Peter Hagen (director)

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Peter Hagen (born September 30, 1929 in Berlin-Pankow ) is a German film director and screenwriter who achieved great fame and lasting popularity primarily through his 16-part series The Invisible Visor, which was shot for GDR television .

Live and act

Peter Hagen was born in Berlin-Pankow. The turmoil of the war and the post-war era meant that he did not take his Abitur until 1950. A cine camera given by his parents aroused his interest in film during this time. So he started out as an apprentice directing at DEFA . He then studied theater studies. From the beginning he was attracted by the medium of television, which was still new at the time, and so in 1955 he started working for the Berlin TV Center , which later became the German TV Broadcasting Corporation (DFF) and GDR television in Berlin-Adlershof.

One of his first films with the title Start Ban - with the then 30-year-old Erik S. Klein in the leading role of Jupp - is about a group of young glider pilots in the GST . Then films are made based on literary models, such as Tanzmädchen für Istanbul based on a book by Hans von Oettingen , When the Roses dance based on a novel by Valeri Petrow or Filed under M based on a model by Gerhard Jäckel . Here, the later focus of Peter Hagen's work becomes clear: the film adaptation of politically authentic and historical material with an exciting narrative style. During these years, with Hannes Trostberg (1966), Peter Hagen's first multi-part television series was created. It is about the friendship between the party worker Hannes Trostberg and the son of a large farmer, Erwin Spahn.

1969 was an important year for television in the GDR: the DFF began on October 3rd - shortly before the 20th anniversary of the republic - with the broadcast of a second program and at the same time introduced color television in the GDR. That requires new and different content. Peter Hagen is filming a book by Armin Müller with the title Every Hour of My Life with Arno Wyzniewski , Hilmar Baumann , Barbara Dittus and Helga Göring in the leading roles. This three-part television film describes the path of a young Wehrmacht officer to a conscious citizen in the GDR. Then Hagen turned back to political adventure films: in 1971 he made A Man Who Must Die , a television crime thriller for which Hagen wrote the book together with Werner Toelcke and in which Toelcke also took on the leading role.

With the multi-part The Light of the Black Candle, based on a book by Wolfgang Held , Hagen established his longstanding collaboration with the composer Walter Kubiczeck , who provided the music for this and numerous other Peter Hagen films. This music contributes significantly to the success of the film. The light of the black candle tells the adventurous story of the communist Fred Laurenz, who got hold of a secret Nazi poison gas formula and wants to convey it to the responsible authorities in the Soviet Union. Giso Weißbach plays the leading role in this adventure film. The film is received with great interest by viewers and makes the director popular with many television viewers.

Between 1973 and 1979, Peter Hagen shot his most important and to this day most important work “ The invisible visor ”. This sixteen-part television series is being produced in cooperation with the Ministry for State Security of the GDR. The focus is initially on the scout Werner Bredebusch alias Achim Detjen - played by Armin Mueller-Stahl - who is supposed to follow the trail of former Nazis in the Federal Republic after the Second World War. In the later episodes, Detjen retires as the protagonist because of the threat of exposure and after numerous successfully completed assignments. He is replaced by a group of scouts led by the lawyer Dr. Clemens - played by Horst Schulze - who continues the work. The series is created in two seasons with several episodes, each extending over two or three parts. The parts of an episode are realized as a coherent project, which then experience their television premiere around the turn of the year, usually in the Christmas program. With the “Invisible Visor”, Hagen succeeds in a work that has made him very popular to this day. Walter Kubiczeck also contributed the music to this series. Towards the end of the series, however, the success fades a little. The last episode in particular attracts significant criticism.

The two-part television film Feuerdrachen, originally planned for the series, was made outside of the “Invisible Visor” in 1981. The subsequent criticism of this film in the GDR media was unusually harsh. So it says in the article Friendly faces on the screen - always friendly in front of it? about the fire dragon : "No longer viewed, [...], the failed two-part crime thriller» Feuerdrachen «by Peter Hagen / Michel Mansfeld [and other films] are not looked at here." The newspaper Neues Deutschland also strongly criticizes the film: " The viewer was plunged into a game of confusion that was difficult to keep track of, and in which hardly anyone was aware of the motivation behind their actions. If the plot (which happened quite often) got stuck hopelessly again, a narrator helped out of the dramaturgical emergency with commentary passages. […] Cox Habbema , Peter Reusse and Michael Gwisdek tried in vain in different disguises to keep the audience in tension. Against the lack of logic in the plot, against stupid dialogues, they were just as unable to act as the technology that the director brought in abundantly. However, the director lacked the necessary care in the treatment of the details, errors crept in the masses. ”The film disappears, probably also because it no longer suited the political climate, immediately after the first broadcast in the archive.

Peter Hagen then turned to other materials. Until the end of the DFF in 1991, he made a few films for the series Polizeiruf 110 and Der Staatsanwalt hat die Wort as well as the television series Johanna , which focuses on the Berlin tram driver Johanna Rothermund played by Ute Lubosch . One of his last works for television in the GDR is noteworthy: The Police Call 110 - Death by Electricity deals with the subject of negligence in fulfilling plans in the GDR. At the time of its first broadcast - on October 7, 1990, the 41st anniversary of the founding of the GDR - the basis for the material was already superfluous due to the fall of the Wall , the GDR is already history. Since the material cannot be adapted to the political changes and in order to bring the project to a close, the film begins with the fade-in "Spring 1989". In this way, the first police call , which has its screen premiere after reunification, is a real "GDR police call".

After the fall of the Wall, things get quiet about Peter Hagen. After the end of the DFF he did not make any further films.

Filmography (selection)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Henryk Goldberg in "Prisma - Cinema and Television Almanac No. 14", Henschelverlag Art and Society, Berlin 1984
  2. ↑ Peter Hoff: “Lightening up a dark, dangerous business. "Feuerdrachen", a film on television in the GDR ", in Neues Deutschland v. December 24, 1981, p. 4.
personal data
SURNAME Hagen, Peter
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German film director and screenwriter
DATE OF BIRTH September 30, 1929
PLACE OF BIRTH Berlin