Fog in August

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Movie
Original title Fog in August
Country of production Germany , Austria
original language German
Publishing year 2016
length 126 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Kai Wessel
script Holger Karsten Schmidt
production Ulrich Limmer
music Martin Todsharow
camera Hagen Bogdanski
cut Tina Friday
occupation

Nebel im August is a feature film by the director Kai Wessel based on the novel of the same name by Robert Domes , which was released in German cinemas on September 29, 2016. The premiere took place on September 26, 2016 in the Lichtburg in Essen.

Nebel im August shows the true story of Ernst Lossa in southern Germany at the beginning of the 1940s. Using the fate of a single person as an example, the film drama deals with the thousands of Nazi murders that were carried out by doctors and nursing staff in certain hospitals and nursing homes under the name “Aktion Gnadentod”. In the multi-award-winning film, the boy is given a lethal injection by a nurse because he is considered "uneducable".

action

The 13-year-old Ernst Lossa from Augsburg, a child from the minority of Yenish is separated from his family and educable admitted on May 5, 1944 as heavy in the mental hospital Sargau. After initial resistance (“I'm not an idiot”), he gets used to the institutional life and becomes the helper of the old caretaker Witt. With this he must also clean the room in which autopsies take place. The head Dr. Veithausen pretends to be humane (“Nobody is beaten here”), but consistently carries out the euthanasia program in which prison residents are regularly taken away by bus . His assistant Hechtle only criticizes the fact that the selection is made by Berlin, and that there are sometimes able-bodied people on the list who could be used as harvest workers.

While working in the fields, Ernst befriends another boy who knows an exit to the roof, where they can enjoy a little freedom. The boy is finally picked up by his parents. Ernst is also convinced that his father - his mother is already dead - will pick him up and take him to America as promised. The father actually comes, but is not allowed to take Ernst with him, since as a traveling dealer he can not show a confirmation of residence for a permanent residence.

Seriously meets Nandl, who no longer has any relatives. When the two isolate themselves from the others while working in the forest, Nandl has an epileptic fit. Ernst provides help and the two return to the institution. Ernst tells Nandl that after his death he will turn into a raven, his father into a hare. Every person has a “wish for life” that a Yenish must fulfill if he asks them to do so. Nandl immediately says that she would like to skate again. But Ernst asks her to think twice about her "wish for life".

One day the euthanasia program will be changed and the institutions will have to kill the inmates themselves . In addition, the “specialist nurse” Edith comes to the institution, who kills the children with an overdose of barbiturates dissolved in raspberry juice . Dr. Veithausen is experimenting with a nutrition plan in which the patients are only given vegetable soup. All nutrients are deprived of the vegetables and patients lose weight quickly as a result. Dr. Veithausen gives a lecture to the heads of other euthanasia institutions in which he praises the "withdrawal diet" as a possibility to carry out the euthanasia program inconspicuously and without the use of medication.

More and more children suddenly die after sister Edith has given them raspberry juice with medication. The spiritual head nurse Sophia reports the incidents to Dr. Veithausen and gets the answer from him that it is everyone's responsibility to "release" the patients from their suffering. Sister Sophia turns to the bishop of her diocese, but he gives her to understand that the political situation is difficult for the church. She should return to the institution to "comfort" the survivors. When it is the turn of the mute girl Amelie, who had always been fed by Ernst, he can prevent the administration of the barbiturates and hide the child together with head nurse Sophia.

Ernst learns that Nandl's birthday is coming up soon. He steals the key to the vaulted cellar and invites her to take a "trip" to the lake from there. He's brought ice skates even though it's the middle of August. Ernst and Nandl take a rowing boat trip on the lake at night. He tells her that the ice skates are not the actual birthday present for her, but that he wants to take Nandl to America, where they can skate on the ice of Lake Michigan next winter .

When Theresa, Nandl's deaf-mute friend, is also killed, her friend, another inmate of the institution, accuses Hechtle of a murderer. After a scuffle, he is gunned down. The situation is tense. The sounds of British bombers flying by can be heard over and over again. The institution's food supply deteriorates. Nandl and Ernst decide to flee. Ernst refuses to eat fish at lunch. The commotion that ensues when other inmates join in and throw fish around them is interrupted by an air raid alarm . Nandl and Ernst want to use the chaos to escape from the vaulted cellar, but bombs fall on the prison grounds. The head nurse Sophia, who also fled into the basement, dies with Amelie while Nandl is injured and is prescribed bed rest. At Sophia's funeral, Ernst insulted Dr. Veithausen as a liar and a murderer. He then put him on the death list. Nandl asks Ernst to flee without her, that this is her "wish for life". But it is too late, Sister Edith and Hechtle go with him to the hospital room where he is supposed to spend the night.

From the raven, who suddenly appears at the window of Nandl's hospital room, and then from the caretaker, Nandl learns that Ernst is dead. Nevertheless, she drags herself on crutches into the dining room and announces that Ernst has "made it" and is now in America.

background

The shooting took place from May 6, 2015 to July 9, 2015. A large part of the film recordings were made in the Deutschordenskommende Mülheim and the LWL-Klinik Warstein , which also looks back on a past euthanasia. Historically, it was the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium . There was Valentin Faltlhauser (in the film Walter Veith Hausen) chief physician, also known as T4 assessor Sick murders Nazi Germany was widely active for.

Extras from Warstein were used as psychiatric patients .

The film was financed with the support of the Filmförderung Hamburg Schleswig-Holstein , the Filmförderungsanstalt , the German Filmförderfonds , the FilmFernsehFonds Bayern , the Film- und Medienstiftung NRW , the FISA - Filmstandort Austria , the Austrian Film Institute , the Filmfonds Wien and the Eurimages .

The German Film and Media Assessment (FBW) gave the film drama the rating particularly valuable .

Michael von Cranach , the former medical director of the Kaufbeuren district hospital and an expert on research on Nazi murders, took part as a scientific advisor on the historical background.

The novel by Domes has been revised into a play that premiered on March 16, 2018 at the Schwaben State Theater in Memmingen .

reception

Reviews

Christoph Schröder von der Zeit thinks that director Kai Wessel has made a film out of the boy's biography "which can rely on the one hand on the haunting effect of his deliberately unspectacular images and on the other hand on the self-exposure of the completely instrumentalized and inverted language". The drama does not need any “educational pathos”, the perversity of the euthanasia system is revealed without explanation. Schröder particularly emphasizes Ivo Pietzcker's precise facial expression, who with this performance gives depth to the role of the “anti-social pest” Ernst Lossa in the film.

In her very positive criticism, Walli Müller points out the ambivalent portrayal of the head doctor: “The most horrific thing about this film is that the man appears so friendly and human. Sebastian Koch does not play the [...] boot wearer who shouts orders. This kind of film Nazi was often too easy for oneself. Dr. Veithausen takes care of his patients on a fatherly basis. But where there is no prospect of improvement, he puts the names on his list. "

Awards

See also

literature

  • Götz Aly : The burdened: ›Euthanasia‹ 1939-1945. A history of society (The time of National Socialism). S. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-000429-1 .
  • Hendrik Behrendt: Nazi euthanasia on children: Why Ernst Lossa, 14, had to die. In: Der Spiegel . 26 Sep 2016 ( spiegel.de ).
  • Michael von Cranach , Petra Schweizer-Martinschek: The Nazi “euthanasia” in the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium. In: Stefan Dieter [Ed.]: Kaufbeuren under the swastika. Contributions to the history of the city. Volume 14, Thalhofen 2015, ISBN 978-3-95551-072-5 , pp. 270-387.
  • Robert Domes : Fog in August: The life story of Ernst Lossa. cbt, Munich 2008; ISBN 978-3-570-30475-4 .
  • Ernst Klee : 40 years of silence - change is looming. In: The time . December 21, 1984 ( zeit.de ).
  • Ernst T. Mader: The forced death of patients at the Kaufbeuren-Irsee sanatorium between 1940 and 1945 according to documents and reports from eyewitnesses. Verlag an der Säge, Blöcktach, 1982.
  • Media educational material on the film (published by the film producer, 2016, film booklet Nebel im August , as PDF).

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Certificate of release for fog in August . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry (PDF). Template: FSK / maintenance / type not set and Par. 1 longer than 4 characters
  2. ↑ Christina Jahnich: Warstein on the red carpet at the cinema premiere of "Nebel im August". (No longer available online.) In: News. Westdeutscher Rundfunk Cologne, September 27, 2016, archived from the original on October 1, 2016 ; accessed on January 28, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c Fog in August at crew united
  4. ↑ Reinhold Großelohmann: Film "Nebel im August" on the way to an international audience . In: Soester Anzeiger . November 25, 2015 ( soester-anzeiger.de [accessed September 26, 2016]).
  5. ↑ Extras give “Nebel im August” authenticity WAZ, derwesten.de, September 29, 2016.
  6. ^ Fog in August on the FBW website.
  7. ↑ Press release from the production company (PDF; 450 kB).
  8. ↑ Klaus-Peter Mayr: Why did Ernst Lossa have to die? In: Allgäuer Zeitung. 19th March 2018.
  9. ↑ Christoph Schröder: Murderous care . In: The time . September 28, 2016 ( zeit.de [accessed September 29, 2016]).
  10. ↑ Euthanasia drama based on a true story . NDR.de from September 27, 2016.
  11. ↑ derStandard.at: German Metropolis Director Award: Goiginger as multiple winner . Article dated November 6, 2017, accessed November 6, 2017.