Abstract
This quotation comes from a letter by Kuckhoff to Artur Brauner. It was written in response to his film from September 1948, Morituri. Kuckhoff had been invited to a viewing of the film and subsequent discussion, during which Brauner had solicited the audience’s comments. Apologizing that she is so busy at work and therefore does not have time to send more detailed remarks, she concludes: ‘Was mich an dem Film freute, war dass er nicht Schwarz gegen weiss setzte, sondern ein paar wohltuende Zwischenschattierungen brachte — und selbstverständlich der deutlich spürbare Wille, Verständnis für diese Verfolgten verbreiten zu helfen.’ [What I liked about the film was that it did not set black against white, but had the feel of agreeable shades of grey — and of course the clearly felt aim of wanting to help spread understanding for those persecuted.] The film, in which Klaus Kinski played his first major role, was based on Brauner’s own experiences as a prisoner in a concentration camp who managed to escape and join the partisans. Brauner, a producer in the Western zone, was only able to complete the project with the financial help of Soviet-licensed film company Deutsche Film AG (DEFA).2 The film received a mixed reception on its release, which Brauner himself attributed to the German population not yet being ready to confront the Nazi past. As the quotations show, Kuckhoff’s criticisms focused instead on the aesthetic effects.
Darf ich Ihnen vorweg sagen, dass ich gerade den Widerstandsfilmen gegenüber ausserordentlich empfindlich bin, da ich selbst seit 1933 die tägliche Mitarbeit daran kennen gelernt habe und den gesamten Kreis meiner Freunde dabei verlor. Wenn Sie mich also um eine Beurteilung bitten, so fehlt mir die Distanz, um das rein künstlerische Moment in den Vordergrund rücken zu können.
Meine grundsätzliche Kritik geht dahin, dass die Dinge sehr viel härter (nicht grausamer), sparsamer in Gefühlen (nicht weniger warm) waren. […] Dadurch jedoch, dass auf die Buntheit der Milieus und die Vielfältigkeit der Typen Wert gelegt wurde, entsteht eine Romantik, die m.E. sehr gefährlich wirken kann. […] Gerade der Jugend fällt es schwer, ein scheinbar unbewegtes alltägliches Leben mit unromantisch gestellten, nüchternen Aufgaben zu ertragen, und ich wünsche wohl, dass aus unseren Filmen der Satz, den gestern Arnold Zweig zum Abschluss seiner Begrüssung im Kulturbund sprach, wirkte: Was wir brauchen, ist eine vernünftige, ruhige Sachlichkeit, getragen von einer warmen Menschlichkeit. Das steht dramatischen Dingen keineswegs entgegen, aber dramatische Höhepunkte sollten im Film genau so wenig mit Pathos kommen, wie sie es in der Wirklichkeit tun.1
I should say at the outset that I am extremely sensitive when it comes to films about resistance, as I myself got to know about the daily work involved from 1933 and lost my whole circle of friends as a result. So if you therefore ask me for my opinion, I lack the distance to be able to prioritize the purely artistic aspects.
My basic criticism is that things were a lot harder (not more terrible) and more sparing in feeling (not less warm) […].
As a result, however, of the emphasis placed on the colourfulness of the setting and the diversity of the characters, a romanticism arises that I think can have a very dangerous effect. […] It is particularly hard for young people to bear an apparently rigid everyday life with unromantically posed, down-to-earth tasks, and I rather wish that our films reflected the sentence spoken yesterday by Arnold Zweig at the Cultural Union: What we need is a sensible, calm, matter-of-factness, carried by a warm humanity. This in no way prevents dramatic aspects, but dramatic high points in a film should occur with as little pathos as they do in real life.
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Notes
R. Schenk (2006) Eine kleine Geschichte der DEFA. Daten, Dokumente, Erinnerungen (Berlin: DEFA-Stiftung), p. 33.
M. Bal (2008) ‘Exhibition as Film’ in R. Ostow (ed.) (Re)Visualising National History: Museums and National Identities in Europe in the New Millenium (Toronto; Buffalo; London: University of Toronto Press), pp. 15–43 (p. 22).
S. Brockmann (2010) A Critical History of German Film (Rochester: Camden House), p. 221. In Kuckhoff’s papers there is a copy of the letter from DEFA to Harnack ending his contract with effect from the end of August 1951. BArch N2506/57 Schwab to Falk Harnack 16 September 1952.
See also G. Jordan (2004) ‘Der Verrat oder Der Fall Falk Harnack’ in R. Schenk, E. Richter, C. Löser (eds) Apropos: Film 2004. Das Jahrbuch der DEFA-Stiftung (Berlin: Bertz), pp. 148–173; G. Agde (1990) ‘Der Fall “Das Beil von Wandsbek”’, Die Weltbühne, 26, 820–3.
As Anne Barnert notes, this was a term used by the ministry of culture to define and publicize the content of films. A. Barnert (2008), Die AntifaschismusThematik in der DEFA. Eine kultur- und filmhistorische Analyse (Marburg: Schüren), p. 9.
J. Tuchel (2005) ‘Das Ministerium für Staatssicherheit und die Widerstandsgruppe “Rote Kapelle” in den 1960er Jahren’ in J. Tuchel (ed.) Der vergessene Widerstand. Zur Realgeschichte und Wahrnehmung des Kampfes gegen die NS-Dikatur (Göttingen: Wallstein), pp. 232–70.
Estimations of attendance vary in the secondary literature: J. Feinstein (2002) The Triumph of the Ordinary: Depictions of Daily Life in the East German 1949–1989 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina), p. 289, argues for a figure of 2,107,093, but says that it ‘likely benefitted from organised attendance drives’. In contrast, Daniele Berghahn, in reliance on Wittforth, quotes a figure of 1.3 million.
D. Berghahn (2005) Hollywood Behind the Wall: The Cinema of East Germany (Manchester: Manchester University Press), p. 80. The film’s release in 58 copies was a particularly large number within the context of the GDR. Kannapin, ‘Dialektik der Bilder’, p. 308.
A. Geiss (1994) Filmstadt Babelsberg: Zur Geschichte des Studios und seine Filme (Berlin: Nicolai)
D. Schittling (2002) Zwischen Regie und Regime: die Filmpolitik der SED im Spiegel der DEFA-Produktionen (Berlin: Links).
D. Kannapin (2004) ‘Dialektik der Bilder. Der Umgang mit NS-Vergangenheit in deutschen Spielfilmen — Eine vergleichende Studie zur Bedeutung des Films für die politische Kultur in Deutschland 1945–1989/90’ (Berlin: Humboldt University), pp. 312–13.
H. E. Brandt (2003) Halbnah — Nah — Total: Erinnerungen (Berlin: DEFA-Stiftung), p. 148. Kannapin points out that a comprehensive history of the Stasi’s relationship to DEFA still has to be written. ‘Dialektik der Bilder’, p. 150.
Gerald Mast cited in T. Corrigan (2012) A Short Guide to Writing About Film (New York; London: Longmann), p. 42.
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© 2013 Joanne Sayner
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Sayner, J. (2013). A Film without a Protagonist? KLK an PTX: Die Rote Kapelle. In: Reframing Antifascism. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137358905_6
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