Censorship: 12 banned GDR films

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Censorship: 12 banned GDR films

50 years ago, was in the GDR a large part of the annual production of the Defa censored and pulled from the market. Some of the digitally restored films are now at the Berlinale, will be shown. Ten are on the DVD.

The GDR takes off: “When You grow up, dear Adam”

As in Berlin the wall was crumbling, they made under the name of “Kaninchenfilme” the round: Those twelve movies, the East German authorities in the years 1965/66, the traffic moved, and therefore only after the Fall of the wall could be shown. What was going to happen? In East Berlin had, at the end of 1965 the 11. Plenum of the Central Committee (ZK) of the Socialist unity party (SED), met and decided that a total of 12 films against the noble goals of the worker and Bauernstaates contary. You were banned and in the “Giftschränke” the authorities banished.

Many years later, as the GDR has been eroded and the cultural history of East Germany worked, they could be listed. The actually inappropriate, because verharmlosenden term “Kaninchenfilme” they had Kurt Maetzigs title of the film “The rabbit is me” to owe, one of the twelve affected stripes.

DDR-cultural struggle: reformers against Stalinists

Today of course raises the question: How could it happen that movies, with a longer lead time to be planned and shot, only immediately before or after their Premiere in the visor of the GDR censors got? “It was in the years after 1961 in the
DDR two currents within the SED, which were different”, says Ralf Schenk of the
Defa-Foundation, in an interview with Deutsche Welle: “The one were the Altstalinisten, the dogmatists, on the strict line of command-communism of the 1950s, the act wanted.”

Lyric poetry in the GDR-Film: Jutta Hoffmann as “Karla” in the eponymous Film by Hermann Zschoche

On the other hand, had the reformers stood for, says Schenk, a Reformer in the economic field, but also those with a cautious liberalization of the cultural policy advanced. On the now infamous 11. The Plenum of the Central Committee to put the hard-liners. The GDR fell in many areas on a dogmatic line back – also, the Defa (Deutsche Film AG): The twelve films were banned. Ten of them are now available in a DVD Edition, digitally restored to the public again. Four films during the Berlinale, within the retrospective”
Germany 1966 – Cinematic perspectives in East and West”.

And these are the ten films in the DVD Edition:

“The rabbit I am”

The ban of this movie came as a surprise. Finally, it was Director
Kurt Maetzig to the Vorzeigefilmemacher of the GDR, especially since his Ernst-Thälmann-Filmbiografien of the most famous GDR film Directors belonged. However, Maetzig told in “The rabbit” I ” is of a disillusioned young woman, whose brother, because “staatsgefährdender baiting” is indicted and a judge with a double life. “The Film is widespread skepticism” commented the Department of culture at the Central Committee of the SED and pulled him from the traffic. As used Maetzig also his reputation for nothing.

“Think not only, I’m crying” enraged the East German censors, especially

“Think not only, I’m crying”

Frank Vogel’s Film “Think not only, I howl” was banned, surprised but not. Bird tells the story of a young Couple, against the rigid Thought-world of the adults, up any resistance. As in the West, also opposed the GDR-youth of the mid ’60s, against the traditional conventions. In the GDR had the particularly irritating. The Film place the “socialist” education and character building of young people in question,” ruled the Committee.

“Berlin is around the corner”

Two friends desire against the rigid policies of the GDR to work on. They get in conflict with the press. For the CC one of the “worst films” of the year: “This Film is unique in the number of those Working to classify, because of their anti-socialist, harmful attitude of criticism and tested to be fully booked in the past”, it said in a dry SED-the official German.

Also in the GDR was the youth of the mid ’60s, around: “Vintage 45”

“Vintage 45”

This Film also showed the youth as the socialist Moralhüter imagined. “Vintage 45” looks back on a young Couple from Prenzlauer Berg – questioning and provocative in his attitude, merciless in its display of everyday life. The GDR authorities also took care not where Director Jürgen Böttcher his scenes ansiedelte: in backyards and Kellerwohnungen. “Gloomy, unfriendly, dirty and unkempt the effect of the different buildings,” criticized the censors.

“Karla”

Perhaps the most beautiful Film of the “forbidden vintage”. Karla, wonderfully played by Jutta Hoffmann, newly trained Lehrerein and enters their first Job in a small town. She is unconventional and lively – and does so against the supposed Ideal of socialist pedagogy. “This Film propagates a false Ideal and, therefore, must be the teen audience against necessary demands of his teachers and educators, and against the political character of the socialist school mobilise”, zürnten the censors.

“When You grow up, dear Adam”

The aesthetic and dramaturgic radical Film from those years. A little Boy gets a Swan of a flashlight with a magical ability given to: liar in the light flung into the air (see article). “The Film uses a poetic Symbol, however, very seedy”, ruled unsettled the Film headquarters. In the files, but also: “The ‘Film’ has no fable, and therefore no coherent idea, design and statement.”

“Spring takes time”

A bit dry-sculpting movie is about the hardships of an engineer of energy supply in the GDR. Director Günter Stahnke subdivides an Episode from the real existing socialism, shows the struggles between reformers and Dogmatikern, between open-minded and hardened characters. But statements like “you need in the GDR neither master nor engineers, but rather 1000 brownies, the the run, what the Senior is just made up”, were the GDR Kulturbürokraten, of course, a thorn in the eye.

“The lost angel”

One of the most unknown films of the twelve, a real rediscovery. Just one hour work, directed by Ralf Kirsten shows the sculptor Ernst Barlach in 1937, immediately after the Nazis his famous sculpture “The angel” from the Cathedral of Güstrow have been banished. Barlach (impressively played by Fred Düren) is mistaken by Güstrow and surroundings on the search for an attitude to the Nazis, raises questions about the value of art in times of dictatorship. This would have the resourceful viewer at that time, of course, also to the new socialist dictatorship.

Cooler and cheekier than he was no one in the German Film: Manfred Krug in “the trace of stones”

“The trace of stones”

The most well-known and even today, the most remarkable Film of the “forbidden Twelve”, is undoubtedly one of the best German Nachkriegsfilme at all. The brilliant playing of Manfred Krug is foreman on a construction site and beyond the socialist Monotony. The Film will give “a distorted image of our socialist reality” is reflected, so the comment in the “New Germany”. “The trace of stones by Frank Beyer even ran for three days at the cinema before he was pulled from the market.

“Hands up or I shoot”

The only Comedy among the forbidden films, a Räuberpistole with klamottenhaften trains. A police officer in despair at the boring, because verbrecherlosen existence in the village of Wolkenheim. In the GDR, there is no crime – so the provocative message of the movie. The timing of the censors, of course not. The spectators could not be sure whether this statement may not be ironic is the opinion of the head office Film.

The DVD Edition of “Forbidden” is the provider”
Icestorm” appeared, and contains, in addition to the ten films extensive bonus material:
Interviews with the Directors and other parties Involved. During the
Berlinale-Retropektive run the films “Berlin around the corner”, “Vintage 45”, “Karla” and “the trace of stones”. Rainer Rother and Ralf Schenk are also authors of the
Retrospective-the book in the publishing house Bertz + Fischer is published, ISBN 978-3-86505-245-2.