Stern's hour
| Television broadcast | |
|---|---|
| German title | Stern's hour |
| Country of production |
 Germany
|
| Year (s) | 1970 to 1979 |
| Production company |
Süddeutscher Rundfunk |
| length | 40 to 58 minutes |
| Episodes | 24 (Other sources: 26 or 27) |
| genre | documentation |
| Director | Horst Stern |
| First broadcast | January 13, 1970 (other source: January 30, 1970) on First German Television |
Stern's hour was a series of television programs by the journalist Horst Stern about animals and landscapes, produced by Süddeutscher Rundfunk in color and the first of 24 (other sources: 26 or 27) episodes of first German television on January 13, 1970 (other source : January 30, 1970) .
intention
The individual episodes usually had the subtitle Comments about ... the respective topic. They were instructive, admonishing and critical and never primarily intended for pure entertainment. The focus was never only on the animal as such, but also on its relationship to humans in all of their facets.
Revealing effect
Stern's hour was - in contrast to the sometimes idyllic animal series of their time such as Bernhard Grzimek's A Place for Animals , Heinz Sielmann's expeditions into the animal kingdom , once on the trail of rare animals by Eugen Schuhmacher or later animals in front of the camera by Hans Schweiger and Ernst Arendt - Designed from the start not to show cute animals in a kind of extended zoological garden , but rather to hold up a mirror to the viewer, sometimes relentlessly through sometimes shocking images, so that he can question his own relationship to the corresponding object. Classic examples of this are Stern's remarks about the domestic chicken or remarks about the domestic pig . However, battery keeping of laying hens was never denounced ex cathedra , but its necessity was always taken into account given the population's egg consumption. Nonetheless, these episodes caused an outcry throughout the republic, so that in the remarks about the hedgehog that followed the … Domestic Pig and … Domestic Chicken broadcast, Stern began with the text “Nobody needs to switch off. We're not slaughtered. ”Faded in. Some of the recordings were made using techniques that were unfamiliar for animal documentaries. B. in remarks about the domestic chicken :
“When I went into the chicken batteries with cameras, […] I had rails put in place to show this immense mass of chickens in these cages. I didn't want to do this with cuts, so as not to give the impression that I had manipulated this mass of animals using cutting techniques . So I had rails put in place and passed these batteries in an incredibly long drive without cutting . "
Remarks on the red deer
| Quote |
|---|
- Horst Stern : Comments on the red deer
|
On Christmas Eve 1971, Horst Stern's remarks about the red deer were broadcast, which promptly triggered a scandal because he called for these animals to be shot down more "to save the German forest". The broadcast date was deliberately chosen by Südfunk television director Horst Jaedicke and was intended to offer the audience a contrasting program. Star:
“When I found out that this film […] was supposed to be broadcast on Christmas Eve, I went up to my TV director Horst Jaedicke and said:“ You can't do that. ”The film begins with a Christmassy start […] Sixteen […] out of the German forest, and the snow trickles softly, but it doesn't stay that way: the film becomes bloody and it becomes polemical. "Yes," he said, [...] "I know that," and then he said to me an almost classic sentence that I believe a television director would not utter today. He said: "Anyone who needs television on Christmas Eve to get into the Christmas mood should tune in to the ZDF [...], because the Regensburger Domspatzen sing ."
In the film, Stern showed the damage caused by game in German forests caused by red deer and roe deer through peeling , sweeping and browsing , and criticized the traditional hunters for their fixation on trophies and promoting excessive game populations, which, among other things, in the trophy shows, the selection of breeding when shooting and artificial game feeding of antlers come to light.
“It is time to demystify the red deer antlers as a status symbol. When [...] everyone knows that these antlers were very often obtained by semi-domesticated crib-eaters, then the field of fire is finally free for organic hunting . "
The film generated an enormous response from the population and parliaments. At the beginning of 1972, the responsible committees in the Bavarian state parliament and in the Bundestag felt compelled to deal with Stern's broadcast. In April of the same year, at the request of the Committee on Food, Agriculture and Forests , the film was shown again in front of members of the Bundestag in Bonn, which was commented personally by Horst Stern. The forester Georg Sperber , who was also present there and who worked as a technical advisor in the making of the film, was banned from speaking by the Bavarian State Chancellery as his official employer immediately before the question and answer session that followed the film.
Forestry faculties of several German universities stood behind Stern in the dispute over the statements of the film. A statement signed by 68 forest experts and scientists from the Georg-August University of Göttingen certified that the film was essentially a correct representation of the forest and game theme. The organized hunters, however, attacked Stern. The much-read hunting magazine Wild und Hund condemned the film as the “ugly, even hateful heresy ” of the “Christmas Eve Star”.
“That would have been [the] end of my television career back then, because there has seldom a film received such an enormous postal response as this film. So there really came letters full of baskets, and the senders, they rose to the ranks of the princes. The entire aristocracy protested against this way of portraying [...] their favorite hobby, hunting. And under the impression of these letters, which the director - that was Professor Bausch at the time - reached, [...] I might not have been allowed to work anymore. But then three German universities saved me: The forest faculties of Göttingen , Munich and Freiburg , they wrote letters to Bausch with the same wording, which contained exactly what [the Bavarian Agriculture Minister] Eisenmann had already said in the state parliament: “We certainly won't identify with all of Mr. Stern's formulations, but that he is right in the matter is undisputed. And since we can imagine what is happening to you at the moment, dear director, we offer you a lot of help. ”Yes, Hans Bausch was off the hook - if three German universities stand behind his author, he could not much more happening. And I was allowed to continue. "
At Christmas 1973, in order, as he said, “not to be remembered forever as a Christmas molester”, Stern broadcast his less conflictual remarks about the butterfly .
The film is considered to be a turning point in German hunting history and in the forest-game conflict , which brought the damage caused by game in the forest , which was previously discussed mainly in specialist circles, into the focus of the general public.
"After this film, the German hunt was no longer what it was before."
"Pink" films
Stern also shot purely factual and informative episodes in which he described animals that seem everyday and their behavior in often astonishing images and their behavior as in comments about the butterfly . Stern also advocated a reduction in prejudices against repulsive, often annoying animals. B. in the two-parter life by a thread - remarks about the spider tried to take away the viewer's disgust and fear of these animals, which are often disgusted or dangerous, with fascinating, never before seen images. Star:
“The Süddeutsche Rundfunk classified my films as“ Stern schwarz ”and“ Stern rosa ”. Jaedicke said, probably not entirely wrong, I can't let off one shocker after the other, I have to reassure people every now and then [...] so that they stick with it, and so I always had to watch a film in between make who was free from [...] problems, about storks, or about the hedgehog [...]. But I never quite succeeded: I always had problems somewhere, with storks for example, that […] the wet meadows [are] drained, that the frogs disappear, the stork no longer has the food. So even these so-called pink films were never entirely free from [...] problems. "
style
One of Stern's stylistic devices was to start with seemingly idyllic pictures on the respective topic, but in the course of the program quickly switch to often drastic, but always realistic motifs. His captivating comments, presented in Stern's characteristic rough timbre, were marked by precise sarcasm and also cynicism ; sometimes with a wink, but always full of respect, even love for the object he describes - but never humanizing and glorifying:
“Where the farmer goes, there is the gloomy spruce forest in the mountains. In the valley comes the noisy city. First the cow leaves, then the guest. Who else should you milk then? "
The End
The end of the successful series was homemade by Stern: The three-part deputy - animals in pharmaceutical research heralded the end by showing hitherto unseen draconian images of laboratory animals and practices in the pharmaceutical industry, which on the one hand undoubtedly serve their purpose of shaking up the nation, fulfilled, on the other hand, nevertheless questioned the whole concept of the show. Stern saw that his pictures pushed the actual message conveyed in the commentary, namely the ambivalence of cruelty and the simultaneous need for animal experiments in our social system, into the background:
“It's just not true that pictures always reflect the truth, they by no means do that. Many pictures require a qualifying comment. But that is completely ignored when the images are so strong that they completely flood the audience's feelings and block out the ear, block out the whole mind. That is the danger that lies in this medium, that is, if you give it strong images, then you can forget what you have to say about it, that will not work. "
criticism
“Horst Stern loved the provocative tone, which often contrasted with the magic of the pictures; He circumvented the common sense of the dialectically enlightened society of the early seventies, for example by not speaking out against animal experiments in general, but rather found that these were to a certain extent a necessary accompaniment of a society that clung to its sexual addiction to the point of sickness. Animal ethics closely linked to the monstrosity of human excessiveness - what is now more widely discussed outside of the animal film genre was new and provocative in Stern's hours. "
“Like no other protagonist of the burgeoning ecological movement, Horst Stern [has] not only been engaged, but also dealt with the phenomenon of engagement itself; that was, if you will, the meta-behind its nearly thirty TV films in which he hour, "the under the title" star Bednarz made of natural scandals: Debunked were the wild as a pharmaceutical factor, the Alps as a holiday landscape, the forest as a trail in a language that never eschewed sarcasms, enlightening up to the "ruthless", as one used to call the precise details shortly afterwards in the reporting. "
"With twenty-six episodes of his series" Stern's Hour ", Stern [has] set the standard for seriously researched nature journalism."
consequences
| episode | First broadcast | |
|---|---|---|
| 1. | Remarks about the horse | January 13, 1970 (Other source: January 30, 1970) |
| 2. | Notes on the Art of Hunting with Birds | March 31, 1970 |
| 3. | Notes on the bee | July 14, 1970 |
| 4th | Comments on the beef | August 11, 1970 |
| 5. | Notes on the hunting dog | 29th September 1970 |
| 6th | Remarks about big cats | December 29, 1970 |
| 7th | Comments on the domestic pig | May 11, 1971 |
| 8th. | Comments on the domestic chicken | June 8th 1971 |
| 9. | Notes about the hedgehog | June 29, 1971 |
| 10. | Remarks on the red deer | December 24, 1971 |
| 11. | Remarks on the horse in the circus | April 17th 1973 |
| 12. | Comments on the animal in the trade | May 29, 1973 |
| 13. | Comments on the stork | July 10, 1973 |
| 14th | Comments on the butterfly | December 26th 1973 |
| 15th | Comments on a vacation landscape | February 12, 1974 |
| 16. | By a thread - remarks on the spider , part 1 | December 28, 1975 |
| 17th | By a thread - remarks on the spider , part 2 | December 30, 1975 |
| 18th | Comments about the dog as a commodity | January 27, 1976 |
| 19th | Notes on the Animal in the Zoo , Part 1 | June 13, 1976 |
| 20th | Notes on the animal in the zoo , part 2 | June 15, 1976 |
| 21st | The representatives - animals in pharmaceutical research , part 1 | October 22, 1978 |
| 22nd | The deputies - animals in pharmaceutical research , part 2 | October 26, 1978 |
| 23. | The deputies - animals in pharmaceutical research , part 3 | October 27, 1978 |
| 24. | Comments on chamois | January 21, 1979 |
publication
The episodes marked in green as well as the film The Fatigue Truth , a documentary about Horst Stern by Ulli Pfau , were released in a cassette with six DVDs , published by Arthaus Musik , as part of the 3sat edition on ARD-Video .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Stern's hour on SWR Media ( memento from July 18, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Originally accessed July 14, 2014.
- ↑ a b Michael Reufsteck , Stefan Niggemeier : Das Fernsehlexikon . All over 7000 programs from Ally McBeal to the ZDF hit parade. Goldmann, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-442-30124-6 .
- ↑ a b c d Irene Klünder: Horst Stern: The power of the word. ( Memento of the original from July 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. On: dokumentarfilm.info. Retrieved July 14, 2014.
- ↑ a b c d e f Horst Stern in conversation with Thomas Hocke, in the series Witnesses of the Century , laid out in the Gedächtnis der Nation project ( interview - August 5, 1998 - duration 59:53 minutes).
- ↑ a b Cord Riechelmann: So cute, our feathered friends. In: Frankfurter Rundschau , January 7, 2002, p. BS3.
- ↑ Wikipedia article about Horst Stern . Version dated February 25, 2014 .
- ↑ Against the grain. In: Der Spiegel , edition 52/1971, p. 120.
- ↑ a b c Man made the pig a pig. In: Der Spiegel, edition 53/1973
- ↑ "Save the forest!" - Horst Stern is dead. In: SWR. Retrieved January 28, 2019 .
- ↑ a b c d Ludwig Fischer (ed.): Unfinished Insights - The Journalist and Writer Horst Stern (= Contributions to Media Aesthetics and Media History . No. 4 ). Lit Verlag, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3397-6 , pp. 115 ff., 267 ff . ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 20, 2019]).
- ↑ a b c d Claus-Peter Lieckfeld: crime scene forest: from someone who set out to save the forest . Westend Verlag, Frankfurt / Main 2006, ISBN 978-3-938060-11-7 , pp. 129 f . ( google.de [accessed on January 15, 2019]).
- ↑ In detail about the background and audience reactions in the contemporary witness interview Stern / Hocke (from 26:35)
- ↑ a b Klaus Friedrich Maylein: The hunt - function and space. Causes, processes and effects of functional change in hunting . Dissertation. University of Konstanz, 2005, p. 37, 511 ( uni-konstanz.de [accessed January 20, 2019]).
- ↑ Horst Stern shocked with "Remarks on the Red Deer". In: Chronicle of the ARD. Archived from the original on January 20, 2019 ; accessed on August 15, 2017 .
- ↑ a b c Ludwig Fischer (ed.): Unfinished Insights - The Journalist and Writer Horst Stern (= contributions to media aesthetics and media history . No. 4 ). Lit Verlag, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3397-6 , pp. 116 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 20, 2019]).
- ↑ a b c Jens Ivo Engels : From concern for animals to concern for the environment - animal consignments as environmental policy in West Germany between 1950 and 1980 . In: Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Institute for Social History eV (Ed.): Archive for Social History . tape 43 . JHW Dietz Nachf., Braunschweig, Bonn 2003, p. 313 ( archive.org [PDF; accessed January 31, 2019]).
- ↑ Georg Sperber . In: Bavarian Academy for Nature Conservation and Landscape Management ANL (Hrsg.): NaturschutzGeschichte (n) . tape I , 2010, p. 32 ( PDF on ZOBODAT [accessed January 31, 2019]).
- ↑ Ludwig Fischer (Ed.): Unfinished Insights - The Journalist and Writer Horst Stern (= contributions to media aesthetics and media history . No. 4 ). Lit Verlag, Hamburg 1997, ISBN 3-8258-3397-6 , pp. 268 ( limited preview in Google Book Search [accessed January 20, 2019]).
- ↑ Magazines - Quasi Crazy . In: Der Spiegel, edition 46/1994
- ↑ Klaus Schriewer: Nature and Consciousness: A Contribution to the Cultural History of the Forest in Germany . Waxmann, Münster 2015, ISBN 978-3-8309-8292-0 , pp. 131 .
- ↑ Christian Ammer, Torsten Vor, Thomas Knoke, Stefan Wagner: The forest-wild conflict - analysis and solution approaches against the background of legal, ecological and economic contexts (= Göttinger Forstwissenschaften . Volume 5 ). Universitätsverlag Göttingen, Göttingen 2010, ISBN 978-3-941875-84-5 , p. 15 , doi : 10.17875 / gup2010-280 ( gwdg.de [PDF; accessed on January 20, 2019]).
- ↑ A subject that is not entirely painless. In: Der Spiegel , edition 11/1979, p. 206.
- ↑ a b Hilmar Klute : Amazement is the new knowledge. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung , December 24, 2011, p. 21.
- ^ Christian Geyer : Red deer, battered. In: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung , October 24, 2002, p. 35.
- ↑ Stern's hour in the Internet Movie Database (English). Retrieved November 15, 2015.
