resumption of work on films. From January 1, 1946, he became the first editor-in-chief of the eyewitness . Marion Keller, who was there from the very beginning , became editor and copywriter for the eyewitness , member of the newsreel committee and (after DEFA was founded ) head of the DEFA press department. The name "The Eyewitness" was invented by her. The motto that preceded every issue (from number 13/1946 to 34/1949) came from Kurt Maetzig: "You see for yourself, you hear for yourself, judge for yourself". The eyewitness appeared from February 19, 1946; biweekly from March – July 1946, weekly from August 1946.

Since Kurt Maetzig was only partially available to the eyewitness from autumn 1946 due to his filming in the feature film and administrative obligations at DEFA , Marion Keller was largely in charge from this time. As a result, she was appointed as acting editor-in-chief in mid-1947 and officially appointed editor-in-chief and head of the newsreel department on December 1, 1947. So she was the one who was fully responsible for the version that got into the cinemas. From 1946 to 1949, a total of 189 newsreels were created with the time volume of eight feature films per year.

The eyewitness reached around four million viewers per week. The people were particularly touched by a service that made eyewitnesses stand out from the rest of the cinema: the child search service, which opened every newsreel from 12/46 to 137/48 and as a result 400 children found their parents again.

Tensions arose from mid-1948 over the weighting of political information, criticism of conditions and the entertaining subjects, since the eyewitness, in addition to censorship by the Soviet military administration , was subject to political supervision by the SED leadership from late 1947.

In order to secure the political orientation of the eyewitness in the sense of the SED, Gerhard Dengler was appointed as political editor-in-chief from November 1948 to May 1949 and from October 1, 1949 Günter Klein was appointed editor-in-chief by resolution of the Small Secretariat of the SED Politburo .

As a result, Marion Keller resigned from this position and was dismissed by DEFA on March 31, 1950. The last eyewitness under her name was released in late November 1949. For four years she could not find a job in the GDR that matched her qualifications and worked as a freelance journalist. The development of political conditions in the GDR no longer corresponded to their views, which they themselves characterized as free and democratic. The last trigger for their decision to leave the GDR was the uprising of June 17, 1953 . In 1955 she left the GDR “illegally” and moved to the Federal Republic of Germany. There she worked as a journalist with Horst-Heinz Neuendorff in Baden-Baden and took over marketing for a number of companies. Her work covered various areas from complex PR support to scientific and technical literature, in particular on aviation and radio technology.

Marion Keller had two children with Kurt Maetzig. She was married twice.

Filmography

  • 1946–1949: Newsreel The Eyewitness (189 episodes)
  • 1946: Berlin under construction (documentary, screenplay: Marion Keller)
  • 1946: Musical visit (documentary, editor: Marion Keller)
  • 1948: Ambassador of Peace (documentary, editor: Marion Keller)
  • 1948: Chemistry and Love (feature film, screenplay: Marion Keller, Frank Clifford )
  • 1950: Our women in a new life (documentary, screenplay: Marion Keller)
  • 1951: Kindergartens (documentary, screenplay and director: Marion Keller)

Documentaries

  • Günter Jordan (Director): Roots . Documentary about the beginnings of DEFA, DEFA-Studio for Documentary Films 1987
  • Wilhelm van Kampen (interview), Stephan Dolezel (editor): Biographical film interview with the first editor-in-chief of the GDR newsreel DER AUGENZEUGE, Marion Keller . Institute for Scientific Film, Göttingen 1995.

literature

  • Günter Jordan: newsreel, documentary, cultural film. In: Christiane Mückenberger, Günter Jordan: "You see for yourself, you hear for yourself ..." DEFA from its beginnings to 1949. Hitzeroth Druck + Medien, Marburg 1993, 2000, ISBN 3-89398-144-6 .
  • Marion Keller. In: Günter Jordan, Ralf Schenk (Ed.): Black and white and color. DEFA documentary films from 1946 to 1992. The German Library, Potsdam 1996, 2000, ISBN 3-931321-51-7 .
  • Kurt Maetzig: Achieving something unusual in an unusual way. In: Ingrid Poss, Christiane Mückenberger, Anne Richter (eds.): The principle of curiosity. Verlag Neues Leben, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-355-01799-2 .
  • Gerhard Dengler: Two lives in one . Military publishing house of the German Democratic Republic, Berlin 1989, ISBN 3-327-00821-3 , p. 226ff.
  • Günter Jordan, Claudia Köpke: Ms. "Eyewitness": Dr. Marion Keller . Essay. In: Leuchtkraft 2018 . Journal of the DEFA Foundation 2018. (defa-stiftung.de)
  • Günter Jordan: Make a small contribution to democratization. In: Cornelia Klauß, Ralf Schenk (Ed.): You. DEFA directors and their films. DEFA Foundation / Bertz + Fischer Verlag, 2018, ISBN 978-3-86505-415-9 .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Irmgard Keller: Contribution to the standardization of color sensitometry of photographic negative material for pictorial recordings . Inaugural dissertation at the Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Berlin. Dissertation publisher GH Nolte, Düsseldorf 1936.
  2. ↑ Irmgard Keller: Questionnaire for processing the application for membership in the Reichsschrifttumskammer . In: Reich Chamber of Culture; Federal Archives (Ed.): R 9361-V / 24139 . Berlin February 26, 1939, p. 2876-2879 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g Günter Jordan: Mrs. "Eyewitness": Dr. Marion Keller. DEFA Foundation, 2016, accessed on November 22, 2018 .
  4. ↑ Kurt Maetzig: CV . Ed .: Federal Archives. BA DR 2/8267. Berlin February 15, 1946.
  5. ^ Kurt Maetzig: Film work . Henschelverlag, Berlin 1987, ISBN 3-362-00039-8 , pp. 26 .
  6. ↑ Marion Keller: Memoirs in letter form to Katja Obenaus 1985 . Ed .: Katja Obenaus. Self-published, Baden-Baden / Munich 2008.
  7. ↑ Wilhelm van Kampen (interview), Stephan Dolezel (editor): Biographical film interview with the first editor-in-chief of the GDR newsreel DER AUGENZEUGE, Marion Keller . Ed .: Institute for Scientific Film. Goettingen 1995.
  8. ↑ a b c Marion Keller: Experiences and insights from the first two hundred eyewitnesses . In: magazine film and television . No. 2 . Berlin 1992.
  9. ↑ Kurt Maetzig: The eyewitness: Judge for yourself! In: Peter Zimmermann (Ed.): Pictures of Germany East: DEFA documentaries from the post-war period to reunification. Close up . tape 2 . UVK-Medien, 1995, ISBN 3-88295-196-6 .
  10. ↑ Hans Hill: A woman - newsreel editor . In: The deed . Zurich April 10, 1948.
  11. ^ DEFA Foundation: DEFA Chronicle. In: DEFA Foundation. Retrieved November 22, 2018 .
  12. ^ Marion Keller: Letter to Kurt Maetzig . In: Akademie der Künste Berlin (ed.): Kurt Maetzig Archive . Sign. 984. Berlin, February 20, 1950.
  13. ↑ DEFA personnel department: recruitment-dismissals 1950 . Ed .: Federal Archives. BA DR 117/53003.
  14. ^ Marion Keller: Letter to Kurt Maetzig . In: Akademie der Künste (Ed.): Kurt Maetzig Archive . tape 984 . Baden-Baden September 7th 1957.
  15. ^ Marion Keller, Dietrich Weber: VOR-NAVIGATION . Ed .: Becker Flugfunkwerk. Baden-Baden Oos 1968.
personal data
SURNAME Keller, Marion
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Keller, Irmgard Miriam
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German journalist
DATE OF BIRTH August 6, 1910
PLACE OF BIRTH Bonn
DATE OF DEATH January 28, 1998
Place of death Baden-Baden