Germany
First Run
Features 2009
B&W ,
German with English subtitles
Reviewer: Bob Estreich
This is another of the unusual but
historically significant German films from the DEFA film archive. DEFA was the Film
Archive of the East German communist regime and its films are now in the hands
of the University of Massachusetts. The films are being cleaned up, researched
and rereleased.
One of the mysteries of World War 2 is how
the Germans could have watched their country being taken over by the Nazis with
so little protest. The Axe of Wandsbek may go some way to explain how this
could happen. It is set in 1934 and the Nazi Party is assuming power. Many
people see the party as a way to increase their own power and wealth. Albert
Teetjens is a butcher in a Hamburg suburb and he is slowly going broke in the
face of competition from newer bigger butcheries. He cannot afford to modernise
his shop or install refrigeration. In desperation he contacts an old friend from
World War 1, Hans Footh. Footh is now a shipping magnate and a member of the
Nazi Party and is working out how to profit from the forced sale of a
Jewish-owned firm that operates tankers.
To gain influence with Hitler and the
Party higher-ups Footh must overcome a local problem. Four Communists are in
prison on death row but they can’t be executed because the executioner is laid
up with gout for an extended period. If Footh can “clean up the loose ends” and
arrange a temporary executioner he will gain favour with the Party and even
arrange for Hitler to visit Hamburg. This will give him the influence he needs
to further his own interests in the shipping trade. He just needs a man who can
cut heads off.
Footh convinces Teetjens to accept 2000
marks in payment for the four executions, to be carried out using his
grandfather’s axe – “best Sheffield steel”. The axe is an old-fashioned
butcher’s axe used for splitting animal carcasses and is ideally suited for
beheading as well. As a butcher, Teetjens knows how to use it. The money is
certainly useful and his wife is happy, but she doesn’t know what Albert has to
do to earn it. Albert reconciles himself
to doing the job and the executions are carried out smoothly. The prison
doctor, a woman and a communist, accidentally finds out who the executioner
was. She and her associates spread the word around the suburb and Albert, his
wife and the butcher shop are ostracised by the local people. In a drunken moment Albert confesses to his
wife. She is shocked. Her Bible tells her that he who sheds the blood of
another man will have his own blood shed by man.
Their financial situation deteriorates
again from the lack of trade and she is forced to start pawning the family
belongings to meet the payments on the shop’s modernisation. Their landlord is
also starting to prepare for their eviction for unpaid rent. Albert and his
wife are convinced that their bad luck is the fault of the axe and Albert tries
to dispose of it, but through a series of coincidences it keeps being returned
to him. Finally he decides to throw it in the harbour.
On his way that night to carry out the
deed he meets an old friend who is now in the Nazi Party. The Nazis are the
only ones who believe he has done the right thing and they buy the accursed axe
from him as a symbol of how they will treat their opponents. More than a little
drunk, Albert returns home to find his wife has hung herself, unable to face
the social stigma of being broke and the wife of an executioner. Albert must
also decide whether to take the final way out.
The ongoing theme of the film is
hypocrisy. Footh is a Nazi only for financial gain. Albert in his own way also
justifies what he has done for financial gain, but at least in his case it is
to keep him in business. The Communists are hypocrites also. While their four
comrades were in prison their activities consisted of printing leaflets. At
least the Doctor was prepared to try to appeal their death sentences, since the
convictions are obviously based on faked evidence, but even she is not prepared
to go so far as to provide one prisoner with a file to cut his way out of
prison. The citizens particularly are hypocritical in their treatment of the
Teetjens. They openly welcome Hitler to their town for political advantage but disapprove
of the man who carries out the punishments set down by Hitler’s state. Many
know the trials of the Communists were a sham and the evidence was false, but
noone is game to publicly question the verdicts. Strangely the only ones who
don’t appear to show hypocrisy are the Nazis themselves.
Against this background Teetjens emerges
as a tragic figure who made one small mistake and pays massively for it.
The director, Falk Harnack, was criticised
by the East German communists for making Teetjens too sympathetic a character
and the film was withdrawn after a very brief period. Or was it because the new
Communist regime in East Germany thought the depiction of their comrades a
little unsympathetic? Either way it was Harnack’s first and last film for DEFA.
It
hit him particularly hard because he and his family were strongly anti-Nazi and
two of his family were executed during the war.
The DVD includes a short film on Director
Falk Harnack and an essay on Arnold Zweig, the German-Jewish writer on whose book
the film is based. As usual the film appears to have been remastered from an
excellent original.
Reviews appear on the Synergy website with
a single cover image. In the digital and print edition, reviews appear with multiple
images and with expanded content. We recommend you download
the free digital edition (or buy the print edition)
to get the most from Synergy Magazine.
This review will appear in Volume 2 No.6 (2009) of the digital and
print edition of Synergy Magazine.
If you came to this page directly (and
missed our menu), click here to go to the
front page of Synergy Magazine Website or click the following link: http://www.synergy-magazine.com