Pius XII. (Movie)
| Movie | |
|---|---|
| Original title | Pius XII. |
| Country of production | Germany , Italy |
| original language | German |
| Publishing year | 2010 |
| length | 180 minutes |
| Rod | |
| Director | Christian Duguay |
| script | Elisabeth of Molo |
| production | Luca Bernabei , Martin Choroba |
| music | Andrea Guerra |
| camera | Fabrizio Lucci |
| cut | Nicola Bonifati |
| occupation | |
| |
Pius XII. (international title: Under the Roman Sky ) is a German-Italian television film from 2010. The film drama thematizes the work of the Pope of the same name during the times of fascism and the National Socialist occupation in Italy and combines this background with a love story about a Jewish couple, fighting for survival during the Shoah in Rome . The premiere of the film took place on April 9, 2010 in the presence of the incumbent Pope Benedict XVI. in his summer residence Castel Gandolfo . The two- parter produced by Bayerischer Rundfunk and RAI was first seen on German television on November 1, 2010 on Das Erste .
action
The film begins with the first air raid on Rome in July 1943, after Pius XII. personally visited the people in the affected area. Two months later, news of a ceasefire provided relief, but it didn't last long. Because now the National Socialists are beginning to take measures against the Jewish residents of the Roman ghetto . One of the Jews at risk is the printer Armando, whose daughter Miriam is wanted by two different men. Marco is a literature student who, after the university has closed , wants to fight for his rights together with the partisans of the Resistancea . Davide sells stolen goods in order to take care of his fellow Jews in times of need. When the National Socialists asked for fifty kilograms of gold as the equivalent for 200 human lives, he made a significant contribution to fulfilling this demand.
Pius XII., Who as early as 1937 in the encyclical “ With burning concern ”, which he at that time still as Cardinal Secretary of State of Pius XI. had co-authored, had communicated his concerns to all German Christians, now rejects the request for a clear statement against the National Socialists because he fears the fate of a Dutch bishop, whose resistance provoked additional deaths. Instead, he tries to appease the enemy by talking to the German General Rainer Stahel .
When Miriam and Davide were distributing forged passports from their father's printing shop to neighboring Jews on a Sabbath , the German occupiers began a raid on Jewish houses. Armando can save his young son Riccardo in the last moment before he abducted and before the eyes of his daughter deported is. Miriam has also lost contact with Davide, and Marco is shot by soldiers on the street. While Pius XII. thinks about how he can stop the persecution of the Jews, the leading National Socialists in Rome are planning the kidnapping of the Pope.
The Jews who remained in Rome are looking for hiding places (in reality during and after the raid on October 15-17, 1943). They are helped by a decree of the Pope, which declares the monasteries and churches of Rome to be extraterritorial areas of the Holy See and thus makes access by the National Socialists more difficult. Davide and Marco find refuge with Father Pankratius Pfeiffer together with some other Jews . As a camouflage, the guests wear the religious costume and learn Christian prayers. Through a tip from a partisan, Davide and Marco learn that Miriam and her friend Bianca are working as a waitress for the National Socialists. The two young men drive there in a truck that transports food and save Miriam. Together they return to the monastery, which is shortly afterwards stormed by the National Socialists. Most of the hidden Jews, however, remain unharmed. After this shock, Miriam and her two friends go to the print shop at night to produce more forged passports that the Jews can use to escape the monastery.
Pius XII. meanwhile comes under increasing pressure and decides to speak to the believers on the radio. When the SS and Police Leader from Rome, General Karl Wolff , came to see him in the Vatican in June 1944, the Pope appealed to the German's conscience and asked whether there was perhaps a little light in his dark soul. Thereupon the general rejects the kidnapping planned in the film and instead orders the complete withdrawal of the National Socialists from Rome. After the American allies take control, Miriam and Davide get married.
criticism
Since the historical role of Pope Pius XII. controversial, there were controversial comments from reviewers even before the film was broadcast on German television. The BZ left the assessment to the playwright Rolf Hochhuth , who had created a negative image of the previously praised Pope with his play The Deputy in 1963 and who now accuses the film producers of presenting the truth incompletely: “But the fundamental difference between television and truth remains: With no syllable one learns in the film that Pius XII. never once said the word Jew publicly during the war. ” Alan Posener interviewed Hochhuth in der Welt . Dieter Bartetzko praised the Pius actor James Cromwell in the FAZ , who shows “someone torn by the pain for the victims” and thus prevents “washing clean, as one-sided as before the damnation”. Sven Felix Kellerhoff from the Berliner Morgenpost also saw a “much more reality-oriented picture” despite a sometimes “exaggerated dramatization”, but at the same time complains about a failure by the Vatican: “Only when all the holdings on Pius XII. are accessible to scientists in the Vatican archives and thus the facts are on the table, there could be a revision of Hochhuth's attack. "According to the Tagesspiegel reviewer Tillmann P. Gangloff" the script [...] addresses the dichotomy, but leaves no doubt as to the Pope's attitude towards the Nazis ”. The parallel plot about Miriam and her friends saw the reviewers as a means of "captivating an audience of millions" with "the usual elements of every major television production" and as a "tribute to the long airtime".
The Bonn Catholicism researcher Karl-Joseph Hummel emphasized in an interview with Domradio that "the scientific findings of the last few years [...] have been taken into account very precisely and [...] presented in a credible manner". In a feature article in the Frankfurter Rundschau, the Freiburg theologian and Pius critic Klaus Kühlwein described the rescue of Jews shown in the film during the raid as a “gross corruption of history”. In truth, Pope Pius had neither ended the raid nor looked after the arrested Jews.
Pope Benedict XVI After the premiere of the film, at which he was present, praised its wartime predecessor and recommended the work as an incentive for the historical awareness of the younger generation.
See also
- The Hochhuth film adaptation of the substitute material from 2002, original title "Amen", by Constantin Costa-Gavras
Web links
- Pius XII. in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Vatican: Benedict watches a film about Pius XII. Vatican Radio , April 9, 2010, accessed November 2, 2010 .
- ↑ a b c Tillmann P. Gangloff: Soft, Satan! Tagesspiegel, October 30, 2010, accessed November 2, 2010 .
- ↑ Press dossier Pius XII. Accessed December 17, 2018 (German).
- ^ Rolf Hochhuth: ARD honors Pope who was silent in the 3rd Reich. BZ, October 30, 2010, accessed November 2, 2010 .
- ↑ Alan Posener: The story of the Pope who was silent. Die Welt, November 1, 2010.
- ↑ a b Dieter Bartetzko: From the Christian duty. Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, November 1, 2010, accessed on November 2, 2010 .
- ^ A b Sven Felix Kellerhoff: How "Hitler's Pope" saved Jews. Berliner Morgenpost, November 1, 2010, accessed on November 2, 2010 .
- ↑ Stefan Klinkhammer: "Seeing film at a profit". Interview with Karl-Joseph Hummel. Domradio, November 1, 2010, accessed on November 2, 2010 .
- ↑ Klaus Kühlwein: The legend of the savior of the Jews. Frankfurter Rundschau, December 14, 2010, accessed on January 12, 2011 .
- ^ Pope's Words After Viewing Pius XII Film. Zenit.org, April 12, 2010, accessed November 2, 2010 .