Schtonk!

Movie
Original title	Schtonk!
Country of production	Germany
original language	German
Publishing year	1992
length	115 minutes
Age rating	FSK 6
Rod
Director	Helmut Dietl
script	Helmut Dietl ; Ulrich Limmer
production	Bavaria Film
music	Konstantin Wecker
camera	Xaver Schwarzenberger
cut	Tanja Schmidbauer
occupation
	Uwe Ochsenknecht : Forger Prof. Dr. Fritz Knobel; Götz George : Scandal reporter Hermann Willié; Christiane Hörbiger : Freya von Hepp; Harald Juhnke : Head of Pit Kummer; Hermann Lause : Kurt Glück, editor-in-chief; Veronica Ferres : Martha, the forger's muse; Ulrich Mühe : Publishing Director Dr. Guntram Wieland; Rolf Hoppe : manufacturer and former Nazi Karl Lentz; Martin Benrath : Uwe Esser, editor-in-chief; Georg Marischka : SS-Obergruppenführer von Klantz; Karl Schönböck : art professor and former Nazi August Strasser; Rosemarie Fendel : wife of the manufacturer Karl Lentz; Wolfgang Quantity : German graphologist in London; Thomas Holtzmann : Notary Cornelius; Dagmar Manzel : Biggi Knobel, wife of the forger; Hark Bohm : priest; Willy Harlander : Bavarian border official; Günter Junghans : GDR border officer;

Schtonk! is a satirical German comedy film by Helmut Dietl about the publication of the fake Hitler diaries in the Hamburger Illustrierte Stern in 1983.

content

West Germany at the end of the 1970s: The forger “Prof. Dr. “Fritz Knobel produces and sells the sewing machine manufacturer and former Nazi Lentz a nude by Eva Braun allegedly painted by the“ Führer ”himself . Since Knobel's wife Biggi had refused to model him for this character, he resorted to the farm worker Martha (later a waitress at the local inn), with whom he began an affair, which marked the beginning of a complicated triangular relationship. When he delivered the painting to Lentz, he witnessed how an old friend of Lentz, art professor August Strasser, played himself up by inventing a story of how he witnessed the creation of the picture. Strasser is the author of the book Der Führer und ich , in which he describes how Hitler's private documents were lost shortly before the end of the war. The plane that flew the documents out of besieged Berlin was shot down over a location in what would later become the GDR . This obviously fictional anecdote from Hitler's private life inspires Knobel to earn even more money from the gullible Lentz through a forged Hitler diary with fictitious content.

The Hamburg reporter Hermann Willié, who works for the magazine HHpress and is fascinated by the Third Reich , has meanwhile become the owner of the wreck of the Carin II , Hermann Göring's former yacht . Since he was financially overwhelmed with the restoration, he contacted Göring's niece, Freya Freifrau von Hepp. The two start a relationship. Willié tried his editors for a photo report about his yacht and his collection of Nazi - devotional , and a.. To win a teaspoon with a swastika and silver hallmark and Göring's huge white bathrobe, which Freya gave him, for which he would like to receive a princely reward from his paper. However, he fails. Freya took him to an annual meeting of old Nazis in Lentz Castle, where Willié found out about the alleged diary and made contact with “Prof. Dr. “Knobel picks up.

Willié senses a sensation and only dedicates his long-time friend to the department head Pit Kummer and the publishing director Dr. Guntram Wieland a. Bypassing the editor-in-chief, he obtained the required nine million D-Marks for the purchase of 60 Hitler diaries, all of which were forgeries from Knobel, in order to publish them. Knobel dispels constant doubts as to its authenticity by making comparative documents himself, including a “ Führer's order ” to Ferdinand Porsche to build the VW Beetle . Knobel writes all the diaries by hand himself and fills them with irrelevant content, for example with fictitious entries about Hitler's acute intestinal disease. Probably the most frequently quoted is his saying in connection with the Olympic Games in 1936 : "I hope I'll get tickets for Eva!"

While Knobel showed more and more resemblance to Hitler in terms of appearance and speech, the increasingly megalomaniac Willié tried to imitate Göring's pompous lifestyle and separated from Freya. The editor-in-chief of the left-wing liberal news magazine HHpress is meanwhile being fooled by the hoax, succumbing to Nazi fascination and announcing at a press conference that large parts of German history must be rewritten. Meanwhile, Willié suspects that he has been caught by a forger, but does not want to admit it.

In the end, the fraud flies up: An expert report by the Federal Criminal Police Office states that the materials used come from the post-war period and that the content of the work is grotesquely superficial. Knobel sets himself apart in good time with forged papers. Mentally confused, Willié goes in search of Hitler, who, since it has now been proven that the diaries were written after the end of the war, must consequently still be alive. The final scene indicates that Willié's arrest is imminent.

title

The title is taken from the film The Great Dictator by Charlie Chaplin . In it, Chaplin, as dictator Adenoid Hynkel, uses a German-sounding pseudo-language ( Grammelot ) in his speeches and uses the word Schtonk several times : “Demokratsie Schtonk! Liberty Schtonk! Free Sprekken Schtonk! ", Translated by a speaker as" Democracy will be abolished! Freedom will be abolished! Freedom of speech will be abolished! ”In spoken language, the word is reminiscent of German stunk , which in colloquial terms stands for“ quarrel, strife, nagging ”.

The word is also taken up in the film itself, when Rolf Hoppe reads from the Hitler diaries in the role of manufacturer Karl Lentz and - since he cannot decipher the handwriting - reads Kotzeschtonk instead of "Thank God" .

backgrounds

The film satirizes the events surrounding the scandal surrounding the forged Hitler diaries at Stern in 1983 with very precise details . The characters Fritz Knobel, Hermann Willié and von Hepp were based on Konrad Kujau , Gerd Heidemann and Edda Göring . The figure Karl Lentz is based on Fritz Stiefel , who actually bought many counterfeit works of art from Kujau. The Hamburger Illustrierte bought the Hitler diaries forged by the painter Konrad Kujau for 9.3 million marks. Shortly after the publication of the "sensational edition" it became clear through an expert report by the Federal Criminal Police Office that all of the alleged Hitler diaries were forgeries. Adhesives and paper were found on the diaries, which had only been developed after 1945. Original quotes from the then Stern editor-in-chief around Peter Koch are literally contained in the film, for example “Large parts of German history have to be rewritten” or “Something like that blows you, such an icy whiff of history”. The trip of the real Stern editor Gerd Heidemann to the GDR actually took place.

The climax of the film, as well as the real scandal, is the international press conference, which actually took place in 1983 at the Gruner + Jahr publishing house in Hamburg with the participation of over 15 camera teams and hundreds of editors from other newspapers . In Schtonk! this scene (underlaid with the sounds of That's only there once, that won't come back from the UFA film The Congress Dances ) becomes an exaggerated satire, which, however, is close to the original recordings. Götz George climbs the desk and rules over the press with a victory sign that mutates more and more into a Hitler salute. While he was writing, the forger Knobel changed more and more into a caricatured Hitler counterpart , who towards the end “writes the Fiihrer's handwriting better than his own”. The gullibility of the editorial team is based primarily on the numerous myths about the Nazi giants and the greed for a press sensation .

Alternative ending

In the first version the film ended differently. Knobel, who goes abroad with his two wives, learns there how Willié has enriched himself from the falsification story. He feels taken advantage of, goes to Hamburg in a short-circuit act and puts Willié on his yacht Carin II . However, Willié has completely stepped away and takes the ship off. In the last scene of the film, the yacht drives away accompanied by several police boats. Knobel is sitting in the front half of the ship (also clearly visible in the modified / shortened TV / DVD version).

The theatrical and television versions shown so far end when police boats approach the yacht. In the original version, a captain of the port police enters the yacht, who was played by Gerd Heidemann as a special highlight. In the original version, he had another extra appearance as a waiter who fell victim to the cut.

Production notes

The magazine in the film was originally supposed to be called "Expressmagazin". But the Rhenish tabloid Express complained before the cinema started and won the process. Since the shooting had already been completed, scenes had to be re-shot or changed with the help of digital effects that were completely new at the time. Therefore the newspaper is called “HHpress” in the final version of the film. In Schtonk! digital effects were first used to repair the rotated footage. In Hollywood there was a similar case with The Crow two years later .
Schtonk! was one of the first films to be funded by the Filmstiftung NRW .
The interior shots of the ball, on which the first Hitler diary appears, were filmed at the Wartburg in Eisenach . The exterior shots show the Rhenish Drachenburg Castle on the Drachenfels in Königswinter . The forger's workshop and the inn are half-timbered houses in Selbach, which belongs to Odenthal near Leverkusen .
The film used as film music one hand, popular hits from the time of the "Third Reich" and the Weimar Republic ( non of which is the world beneath , I know it is gescheh'n once a miracle , He is Waldemar sung by Zarah Leander , The there is only once , sung by Lilian Harvey ), on the other hand music by Richard Wagner , Hitler's favorite composer ( Prologue 1st act by Lohengrin , Prelude and Liebestod by Tristan and Isolde and the Bridal Choir by Lohengrin ). In addition, the Badenweiler March can be heard, which since 1939 has only been allowed to be played in public during Adolf Hitler's appearances.
The music during Willié's trip to the GDR quotes Wagner's Walkürenritt , Die Internationale and Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's wedding march . The recordings for the representation of the village Börnersdorf and its churchyard took place in Abtsbessingen and the surrounding area. For this purpose one used, inter alia. the historical tombs in the Abtsbessinger Kirchhof . Further recordings were made in the port of Hamburg .
The film opened in theaters in Germany on March 12, 1992. It was first seen on German television on May 29, 1994 on Erste .
In the star podcast "Faking Hitler" (episode 9 at 4:21 to 6:00 min) it is said that the producers insisted that the plot of the film was fictitious. In the podcast, however, it is said that except for the names of the characters surprisingly little is fictitious. The then deputy editor-in-chief of Stern, Michael Seufert, says that Helmut Dietl was asked why he did not include some absurdities of real history in the film. Dietl replied that these real occurrences were so absurd that the audience would perceive it as too crazy and the audience would then be angry with him.

Awards

German Film Award , 1992
Guild Film Award in Gold
Oscar nomination for best foreign language film

Reviews

“The scandal surrounding the Hitler diaries [...], prepared as a garishly cheeky farce with grotesque features. The film, carried by good actors, attacks social double standards and the 'repeatability of history' without developing any particular theatrical density or dramaturgical skill. The opportunity for a convincing and unmasking satire remains largely untapped. "

- Lexicon of international film

"I don't know of any satire that pokes fun at the way the Federal Republic, especially the media, dealt with the Second World War and the Nazi era so successfully."

- Sönke Neitzel