Robert Koch, the fighter of death

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Movie
Original title Robert Koch,
the fighter of death
Country of production Germany
original language German
Publishing year 1939
length 113 (world premiere) minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Hans Steinhoff
script CH Diller
Walter Wassermann
production Emil Jannings for Tobis
music Wolfgang Zeller
camera Fritz Arno Wagner
cut Martha Dübber
occupation

Robert Koch, the fighter of death is a biography with Emil Jannings in the title role and Werner Krauss as his opponent Rudolf Virchow . The film premiered on September 26, 1939 in Berlin's Ufa-Palast am Zoo . Directed by Hans Steinhoff .

action

The young country doctor Dr. Robert Koch is desperate because a tuberculosis epidemic kills numerous children in his district. Every fourth child is affected by this treacherous epidemic, and parents have to watch their little ones wilt away miserably. For years, Koch has been busy trying to track down the tuberculosis pathogen.

His work met with resentment and outright rejection from numerous colleagues. He is believed to be a charlatan, a bluff who is on the wrong track with his assumptions and investigations. There are envious people, such as a teacher whose honor is insulted or the representative of a sect who pray for health, but also much more serious opponents - above all the famous medical colleague and politician Privy Councilor Rudolf Virchow. This influential member of the Reichstag sharply denied Koch's assumption that a bacillus is the cause of tuberculosis.

Intrigues and slander hinder Koch's tireless curiosity, but they cannot stop it. One day the young doctor succeeds in proving his assumptions. The Ministry of Health then invited him to Berlin to continue his research undisturbed and with the necessary financial means. But even in the capital, various forces are trying to torpedo Robert Koch's work.

Production notes

Was filmed Robert Koch, the opponent of the death of 20 March until June 1939 on the Tobis-outdoor area in Berlin-Johannisthal . The film was based on Hellmuth Unger's novel Robert Koch, Novel of a Great Life .

The NS commissioned production received a plethora of awards at its premiere: particularly valuable in terms of state politics and art, culturally valuable, popularly valuable, youthful. At the international film art exhibition in Venice , the Biennale , the film received first prize at the end of 1939. The film was not banned by the Allies.

The two superstars of German film of the past twenty years, Emil Jannings and Werner Krauss, appeared together in front of the camera for the first time in a sound film. Three years later they were again (and for the last time) opponents in The Discharge .

Emil Hasler designed the extensive film structures that were executed by Heinrich Weidemann and Fritz Lück . Karl Julius Fritzsche took over the production management, Gustav Rathje was his deputy. Gerhard Staab was the production manager, Hans Grimm provided the sound, and Arno Richter designed the costumes.

As a result of the great success of the film, which was massively funded by the government, a real Robert Koch hype arose for a short time: For example, it was reported in the German press that after the victorious conclusion of the Poland campaign, i.e. exactly at the time the film was released in the Reich , several of Koch's personal files, which had previously been stolen by the Polish side from the former Prussian government building in Posen, had been seized as 'Polish looted property' in Warsaw's State Hygiene Institute. These documents were brought to the Robert Koch Museum in Berlin. Thanks to the promotion by the Steinhoff film, Hellmuth Unger's Koch novel reached the sales mark of 100,000 copies in autumn 1940. The author Gerhard Menzel , who was involved in the Robert Koch film, wrote the Koch play "The Immortal", which premiered on September 5, 1940 at the Schauspielhaus Hamburg . Radio plays about Koch were broadcast on both the German broadcaster and the Reich broadcasters in Berlin and Breslau , one of which was based on Günther Weisenborn's play "The Good Enemies".

Reviews

In 'Der deutsche Film 1938–1945' you can read: “This Robert Koch Memorial was filmed from a kneeling position: duty, willingness to make sacrifices, a researcher's absolute belief in his mission, politically correct (Bismarck supporters) action and hardly a love scene ”. On the other hand, there was the characterization of the liberal Koch opponent Rudolf Virchow: “Krauss described Virchow as the medicine pope, as the scholar who has fallen into his own dogma, the ambitious old man standing in the light of the court, who only with the most inmost reluctance of the new epoch of medical knowledge acknowledges. "

The Lexikon des Internationale Films writes: “The way it is portrayed shows Steinhoff's film as a typical example of Nazi production: Great actors are used to stylize a figure from the German past who, due to their superiority, is allowed to use any means. Here he also helps to keep the German tribe clean "

Kay Wenigers The film's large dictionary of people said about Steinhoff's production that the “biography of the medical doctor Robert Koch, in turn, was stylized by the native of Saxony in homage to the German spirit of research. Koch, according to Steinhoff's equation, like Hitler, stands for the new and daring, the bold and revolutionary. Like Hitler, the film wants to insinuate, there are numerous inadequate and narrow-minded adversaries, whose faintheartedness makes them blind to the visions of godlike innovators. "

Reclam's film guide points out the following with regard to the Koch film and similar Nazi productions of those years that centered on oversized leaders: “Portraits of great Germans skillfully weave the myth of the Führer, who goes his way undeterred by spiteful opponents and petty doubters and, if necessary, makes the right decision based on his ingenious intuition, even against logical arguments. "

Bucher's Encyclopedia of Film weights this staging and similar works by Steinhoff in order to classify its position and significance in National Socialist film: “ Established with the tendentious biography Robert Koch (1939), the Heimatfilm Die Geierwally (1940) and above all Ohm Krüger (1941) Steinhoff himself as the most loyal star director of the Third Reich. "

Karlheinz Wendtland commented on the film: “Hans Steinhoff, a loyal supporter of Hitler, the practitioner Dr. Chef heroically raise. At the same time he took the opportunity to convert Koch's scientific opponent, Rudolf Virchow, one of the great liberals of his time, who he really was politically, into a senile reactionary, a representative of 'decadent democracy'. Still, Steinhoff made a great film. That is what makes him so dangerous with his work. He brings remarkably realistic and humorous scenes, shows extraordinarily affectionate character types, even expressionistic symbolisms. The speech duel between Krauss and Jannings is fascinating. How they speak and act - it is a great pleasure to watch! The phrase-like content was prescribed for both. "

See also

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ See Bogusław Drewniak: Der deutsche Film 1938–1945. A complete overview. Düsseldorf 1987, p. 202 f.
  2. ↑ a b Der deutsche Film 1938–1945, p. 202
  3. ↑ Klaus Brüne (Red.): Lexikon des Internationale Films, Volume 6, S. 3135. Reinbek near Hamburg 1987.
  4. ↑ Kay Less : The film's great personal dictionary . The actors, directors, cameramen, producers, composers, screenwriters, film architects, outfitters, costume designers, editors, sound engineers, make-up artists and special effects designers of the 20th century. Volume 7: R - T. Robert Ryan - Lily Tomlin. Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-89602-340-3 , p. 465.
  5. ^ Reclam's film guide. By Dieter Krusche, collaboration: Jürgen Labenski. Stuttgart 1973. p. 145.
  6. ↑ Bucher's Encyclopedia of Film. Edited by Liz-Anne Bawden, edition of the German edition by Wolfram Tichy. Lucerne and Frankfurt / M. 1977, p. 735.
  7. ^ Karlheinz Wendtland: Beloved Kintopp. All German feature films from 1929–1945 with numerous artist biographies born in 1939 and 1940, Verlag Medium Film Karlheinz Wendtland, Berlin, first edition 1987, second edition 1989, Film 75/1939, pp. 69, 70, ISBN 3-926945-03-6