Polonia Express

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Movie
Original title Polonia Express
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1957
length 75 minutes
Rod
Director Kurt Jung-Alsen
script Frank Beyer ,
Kurt Jung-Alsen
production DEFA
music Joachim Werzlau
camera Walter Fehdmer
cut Ruth Moegelin
occupation

Polonia-Express is a German feature film from the DEFA studio for feature films by Kurt Jung-Alsen from 1957, based on the experiences of the worker veteran Otto Kühne in 1920.

action

In 1920, the railroad worker Fritz Marr said goodbye to his girlfriend Hella Merkel at a counter in Erfurt Central Station to take the train to a track construction site. In the past he also worked at the train station in Erfurt , but was transferred because his superiors did not like him there. Trains regularly pass the railway junction heading east to secretly transport weapons for the fight against the young Soviet state , and Fritz Marr mobilizes the railway workers to prevent these illegal deliveries by means of controls. His future father-in-law, the SPD comrade and works council chairman Wilhelm Merkel, is also one of his critics.

During the journey, Fritz Maar argues with two passengers and therefore gets off the train and in the driver's compartment before reaching his destination , although this is actually forbidden. From this he learns that the wagons coupled to the end of the train were not checked for weapons. Fritz Maar climbs over to these at full speed and opens one of them. Here he discovers weapons and ammunition in the crates that are already burning due to seized brakes and can just jump off the train shortly before the explosion. The special representative of the Reich Government Althoff who was on the train orders the police captain responsible to cordon off the accident area so that no unauthorized person can come near the train, and the train must refrain from investigating the accident. To do this, you practice cover-ups and talk about an accident involving chemicals.

Fritz Maar hitchhiked a car back to Erfurt while his girlfriend was looking for him at the first aid station on the train that had crashed. Here she learns from a railroad worker that Fritz has already got off the train. At the Reichsbahn in Erfurt, the railway workers are now called together and Fritz Maar informs them of the actual cause of the accident. But since his girlfriend claims after her information that he already got off one station earlier, he is now called a liar. Wilhelm Merkel thinks he knows that all of this is just election propaganda by the communists . The railroad worker Schwerte, who was sent to the seriously injured train driver of the crashed train, can only find out from him - shortly before his death - that he himself sent Fritz Maar into the affected wagon.

During a meeting between the railroad director Ralow and the special representative Althoff it comes up that the Polonia-Express is supposed to arrive at a technical stop in Erfurt on the same evening, to which two wagons with weapons and ammunition are supposed to be attached. In any case, it must be avoided that these are checked. Director Ralow now has a problem when he learns from Wilhelm Merkel that the workers have decided to carry out the gun controls again with immediate effect. The attempt to divert the train does not succeed because it is a French military train and the French do not agree to it.

In order to still prevent a control, Althoff is planning an assassination attempt on their organizer Maas, the Hella, who can prevent his eyes just in time, with the help of friendly workers. Together they move to the train station to check the Polonia Express. Even the French soldiers who were summoned eventually sided with the workers after they started singing the Marseillaise . In this way, the Erfurt railway workers won.

Production and publication

Polonia Express was shot as a black and white film under the working titles Rote Funken and Poloniazug and had its double premiere on November 7, 1957 as a contribution to the 40th anniversary of the October Revolution in the Erfurt Palace Theater and in the Berlin Film Theater Colosseum .

The film was shown on television for the first time on January 1, 1958 in the program of the German television station.

The dramaturgy was in the hands of Wolfgang Ebeling , and Frank Beyer was responsible for the scenario .

criticism

The lexicon of international films writes that in the film , which is based on the authentic experiences of an Erfurt working-class veteran, and is grippingly staged, the ideological motifs are comparatively unobtrusive.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Polonia Express. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 23, 2018 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used