Slavonica, Vol. ii. No. i, April 2005
A COMMUNIST TAKEOVER IN THE DREAM
FACTORY — APPROPRIATION OF
POPULAR GENRES BY THE EAST GEPJUAN
FILM INDUSTRY
JON RAUNDALEN
Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim
During the ig6os the East German state-controlledfilm studio DEFA drastically increased
their production of popular genre films. This development was propelled by the competition
from an unrelentingflow of western radio- and television signals transgressing the Berlin Wall.
These East German genrefilms took their iconographical cues from the commercial genres of
Western Europe and Hollywood, butfilled theforms with appropriate socialist content.
In this article I investigate this appropriation of internationally establishedfilm genres in the
GDR as a point of convergence between the transsystemic discourse of popular culture and
the strong isolationist efforts of the GDR state. Through empirically informed close analysis of
the musical Heifier Sommer and the western Spur des Falken, I aim to show how these very
awkward negotiations between isolation and integration led to a reinvention of the genres in
question, and how this process can be traced in thefilms' narratives.
Introduction
Film censorstiip in the GDR in ttie late 1960s was among the strictest in Eastern Europe. Films
from capitalist countries were shown only after being scrutinized by a censorship board, and
often films from the other socialist countries, including the Soviet Union, could not be
screened in the GDR because their content was deemed in violation with local cultural
policy.' However, this isolationist stance was somewhat ironically accompanied by a substantial
import of American and West European films and a commitment to imitating the enemy's
product within the national film industry.^
Highlighting this self-contradictory relationship to the west, I want to contribute to the
lifting of the thick cold war mist which obscures the degree to which one of the most isolated
of all state-socialist countries (post-1961 GDR) was nevertheless deeply embedded in a
transsystemic flow of pop-cultural concepts and ideas. My angle of incidence in this article is
to explore how this flow was interpreted and handled within East German cultural policy.
Although it is obvious that pop-cultural phenomena, like everything else in the public sphere,
were affected by the cold war antagonisms of the 1960s, detailed studies of these processes are
© 2005 W. S. Maney & Son Ltd DOi: 10.1179/136174205x45228
70 JON RAUNDALEN
still scarce. This article attempts to counter the commonly held belief that post\var film
making in Eastern Europe was only about oppressed film makers struggling to smuggle
subversive political metaphors past evil censors. While this may be a very important part of
East European film history, its long-time position as the dominating trope for books and
articles on East European film has all but eclipsed the vast range of entertainment films which
were produced under communist rule.
Drawing on previously unpublished archival material in textual analyses of the two most
popular East German films of 1968 — the western Spur des Falken and the musical Heij^er
Sommer — I trace and examine changes which were made within these genres as they were
transferred from Hollywood and Western Europe to an East German setting. This interweaving
of archival material with textual readings reveals the very awkward negotiations which
took place between the requirements of established genre conventions and specific cultural
policy demands placed on film makers in the late 1960s GDR.
Gultural—historical context
The cultural climate in the GDR in the second half of the 1960s is known as the absolute
freezing point in the republic's cultural history. However, culturally the decade started out on
a quite positive note.
After the erection of the Berlin Wall in 1961 many groups in East German society were
subjected to stricter surveillance and harsher state control than before. For many artists, however,
the new isolation brought a certain degree of liberalization of censorship. Now that the
so called antifaschistischer Schutzwail (anti-fascist bulwark) was in place the East Germans could
finally feel 'safe and free amongst their own', according to official propaganda.'' Thus, for a
while, the artistic expression of contemporary social critique was officially regarded as a way
of bettering and bolstering the socialist repubhc, rather than as acts of subversion. Over the
next four years East German filmmakers became increasingly courageous in tackling social
problems on film. This was done without the hitherto required socialist realist concept of
'the superimposition of the better 'soon' on a still imperfect 'now'.'' An increasing number of
stories about non-political and/or rebellious youth and their problems with society, parents,
and Party were now being told with an unusual honesty and directness. These films were
known as Gegenwartsfilme (contemporary films).
In 1965 this trend came to an abrupt end. During the nth Plenum of the Central Committee
of the Socialist Unity Party (SED) in December of 1965 the Party ruthlessly struck down
on what they termed a 'bourgeois scepticist' movement by banning almost a whole year's
production of films and blacklisting both established and up-and-coming film makers. The
wrath of the SED in the winter of 1965 and the spring of 1966 also touched other groups of
artists, as well as writers, publishers and people working in television. This purge has later
come to be known as the Kahlschlag (clear-felling) of talent and ambition in East German
cultural life.^
One of the first films to emerge from this 'deforested' cultural landscape was the first
ever East German western. Die Sohne der Grofien Bdrin (The Sons of the Great Mother Bear)
premiered at East Berlin film theaters on 18 February 1966. It was instantly recognizable
as a western — complete with cowboys, Indians, and noisy saloons — and became one
of the biggest hits in GDR film history.'' Over the next ten years the East German
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 71
state-monopolized film company Deutsche Film Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) produced ten
western films and four musicals.^ Some attempts had previously been made by DEFA within
the musical genre prior to the Kahlschlag, but the post-1965 musicals represented a new,
youthful style and clearly expressed the ambition to compete with American and West
European popular genre films — on the competitors' home turf, so to speak.
Pop-culture as cold war battleground
American and West German popular culture was from the very start of East German history
viewed as a thoroughly decadent and dangerous phenomenon. In an important cultural policy
document of the early 1950s the impact of American beat music was described as:
a veritable mudslide of boogie-woogie [. . .] being released on the German people througb radio,
film and gramophone records, a slide which our German Democratic Republic in no way will
remain untouched by. It would be a mistake to underestimate the dangerous, warmongering role of
the American hit tune music.**
This basic premise in the battle against American and West European pop music remained
unchanged throughout the 1960s.'^ Certainly the erection of the Berlin wall in August 1961
stemmed the fiow of West European and American recordings and related fan magazines etc.,
but there was no stopping the boundless radio waves and television signals emanating from
powerful transmitters in West Berlin. Confiicts between local administrators of culture and
members of popular rock 'n' roll bands reached a peak in 1965. The available documents from
the Ministry of Culture leave no question about the seriousness with which this trend was
treated. The beUef in the 'warmongering role' of pop music went straight to the top of the
socialist party leadership."^
An illustrative example is the political impact made by one small concert review printed
in the socialist party newspaper Neues Deutschland on 4 April 1965." At the end of this short
review the claim was made that there was no essential difference between capitalist and
socialist dance music. This statement was regarded as outrageous by the cultural authorities,
represented by the Culture Division of the Central Committee, and to clear up any confusion
surrounding the ideological status of western pop music the article was soon after discussed in
meetings between representatives from the Ministry of Culture and leaders of the SED's
youth organization FDJ in Leipzig.'^ Later it was the subject for two consecutive sessions in
the Culture Division of the Central Committee." In the months to come many so-called beat
bands were banned from performing and rock and beat music was singled out as one of the
serious threats to socialist society during the aforementioned Kahlschlag-?\tn\xm in December
of 1965. This was the culmination of a long-lasting debate over the role of popular music in
socialist society. Already in 1961 the Agitation and Propaganda Division of SED's Central
Committee had released an official newsletter with the teUing title 'NATO-Politik und
Tanzmusik' where — in an echo of the above cited 1951 document — the West German
Schlager music was attacked as decadent, vindictive, anti-humanist war propaganda, in which
'mankind is offended and beauty is violated'.'"* Radio Luxembourg and the US sponsored
Berlin-based radio station RIAS were singled out as the prime offenders of mankind. The
newsletter concluded that new legislation to restrict the further distribution of western pop
and dance music would be introduced, with legal basis in existing constitutional bans against
'chauvinism and war propaganda' and 'distribution of anti-humanist ideology'.
72 JON RAUNDALEN
Significantly, the newsletter also stated that film was the only other art form, apart from the
Schlager- and dance music, with which one could reach the whole of the young population,
and which therefore had to be very closely monitored and regulated.
Accommodating the young through entertainment
Much as the Cultural Division of the Central Committee wanted to stem the fiow of western
beat-music and popular film, they were also committed to keeping the young East Germans
happy, or at least, enthusiastic about the continuous progress of the socialist state. The creation
and preservation of this progressive enthusiasm in the hearts of the young was placed high on
the political agenda in the late 1960s. At the 7th Congress of the Socialist Unity Party (SED)
in 1967, the head of state Walter Ulbricht devoted a significant part of his key speech on
'social development at the completion of socialism' to the role of the arts in socialist society.'^
This was necessary and expected since there was much uncertainty and scrambling in the
cultural community as a result of the harsh crackdown on culture in 1965. In order to see
clearly the changes in cultural climate and policy towards popular culture at this point it is
illuminating to compare Ulbricht's deliberations over art and society at the 1967 7th Party
Congress with corresponding statements made at the (pre Kahlschlag) 6th Party Congress held
in 1963. It soon becomes clear that the language had changed in two specific respects related
to the challenges posed by western infiuence on East Gennan popular music and film. Firstly,
the demarcation towards the West had become much sharper because the local cultural sector
had failed to counter the surge of western infiuence. In a passage about entertainment art from
1963 Ulbricht could say that 'in earlier times music was simply copied from the West [. . .] and
there is much that is good and progressive there'.'^ While his description of the role of entertainment
art in the west in 1967 — especially in West Germany — would typically sound like
this: 'Through the overwhelming majority of products from a manipulated Unkultur under the
ideological influence of monopolistic capitalism, a distorted view of man is systematically
being developed in West Germany.''^ He followed this claim with an explanation of how
commercial capitalist culture manipulates consumers into subservience and servility:
This manipulated Unkultur is intended to distract the consumers from any criticism of the imperialist
system of domination, but at the same time make them adapt the historically outdated ethical
ideals of the capitalist world, in order to make economic exploitation and political oppression seem
like laws of nature.'"
The second major change of emphasis from 1963 to 1967 was the call for the development of
a socialist Unterhaltungskunst (entertainment art) to counter the 'decadent' and 'soulless' entertainment
from the West. Ulbricht complained that much still remained to be done before the
full potential of socialist entertainment was realized and said that all artists should consider this
problem very seriously, and that 'aU possible efforts must be made [. . .] in order to create a
socialist Unterhaltungskunst.'^'^ In Ulbricht's view there was one obstacle in particular which
held up the development of entertainment forms that could rival those of the enemy. Far too
many artists claimed that it was beneath their dignity to make entertainment art, according to
Ulbricht, despite the fact that a plan for the development of socialist entertainment concepts
had been laid already by the Bitterfelder Conference in 1959.
It was in other words the authorities who were pushing for entertainment while the artists
were holding back. This was also the case within DEFA. The confiict between art and
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 73
entertainment had polarized into a standoff between influential DEFA film makers on the
one side and cultural policy enforcers in the studio leadership and censors at the Film Bureau
in the Ministry of Culture^" on the other. In a report from January 1964, from the leader of the
Culture Division of the Central Committee, Siegfried Wagner, to the very powerful leader of
the Ideology Commission, Kurt Hager, Wagner proudly states that the new leadership at
DEFA has 'energetically taken up the battle against the disapproval [among certain DEFA film
makers] of entertainment genres, which for a long time obstructed development in this field.'
The obstruction was identified as intellektuelle Geschmdcklereien (intellectual taste-quibbling)
against primitiveness and platitudes, on the part of snobbish film makers who did not realize
the need for films which filled the all-important criterion oi Massenwirksamkeit.^^
The renewed and sharper demarcation towards the west, combined with the encouragement
to explore every entertainment genre, were the cultural policy signals needed to set off
the flourish within exotic and traditionally escapist genres such as the western and the musical
in post-Kahlschlag GDR film.^^ It turns out that the outpouring of westerns and musicals from
DEFA in the late 60s and onwards — which at first glance could seem like a fairly bizarre
phenomenon — was one of very few options left open to DEFA filmmakers after the severe
backlash of the social-critique films of the pie-Kahlschlag years.
Appropriating the musical
In the following I will shed some light on what actually happens to a genre upon its appropriation
by GDR film makers, and reveal aspects of the process by which its properties are made
to fit in with the current political environment. After very briefiy addressing the American,
Soviet and West German musicals' relation to the East German variety, I wiU analyze specific
sequences from the musical Heifier Sommer. These sequences will serve as examples for the
measures of appropriation and how they materialized in a finished film.
The musical is considered by many critics to be the most fanciful and escapist of all film
genres — its narrative infrastructure being dependent on the so-called 'integrated' song
numbers, with truly unrealistic depictions of people bursting into song in public places
accompanied by invisible orchestras. The promise of fame and/or fortune drives the protagonists
to surmount obstacles and to get their reward (financial and/or amorous) in the end.
Also, in the American musical, the exhibition of material wealth and general flamboyancy
came to be among the expected ingredients. Such organized capitalist and escapist daydreaming,
diverting the people's attention from the matters of real life and socialist progress, was
wholly unacceptable in the context of GDR cultural life. As illustrated in the following 1967
statement by DrJahrow, chief film policy advisor for the Film Production Division within the
Ministry of Culture's Film Bureau: 'The deciding factors of personality development and the
central aesthetic problem for socialist art lies in the interactions between Man — work —
culture.'^''
The Soviet film industry had, rather successfully, appropriated and reinvented the musical
genre in the 1930s and 1940s. A row of entertaining musicals were made with stories appropriate
to the Communist world view, where the ideals of optimism and popularity inherent to
the concept of socialist realism was exploited to the full. The Soviet musical was dominated by
tales of revolutionary heroics and optimistic tales of proletarian heroes of collectivization and
industrialization. The fact that film makers in the Soviet Union had already appropriated the
74 JON RAUNDALEN
musical was obviously important to East German film makers in legitimating their own
employment of the genre, but pathos-filled tales from the revolution or the factory environment
was not what the youth of the GDR craved in the late 1960s. The youth wanted stories
of relevance to them, which were modern and had a western feel to them — something in the
line of what they would be listening to on the radio, and could catch glimpses of on West
German television shows. In other words the successful socialist appropriation of the genre in
the Soviet Union had to be replaced by a new, youthful, contemporary and nationally
flavoured version to meet the demands of the day. Among other things, the infiuence of the
immensely popular West German musicals — known as Schlagerfilme — had to be taken into
account. Especially the Schlagerfilme featuring the young couple Conny Froboess and 'the
German Elvis' Peter Krauss.^''
An important factor to keep in mind at this point is that although GDR youth could not
watch the Schlagerfilme in GDR cinemas, the hit-songs integral to the concept of such films
were frequently played on West German radio, and were occasionally performed on West
German television.'^' Hit songs from the popular British youth musicals of the time, like the
ones featuring Cliff Richard, were also easily accessible through Radio Luxembourg and
other pop music channels.^^ In addition to this infiuence from the outside, the very popular
(East) Berlin Youth Club's radio station DT64 played a lot of music from Western Europe and
the US, constantly violating the state quota of less than forty per cent music from capitalist
countries.^^
This embeddedness in the transsystemic fiow of popular culture — through the airwaves of
modern broadcast media — could not possibly be ignored by the cultural authorities or the
makers of popular film.
HeiBer Sommer (1968)
As a concrete example of how the DEFA film makers dealt with this challenge I have chosen
the musical Heifer Sommer from 1968. The film tells the story of two groups of young East
Germans who are on the way to spending their summer holiday in a small fishing village on
the Baltic coast. In a cat and mouse game the two groups, of eleven boys and ten girls,
compete to get there first. During their stay one of the girls, Brit, is courted by both of the
leading males, Kai and Wolf. Aside from this triangular love affair driving the plot, the narrative
mainly consists of scenes where the teenagers play tricks on each other and innocently
misbehave as one would expect a group of youngsters on holiday to do. On the periphery of
the love triangle of Brit, Kai, and Wolf, stands Stupsi, the always sensible 'leader' of the girl
group, who secretly harbours romantic feelings for Kai. At the climax of Heifer Sommer Kai
and Wolf have a dramatic fist fight over Brit, but are brought to their senses by members of
the two groups, headed by the sensible Stupsi, and are asked to explain themselves.
The plot is wrapped up somewhat disappointingly, if one expects a classical happy ending.
In the second last sequence Kai fools around with a towel over his head, chasing bikini-clad
girls around a water pump, and though blindfolded, ends up with his arms around Stupsi. The
obvious interpretation of this scene would be that they were meant for each other, and that
fate had brought them together, especially since the status of the actors (Frank Schobel playing
Kai and Chris Doerk playing Stupsi) as a couple in real life was more than well known to the
GDR audience at the time.^^ Stupsi, despite having shared some tender moments with Kai
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 75
earlier on in the film, rejects him and effectively sends him off to look for Brit. In a short clip
we see Brit giving Wolf a look of disdain, leaving the coast clear for Kai and Brit finally to get
together. They kiss and smile at each other, and Wolf makes a gesture of approval. In a
moment of comic relief one of the other boys asks Stupsi if she's got a boyfriend yet. She roUs
her eyes at him and falls over on her back, kicking off the last song number where aU the boys
and girls for the first time take part together in synchronized movements to the rhythms of the
main theme of Heifer Sommer.
By this rapid lapse into song and dance the love between Kai and Brit is left hanging in the
air and a feeling of strangeness — which goes for the whole film — is reinforced, a sense that
something is not right about the love story. The only time we really get a feeling of sparks
fiying in this film are the scenes from an afternoon where Kai and Stupsi (played by the real life
couple) spend some time together alone. Nothing Kai says or does to Brit in the rest of the
film is nearly as affectionate as the tenderness between him and Stupsi. The couple Kai and
Brit share the screen several times for duets and dance numbers, where they declare their love
for one another, but these sequences consistently fail to convince. The reasons for Brit's
interest in Kai are fairly well developed, while the grounds for Kai's attraction to Brit remain
strangely vague. It is almost as if the only real proof of Kai's love for Brit must be deduced
from the power of the punches he delivers to her other suitor. What might be the significance
of the fact that the conflicts roused by the love triangle, which is supposed to be the plot's
motor, are so unconvincing? And how to interpret the fact that the resolution of these
conflicts and the chosen outcome, although a 'happy end', is so unsatisfying?
The answer can be found in the process of political appropriation of the genre and its
narrative required in order for this film to see the light of day in East Germany. Researching
the documents from the GDR Ministry of Culture's Film Bureau is enlightening in this
respect. In a letter by the chief director of DEFA, requesting permission to screen Heifier
Sommer, he claims that with this film the musical genre has made a leap forward by 'the fact
that in this film an attempt is made to capture aesthetically, and engage the viewer in, the
influence of the collective on the individual and the infiuence of the individual on the collective.'^'
In other similar documents further emphasis is placed on the fact that 'at the centre of
the action stands the morally oriented story of the relationship between Brit, Wolf and Kai,
who do not withdraw from the group, but always stay in close connection with the collective
actions of both the youth groups.'""*
This clearly shows that prime importance was placed upon the depiction of the interconfiict
between the individual and the collective — as opposed to the I'nfra-confiicts between
the individuals involved in the love triangle. A few references were also made to the cheerful
(heitere) characteristics of the musical genre, but this aspect of the genre was consistently
subordinated to the individual/collective story and was only ever mentioned as an effective
means to heighten the youth's positive feelings about their homeland GDR. The idea of
amusement for amusement's sake, as a form of relaxation, did not exist in this discourse. In the
censorship protocols and other available documents from the Film Bureau the entertaining
aspects of any film's narrative were explained and assessed in relation to the film's potential
Massenwirksamkeit. It appears as if the entertainment arts, in which Walter Ulbricht and the
SED believed so strongly, always had to be excused for being entertaining. Very often the
promotion of a supposedly specific socialist Lebensgefiihl and Lebensfreude (experience/joy of
living) was used as the cornerstone argument for focusing on the fun and recreational sides of
life, as opposed to work related subjects.-"
76 JON RAUNDALEN
It is hard to say, on the basis of the sources presently available, what the film makers
themselves really wanted out of the making of entertainment genre films, but surely some of
the directors choosing this format wanted first and foremost to amuse their audience and have
a good time while making suchfilms.Jo Hasler, the director o{Heij]er Sommer, in an interview
a few years after the film's release, appeared to be very pleased by the signals coming from the
8th SED Party Congress in 1971 that there was 'all possible reason for happiness in our [socialist]
world, and therefore the arts may not be frugal with the cheerful colour tones.''^^ This was,
from the Party point of view, obviously meant as a directive to paint the happiness of the
sociahst world with fresh colors and not as general pemiission to have more fun. Thus, the
melancholy artist had reason to beware, while a director of cheerful genre films, like Jo Hasler,
could exploit such an opportunity and make more entertaining films than before. Whether
the late Jo Hasler willingly conformed to the demands of socialist realism, and the closely
related ideal of content-over-form, is irrelevant however. The product, Heifier Sommer, speaks
for itself as a cultural artifact. The tale it tells us is one of very awkward negotiations between
the wish, on the one hand, to capture a large young audience by adopting a transnational
popular genre, making an uncomplicated film about summer and love, and, on the other
hand, the need to tell an 'effective', morally and politically educational story.
This brings us back to the reasons for the badly functioning love story of Heifier Sommer. I
believe that the core of the problem lies in the fact that Chris Doerk and Frank Schobel both
appear in it. The following analysis can serve as an illustration of the difficulties arising when
a global genre formula is given a local flavor which interferes with the motives behind the
strictly political appropriation for didactic purposes.
Doerk and Schobel's status as two of the biggest and most beloved celebrities in the GDR
in the late 1960s made them very attractive to film makers. They would automatically draw a
large audience and ken.ce heighten the Massenwirksamkeit of any film they appeared in. Casting
the couple Doerk and Schobel as the pair who get together at the end of the movie would
have drastically heightened the emotional impact of the happy end, but would simultaneously
have contradicted the political morality tale that the cultural authorities — represented by the
Film Bureau at the Ministry of Culture — wanted to tell. In other words, the story in this case
had to be 'tamed' in order to contain the possible emotional engagement by the audience
in the love-story part of the narrative. This reveals the inherent contradictions in the film
makers' assignment. They were expected to draw a youth crowd with the help of a fresh film
genre, popular music and much-loved stars, but should at the same time avoid overwhelming
them to ensure that they also got the ideological message. An alternative, hypothetical, conclusion
of the film, with Schobel and Doerk — playing Kai and Brit — embracing over the
end credits, would have been a rousing finale that would have overshadowed the educational
tale, and would thereby have subverted the main message: that the responsibilities within the
collective take precedence over the personal needs and feelings of the individual.
This problem still exists in the film as it is, with Kai and Brit crossing the line between their
respective collectives (boy group/girl group) and their individual wishes (forming a competing
unit as a pair). The way I see it, attempts are made to correct this 'fiaw' in the manuscript
by covering it up in the montage. In the end sequence, as in most of the earlier scenes
involving the developing love between the lead characters, the montage and placement of
song and dance numbers consistently deny us the pleasure of engaging in the emotions of the
characters — presumably guiding our attention away from the 'individualistic' love story
towards 'the morally oriented story' of the primacy of the collective over the individual. The
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 77
very sudden break-ofFof Kai kissing Brit in the end sequence, and the quick joke propelling
us into the final synchronized choreography of the collective movement of all the boys and
girls, is exemplary of this practice and can at best be interpreted as an intentional Brechtian
Verfremdungseffekt. As such, it succeeds in denying us any grain of sentimental indulgence
with the happy pair, struggling hopelessly to keep our attention glued to the film's political
metaphors for the struggle between individualism and collectivism.
Contributing to this Verfremdungseffekt is the way in which the character of Stupsi is drawn.
For some reason, never explained in the film's narrative, Stupsi does not give in to the obvious
temptations of the hot summer. She may dance around a bit and be cheerful, but aside from
that her role throughout the film is that of the platonic, sensible personality. This seems like an
odd choice for a lead character of a musical about boys and girls enjoying a hot summer by the
sea. Again the strangeness is due to the fact that there is nothing within the film's plot which
motivates or explains this aspect of Stupsi's behavior, but rather the external political demand
to display the unrealistic, ideologically correct demeanour of the so-called 'socialist personality.'
Stupsi's character is obviously designed to operate as the film's 'positive hero', as prescribed
by the doctrine of socialist realism. That is to say the central character who will, in the
face of different dilemmas, always make the correct choices according to socialist politics and
morality, supposedly functioning as an unambiguous, exemplary model for the members of
the audience.
In spite of several such bizarre decisions in the process of appropriation of the musical genre
for the production of Heifier Sommer the film reached the number two spot among the most
successful films in the GDR in 1968.''^ It was only surpassed by the enormously popular Spur
des Falken.^'^ This means that already by the summer of 1968 — one year after Ulbricht's call
for a radical strengthening of the Unterhaltungskunst — entertaining genre films dominated
audience figures. Spur des Falken was the third East German western — or Indianerfdm — to be
made, and the first to be based on an original DEFA manuscript. I will return to analyses of
sequences from this film towards the end of the article, after addressing some crucial points
related to Gemian western-tradition and the role of the Indian in the Indianerfdme and in the
Marxist world view.
Appropriating the Western
The western genre enjoyed a long-standing tradition in Germany long before it was taken up
by the East German film industry. The German western tradition is almost as old as the genre
itself With Karl May's immensely popular narratives about Chief Winnetou and the Teutonic
pioneer Old Shatterhand (35 volumes published between 1875 and 1909), the Gennans had
their own western author and their own Germanic style western hero to look up to. After
World War II, however. May's fiction was banned in the Soviet sector of Germany on the
grounds that it exhibited undesirable bourgeois attitudes. Klaus Mann's accusations against
May for being 'The Cowboy Mentor of the Fiihrer' also contributed significantly to keeping
his books out of GDR distribution.^^ May's fiction came thus to live an intense shadov^f-life in
the socialist republic. When some of these books were brought to the big screen in West
Germany in the early 1960s, East Gennan youth traveled in large numbers to cinemas across
the border of Czechoslovakia to see their beloved heroes iti action.''^
Witnessing this pilgrimage, a group of DEFA film makers began considering the idea of
appropriating the western by treating its classical frontier narratives from the perspective of
78 JON RAUNDALEN
Marxist historical materialism and the socialist world-view. Through this ingenious turn they
were able to develop a westem film variety which was immensely popular with the youth, had
the educational value of explaining key concepts in historical materiaUsm and at the same time
painted a very unfiattering picture of the historical roots of contemporary American society.
This turned out to be the recipe for the ideal massenwirksamer film. The irresistible appeal of
this formula proved capable of overturning even an old SED veto declaring the western genre
an unhealthy and possibly 'criminalizing infiuence on young minds.'^^
The DEFA western played to the East German audience's affinity for the May westerns, in
that it moved the Indian to the centre of the narrative. The 'noble savage' image of a 'good
Indian' was a familiar concept since May's novels prominently featured 'noble savages' hke
Chief Winnetou. However, such a peaceful relationship between a 'good Indian' and the
white oppressors was not only in confiict with local GDR ideology, but contradicted the very
foundation of Marxism. Consequently, the peace-loving Indian of the 'noble savage'-type
was often presented as naive and foolish in the Indianerfdme. The DEFA Indian differed significantly
from chief Winnetou in that he was not prepared to be a wise and gentle friend to the
white imperialists. The DEFA Indian was an empowered, stony-faced Indian chief, sporting
big muscles and loaded guns, uncompromisingly devoted to chasing off the whites, if
necessary by burning whole settler villages to the ground.
The East German westems were deliberately launched as Indianerftlme and not as westerns
or cowboy films, which were the current labels in other parts of the world. The idea was to
place the Indian hero at the centre of the action and to depict how the west was really won,
thereby exposing the brutal and cynical nature of capitalism — as an example pertaining both
to the past, the present, and the future. In 1970, during a film discussion with 350 workers at
Leipzig's Bau- und Montagekombinat, the script writer of several Indianerfdme, Dr Gunter
Karl, explained the purpose of the films as follows: 'To represent the inhumane, capitalist
order of society in all its brutality — this we consider to be our task.''*'*
But how could this new western hero serve as a model for the contemporary East German
film-goer? Did the two have any common denominator? To the contemporary viewer, the
demand for this kind of connection between the history that unfolds on the screen and the
political and practical needs of the times may seem fairly absurd. But, as I have already demonstrated
in the analysis of the musical, such clearly defined needs and goals were the 'to be, or
not to be' of popular films in the GDR in the 1960s. What the Indian hero and the East
German film-goer supposedly had in common was their disapproval of the behavior of the
white Americans on the nineteenth-century American continent — and in a wider sense — a
general resistance against world-wide, capitalist imperialism. This political affinity notwithstanding,
the fusion of a correct Marxist interpretation of history and the role of the Indian
hero, with whom the audiences were supposed to identify, entailed great contradictions.
The Indian as the western hero
Within the Marxist understanding of history — the basic premise for the Indianerfilm with
which the GDR film makers had to comply — the historical evolution of society goes
through a chain of predetermined stages. Each of these stages is placed in a hierarchy of
development according to the ownership of the means of production. A simpUfied representation
of the stages could be made as follows:
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 79
1. Primitive communism {Urgesellschaft)
2. The slave society {Sklavenhaltergesellschaft)
3. The feudal society {Feudalismus)
4. The bourgeois or capitahst society {KapitaUsmus)
5. Socialist society {Sozialismus, a transitional phase to communism)
6. The classless communist society {
Marx posited a necessary historical evolution where each new phase would transcend the
preceding one — often through violent upheaval, that is, revolution. The narratives of the
Indianetfilme, always revolve around a confiict between the Indians who represent 'primitive
communism' and the whites, who represent the 'capitalist society.' According to the film
makers, one of the main tasks of the Indianerfilm was the representation of these evolutionary
stages and their utter incompatibility with one another.
As a positive hero the primitive communist Indian fitted the East German cinema because
of the specific status of primitive communism within this Marxist system. Here primitive
communism was the bearer of many values which were later realized in communism proper.
With its collective aspects and approximate classlessness in particular, the stage of primitive
communism was considered closest to the communist Utopia in ideological terms, even
though they were far removed in time. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the first
evolutionary stage (as well as the four consecutive stages) constituted a condition and an order
of society which, due to historical necessity, had to be abandoned on the road leading towards
the Utopia. In the hyper-industrialized GDR of the 1960s any back-to-nature oriented quest
was deemed reactionary and counter-revolutionary. At this point, the representation of the
Indian hero became really problematic.
Although in the Indianerfdme the Indian was portrayed as the hero, everybody knew that the
real-life battle for the Wild West was won by the whites. Moreover, the fomi of society
which was represented by the Indian could hardly, in the East German socialist context,
be depicted as a desirable or valuable alternative to the industrialized conditions of contemporary
society. So what kind of victory could the Indian hero be afforded? Only symbohc
quasi-triumphs of striking down the odd white individual who represented the capitalist
system. Greater victories were out of the question. Within this oversimplified version of
Marxian history, the value of primitive Indian society could not be granted serious
analysis without simultaneously implying a politically undesirable lamentation over it. Unfortunately
the Indianerfilm-makcTs' solution to this problem was usually to opt for hopelessly
one-dimensional Indian characters and very limited descriptions of Indian society.
Another possible understanding of the role of the Indian in the Indianerfdme is to consider
him as a symbolic representative of a larger group of people in the contemporary world,
namely oppressed native inhabitants of third world countries. Among the East European
countries the GDR had by far the strongest interest and involvement in the de-colonized
African countries.''^ The SED boasted an energetic Afrikapolitik and contributed to the
establishment of Marxist-Leninist governments in several African countries. They also had
education programs through which African students could receive scholarships to study in the
GDR. These were efforts which were closely linked with the global ambitions of communism
and were actively presented as proof of the GDR's status as the home of internationalistic,
altruistic socialism. In this perspective the Indianerfilm image of the righteous battle of an
indigenous people against capitalist oppressors could easily be interpreted as a metaphor for
8o JON RAUNDALEN
the current process of de-colonizing Africa.*" Referring to the success of some Indianerfilme
screened in Africa and the Middle East, the writer of several Indianerfilm manuscripts, Dr
Giinter Karl, told reporters that 'I think the success of our adventure-series in Arab and
African countries can be traced back to a given possibility of identification with the Indian
people's struggle for liberation."*^
That may be so, but such historical parallels could also include some difficult anachronisms
and paradoxes. Firstly, communism as a societal system or political force did not exist as an
alternative to the historical development on the American continent in the mid/late nineteenth
century, and could therefore not enter the scene and save the day. Socialist solutions to
the confiicts were only alluded to in the Indianerfdme through rather strained metaphors. Secondly,
if the antagonists of the capitalist oppressors in the Indianerfdme were a tribe of primitive
communists, trying to hold back the wheels of time, so to speak, they would be taken to
represent a reactionary force rather than a progressive one. This, as I have touched on earlier,
was the reason why primitive Indian society was never depicted as a realistic or desirable
alternative to capitalism. This last point was not a problem for the saviour image of the GDR
in Africa, however. There the sympathy for the natives was always closely connected to
support for 'revolutionary movements' and the establishment of'progressive governments'.
Spur des Falken (1968)
The film Spur des Falken from 1968 was the third of the Indianerfilme and the first to be based
on an original script, which meant that the scriptwriter, Dr Karl, was free to construct the plot
according to the ideological ideas he wanted to get across, without any interference from
authors who wanted the film to stay true to their original conception of the story.""^ Now
there were no obstacles in the way of the complete appropriation of the western for socialist
purposes. Consequently Spur des Falken at times works like a children's-book version of the
Marxist view of history.
The film teOs the tale of the Indian chief Weitspahender Falke and his tribe, living in the
Black Hills in the second half of the nineteenth century, just as the gold rush is about to hit the
area (around 1876). The main antagonist is 'Snaky'Joe Bludgeon (sic!), a ruthless property
speculator ready to kill anything and anyone who stands in the way of his insatiable greed.
After some back and forth between the Indians, some reasonably friendly small-time gold
diggers and Joe Bludgeon's bloodthirsty gang, total war breaks out between the Indians and
the whites. Bludgeon blows up a small mountain close to the Indian's camp site, killing
women and children (with obvious reference to American atrocities in Vietnam), and the
Indians take righteous revenge by setting the whole settler village on fire. The cavalry arrive
too late to stop the fire, but rescue the whites from the wrath of the Indians.
In a surprising inversion of genre conventions the attack by the Indians is accompanied by
rousing, victorious orchestra music, making the subsequent single horn fanfare signaling the
arrival of the cavalry seem impotent by comparison. This contrast is repeated as the cavalry
attack the Indians. Dramatic, gloomy music makes the cavalry appear as evil butchers, but as
the Indians ambush them the victorious theme instantly swells up again.
After this encounter with the cavalry the other Indian chiefs decide to pack up and leave for
a safer area, while Weitspahender Falke goes after Bludgeon one last time. In solid westem
tradition the film ends with a climactic fight between the good guy and the bad guy. Once
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 8I
Bludgeon is killed Weitspahender Falke joins his tribe and moves north with the hope of a
better life there. Even this very brief outline of the plot should give some impression of a new
version of the westem genre in the making.
The film is, because of the way the plot was designed, absolutely filled with examples of
historical and political allegories. One of the most striking is the way in which Bludgeon's
character is constructed to fit the ultimate evil in classical Marxism: the state of monopolistic
capitalism. Monopohstic capitalism is described, in a contemporary East German reference
book, as the ultimate phase of capitalist imperialism, characterized by the 'fusion of the power
of the [business-] monopolies with the powers of the state [including the military], giving the
financial oligarchies the ability to control directly all aspects of life in society."''' This fusion of
powers is clearly suggested in a scene early on in the film, contributing to the construction of
Bludgeon's character: After having bragged about his previous atrocities against Indians to
eager listeners on the train on the way to Tanglewood (the settler village in the film) Joe
Bludgeon is greeted with a big smirk and a manly embrace from the local cavalry chief.
Captain Holland, as he steps down from the train. Holland asks him whether everything
worked out in Washington, and Bludgeon replies with the rhetorical question: 'Did it ever not
work out for me in Washington?' They both smile, and have a dirty and conspiratorial laugh.
The monopolistic capitalist (Bludgeon) embraces the representative of the military power
.(Holland) who asks whether the state (Washington) is on board. Bludgeon's immediate and
arrogant reply signals that he takes this alliance for granted. The basic infrastructure of
monopolistic capitalism is secured.
A little earlier in the film, before Bludgeon's entry, we are made familiar with some of the
other characters. From the top of a hiU Weitspahender Falke and his companion, on horseback,
are looking down on two white men, Pat and Chat, as they are washing for gold in a
small stream at the bottom of the valley. The companion looks worried and says to Falke:
'You're right, the yellow metal makes them lose their minds', Falke repUes: 'Many white men
will come here to our mountains. The iron horse will bring them here from far and near.'
They both ride down the valley, and greet the men in the white man's language.''^ In a
reasonably friendly tone the men make the exchange of a deer against a nugget of gold, and
everyone seems to be pleased. In the perspective of the Marxist view of history the Indians
and Pat and Chat are for the time being functioning on a fairly equal level of development.
Both parties live very primitively, more or less from hand to mouth. By exchanging gold
nuggets for game, they participate in a form of barter economy, where both parties are trading
in natural goods. Because of this equality in 'mode of production', which is of seminal importance
in Marxist theory, no-one is exploited and they can live peacefully side by side. Already
in this early scene we do get clear hints, however, that we are witnessing a fragile relationship.
According to the Marxist view of history, which I outlined earlier, and which it was the film
makers' express intention to communicate in the Indianerfilme, the different levels of development
can not exist side by side. They were regarded as incompatible by definition and a clash
between different levels could only result in the exploitation and subsequent annihilation of
the fomier by the latter. The interesting tension in this scene is caused by the ambiguous status
of gold in the exchange between the Indians and the whites.
The gold nugget is in one sense only a 'yellow metal' extracted from nature, but in the
white man's world it is almost equal to money in use and (symbolic) value. One obvious alarm
signal, to the effect that the friendly and equal relationship will not last for long, is set off by a
remark from Chat, one of the gold diggers. Bragging about the size of a nugget he has just
82 JON RAUNDALEN
found he says 'another one of these and I could buy the whole valley!' The following worried
and suspicious facial expressions of the two Indians remind us who actually 'owns' the valley,
distinctly illustrating the incompatibility between the system of private property of the capitalist
society and the communal property of primitive communism.
These are two typical scenes from Spur des Falken where scriptwriter Dr Giinter Karl
explains to the audience, in broad, unmistakable strokes, how the situation of monopolistic
capitalism developed on the American frontier in the 1870s. All researched reviews ofSpur des
Falken and interviews conducted with their makers confirm the intention of such an historical
materialist reading of the film, which is consistently referred to as die historische Wahrheit (the
historical truth).''^' The few documents available related to the film's way through the channels
of censorship also prove that the official motives for making westem-themed entertainment
films were fundamentally educational, and that Spur des Falken in this respect displayed 'a
remarkable stylistic unity of entertainment and education."*^
To a certain extent, I actually agree with this last statement. In spite of the badly functioning
Indian character, the Indianerfdme managed to draw incredible crowds and, although in an
oversimplified and banal way, they were probably fairly effective in influencing historical
consciousness among their predominantly young audience. The historical materialist interpretation
of American history, which was offered by the Indianerfdme, was already standard school
curriculum for the audience. Thus, the two-hour exposure to the Indianerfilm's peculiar angle
on the frontier myth supplied only the finishing touch to an already established understanding
of historical evolution.
Gonclusion
With this article I wanted to demonstrate how the study of the often overlooked formula
products of popular culture can be valuable angles of incidence to the understanding of cold
war reality. As stated at the beginning of the article, the overwhelming majority of studies into
the cinema of Eastern Europe have been concerned with artistically ambitious film projects
and their legacy as part of dissident movements. In my present look at vastly popular entertainment
films, however, the focus is moved from the area of dissidence and confiict to the film
industry's day-to-day operations, thus revealing more about how the mainstream production
system worked for those prepared to comply, rather than the more common — and somewhat
exhausted — focus on the troubles of the critical or dissident film maker.
With their peculiar mix of familiar commercial genre conventions and socialist propaganda,
GDR popular genre films embody a key dimension of the East German experience — namely
the constant negotiation between isolation and imitation. The somewhat tragic, selfcontradictory
nature of this mediation becomes evident when we analyse pop-cultural products
such as Heifier Sommer and Spur des Falken. These films, as I have shown, are evidence of
a conscious strategy of imitation. The aim being to take on the enemy's forms, re-dress them,
and channel their allure into a Massenwirksamkeit in service of socialist progress. Continually
counteracting this strategy, however, were the coexisting strategies of isolation, like the
systematic restrictions on travel and on the import of printed matter from the West, made
possible by the erection of the Berlin wall. This self-contradictory relationship to western
culture was a direct result of the critical leak in the 'iron curtain' caused by the constant flow
of television and radio signals emanating from powerful transmitters in West Berlin. The
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 83
musicals and westerns of the GDR were created at the very point of convergence between
these strategies of isolation and imitation. Placed under analysis they thus reveal both the high
level of GDR integration in the non-terrestrial, transsystemic discourse of popular genres, as
well as the steps of appropriation taken to align them with central policy demands of the
period.
' The board consisted of twenty-five persons, ranging from writers and film critics to representatives from
the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 'Zusammensetzung der Auswahlkommission fur
auslandische Spielfdme', 04.03.1969, from the Central Committee's Culture Division (ZK Abt. Kultur) to
Kurt Hager, BArch DY30/IV A2/9.06/131. On the problem of too critical or liberal films from socialist
countries: 'Problemspiegel', 25.05.1967, from Hauptverwaltung Film (HV-Film) to Kurt Hager, BArch DRi
4213. P-35-
2 Approximately thirty per cent of all films screened in the GDR were imports from non-sociahst
countries. This proportion was fairly stable in the period I will be discussing. See for example G. Schulz
FILMOGRAFIE — Auslandische Spiel- und abendfuUende Dokumentarfdme in den Kinos der SBZ/DDR
tg45-ig66 (Berlin: Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv & DEFA-Stiftung, 2001), and 'Neuzulassungen auslandischer
Spielfilme', HV-Film Abt. Zulassung, BArch DR] 4717.
-^ The closing of the borders in 1961 was, in hindsight, obviously done to stop East Germans from fleeing
to the West. The perception of the borderclosing at the time, however, was more complex. The official
propaganda image of the wall as a safeguard against the imperialism of the West seems to have worked on
certain sections of the population — especially within the arts and the intelligentsia — and the government
made some minor liberalizing moves to give the impression that the closing of the border meant more
freedom internally. (See for example K. Schroeder Der SED-Staat (Munchen: Econ UUstein List Verlag,
2000), p. 172) In the area of film making, censorship was slackened and more social critique was tolerated.
Many film makers report that they felt it as a relief when the wall was in place. (See for example film maker
Frank Beyer's autobiography IVenn der Wind sick dreht (Berlin: Der Econ Verlag, 2001), pp. 106-08) One
DEFA film maker told me that even though the borderclosing cut him ofTfrom contact with his own parents
in the West, he still believed it at the time to be the necessary thing to do. (Interview with DEFA dramaturg
Hans-Joachim Wallstein, Berlin, 10.07.2003).
•• S. Fitzpatrick Ttie Cultural Front: Power and Culture in Revolutionary Russia (New York: Cornell University
Press, 1992), p. 227.
' See E. Honecker Bericht des Politbiiros an die u. Tagung des Zentralkomitees der Sozialistischen Einheitspartei
Deutschlands 15.-18 Dezember 1963 (Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1966). For post-1989 analysis see for example:
Kahtschlag, Das n. Plenum des ZK der SED 1965 — Studien und Dokumente, ed. by G. Agde (Berlin: Aufljau
Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH, 2000), E. Richter: 'Zwischen Mauerbau und Kahlsclag — 1961 bis 1965' and K.
Wischnewski, 'Traumer und gewohnliche Leute — 1966 bis 1979', in Das zweite Leben der Filmstadt Bahelsberg:
DEFA 1946-1992, ed. by R. Schenk (Berlin: Filmmuseum Potsdam & Henschel Verlag GmbH, 1994),
pp. 158-21 land pp. 212-63, respectively.
'' According to official statistics by the state run film distributor PROGRESS Film Verleih a staggering
8,285,136 East Germans had seen the film within its first year of release. See M. Seifert, Die Indianerfdme der
£)EFA — ausgewahlte Beispiele unter besonderer Betrachtung der Expositionen (Berlin: Hochschule fur Film und
Fernsehen der DDR, 1978, unpublished Diplomarbeit), p. 3.
' Musicals: Reise ins Ehebett (Trip to the Conjugal Bed, Jo Hasler, 1967), Hochzeitsnacht im Regen (Wedding
Night in the Rain, Horst Seeman, 1967), Heifer Sommer (Hot Summer, Jo Hasler, 1968) and Nicltt schummeln,
Lieblingl (Don't cheat. Darling!, Jo Hasler, 1973); Westerns: Die Sohne der Crojien Barin (The Sons of the Great
Mother Bear, Josef Mach, 1966), Chingachgook, die Croj]e Schlange (Chingachgook, the Big Snake, Richard
Groschopp, 1967), Spur des Falken (Trace of the Falcon, Gottfried Kolditz, 1968), WeijJe Wolfe (White
Wolves, Konrad Petzold, 1969), Todlicher Irrtum (Fatal Error, Konrad Petzold, 1970), Osceola (Konrad Petzold,
1971), Tecumseh (Hans Kratzert, 1972), Apachen (Apaches, Gottfried Kolditz, 1973), Ulzana (Gottfried Kolditz,
r974) and Blutsbriider (Blood Brothers, Werner W. Wallroth, 1975).
" 'Realismus: die Lebensfrage der deutschen Musik [Rede von Nationalpreistrager Prof. Ernst H. Meyer
auf der Grtindungskonferenz des Verbandes Deutscher Komponisten und Musiktheoretiker, 3. April 1951,
Auszug.]', reprinted in E. Schubbe Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturpolitik der SED (StuttgartDegerloch:
Seewald Verlag, 1972), p. 188.
84 JON RAUNDALEN
•* I use the example of popular music as an illustration of the broader confrontation between East German
cultural authorities and westem popular culture because this debate was more pronounced than the
corresponding debates about popular film. The reason for this difference was the great availabihty of westem
music (via radio and television) and the low cost and effort of putting together a band. The film medium's
dependence on specialized equipment and considerable capital made it less of a public domain.
'" See later references to Walter Ulbricht's speech at the SED's 7th Party Congress in 1967.
" 'Butlers Boogie' (04.04.65) Neues Deutschland, Berlin.
'^ 'Kurzbericht uber die Besprechung bei der Bezirksleitung der FDJ in Leipzig am 13. Mai 1965 . . . Gibt
es eine sozialistische und eine kapitalistische Tanzmusik?', BArch DY30/IV A2/9.06/159.
'^ 'Ursachen fiir das Uberhandnehmen negativer dekadenter Erscheinungen in den Gitarrengruppen',
11.11.65, and 'Erganzung zu den Ursachen liber das Uberhandnehmen negativer Erscheinungen in den BeatGruppen',
18.11.65, both from the Central Committee's Culture Division, BArch DY30/IV A2/9.06/159.
''' 'NATO-Politik und Tanzmusik', a newsletter explaining the need for renewed strength and legislation
in the battle against western pop music. Released as 'Parteiintemes Material' by the Agitation and Propaganda
Division of the SED's Central Committee in 1961, BArch DY30/IV A2/9.06/159.
'^ 'Die gesellschaftliche Entwicklung in der Deutschen Demokratischen Repubiik bei der VoUendung
des Sozialismus [Referat Walter Ulbrichts auf dem VII. Parteitag der SED, 17. bis 22. April 1967, Auszug]',
reprinted in E. Schubbe Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturpolitik der SED (Stuttgart-Degerloch:
Seewald Verlag, 1972), pp. 1251-61.
"* 'Die Entwicklung der sozialistischen Nationalkultur [Rede Walter Ulbrichts 'Das Programm des
Sozialismus und die geschichtliche Aufgabe der sozialistischen Einheitspartei Deutschlands' auf dem V!.
Parteitag der SED, 15. bis 2i.Januar 1963, Auszug]', reprinted in E. Schubbe Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literaturund
Kulturpolitik der SED (Stuttgart-Degerloch: Seewald Verlag, 1972), p. 815.
''^ 'Die gesellschaftliche Entwicklung in der Deutschen Demokratischen Repubhk bei der VoUendung des
Sozialismus [Referat Walter Ulbrichts auf dem VII. Parteitag der SED, 17. bis 22. April 1967, Auszug]',
reprinted in E. Schubbe Dokumente zur Kunst-, Literatur- und Kulturpolitik der SED (Stuttgart-Degerloch:
Seewald Verlag, 1972), p. 1259.
'« Ibid.
'' Ibid., p. 1257.
^° In the following I will be referring to the Hauptverwaltung Film (HV-Film) as the Film Bureau at the
Ministry of Culture.
^' Massenwirksamkeit was a central temi in official GDR discourse on film. It meant 'politicaUy effective on
the masses', but because of its very positive connotations at the time it was overused and was sometimes used
synonymously with 'popular'. In this concrete case it means both. Wagner is attacking bourgeois snobbishness
towards the popular in general at the same time as promoting politically persuasive films. 'Vorlage zur
Weiterentwicklung des sozialistischen Spielfilmschaffens', 24.01.1964, Siegfried Wagner reporting to Kurt
Hager on the development of the GDR feature film production, BArch DY30/IV A2/9.06/122.
^^ Several attempts were also made within the space travel science-fiction genre. For example Signale — ein
Wettraumabenteuer (Signals — a Space Adventure, Gottfried Kolditz, 1970).
^^ 'Einige Gedanken zur Einschatzung der ausgeheferten Produktion des DEFA-Spielfilmstudios im i.
Halbjahr 1967'. Written by Dr. Jahrow, film policy advisor (filmpolitischer Mitarbeiter) for the Film Production
Division (Abteilung Filmproduktion) in the Film Bureau at the Ministry of Culture. BArch DRi 4534.
^'' Wenn die Conny mit dem Peter (Fritz Umgelter, 1958), Conny und Peter machen Musik (Wemer Jacobs,
i960).
^' As many as 3,216,000 TV licences were issued in the GDR by the end of 1965, which means close to two
hundred TV sets per thousand inhabitants {UNESCO Statistical Yearbook 1966 (Paris: UNESCO, 1965),
p. 490). More than % of GDR territory were within reach of BRD (West German) television signals, and
most people would view both East and West Gemian broadcasts. In a study by Zentralinstitut fiir
Jugendforschung in Leipzig, performed in 1973, over seventy per cent responded that they listened to western
radio statioris several times per week, and over forty-seven per cent answered that they watched BRD television
broadcasts several times per week. Source: 'KultureU-kunstlerische Interessen und Moglichkeiten
Jugendiicher 1973-74', Zentralarchiv fiir empirische Sozialforschung an der Universitat zu Koln. Available
online at: http://134.95.45.i64/c:/ISYS_DDR/cb/6O77cb.pdf#xml=http://i34.95.45.i64/ISYSquery/
IRL6DE.tmp/58/hilite, p. 22.
THE EAST GERMAN FILM INDUSTRY 85
^^' The most relevant titles are: The Young Ones (SidneyJ. Furie, 1961), Summer Holiday (Peter Yates, 1963),
and Wonderful Life (SidneyJ. Furie, 1964).
^' DT 64 enjoyed great popularity with East German youth. Their call-in programs received as much as
1000 calls per show, and the station yearly received up to 50,000 cards and letters from their listeners. See
B. Paulu, Radio and Television Broadcasting in Eastern Europe (Minneapolis: The University of Minnesota Press,
1974), p. 242. The conflict over the 60/40 quota is evident in 'Einschatzung DT 64', 26.08.1965, a short
report issued by the Central Committee's Culture Division, and in 'Analyse des Musikprogramms des Senders
DT 64', 07.04.1966, a more detailed report by representatives of the state record company's artistic council
(VEB Deutsche Schallplatten: Kunsderischer Bereich), BArch DY30/IV A2/9.o6/i59.
^^ Pop singer and fashion model Chris Doerk and Schlager singer Frank Schobel were the GDR 'dream
couple'. They got married on 19 September 1966 and sang together in coundess shows and played together in
the very successful musicals Heifer Sommer and Nicht schummeln, Liebling! When Chris Doerk was due with
their son Alexander in April 1968 the nation is said to have been 'holding its breath' in anticipation. In the
subsequent months all interested could follow the life of the little family on television shows as well as in the
illustrated monthly Neues Leben. This sort of celebrity exposure was very unusual in the GDR, and makes
the history of Doerk and Schobel unique in the cultural history of the GDR. For a detailed study, see Claudia
Fellmer's PhD dissertation Stars in East German Cinema (Southampton: University of Southampton, 2002),
especially pp. 166-76. Frank Schobel's autobiography, Frank undfrei (Berlin: Aufbau Taschenbuch Verlag,
2000), is also of interest.
^'' 'Stellungnahme fur die Zulassung des Filmes "Heisser Sommer"', 20.1219.67. DRi (BA-FA)
Zulassungsprotokoll 138.
"^^ 'Einschatzung' of Heijier Sommer, from the Film Policy Division (Filmpolitische Abteilung) of the Film
Bureau at the Ministry of Culture, 09.01.1968. DRi (BA-FA) Zulassungsprotokoll 138.
"" Prominent in the following documents: 'Einige Gedanken zur Einschatzung der ausgelieferten
Produktion des DEFA-Spielfilmstudios im 1. Halbjahr 1967', 18.06.1967, by Dr Jahrow, film policy advisor
for the Film Production Division (Abteilung Filmproduktion) in the Film Bureau at the Ministry of Culture,
BArch D R I 4534, p. 28; 'Zu einigen Grundzugen der Entwicklung des Kinospielfilnies in der DDR bis
1980', 01.04.1967, BArch D R I 4540, p. 7, as well as in an assessment of film criticism against the entertainment
films of 1968: 'Stellungnahme zur "KINO-EULE" im "Eulenspiegel" nr. 28 (2. Juliheft 1968) von
Renate Holland-Moritz', 24.07.1968, BArch DRi 4213, p. 22.
'^ Interview with Jo Hasler, included in a press release in connection with the XII. Filmtage 1973.
Bundesarchiv-Filmarchiv, Filmmappe 12206.
"'•' K. Wischnewski, 'Traumer und gewohnliche Leute — 1966 bis 1979', in Das zweite Leben der Filmstadt
Babelsberg: DEFA 1946-1992, ed. by R. Schenk (Berlin: Filmmuseum Potsdam & Henschel Verlag GmbH,
1994), p. 223.
•''' According to the state distributor PROGRESS Film-Verleih statistics a total of 4,643,725 persons had
seen the film within its first year of release. See M. Seifert, Die Indianerfdme der DEFA — ausgewahlte Beispiele
unter besonderer Betrachtung der Expositionen (Berlin: Hochschule fiir Film und Fernsehen der DDR, 1978,
unpublished Diplomarbeit), p. 3.
•'^ On the Klaus Mann/Karl May connection see G. Gemiinden, 'Zwischen Karl May und Karl Marx: die
DEFA-Indianerfilme (1965-1983)', Film und Fernsehen, i (1998), 39.
'^' F.-B. Habel, Cojko Mitic, Mustangs, Marterphale: Die DEFA-Indianerfilme (Berlin: Schwarzkopf &
Schwarzkopf Verlag, 1997), p. 7.
•" 'Ostlicher Western' (07.07.65) Der Spiegel, Hamburg.
'** 'Indianerbiwak im BMK Sud' (11.07.70) Leipziger Volkszeitung, Leipzig.
•^'' This somewhat schematic hsting is compiled by taking the description of these phases in Marx and
Engels, 'First Premises of Materialist Method' from The German Ideology written in the 1840s (New York:
International Publishers, 1970), pp. 42-57, and combining it with a contemporary East German interpretation
which can found in Kleines Worterbuch der Marxistisch-Leninistischen Philosophie, ed. by Buhr and Kosing
(Berlin: Dietz Verlag, 1974) pp. 86-88, pp. 153-55, and pp. 258-59.
'"' For a detailed study, see G. M. Winrow, The Foreign Policy ofthe GDR in Africa (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1990).
"" Hans-Joachim Wallstein, dramaturg for nine Indianerfilme, told me that this Africa-connection was
discussed in relation to the production of^the Indianerfdme, but that the filmmakers were consciously avoiding
too obvious references to de-colonized Africa (Interview with Hans-Joachim Wallstein, Berlin, 10.07.2003).
86 JON RAUNDALEN
*^ 'Abenteuer, Aktion, Indianer?' (23.07.71) Schweriner Volkszeitung, Schwerin.
"^ DEFA dramaturg and script writer Gunter Karl had several disputes with Professor of History Liselotte
Welskopf-Henrich, who authored the books on which the first Indianerfdm was based. The disagreements
were related to oversimplification of historical facts and conditions when turning her books into film. She
once complained that a certain set piece for Die Sohne der Grossen Bdrin looked more hke a camping site in the
GDR than an actual Indian camp, BArch DR 117 BA 1780, and interview with Hans-Joachim Wallstein
(Berlin, 10.07.2003).
'•'' Kleines Worterbuch der Marxistisch-Leninistischen Philosophie, ed. by Buhr and Kosing (Berlin: Dietz Verlag,
1974), p. 141.
'^^ Supposedly English, although they all speak German in the Indianerfilme.
'"' Evident in the following articles: 'Die Indianer aus dem Kaukasus: "Morgen" —Interview mit DEFARegisseur
Dr. Gottfried Kolditz' (30.07.1967) Der Morgen; 'Der "Spur des Falken" foigen "Wiesse Wolfe'"
(29.03.1968) Bauernecho; 'Gojko Mitic sitzt wieder im Sattel: Neue Abenteuer in "Spur des Falken'"
(06.04.1968) Nationalzeitung Berlin; 'Sommer, Kino Freilichtbiihne: Drei Beitrage der DEFA zu den
Sommerfilmtagen' (30.06.1968) Neues Deutschland; 'Indianerbiwak im BMK Slid' (11.07.70) Leipziger
Volkszeitung; 'Abenteuer, Aktion, Indianer?' (23.07.71) Schweriner Volkszeitung — to name but a few.
'•'' 'Einschatzung des Films "Spur des Falken'", Filmwissenschaftliche Ahteilung, 14.03.1968. DR i
(BA-FA) Zulassungsprotokoll 284.