Professor Mamlock (1961)

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Movie
Original title Professor Mamlock
Country of production GDR
original language German
Publishing year 1961
length 100 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Konrad Wolf
script Karl-Georg Egel
Konrad Wolf
production DEFA , KAG "Heinrich Greif"
music Hans-Dieter Hosalla
camera Werner Bergmann
Günter Ost
cut Christa Wernicke
occupation

Professor Mamlock is a German film adaptation of DEFA by Konrad Wolf from 1961. It is based on the play of the same name by Friedrich Wolf , the director's father.

action

The Jewish professor Hans Mamlock, head of the surgical clinic in a German university town, celebrates New Year's Eve with family and friends in 1932. His guests are newspaper publisher Dr. Werner Seidel, Bank Director Schneider and Senior Physician Dr. Fritz Carlsen, with whom Mamlock fought on the front in the First World War and who now works in the clinic under Mamlock. Mamlock's wife Ellen and their daughter Ruth are also present, only son Rolf is missing. The staunch communist gets into a fight with fascists, in which one of his friends is stabbed with a knife and admitted to Mamlock's hospital. Rolf arrives at home with minor injuries, and according to his father's instructions, he should hide her from his mother and take part in the party. Dr. Inge Ruoff appears to tell Rolf that one of his friends has been brought in and Mamlock that an operation is necessary. At the festival, the "red" Rolf gives the "brown" Inge a friendship kiss. Inge counts next to Dr. Hellpach to the convinced National Socialists of the clinic.

Rolf's friend knows that his medical record can take him to prison with the note of an injury caused for political reasons. The Jewish nurse Simon and Dr. Carlsen therefore express concerns and Mamlock finally writes “New Year's Eve accident” as the reason for the injury in the file. Among other things, this ensures that Dr. Hellpach for irritation. Mamlock, in turn, makes it clear that his actions do not mean that he does not comply with the rights and laws of the country. He doesn't want to get involved politically. In future, Mamlock only wants to see doctors and sick people in his clinic and forbids political discussions.

Adolf Hitler is appointed Reich Chancellor, a little later the Reichstag burns and the communists are made responsible. Ruth calls the perpetrators "your people" in front of her brother Rolf. Like her father, she sees herself as intellectual and thus outside the political discussion. Mamlock, on the other hand, wants Rolf to no longer be politically active and confronts him with the decision of family or communists. Then Rolf leaves the family villa. Mamlock is warned by the publisher Seidel that politicians and Jews will be arrested. He advises Mamlock to go into hiding for a while, but he refuses. A little later he is forbidden to work in the clinic. Mamlock hopes for support from banker Schneider, who is committed to Mamlock. However, he also advises him to be prudent, in a few weeks the excitement will be over and everything will be as it used to be. Forced into inactivity, Mamlock spends the next few weeks at home. The Enabling Act comes into force and at the beginning of April Jews are prohibited from working in public institutions. The new acting head of the clinic will be SA man Dr. Hellpach. He portrays the condition of the clinic under Mamlock's direction as catastrophic and dismisses all Jewish doctors, including Dr. Hirsch and Professor Mamlock. Hirsch wants to leave Germany, which Mamlock sees as cowardice. When his daughter Ruth comes home from school with a Star of David on her clothes and reports distraught that she was harassed by her classmates, Mamlock accuses her of lying and wants to go to school with her. Even their refusal is cowardice in his eyes.

Newspaper articles are written against Mamlock, and Werner Seidel, for fear for his existence, does not want to print a reply. The communists, on the other hand, hand out leaflets in which Mamlock's name is washed away. Mamlock himself goes to his clinic in doctor's clothing and, at the instigation of Dr. Hellpachs arrested. With the word "Jew" on his white doctor's coat, Mamlock is brought through the streets by SA men and a carnival party to his house. Here Ruth stands in front of her father. Ernst, a friend of Rolf's, has also arrived at Mamlock's house to hand in leaflets for this one. Rolf, in turn, sees his father's exposure from the street and hurries to his parents' house. Spy in front of his house recognize him as a wanted communist. Ernst exchanges clothes with Rolf and flees the house in his place. He is taken for Rolf and arrested. A little later, during an interrogation by the SA Sturmbannführer, he was thrown out of the window and died.

Ellen saw Ernst's arrest from the window and believes that Rolf has been arrested. She suffers a heart attack, and Rolf calls the surgical clinic to ask for an ambulance. A hospital worker thinks he recognized Rolf on the phone and Dr. Hellpach wants to arrest him in the villa himself. However, the door opens to Dr. Inge Ruoff, who arrived for the first treatment of Ellen and pretends to have accepted the emergency call from the Villa Mamlock herself and to know nothing about Rolf. A short time later she helps Rolf, disguised as a nurse, to transport Ellen to the clinic to escape.

Banker Schneider is admitted to the surgical clinic for an urgent biliary operation. He insists on Mamlock as the operating doctor, and Dr. Hellpach gives in. Mamlock, who on the advice of his wife and son, packs his things for the escape abroad, is allowed to practice as a doctor again. Last but not least, a law is responsible for this, which allows Jews "tried and tested at the front" to work in public institutions. Mamlock is welcomed with open arms by most at the clinic. He believes everything will be the same as before, but shortly before the banker Schneider's operation he is supposed to sign a list of three Jewish employees who are to be dismissed immediately as non-frontline soldiers. In protest, he also put his name on the list. Dr. Hellpach then draws up a protocol which, among other things, contains the sentence that the hospital staff refuse to work with Mamlock. Reluctantly, everyone present signed the minutes, including Dr. Werner Seidel and Dr. Fritz Carlsen. Only Dr. Inge Ruoff refuses. Mamlock is left alone with the protocol, which he too is supposed to sign. He tears up the log and then shoots himself with his World War I pistol. As he dies, he admonishes Dr. Ruoff that this is just his way of resisting. She should dare to take a different route and say hello to Rolf. When Dr. Hellpach wants to record the incidents in a new protocol, Ruoff explains that this is not necessary because no one will forget these incidents.

production

Ursula Burg (center) and Wolfgang Heinz during the performance of Professor Mamlock at the Berlin Kammerspiele in 1959

The playwright Friedrich Wolf wrote the play Professor Mamlock in exile in France in 1933. As early as 1938 it was filmed in the Soviet Union by Adolf Minkin and Herbert Rappaport . Wolf's son Konrad Wolf shot the second film version from 1960 to 1961. At that time, Wolf had reached a cinematic dead end. His critical contemporary film Sun Seeker was banned in 1958 and his last work, People with Wings, in 1960, failed both audiences and critics. With Professor Mamlock he now tried “to maintain quality and rigor”. Critics also rated the film as a "proof of love for his father".

The main role of Professor Mamlock was taken on by Wolfgang Heinz , who fled to Austria and later to Switzerland in 1933 because of his Jewish origins. Heinz had already taken on the role of Professor Mamlock in 1959 in a production at the Berlin Kammerspiele . At his side, as in the film, played Ursula Burg as Ellen Mamlock. Critics rated Heinz's film portrayal of Professor Mamlock as "his most important performance in front of the camera".

Professor Mamlock had its premiere on May 17, 1961 in the Berlin Colosseum and two days later came to the GDR cinemas; around 940,000 viewers attended the film. On January 25, 1963, it ran for the first time on DFF 1 on the television of the GDR and was shown for the first time on German television on October 22, 1971 in HR .

In addition to the film music by Hans-Dieter Hosalla, excerpts from the last movement of Ludwig van Beethoven's 9th Symphony can also be heard.

Willi Brückner was responsible for the dramaturgy .

criticism

“Wolf's version is characterized by remarkable performance and a sober realism that completely dispenses with pathetic effects and convincingly captures the atmosphere of that time,” wrote Dieter Krusche in 1977.

Erika Richter found that "the sophisticated camera language [...] gave the film something stressful, the wind that was blowing through the images was missing, everything looked like a long-closed, not very personal chapter." Bernhard Wicki called the film " closed." well photographed ”.

For the film service , Professor Mamlock was “a film adaptation of the play of the same name that is well worth seeing [...] Actually remarkable, starring the Jewish exile Wolfgang Heinz. The expressive camera dissolves what is happening on the stage and contributes to suggestive sequences of scenes. "

Cinema called Professor Mamlock an oppressive film and a "disturbing portrait of an 'apolitical'."

Awards

Konrad Wolf (center) at the presentation of the gold medal for Professor Mamlock at the Moscow International Film Festival in 1961

The film was awarded a gold medal at the II Moscow International Film Festival in 1961 and was nominated for the Grand Prize. At the Second International Film Festival in New Delhi , the film received the Silver Lotus Flower in 1961.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. a b Erika Richter: Between the building of the wall and clearing 1961 to 1965 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 161.
  2. ^ Professor Mamlock . In: F.-B. Habel: The great lexicon of DEFA feature films . Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2000, p. 464.
  3. Thomas Heimann. Pictures by Buchenwald: The visualization of anti-fascism in the GDR (1945–1990) . Böhlau, Cologne 2005, ISBN 3-412-09804-3 , p. 69.
  4. ^ Dieter Krusche: Lexicon of the movies. From silent films to today . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1977, p. 507.
  5. Quoted from: Klaus Wischnewski: Dreamers and Ordinary People 1966 to 1979 . In: Ralf Schenk (Red.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Hrsg.): The second life of the film city Babelsberg. DEFA feature films 1946–1992 . Henschel, Berlin 1994, p. 235.
  6. ^ Professor Mamlock. In: Lexicon of International Films . Film service , accessed March 2, 2017 .Template: LdiF / Maintenance / Access used 
  7. See cinema.de
  8. See Professor Mamlock on defa.de