Maurice Philip Remy

Maurice Philip Remy (* 1962 in Munich ) is a German documentary filmmaker, director, screenwriter, television producer and author primarily on contemporary historical topics such as the Nazi era .

Live and act

Remy studied communication science and then worked in public relations for the Volkstheater Munich and as a freelance journalist for “ Stern ” and “ Die Zeit ”, among others . He then went to television and became an editor and unit manager, screenwriter and director. Initially in entertainment programs such as “Watch out for the camera”, “Halli Galli”, “ Do you understand fun? “, Later in documentaries. In 1994 he founded his own production company, MPR Film und Fernseh Produktion GmbH. He does extensive research for his documentaries, often with an international staff of employees. In some cases he was able to find new documents, for example during his research on Erwin Rommel or the Amber Room .

From 1994 he worked with Guido Knopp , among other things on his TV series " Hitler - Eine Bilanz" (1995), "Hitler's Helpers", in it about Martin Bormann . He became known through documentaries such as the Amber Room, the sinking of the " Wilhelm Gustloff " or the "Myth of Rommel" (2002, three parts). He also made a TV film about the alleged Tsar's daughter Anastasia , the military resistance against Hitler (“Officers against Hitler”, 2004, three parts), the “Hitler diaries ”, the Vatican (“Vatican - the power of the popes”, three Parts, 1997, about John XXIII. , Pius I , John Paul I ) and a six-part series about the Holocaust (2000). His documentaries about the Holocaust and Rommel were sold to numerous foreign TV stations. In 2008 he wrote the screenplay for the television film " Mogadishu " about the hijacking of the Lufthansa plane "Landshut" in the fall of 1977. The film received the Golden Camera in 2009 for best German television film.

He also played as an actor in his 1998 television series " Ein honorable House ".

Schwabing art find

→ Main article : Schwabing art find

In 2013 Remy produced a film about the case of the art collector Cornelius Gurlitt ( Der strange Herr Gurlitt , arte), which became known as Schwabinger Kunstfund . This film was criticized by Ira Mazzoni in the Süddeutsche Zeitung because Remy made himself an advocate for the art dealer Hildebrand Gurlitt and his son Cornelius. Hildebrand Gurlitt traded in looted art according to the presentation of modern art history in the time of National Socialism . Remy showed in the TV documentary that of the 1280 graphics and paintings confiscated, only half a dozen were looted art - so far only 5 of the 1280 works have been clearly identified as looted art. Mazzoni accused Remy of wanting to exonerate Hildebrand Gurlitt, who had been “defamed as a Nazi art dealer”. A working group headed by the administrative lawyer and former head of the department for culture and media Ingeborg Berggreen-Merkel has been researching the more precise findings since 2013 . Remy criticized the few and dubious results in the final report published in January 2016. The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Minister of State Monika Grütters, announced that the exhibition of pictures from the collection would violate Uta Werner's rights in the legal dispute over the Gurlitt legacy.

In 2017 his documentary "The Gurlitt Case. The True Story of Germany's Biggest Art Scandal" was released . In the 560-page work, he traced the history of Hildebrand Gurlitt's collection and verified the results with over 2000 text documents. He judged the final report of the "Task Force" set up in 2013 for provenance research to the Minister of State Monika Grütters from January 14, 2016 as "embarrassing" . "In over two years and with a commitment of over two million euros, a total of five looted art pictures ... were identified" . Four of them were already known as such before the task force became active, and the task force independently identified only "a single picture, the drawing" Interior of a Gothic Church "by Adolph von Menzel" .

Fonts (selection)

Monographs

• The Rommel myth. List Verlag, Munich 2002, ISBN 3-471-78572-8 .
• The amber room myth. List Verlag, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-471-78579-5 . (Also: Tosa Verlag, Vienna 2006, ISBN 3-902478-29-2 )
• The Gurlitt case. The real story of Germany's biggest art scandal. Europa-Verlag, Berlin a. a. 2017, ISBN 978-3-95890-185-8 .

Films (selection)

• The Amber Room: End of a Legend . NDR Hamburg 1990
• January 30, 1945. The day the "Gustloff" sinks. NDR FS NDS 1993
• Anastasia - daughter of the tsar or impostor? NDR 1995
• The Hitler diaries . ZDF series 1996.
• Vatican - The Power of the Popes - Pope John XXIII and the departure (direction). 1997
• Holocaust . Six-part series, ZDF 2000
• The Rommel myth. ARD three-part series 2002
• Dimension PSI . Six-part science report, ARD 2003
• Officers against Hitler. ARD 2007
• Mogadishu (screenwriter). ARD, ORF 2 2008.
• The strange Mr. Gurlitt. Arte 2013

Web links

• Literature by and about Maurice Philip Remy in the catalog of the German National Library
• Maurice Philip Remy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• FAZ interview 2008
• Interview with Maurice-Philip Remy about the "Gurlitt case", Tages-Anzeiger , February 27, 2016

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Arte ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
2. ↑ Ira Mazzoni: Arte film about the Gurlitt case. When the documentary turns into a lawyer. Is someone here advocating a “brave collector” and his hunted son? Filmmaker Maurice-Philip Remy replays the Gurlitt affair from scratch. The picture he draws is too beautiful to be real. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 19, 2014 (online) , accessed August 12, 2014.
3. ^ Philipp Maurice Remy: The Great Gurlitt Show. In: The world. March 16, 2016, accessed December 27, 2018 . 
4. ↑ The Gurlitt case. The real story of Germany's biggest art scandal. Europa-Verlag, Berlin - Munich. 2017, ISBN 978-3-95890-185-8 . P. 558
5. ↑ Review: Uwe Lammers: Myth of the Amber Room (Maurice Philipp Remy). In: Klio eV (Ed., Internet portal) [ https://www.gibs.info/geschichte-gibs-fast-ueberall/haben/interne-rezensions/mythos-bernsteinzimmer-von-maurice-philip-remy/ ] accessed on December 27, 2018
6. ↑ Christoph Heim: Critique. Gross failure of the state. Maurice Philip Remy's «The Gurlitt Case»: Exciting read and sharp criticism. Basler Zeitung online, November 2, 2017.
7. ↑ Review by Karl-Heinz Janssen in the period June 21, 1996, [1]
8. ↑ Film website ( Memento of the original from August 12, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.