News in Wittstock

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Movie
Original title News in Wittstock
Country of production Germany , France
original language German
Publishing year 1992
length 94 minutes
Rod
Director Volker Koepp
script Volker Koepp
production DEFA -Studio for Documentary Films GmbH, La Sept Paris
camera Christian Lehmann
cut Angelika Arnold
chronology

←  Previous
life in Wittstock

Successor  →
Wittstock, Wittstock

What's new in Wittstock is the penultimate documentary from the Wittstock cycle by Volker Koepp and the first in this series that was made after the reunification of the two German states .

action

As in the previous parts of the cycle, the development of the girls and women, whose film documentation began in 1974 after the opening of the Ober trikotagenbetrieb (OTB) in Wittstock , continues to be told , including flashbacks .

If the focus of the plot so far was the construction of the production facility and the associated development of the protagonists from learning, inquiring and searching to shaping actors who find their home in work and private life, this development is due to the unification of the two German states and the in In this context, the processing of the state- owned enterprise is interrupted.

The film begins in 1990, a few weeks before monetary union , with a tour of a group of West German visitors at the foot of the Marienkirche in Wittenburg . The appearance of the former pupils evacuated from Wittstock to Hamburg at the end of the war and the offer of the city guide “you can buy almost all of Wittstock” herald the dawn of the new era.

Flashbacks show once again the development of the company from its opening in 1974 to 1990 with around 2,700 employees. Representing the girls and women, the story of Edith, Elsbeth (Stupsi) and Renate is the focus of the documentation. The impending bankruptcy of the OTB and the resulting unemployment in the region are beginning to change the behavior and thinking of women.

Edith, who most recently worked as head master and head of department, left the SED in September 1989 . She cites the growing discrepancy between theory and practice as the reason. In view of the imminent downsizing, her tones of optimism prevail at the beginning, regarding her own professional future. She was the first of the three women to be released on June 3, 1990. After a year of unemployment, Edith left Wittstock and moved to Neuenstadt am Kocher , where she found a new job.

"... my job is not safe. ... There are always new tasks, you have to keep changing. "

- Edith

Renate, who has worked in the textile industry for 35 years, 17 of them in the OTB, left the SED in January 1990 after almost 30 years of membership. She cannot understand that her long social commitment now seems to be of no importance. As the second of the women, she lost her job in 1991.

"... we always marched so beautifully ... thinking was done for us, up there they thought for us ... I was happy to do it too. 30 years for the cat ... "

- Renate

Elsbeth (Stupsi) misses the cohesion and the shared experiences with the colleagues of the OTB.

“... that's what is missing now, sticking together. Now everyone is for themselves. … A nice youth, a nice time. I don't think our children will ever have them. "

- Elsbeth

The film lets Karl-Heinz Rüsberg, the head of the Treuhandanstalt , Schwerin branch, who was born in Wittstock in 1932 , have his say. The appearance of Rüsberg is staged like the resurrection of a spirit from a bygone era. The presentation next to the model of the city and statements by Rüsberg such as

"... the area is suitable ... for Hamburg and Berlin as a gateway to the Brandenburg and Mecklenburg Lake District ... In general, we have the problem that these 5 federal states have to be Christianized again, because this devastating SED regime has driven many people out of the church. . "

- Karl-Heinz Rüsberg

appear in contrast to the life paths of women in Wittstock told in the Koepp films.

The last shooting of the film team in the factory, which is now under the name Freizeit-Moden GmbH , takes place in December 1990. From the conversation with Elsbeth, the team learns that a further 1,000 jobs are planned to be cut next year.

The change in Wittstock is depicted in individual scenes, for example with the overlay of street signs and branches of West German companies in the center of the city. Rampant unemployment and the problems that come with it are a main theme of the film. Young people report the increasing rejection of foreigners who are seen as competitors for the few existing jobs. Longer scenes show encounters with the soldiers of the group of the Soviet armed forces in Germany, who were still stationed in Germany in 1991 .

The recreational Moden GmbH will be sold by the Treuhandanstalt to liquidation and trades under the name then WIW, Wittstocker industrial plants . Of the former 2,700 female workers, around 750 are still employed in the company. A conversation with the film team is refused by the director of WIW, Mr. Winkler, with reference to non-business-promoting publicity.

Production and publication

The film was made between 1990 and 1992 in collaboration between the DEFA studios for documentary films and the French television production company La Sept and was first broadcast on November 20, 1992 by the German-French television broadcaster Arte .

criticism

“After the fall of the Berlin Wall, Volker Koepp visits again the workers in the small community of Wittstock, who depend on 'their' jersey factory for better or for worse. Koepp records the consequences of reunification and describes the economic and social upheavals in East Germany. The fate of three workers whom Koepp has visited several times over the past 20 years gives his documentation individual traits. An elaborate documentary film that describes the state of mind in the new federal states using the microcosm, and combines admission and opinion with just as much commitment as it is sensitive. "

- filmdienst.de

“In the Wittstock films, the focus was always on everyday life, not on politics in the narrower sense. It is therefore also coherent that in Neues in Wittstock the autumn of 89, currency conversion and unification do not appear at all or only marginally. What was misunderstood as GDR nostalgia in Neues in Wittstock is the melancholy that has already permeated life in Wittstock: an existential sorrow over the passage of time, aging, the fading of dreams, the loss of protest energy. "

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. They need a clear orientation . Mirror online. October 14, 1991. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  2. BArch B 412/2571, board meeting on April 15, 1991, Item 02: Individual privatization and redevelopment cases, a) Freizeit-Moden GmbH Wittstock, Wittstock (THA No. 5034). - privatization
  3. News in Wittstock . filmdienst.de. Retrieved December 8, 2019.
  4. Stefan Reinecke: The story of a smile. The Wittstock films by Volker Koepp . German Historical Museum. December 1993. Retrieved December 10, 2019.