Anti-Nazi Classics

War

Germany

First Run Features

R1 DVD

German with English subtitles

This set of four films came from the archives of DEFA, the old East German Film Archive. They were made during the period of Russian occupation and were mostly designed as propaganda to highlight to the German people exactly what their government had done in their name during and before the war. The films are sometimes therefore a little heavy handed even as propaganda but they are a valuable historical record of the attitudes of the times. It is not known whether they made the East German people feel guilty or not, but at least most of the films are good entertainment.

The four films selected for this set are masterpieces of their genre, reflecting just how good the German film industry could be. They have all been cleaned up and the sound overhauled and are surprisingly free of the signs of age so common in films of this vintage. It is fortunate that they were taken from the archives rather than reconstructed, as so many older films must be.

The Gleiwitz Case (1961)

The Gleiwitz Case (1961) is a dramatised documentary of the dummy raid on a German radio station that Hitler used as his excuse for invading Poland. According to the propaganda of the times a small group of Poles crossed the border and conducted a raid on the Gleiwitz radio station. They broadcast their inflammatory message and then went back to Poland, except for one who was shot by the heroic German police.

In fact the whole raid was carefully staged by the Germans as an excuse for the invasion. The German troops were assembled and ready to attack, and were just waiting for the Gleiwitz “attack” to give them the excuse to invade.

The “Poles” were a small group of German students from a nearby SS academy. The dead Pole was a prisoner of war. All weapons, clothes etc were Polish. The film shows in detail the meticulous preparation for the mission and the final action. The aftermath is not covered, as the outcome is well-known – the thoroughly prepared Wehrmacht crossed the border and conquered Poland, thereby starting World War II.

The Murderers Are Amongst Us

This was the first film from the post-war East Germany industry, made by DEFA, the only licensed filmmaker. It was filmed and takes place in 1946 when Berlin was still largely heaps of rubble with the citizens eking out a living as best they could. Some were doing well out of the needs of post-war Germany. One such is Bruckner, an ex-Army man who now owns a factory employing over a hundred Germans.

One of his ex-soldiers, Dr Mertens, is trying to drown his memories of the massacre of the people of a Polish village at then-Captain Bruckner’s orders. Mertens has come back to Berlin and moved into an empty apartment. Like most of Berlin the building is damaged – cracked walls, poor facilities and a general air of sadness. This doesn’t worry Mertens since he is usually partly drunk. He has given up surgery. He is surprised one day when the original owner of the apartment returns from a concentration camp – a girl named Hildegard. She is somewhat sympathetic to his case and they share the rooms. There are the first signs that they may be falling in love but Mertens is still a broken man wracked with guilt. .

One day while Hildegard is cleaning up the mess left by Mertens she finds a letter addressed to Bruckner’s wife to be passed to her in the event of Bruckner’s death. Hildegard tracks down Bruckner and he and Mertens meet up again. Bruckner has no idea how much Mertens hates him for turning him into a murderer. Despite his hatred for Bruckner for the murder of the villagers, when Bruckner was injured and about to be left behind by the retreating Germans Mertens gave Bruckner his pistol and took the letter to pass on. Mertens hasn’t heard of Bruckner since. Mertens hasn’t forgotten the massacre. He plans to kill Bruckner but is diverted at the last minute by a woman’s urgent pleas to save her daughter. His medical training and ethics win out over his anger and apathy and he saves the girl. Will that also save Bruckner, still oblivious to what Mertens had planned for him? What of the developing love between Mertens and Hildegard? How much guilt for the massacre should he really be carrying? Should Bruckner be denounced instead as a wartime murderer?

The desolation of a destroyed Berlin is what really gives the film impact. It is hard for people to show their best when all around them is destroyed. The film could have been a propaganda masterpiece but instead it was filmed as a simple human interest love story of two people trying to rebuild their damaged lives in a shattered city. Even the comparison between Mertens’ poverty and Bruckner’s wealth is not laboured – that’s just the way it was. In an entertainment-starved Germany the film was made as entertainment rather than propaganda. The people knew of the profiteers but all they wanted was for life to return to normal as soon as possible.

I Was 19

Konrad Wolf’s 1968 film could apply to any young man conscripted into the army in any country but his almost-autobiographical film seems to hold a special depth of feeling. Over the years there have been many films of a young man’s experiences in war but too many rely on sensationalised battles for interest. There is little of that here. The “hero”, Gregor Heckler, is a soldier in an “agitation unit” in the Soviet army. His job is to broadcast messages to the German troops in battle areas urging them to give up, since the war is all but over anyway. With Berlin surrounded and ready to fall it is senseless to keep on fighting. Heckler is himself German-born, so he is ideal for the broadcast unit. His father took their family to Russia before Hitler took over Germany. Gregor now regards himself as Russian with a German background.

As the Russians advance Gregor, not needed at the time, is left as the Commandant of a German town. Here he experiences the problems of the German people first hand. He meets a young girl who has been evacuated from Berlin but now has nowhere to go and nowhere to sleep. He is unimpressed by the wealthy town mayor who seems to be thriving – obviously a Nazi, although he now denies this. As a lieutenant Gregor is only accustomed to commanding his small group and their broadcasting truck. He learns quickly.

After he is relieved he drives forward to keep up with the front where he may be needed. He sees atrocities committed by both sides. He meets German ex-concentration camp inmates who were imprisoned because they were Communist and even forms a friendship with one. In all these encounters his German background helps him with the difficult problem of communication. That communication encourages empathy between Gregor and the Germans.

At Spandau fortress a group of Wehrmacht and SS officers is controlling one of the main access roads to Berlin. Heckler’s background helps him negotiate their surrender. Again, his experience of the war has been largely non-violent.

At a lonely country farm he persuades a group of escaping Germans to surrender to him and forms a friendship with one of the soldiers. He is gradually becoming more aware of his German-ness and is divided between the two philosophies. He has seen the good and bad side of Naziism, but he has also seen the roughness of the Russians with the Germans – particularly those Russians whose towns and villages were overrun during the German advance on Moscow.

At the end the story is left hanging but we have seen Gregor being influenced by both sides of the conflict. He is emerging as a better man for it.

Naked Among Wolves

This film views the German and Nazi actions through the eyes of Polish and Communist prisoners in Buchenwald concentration camp. Since the Communists were one of the first groups rounded up by the Nazis some have been in the camp for ten years. In that time they have built up a sort of resistance organization and even collected some guns. They have cooperated with the camp Commandant, an elderly Wehrmacht officer, to the point that the prisoners are allowed to manage themselves as long as they keep any trouble suppressed. This does not sit well with the SS detachment who do the guard work.

Buchenwald was more of a work camp than an extermination camp so such long times in the camp for the prisoners were quite normal.

Trouble arrives when Jankowski, a Polish internee, transfers into the camp from the Auschwitz extermination camp. In his suitcase he is smuggling a small boy who lost his parents in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Those who know of the little boy immediately adopt him but must keep him hidden from the Germans. He is precious to a group of lonely men who have lost their own children and families.

As the Allies close in on the camp the SS is desperate to eradicate any sign of the atrocities they have committed. They can only move about 10,000 inmates. The rest will be slaughtered and buried in a nearby forest. The little boy is betrayed and he becomes a rallying point for the resistance. He is moved from hiding place to hiding place one jump ahead of the guards, while the inmates prepare for a battle with the SS guards rather than be deported or killed. They are ill prepared for a battle against professional soldiers so they stake it all on a final do-or-die effort, based on wireless reports that the Allies are closing in. If they are right, they and the boy may survive. If they are wrong they will all be killed in pointless resistance.

The film is excellent for its entire length. There are great performances by all the leading actors. The propaganda view of the evil SS is strongly made but not overemphasised.

The film is based on a book by a prisoner. The episode of the boy is supposed to be true – he was apparently kept hidden for three years despite the Germans trying everything to find him. The film was made in 1963 and looks like part of the campaign to remind the East Germans of what their support of Hitler had cost. It was the first German film to focus on the concentration camps. Most Germans were by now aware of the camps and their dreadful task, but the graphic nature of the film was a good reminder. The film is surprisingly free of unnecessary blood and gore, considering that it deals with physical torture and violent death. This restraint leaves the violence to the imagination, which perhaps makes the film more effective. Even so, little is made of the starvation diet, the brutality and sickness that were features of day to day living in the camp. There is a distinct impression that things would be worse if it wasn’t for the brave comrades holding the camp together until liberation. Another interesting area that is rarely explored is the concern of the Germans to appear humane when they are captured. The German soldiers want to win favour by being kinder to the prisoners; the SS simply want to get rid of any inconvenient witnesses to their brutality.

This is perhaps the most powerful film in the set.

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