Night fell over Gotenhafen

Movie
Original title	Night fell over Gotenhafen
Country of production	BR Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1960
length	99 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Frank Wisbar
script	Frank Wisbar , Victor Schüller
production	Deutsche Film Hansa GmbH & Co. ( Alf Teichs )
music	Hans-Martin Majewski
camera	Willi Winterstein
cut	Martha Dübber
occupation
Sonja Ziemann : Maria Reiser Gunnar Möller : Kurt Reiser Erik Schumann : Hans Schott Brigitte Horney : General von Reuss Mady Rahl : Edith Marquardt Erich Dunskus : Father Marquardt Willy Maertens : Father Reiser Edith Schultze-Westrum : Mother Reiser Wolfgang Preiss : Dr. Beck Tatiana Ivanov : Meta Christine Mylius : Mrs. Rauh Aranka Jaenke : Mrs. Kahle Dietmar Schönherr : Gaston Günter Pfitzmann : First Lieutenant Dankel Erwin Linder : Lieutenant Captain Günther Ungeheuer : Doctor Karl-Heinz Kreienbaum : radio operator of the Gustloff Carl Lange : Captain Zahn Peter Voss : Captain Petersen Carla Hagen : Monika Til Kiwe : SS officer Georg Lehn : Mr. Pinkoweit Hela Gruel : Ms. Pinkoweit Thomas Braut : Lieutenant von Fritzen Wolfgang Stumpf : Reese, 1st officer of the Gustloff Ursula Herwig : Inge Marlene Riphahn : Ms. Kubelsky Martin Hirthe : Party guest Hans Jörg Götze  : Party guest 2 Horst Frank : Speaker

Night fell over Gotenhafen is a film that was made in 1959 under the direction of Frank Wisbar based on a factual report in Stern magazine . The film takes place in the final phase of the Second World War . The focus is on the flight of the German population from East Prussia from the Red Army and the sinking of the ship Wilhelm Gustloff .

action

Shortly after the start of the war, the radio announcer Maria married her colleague Kurt Reiser. While her husband is at war, she lives with his parents. At a New Year's Eve party, she met the naval officer Hans Schott and he became pregnant.

She moves to her friend Edith on an estate in East Prussia, where she lives with her child. Edith is killed by Red Army soldiers, Kurt comes to the aid of his wife and child. In a wagon run by General von Reuss, Maria reached Gotenhafen with her child and thousands of other refugees . The overcrowded hospital and refugee ship "Wilhelm Gustloff" is located here. Maria meets her now seriously wounded husband again.

With Schott's help, who is on duty on the ship, they get on board. On the first night at sea, the ship is sunk by a Soviet submarine. Maria's child and the general are among the few survivors.

Information about the film

After the commercially extremely successful first naval war film Sharks and Small Fish , Wisbar deals in this film with the sinking of the Wilhelm Gustloff on January 30, 1945, which sank after a Soviet torpedo attack off the Pomeranian coast (now Poland) and on the more than 9,000 People found death. The Gustloff, conceived as a pure passenger ship, had the order to bring soldiers and wounded away from the collapsing Eastern Front to more western areas of Germany. Refugees were taken within the framework of the space available. Under international law, the Wilhelm Gustloff was a troop transport. The fact that Wisbar worked on this material about sharks and small fish and dogs, if you want to live forever , shows that the depiction of the cruelty and senselessness of war and not the search for culprits was in the foreground of his post-war work.

The filming locations were from autumn 1959 to January 1960 in Berlin , Bilshausen , Bremerhaven , Cuxhaven , the Baltic Sea coast and the area around Helgoland . The East Prussian estate depicted in the film is actually Oberzwieselau Castle near Lindberg in the Bavarian Forest. The outdoor shots were also made in the area around Frauenau and Lindberg in the Bavarian Forest. The locomotive shed of the Zwieselauer Waldbahn with some decommissioned covered goods wagons of the DB was burned down. Heinz Schön took part in the filming as a survivor, consultant and screenwriter. The movie poster was designed by Helmuth Ellgaard . The world premiere took place on February 25, 1960 in Hanover .

Reviews

• Lexicon of international film : "A film that is convincingly realistically designed in individual scenes, but which does not give any insight into the real causes of the catastrophe."

• Reclam's Lexikon des Deutschen Films (1995): “The topic of coming to terms with the past broached here leads, as in the overwhelming number of similar war adventure films of this time, to the statement that war is terrible, but cannot be averted, and that human feelings and nobility also result in the most terrible Give moments to hope for a better future. "

• Protestant film observer : "Despite some moderation tendencies in the statement and despite the over-constructed plot of the game, it is still an urgent memorial against careless play with the war."

Web links

• Night fell over Gotenhafen in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Night fell over Gotenhafen at filmportal.de

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Night fell over Gotenhafen. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed October 5, 2016 .  
2. ↑ Munich, Review No. 182/1960.