DEFA

Exploring the GDR’s Foundations - An investigation of the GDR’s national Identity as seen through two “National Foundation” films: "Die Abenteuer des Werner Holt" and "Ich war neunzehn"

by Richard McKenzie

This dissertation examines two DEFA films produced in the 1960’s by Joachim Kunert and Konrad Wolf,who became part of... more This dissertation examines two DEFA films produced in the 1960’s by Joachim Kunert and Konrad Wolf,who became part of East Germany’s 2nd generation of filmmakers and who explored the causes of National Socialism and the remedies for the dreadful catastrophe that overcame Germany between 1933 and 1945. The collapse of the Reich in 1945 saw the end of the 12 year National Socialist reign of terror over Germany. The Nazi’s had ensured that they had control of cultural life in Germany and had invested heavily in a film industry that created a national myth in order to support Nazi Party aims and which manipulated the public. The defeat of Germany saw the discrediting and failure of fascist, national identity, myth making, artistic stereotypes and the foundational films produced in Germany during the period 1933-45. By the 1960’s DEFA, the GDR’s state film production company had been exploring the origins of National Socialism for twenty years, starting with Wolfgang Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns, 1946, DEFA. The GDR’s state film company, DEFA, was given the task of” […]restor[ing] democracy in Germany and remove all traces of fascist and militaristic ideology from the minds of every German[…] (Allen, 1999,3). These films were produced to enable the Germans to have an “honest confrontation with the military and moral catastrophe that […]the Germans had brought on themselves[…]” (Barnouw,2008,48) and sought to “develop a cinematic language[…]to confront the recent German past (Pinkert,2008,20). The “grammar” of DEFA anti- fascist films was established by such films as Staudte, Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns orIrgendwo in Berlin, 1946, Gerhard Lamprecht, DEFA and Die Buntkarierten,1949, Kurt Maetzig, DEFA or Rotation,1949, Wolfgang Staudte,DEFA. These films were made by a generation that had grown up in the Weimar period and who had experienced the slide from Weimar chaos to National Socialist Dictatorship at first hand. The film makers were born in the late 19th or early 20th Centuries, Staudte in 1906, Lamprecht in 1897 and Maetzig in 1911. Their early films are an almost emotional expression of the moment of defeat containing heartfelt investigations of the causes of the catastrophe from within the Soviet Occupation Zone and later in the GDR. The 1950’s saw DEFA turn its attention to films which explored the everyday concerns of GDR citizens struggling to build a new state centring on the Berlin films of the middle of that decade.

The Misogyny of Trümmer A New Reading of the Trümmerfilm

by Richard McKenzie

Presented at theThe 51st National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies 29th March

The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of... more The post war Trümmerfilm forms a key part of German foundational iconography in relation to the immediate effects of Germany’s defeat and capitulation in 1945.

Whether created in the Western or Soviet occupation zones this genre has been have been read as texts which begin the rehabilitation of the defeated Landser, begin the process of Vergangenheitsbewältigung and make the first tentative steps at attributing guilt for the catastrophe that befell Germany between 1933 and 1945. Key commentators, such as Pinkert and Silbermann, concentrate on the male experience, where female characters exist principally to rehabilitate and redeem their men folk.

Concentrating on Staudte’s Die Mörder sind unter uns this presentation will provide a new reading of the Trümmerfilm genre. This reading sees the role of the female characters less in a redemptive and more in a controlling negative role in which their independence and sexuality are employed to reduce and defeat the male characters essential masculinity. In this final battle of the German catastrophe the female characters are criticised for attempting to “civilise” the returning Landser in their own image and constraining his essential self.

Visions of Defeat

by Richard McKenzie

Paper presented at the 49th National Postgraduate Colloquium in German Studies at the Institute of Germanic & Romance Studies, University of London on Thursday, 24th March 2011

At the end of World War II Germany and Austria’s cities were in ruins, its people shattered by 6 years of “Total War”... more At the end of World War II Germany and Austria’s cities were in ruins, its people shattered by 6 years of “Total War” and vilified as guilty monsters around the world. Curt Reiss, returned German émigré and  American War Correspondent, described the streets of 1945 Berlin as “endless ruins, [...]bombed out tanks, the ubiquitous machine guns and helmets shot to pieces”. This fantastic landscape and guilty citizens fascinated filmmakers. They produced films which tried to depict the implications of defeat for the Reich and for the victors. The backdrop to these films was the endless ruins of Berlin and Vienna and in the foreground to questions of guilt and redemption.


This presentation will discuss three films which present the Reich’s defeat, and how filmmakers dealt with questions of guilt, responsibility and possible redemption. It will also examine how the films assess the effect of victory on Allied soldiers. The films examined are: Die Mörder sind unter uns, 1946, Wolfgang Staudte, Germany, DEFA,  A Foreign Affair, 1948, Billy Wilder, US, Paramount , and The Third Man, 1949, Carol Reed, UK, London Films.

Staudte’s  Die Mörder sind unter uns the first Post-War German movie and began the tradition of the Trümmerfilm described by Ezra as “a hard edged look at the difficulties of reconstructing Post War Germany”. Trümmerfilme used the catastrophic ruins as an oppressive backdrop and lean on interwar film techniques such as expressionism and melodrama. Wilder produced a black comedy with a message, described by Gemünden as, “waver[ing] between educational program, an overwrought history lesson and a comedy of very dark humor”. Reed’s 1949 Film Noir, The Third Man, is a film which Gemünden describes the action as taking  place “not in a domestic city but the chaotic continental theatre of war, often viewed through Robert Krasker’s tilted lens, chiaroscuro effects[...]”. 

In using elements of expressionism the directors present a representative vision of the defeated Germany and Austria, rejecting both the direct assault of neorealism and the upbeat spectacle of Hollywood film making. The presentation will explore how each director has examined German guilt, physical and psychological destruction, retribution, denazification and management of a Germanic or Austrian post war dystopia.

“Communists and Cosmonauts in Mystery Science Theater 3000: De-Camping First Spaceship on Venus/ Silent Star.” In the Peanut Gallery with Mystery Science Theater 3000: Essays on Film, Fandom, Technology and the Culture of Riffing. Eds. Robert Weiner and Shelley Barbra. Jefferson: McFarland, 2011. 40-5.

by Sebastian Heiduschke