Naked Among Wolves (2015)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Naked among wolves |
| Country of production | Germany |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2015 |
| length | 105 minutes |
| Age rating | FSK 12 |
| Rod | |
| Director | Philipp Kadelbach |
| script | Stefan Kolditz |
| production |
Nico Hofmann Benjamin Benedict Sebastian Werniger |
| music | Michael Kadelbach |
| camera | Kolja Brandt |
| cut | Bernd Schlegel |
| occupation | |
| |
Nackt unter Wölfen is a German drama directed by Philipp Kadelbach from 2015 . It is based on the novel of the same name by Bruno Apitz , which was published by Mitteldeutscher Verlag in 1958 . He's after a television production in 1960 and the film Naked Among Wolves by Frank Beyer in 1963, the third film adaptation of the literary original.
action
In April 1943, Hans Pippig, who was politically active in the resistance, was sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp with his father . The father quickly falls victim to the arbitrary violence of the Nazis when he looks one of the guards in the eye. The son receives help from Kapo André Höfel, who enables him to work in the effects room. Around two years later, the Allies are on the advance. The Auschwitz concentration camp has already been liberated and thousands of prisoners came from there to Buchenwald. At the end of March the liberation of Buchenwald is approaching, the US troops will be there in two weeks.
While the Nazis are discussing how to deal with the situation, the Polish prisoner Zacharias Jankowski, who has just arrived from Auschwitz, hands a suitcase over to Pippig. He finds a three year old boy in it. He shows him to Höfel and Marian Kropinski, who can speak to the child in Polish. The group wants to help the boy, but is afraid that they will “go through the chimney” if the SS discovers the hidden little Jew. This also endangers a planned uprising.
SS Hauptscharführer Zweiling discovers the child, but an air raid interrupts the critical situation and the SS man does not reveal anything at first. The prisoners then hide three-year-old Stefan Jerzy Zweig in the effects room . Pippig talks about this with Hans Bochow, to whom the numerous prisoners in the concentration camp are more important than the individual child. Because shortly before the liberation, the resistance group is planning an uprising. Therefore, Bochow arranges for camp elder Helmut Krämer to swap the list for the next transport in order to bring Jankowski and the boy to Bergen-Belsen .
Pippig opposes the plan and after a warning from Höfel he only gives Jankowski an empty suitcase. When the Pole realizes that his friend's little son is not in the suitcase, he despairs and is shot. Zweiling sees that the boy is still there and now writes a message. It is twelve days before the liberation. Through the message, the camp commandant's office becomes aware of the problem and confronts the forced laborers in the personal effects store. Since everyone is silent, Höfel and Kropinski are brought to the "bunker" known as the arrest and torture cells. There they are tortured by Mandrill in order to elicit information about the resistance group and the hidden child, but both prisoners remain silent despite the enormous torture. Meanwhile, Pippig brings Stefan to the epidemic barracks. Since the Nazis are reluctant to enter this part of the camp, the little Jew should be safer there.
The US Army liberated the Ohrdruf subcamp 50 kilometers from Buchenwald , but the Nazis were still murdering slave laborers in Kromsdorf . An inmate discovered Stefan in front of the epidemic barracks. After Pippig has brought the boy back inside, the prisoner offers the valuable information to a Nazi. Warehouse electrician Heinrich Schüpp, on the other hand, communicates the latest status through hidden allusions. Höfel and Kropinski are threatened with death and rope loops around their necks in the "bunker" despite the advance of the Allies. After the traitor's tip, the Nazis search the epidemic barracks, but do not find Stefan. Nevertheless, the boy is no longer safe there, which is why Pippig hides with him in a well. The traitor August Rose is forced in the torture chamber to kill the hanging Kropinski, although he points out that the note is Zweiling's writing. Arbitrary violence still prevails outside the “bunker”.
On April 6, 1945 Heinrich Himmler orders the evacuation of the Buchenwald concentration camp. Krämer reports to the resistance and they discuss how to proceed. The evacuation of the camp begins the next day. Pippig has heard the announcement and leaves the well with Stefan. When he comes back with food a little later, he sees the boy facing a dog in the headlights. Pippig yells at the guards as a distraction and is shot down.
On the morning of April 11, the tanks of the US troops are in sight. The Nazis let numerous soldiers line up and SS-Hauptsturmführer Robert Kluttig demands that the remaining prisoners be shot. The resisters give the signal to revolt and get their weapons out of hiding. When the first American planes can be seen over Buchenwald, SS-Untersturmführer Hermann Reineboth, who had previously ordered the torture , decides to give up and with an announcement orders the SS crew to withdraw. This leads to a discussion between the disappointed Kluttig and the camp commandant Schwahl, who sees a new task for himself in the Dachau concentration camp . In the meantime, electrician Schüpp has switched off the electricity for the fence. Krämer announces the liberation over the loudspeaker and appeals to the inmates to refrain from lynching , as some inmates are about to commit on Zweiling. Untersturmführer Reineboth pretends to be a wandering prisoner with camp clothing and short-cropped hair to passing US soldiers and can escape unhindered. Höfel is rescued from the "bunker" and goes to Pippig, who is also still alive. While Höfel goes away with Stefan, the seriously injured Pippig looks at the sky.
production
The film was produced by the Babelsberg- based production company UFA Fiction . The backdrops for the Buchenwald concentration camp were recreated in Prague , individual scenes in front of the gate were created at the original location. The advance of the US troops is shown with historical film recordings and corresponding overlays. The film was first broadcast on April 1, 2015 as part of an ARD themed evening on the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Buchenwald concentration camp. After the film, a documentary entitled Buchenwald - Hero Myth and Camp Reality was shown.
criticism
“Kadelbach and Kolditz are about as interested in ideology as they are in heroism, namely not at all. The psychological depth of focus of their version is nevertheless no less than that of the Beyer's. The ensemble makes it all at least as impressive: How quickly you could be guilty, how blurring the boundaries, how solidarity crumbles when it comes to your own skin, how betrayal arises and humanity still breaks through. If no one is to be sure, everyone quickly learns how they would have behaved in the midst of this focal point of barbarism.
Kadelbach and Kolditz save "Naked Among Wolves" for the present. It's a necessary film. And it does not make the other necessary film, which owes itself to the socialist legend of Bruno Apitz, superfluous for a second. Almost a miracle. "
“But what is lacking? Acting and respect for texts. Apitz's figures are handled quite arbitrarily. [...] Almost all of the actors in the new film lag behind the Defa actors. […] Naked among wolves in the version from 2015 testifies to the innocence of the late birth. This film does not come from contemporaries of the Nazi regime, whose art reflected their own generation experience. Here later generations reconstruct history whose teachings they want to pass on. It is as necessary as it is honorable. But the Nico Hofmann aesthetic has been irritating for years. This monopoly producer stages, film by film, the Nazi era as melodrama - strikingly emotional, with flowing mist and penetrating music, the sauce of which fills all emotional gaps. "
“Nevertheless, with the foundling, a little humanity seems to have come to the scene of torture and murder. That irritates some. Above all, the secret resistance fighters, who see their plans for uprising by the child - not wrongly - endangered. And therein lies the real quality of the conventionally shot film: namely to show how ideologues become fickle and how they put their organization at risk for a child's life. It's still about bare survival. But now not just about your own. A change that initially takes place slowly and less heroically in the figure of Kapo André Höfel. It's great how Peter Schneider plays this return to compassion, how he screams and whimpers for his life in the blood-drenched torture cellar, how he trembles with fear - and yet does not betray the child. "
"At Kolditz, the roles are all a little too clear, from the coward to the head of the resistance [...] to the gray eminence of the camp management [...]. But just as it is always presented a little too demonstratively in the picture, [...] the dramaturgy is just as conventional at times. Nevertheless, the cameraman and director are able to achieve a high level of emotional tension, they do not shy away from drastic scenes, showing torture and murder. But as if they didn't trust their own staging, they finally let go of all inhibitions and dig deep into the kitsch box. [...] But with tears, the view of history is also clouded. "
The Central Council of German Sinti and Roma criticizes the fact that the film withholds the fact that instead of the rescued Jewish child, a Sinto was deported and then killed.
Awards
- 2016: German TV Award in the category “Best TV Film”.
- 2016: International Emmy Award : Florian Stetter nominated as “Best Actor”, Nomination “Best TV Film / Mini-Series”.
Web links
- Naked Among Wolves in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- Information from ARD on the theme evening
- Multimedia documentation of the MDR of the MDR with historical backgrounds and information on film production
- Annette Leo: Buchenwald child. A comment on the remake of the novel "Naked Among Wolves" on Zeitgeschichte-online , April 2015.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Naked among wolves. In: UFA. Retrieved January 27, 2020 .
- ↑ Der Tagesspiegel: “Against forgetting -» Naked among wolves «will be filmed again” www.tagesspiegel.de from April 19, 2014, accessed February 3, 2016
- ↑ multimedia documentation of the MDR
- ↑ Elmar Krekeler: The new measurement of the antifascist original meter. In: Welt Online . April 1, 2015, accessed April 15, 2015 .
- ^ Christoph Dieckmann: Nazi terror in Degeto colors. In: Zeit Online . April 1, 2015, accessed April 2, 2015 .
- ^ Lothar Schröder: The rescue of the beech forest child. In: RP Online . April 2, 2015, accessed April 15, 2015 .
- ↑ Daland Segler: Well shaved to death. In: Frankfurter Rundschau . April 1, 2015, accessed April 2, 2015 .
- ↑ Central Council of Sinti and Roma raises allegations against ARD ( memento from April 2, 2015 in the web archive archive.today ). News from April 2, 2015, on the Deutschlandfunk website .
- ↑ Nackt unter Wölfen wins the German TV Award in the category “Best TV Film” , accessed on January 14, 2016.
- ↑ 2016 International Emmy® Awards Nominees ( Memento of the original from December 25, 2011 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. , accessed September 27, 2016.
