Ernst Thälmann (film)
Encyclopedia
Ernst Thälmann is an East German film in two parts about the life of the German Communist leader Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

, directed by Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig is an East German film director who had a significant effect on the film industry in the GDR. He is one of the most respected filmmakers of East Germany. He currently lives in Wildkuhl, Mecklenburg, and has three children....

 and starring Günther Simon
Günther Simon
-Early life:A bank clerk's son, Simon attended an acting school already in Gymnasium. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a pre-military training camp of the Hitler Youth and then drafted to the Reich Labour Service. He volunteered to join the paratroopers in August 1943...

 in the title role. The first picture, Ernst Thälmann - Sohn seiner Klasse (Son of his Class
Proletariat
The proletariat is a term used to identify a lower social class, usually the working class; a member of such a class is proletarian...

), was released at 1954. It was followed by the 1955 sequel Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse (Leader of his Class).

Ernst Thälmann - Son of his Class

After fellow soldier Johannes Harms reports that a revolution has broken out at home, Thälmann - who leads a revolutionary cell on the Western Front
Western Front (World War I)
Following the outbreak of World War I in 1914, the German Army opened the Western Front by first invading Luxembourg and Belgium, then gaining military control of important industrial regions in France. The tide of the advance was dramatically turned with the Battle of the Marne...

 - and his friend Fiete Jansen rebel against their officers, Zinker and Quadde, and desert. Harms dies in a shelling. In Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

, the American capitalist Mr. McFuller demands to crush the Spartacists. Zinker, now a member of the Freikorps
Freikorps
Freikorps are German volunteer military or paramilitary units. The term was originally applied to voluntary armies formed in German lands from the middle of the 18th century onwards. Between World War I and World War II the term was also used for the paramilitary organizations that arose during...

, murders Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...

 and Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...

. Thälmann hears of it and promises that their sacrifice will not be in vain. Jansen falls in love with Harms' daughter, Änne.

When Hamburg
Hamburg
-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 faces an attack by Zinker's forces, as part of the Kapp Putsch
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch — or more accurately the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch — was a 1920 coup attempt during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 aimed at overthrowing the Weimar Republic...

, the workers organize a general strike; after laborers are shot by the rebels, Thälmann ignores the bourgeoisie Social Democrats
Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Social Democratic Party of Germany is a social-democratic political party in Germany...

 who reject violence, ambushes the Freikorps and captures their officers. The Social Democrat Police Senator Höhn frees them after they lightheartedly promise not to use violence.

Thälmann makes a speech in the USPD
Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany
The Independent Social Democratic Party of Germany was a short-lived political party in Germany during the Second Reich and the Weimar Republic. The organization was established in 1917 as the result of a split of left wing members of the Social Democratic Party of Germany...

 congress, calling to unite with the KPD
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

, when the Soviet steamship Karl Liebknecht, loaded with wheat for the city's unemployed, reaches the port. Höhn sends Quadde, now a police captain, to prevent the distribution of the cargo, but after a stand-off the police retreat. Thälmann visits Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

 in Moscow
Moscow
Moscow is the capital, the most populous city, and the most populous federal subject of Russia. The city is a major political, economic, cultural, scientific, religious, financial, educational, and transportation centre of Russia and the continent...

 with other German communists.

Thälmann and his friends organize a communist uprising in Hamburg
Hamburg Uprising
The Hamburg Uprising was an insurrection during the Weimar Republic in Germany. It was begun on October 23, 1923 by the one of the most militant sections of the Hamburg district Communist Party , the KP Wasserkante. From a military point of view, the attempt was futile and it was over within 24...

, and manage to hold out against the Reichswehr
Reichswehr
The Reichswehr formed the military organisation of Germany from 1919 until 1935, when it was renamed the Wehrmacht ....

 and the police. Fiete killes Zinker. Then, a delegate from the Central Committee announces that armed struggle is no longer the policy of the party, and that the weapons promised to them by the leadership will not arrive. The communists are forced to flee. Jansen is sentenced to death, but eventually his life are spared. Thälmann appears in the Hamburg harbor and promises not to abandon the struggle.

Ernst Thälmann - Leader of his Class

At 1930, Fiete Jansen is released from jail and is reunited with his wife, Änne. Thälmann, now a member of the Reichstag
Reichstag (Weimar Republic)
The Reichstag was the parliament of Weimar Republic .German constitution commentators consider only the Reichstag and now the Bundestag the German parliament. Another organ deals with legislation too: in 1867-1918 the Bundesrat, in 1919–1933 the Reichsrat and from 1949 on the Bundesrat...

 and chief of the KPD
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

, assists the coal miners in the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...

 to organize a massive strike after their wages are cut. When the presidential elections take place
German presidential election, 1932
The presidential election of 1932 was the second and final direct election to the office of President of the Reich , Germany's head of state during the 1919-1934 Weimar Republic. The incumbent President, Paul von Hindenburg, had been elected in 1925 but his seven year term expired in May...

, veteran SPD member Robert Dirhagen is reluctant to support Paul von Hindenburg
Paul von Hindenburg
Paul Ludwig Hans Anton von Beneckendorff und von Hindenburg , known universally as Paul von Hindenburg was a Prussian-German field marshal, statesman, and politician, and served as the second President of Germany from 1925 to 1934....

, although that is the party line. Thälmann calls for class unity against the Nazis, but the SPD leaders don't want to collaborate with him.

In the elections for parliament the KPD gains many seats and the Nazis lose two million votes. However, the Ruhr
Ruhr
The Ruhr is a medium-size river in western Germany , a right tributary of the Rhine.-Description:The source of the Ruhr is near the town of Winterberg in the mountainous Sauerland region, at an elevation of approximately 2,200 feet...

 industrialists and Mr. McFuller support Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

. Dirhagen is enraged to hear that the SPD will not oppose Franz von Papen
Franz von Papen
Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...

's decision to allow Hitler into the government and tears his party card. The Nazis seize power
Machtergreifung
Machtergreifung is a German word meaning "seizure of power". It is normally used specifically to refer to the Nazi takeover of power in the democratic Weimar Republic on 30 January 1933, the day Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany, turning it into the Nazi German dictatorship.-Term:The...

.

The Nazis burn the Reichstag
Reichstag fire
The Reichstag fire was an arson attack on the Reichstag building in Berlin on 27 February 1933. The event is seen as pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany....

 and accuse the communists, arresting many, including Thälmann and Dirhagen. Wilhelm Pieck
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...

 and Jansen plan to rescue their leader with the aid of an Orpo jailer, but the SS
Schutzstaffel
The Schutzstaffel |Sig runes]]) was a major paramilitary organization under Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party. Built upon the Nazi ideology, the SS under Heinrich Himmler's command was responsible for many of the crimes against humanity during World War II...

 guards - commanded by Quadde, now a SS Sturmbannführer - foil the plot. Fiete escapes abroad, joining the Thälmann Battalion
Thälmann Battalion
The Thälmann Battalion was a battalion of the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War. It was named after the imprisoned German communist leader Ernst Thälmann and included approximately 1,500 people, mainly Germans, Austrians, Swiss and Scandinavians. The battalion fought in the defence...

 in Spain
Spanish Civil War
The Spanish Civil WarAlso known as The Crusade among Nationalists, the Fourth Carlist War among Carlists, and The Rebellion or Uprising among Republicans. was a major conflict fought in Spain from 17 July 1936 to 1 April 1939...

, and later - after the Second World War begins - the Red Army
Red Army
The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army started out as the Soviet Union's revolutionary communist combat groups during the Russian Civil War of 1918-1922. It grew into the national army of the Soviet Union. By the 1930s the Red Army was among the largest armies in history.The "Red Army" name refers to...

's 143rd Guards Tank Division 'Ernst Thälmann'. Änne is arrested by the Gestapo
Gestapo
The Gestapo was the official secret police of Nazi Germany. Beginning on 20 April 1934, it was under the administration of the SS leader Heinrich Himmler in his position as Chief of German Police...

. Hamburg is bombed, and she dies in her cell.

At August 1944, a German corps is encircled by the Red Army. Hitler demands that they will fight to the end. The Soviets send in Jansen with a group of German communists to convince the soldiers to defy the SS and surrender. Eventually, the Ernst Thälmann Division soldiers break through the German lines, liberate the local concentration camp in which Dirwagen was held and accept the German surrender after the SS were overpowered by Jansen's men. The communist Jansen and the Social Democrat Dirhagen shake hands
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

. In Berlin, Thälmann leaves his cell to be executed, while contemplating on Pavel Kurchagin's words from How the Steel Was Tempered
How the Steel Was Tempered
How the Steel Was Tempered is a socialist realist novel written by Nikolai Ostrovsky during Joseph Stalin's era. Pavel Korchagin is the central character.- Analysis :...

: "...All my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world - the fight for the liberation of mankind."

Cast

  • Günther Simon
    Günther Simon
    -Early life:A bank clerk's son, Simon attended an acting school already in Gymnasium. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a pre-military training camp of the Hitler Youth and then drafted to the Reich Labour Service. He volunteered to join the paratroopers in August 1943...

     as Ernst Thälmann
    Ernst Thälmann
    Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

  • Wolf Kaiser
    Wolf Kaiser
    Wolf Kaiser was a German theatre and film actor. He grew up in Switzerland, where he studied chemistry and physiology. In 1937 he was deemed unfit for service in the Wehrmacht, and then went to Berlin where he trained as an actor.-Career:...

     as Zinker
  • Werner Peters
    Werner Peters
    Werner Peters was a German film actor. He appeared in 102 films between 1947 and 1971.Peters was born in Werlitzsch, Kreis Delitzsch, Prussian Saxony, and died of a heart attack on a promotion tour for his latest film in Wiesbaden, Germany.His film career started with the lead in Wolfgang...

     as Gottlieb Quadde
  • Nikolai Kryuchkov
    Nikolai Kryuchkov
    Nikolai Kryuchkov was a Soviet film actor. He appeared in 94 films between 1932 and 1993.-Selected filmography:* Okraina * By the Bluest of Seas * The Return of Maxim * The Vyborg Side * Salavat Yulayev...

     as Soviet colonel
  • Michel Piccoli as Maurice Rouger
  • Siegfried Weiss as industrialist
  • Fritz Diez
    Fritz Diez
    Not to be confused with the West German industrialist Fritz Dietz.Fritz Diez was a German actor, producer, director and theater manager.-Early life:...

     as Adolf Hitler
    Adolf Hitler
    Adolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , commonly referred to as the Nazi Party). He was Chancellor of Germany from 1933 to 1945, and head of state from 1934 to 1945...

  • Werner Dissel
    Werner Dissel
    Werner Friedrich Dissel was a German actor and director.-Biography:Dissel's began working as a newspaper photographer in the late 1920s. After the Nazis' rise to power, he became a member of an antifascist group headed by Harro Schulze-Boysen, and was involved in the resistance newspaper Wille zum...

     as uncredited role
  • Fred Delmare
    Fred Delmare
    Fred Delmare was a German actor.He was born in Hüttensteinach. He appeared in several films and television series, last in 70 episodes of In aller Freundschaft between 1998 and 2006. He died in May, 1 2009....

     as soldier
  • Hannjo Hasse
    Hannjo Hasse
    -Biography:Hasse began studying acting in 1938, and attended Lily Ackermann's Institute for Stage Artists' Education in Berlin. At 1941, he was drafted for the Labour Service, and later to the Army...

     as army officer
  • Horst Kube
    Horst Kube
    -Selected filmography:* Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse * A Berlin Romance * Der Fackelträger * Schlösser und Katen * Don't Forget My Little Traudel * Zwei Mütter * The Sailor's Song...

     as concentration camp commandant
  • Angela Brunner
    Angela Brunner
    -Selected filmography:* Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse * Junges Gemüse * Naked among Wolves * The Heathens of Kummerow * Die Fahne von Kriwoj Rog * Time of the Storks...

     as Irma Thälmann
  • Arthur Pieck as Wilhelm Pieck
    Wilhelm Pieck
    Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...

     (part 1)
  • Hans Wehrl as Wilhelm Pieck (part 2)
  • Karl Brenk as Walter Ulbricht
    Walter Ulbricht
    Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...

  • Gerd Wehr as Wilhelm Florin
  • Karl Weber as Friedrich Ebert
    Friedrich Ebert
    Friedrich Ebert was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany .When Ebert was elected as the leader of the SPD after the death of August Bebel, the party members of the SPD were deeply divided because of the party's support for World War I. Ebert supported the Burgfrieden and...

  • Martin Flörchinger as Karl Liebknecht
    Karl Liebknecht
    was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...

     (part 1)/Saarland delegate (part 2)
  • Judith Harms as Rosa Luxemburg
    Rosa Luxemburg
    Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...

  • Kurt Wetzel as army officer (part 1)/Hermann Göring
    Hermann Göring
    Hermann Wilhelm Göring, was a German politician, military leader, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. He was a veteran of World War I as an ace fighter pilot, and a recipient of the coveted Pour le Mérite, also known as "The Blue Max"...

     (part 2)
  • Hans Stuhrmann as Joseph Goebbels
    Joseph Goebbels
    Paul Joseph Goebbels was a German politician and Reich Minister of Propaganda in Nazi Germany from 1933 to 1945. As one of Adolf Hitler's closest associates and most devout followers, he was known for his zealous oratory and anti-Semitism...

  • Eberhard Kratz as Fritz Tarnow
    Fritz Tarnow
    Fritz Tarnow was an important Social Democrat trade unionists and Reichstag deputy during the Weimar Republic....

  • Erich Brauer as Carl Severing
    Carl Severing
    Carl Wilhelm Severing was a German Social Democrat politician during the Weimar era.He was Interior Minister of Prussia from 1920 to 1926, Minister of the Interior from 1928 to 1930 and Interior Minister of Prussia again from 1930 to 1932...

  • Peter Schorn as Vladimir Lenin
    Vladimir Lenin
    Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

  • Gerd Jäger as Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Stalin
    Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

     (scenes removed)
  • Steffie Spira as Clara Zetkin
    Clara Zetkin
    Clara Zetkin was a German Marxist theorist, activist, and fighter for women's rights. In 1910, she organized the first International Women's Day....

  • Joe Münch-Harris as Gustav Noske
    Gustav Noske
    Gustav Noske was a German politician of the Social Democratic Party of Germany . He served as the first Minister of Defence of Germany between 1919 and 1920.-Biography:...

  • Hans Flössel as Philipp Scheidemann
    Philipp Scheidemann
    Philipp Scheidemann was a German Social Democratic politician, who proclaimed the Republic on 9 November 1918, and who became the second Chancellor of the Weimar Republic....

  • Karl-Eugen Lenkerring as Gustav Stresemann
    Gustav Stresemann
    was a German politician and statesman who served as Chancellor and Foreign Minister during the Weimar Republic. He was co-laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1926.Stresemann's politics defy easy categorization...

  • Fred Kötteritzsch as Franz von Papen
    Franz von Papen
    Lieutenant-Colonel Franz Joseph Hermann Michael Maria von Papen zu Köningen was a German nobleman, Roman Catholic monarchist politician, General Staff officer, and diplomat, who served as Chancellor of Germany in 1932 and as Vice-Chancellor under Adolf Hitler in 1933–1934...

  • Will van Deeg as Heinrich Himmler
    Heinrich Himmler
    Heinrich Luitpold Himmler was Reichsführer of the SS, a military commander, and a leading member of the Nazi Party. As Chief of the German Police and the Minister of the Interior from 1943, Himmler oversaw all internal and external police and security forces, including the Gestapo...

  • Georges Stanescu as Georgi Dimitrov
    Georgi Dimitrov
    Georgi Dimitrov Mikhaylov , also known as Georgi Mikhaylovich Dimitrov , was a Bulgarian Communist politician...

  • Theo Shall as judge (part 1)/Marcel Cachin
    Marcel Cachin
    Marcel Cachin was a French politician.In 1891, Cachin joined Jules Guesde French Workers' Party . In 1905, he joined the new French Section of the Workers' International and won election to the Chamber of Deputies representing the Seine in 1914...

     (part 2)
  • Hubert Temming as Jacques Duclos
    Jacques Duclos
    Jacques Duclos was a French Communist politician who played a key role in French politics from 1926, when he entered the French National Assembly after defeating Paul Reynaud, until 1969, when he won a substantial portion of the vote in the presidential elections.During World War I, Duclos fought...

  • Karl Heinz Weiss as Maurice Thorez
    Maurice Thorez
    thumb|A Soviet stamp depicting Maurice Thorez.Maurice Thorez was a French politician and longtime leader of the French Communist Party from 1930 until his death. He also served as vice premier of France from 1946 to 1947....

  • Carla Hoffmann as Rosa Thälmann
  • Hans-Peter Minetti as Fiete Jansen
  • Karla Runkehl as Änne Jansen
  • Isa Henselmann as Ännchen Jansen
  • Wilfried Ortmann as Hannes Harms
  • Ursula Röschmann as Mrs. Harms
  • Paul R. Henker as Fiete's jailer (part 1)/Robert Dirhagen (part 2)
  • Erich Franz as Arthur Vierbreiter
  • Erika Dunkelmann as Martha Vierbreiter
  • Raimund Schelcher as Krischan Daik
  • Herbert Richter as Kruczinski
  • Rudolf Klix as Willbrandt
  • Johannes Arpe as Police senator Höhn
  • Sergei Kalinin as Karl Liebknecht captain
  • Karl Kendzia as Adolf Wahlkeit
  • Otto Dierichs as enraged industrialist
  • Wilhelm Koch-Hooge as Captain Schröder
  • Kurt Dunkelmann as Thälmann's first jailer
  • Otto Krone as Thälmann's second jailer
  • Pitt Kröger as the second jailer's son
  • Hans-Peter Thielen as Hartrein
  • Werner Pledath as Hauck senior
  • Hannes Fischer as Hauck junior
  • Paul Paulsen as Mr. McFuller
  • Harro Tenbrook as American General
  • Werner Segtrop as French detective
  • Hans-Robert Wille as people's court judge
  • Adolf Peter Hoffmann as Alland
  • Fred Mahr as central committee member

Background

Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann
Ernst Thälmann was the leader of the Communist Party of Germany during much of the Weimar Republic. He was arrested by the Gestapo in 1933 and held in solitary confinement for eleven years, before being shot in Buchenwald on Adolf Hitler's orders in 1944...

, the Communist Party of Germany
Communist Party of Germany
The Communist Party of Germany was a major political party in Germany between 1918 and 1933, and a minor party in West Germany in the postwar period until it was banned in 1956...

's chief who was executed by the Nazi regime at 1944 after spending 11 years in prison, was revered as a national hero in the nascent East Germany. Thälmann's character combined communist convictions with an uncompromising struggle against Fascism
Fascism
Fascism is a radical authoritarian nationalist political ideology. Fascists seek to rejuvenate their nation based on commitment to the national community as an organic entity, in which individuals are bound together in national identity by suprapersonal connections of ancestry, culture, and blood...

; in a broader sense, he served as part of what author Russell Lemmons referred to as East Germany's "foundation myth": the belief that the communists were the most authentic anti-fascists
Anti-fascism
Anti-fascism is the opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals, such as that of the resistance movements during World War II. The related term antifa derives from Antifaschismus, which is German for anti-fascism; it refers to individuals and groups on the left of the political...

, and therefore, their successors in the Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

 were the legitimate leaders of a new German state. Thälmann became the center of what many historians saw as a cult of personality
Cult of personality
A cult of personality arises when an individual uses mass media, propaganda, or other methods, to create an idealized and heroic public image, often through unquestioning flattery and praise. Cults of personality are usually associated with dictatorships...

. This veneration required that all controversial aspects of his political career be repressed from mass consciousness. Journalist Erich Wollenberg wrote that in the Ernst Thälmann films, "the Thälmann cult reached its apotheosis."

Inception

The film was conceived at 1948, after the Soviet Occupation Zone's provisional authorities and the leadership of the Socialist Unity Party
Socialist Unity Party of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany was the governing party of the German Democratic Republic from its formation on 7 October 1949 until the elections of March 1990. The SED was a communist political party with a Marxist-Leninist ideology...

 commissioned it; According to director Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig is an East German film director who had a significant effect on the film industry in the GDR. He is one of the most respected filmmakers of East Germany. He currently lives in Wildkuhl, Mecklenburg, and has three children....

, "it was handed down from above". Willi Bredel
Willi Bredel
Willi Bredel was a German writer and president of the Akademie der Künste. Born in Hamburg, he was a pioneer of socialist realist literature....

 and Michael Tschesno-Hell, both political functionaries, were exempted from all their other duties in the party to concentrate on the writing of the script. A "Thälmann Committee" was created to direct the production of the film; its members included representatives from the Ministry of Culture, the Ministry of Press and Agitation, the DEFA studio and Thälmann's widow, Rosa, although she was removed at 1949. The committee held its first meeting on 8 October 1948. At the third meeting, on the 27th, the members decided that portraying Thälmann's entire life would make the film to cumbersome, agreeing that it should concentrate only on the important historical events. The resolution also stated that the plot should focus on meetings between Thälmann and small groups of people, that would be seen embracing Socialism after being convinced by "the radiance of his personality". On the fourth meeting, it was suggested to begin the plot only at 1931 and stress Thälmann's part in the 1932 public transportation strike; yet member Otto Winzer
Otto Winzer
Otto Winzer was an East German diplomat. He returned from exile in the Soviet Union as part of the Ulbricht Group, charged with setting up the Soviet Military Administration in Germany after World War II. He served as the foreign minister of East Germany between 1965 and 1975.- References :...

 pointed out that in order to appeal to the youth, the picture should deal with the protagonist's earlier years.

Development

Bredel and Tschesno-Hell completed the first draft of the script at early 1951. The plot began with the four-year-old Ernst shoving socialist pamphlets in his trousers to hide them from the police officrs who raided his father's tavern, where an illegal meeting of the SPD took place. It also featured his childhood and youth with his parents, his falling in love with the young Rosa Koch and his years as a simple worker who turned to communism.

DEFA concluded that Bredel's and Tschesno-Hell's script would require splitting the film into three parts. This was deemed to long by the committee. After a year of deliberations, most of the original screenplay was rejected. On January 1951, it was decided to have a two-part picture, the first dealing with the time from the end of World War I to 1930, and the second taking off at 1932 and continuing until the founding of the German Democratic Republic. The two parts were named Ernst Thälmann - Sohn des Volkes and Ernst Thälmann - Führer des Volkes (son and leader of the people, respectively). The titles were later changed to Sohn and Führer seiner Klasse.

The political establishment had closely monitored the work. According to historian René Börrner "no other film had ever received such attention from the Politburo of the SED". on August 1951, Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...

 sent the committee a letter in which he requested that a meeting between Thälmann and Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

 would be portrayed.

There were other political concerns, as well. Under the influence of events in the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

, the Ministry of Culture accused the DEFA filmmakers of taking up a Formalistic approach, and demanded that they reject it and adopt a Socialist realist line
Socialist realism
Socialist realism is a style of realistic art which was developed in the Soviet Union and became a dominant style in other communist countries. Socialist realism is a teleologically-oriented style having its purpose the furtherance of the goals of socialism and communism...

. During 1952, Bredel's and Tschesno-Hell's script was again subject to revisions and had to be re-written. In July, State Secretary of Press and Agitation Hermann Axen told the Thälmann committee that the main problem to be solved was "The authors' primitive depiction of Thälmann", that failed to present his "grand revolutionary instinct". Later, committee member Hermann Lauter demanded to include historical events that had no relation to Thälmann's life, like the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

.

Approval

During late 1952, the writers accepted most of the demands. Their final draft was approved by the managerial committee and the Ministry of Culture only at 13 March 1953. The work on the screenplay of "Leader of his Class" began at summer 1953. Russel Lemmons claimed that this time, the writers "knew what was expected of them". The script was completed at 8 September, and later accepted with only minor changes.

A demonstration of the materials to the first film was held for the State Committee of Cinema at 17 November. The chief of the Soviet commission in East Germany, Vladimir Semyonov, and director Sergei Gerasimov
Sergei Gerasimov
Sergey Gerasimov may refer to:*Sergey Vasilyevich Gerasimov , Russian painter*Sergei Gerasimov , Russian actor, film director and screenwriter...

 were present as well. Semionov personally made an adjustment to the script; he requested that a scene in which Thälmann appeared to be concerning doubt would be removed, since it was not in accordance with the principles of the proletarian struggle. In general, however, he approved of the presentation; the script also introduced elements fitting the atmosphere of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...

, in the form of the films' main villain, the American capitalist Mr. McFuller.

The final version was modeled after Mikhail Chiaureli's 1946 film The Vow
The Vow (1946 film)
The Vow is a 1946 Soviet film directed by Mikhail Chiaureli. It is considered a representation of Joseph Stalin's cult of personality.-Plot:...

The scene in which Thälmann swears to uphold the legacy of Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg bears great resemblance to Stalin's oath to hold on to Lenin's teachings in The Vow. Another motif from the film is the blood-stained letter taken from the corpse of a dead man: Fiete Jansen picks one such from Harms' body; a similar letter, originally carried by murdered communist Petrov, reaches Stalin in The Vow. and his 1949 The Fall of Berlin
The Fall of Berlin (film)
The Fall of Berlin is a 1950 two-part Soviet film directed by Mikhail Chiaureli. The plot revolves around the history of the Great Patriotic War, focusing on the role that Joseph Stalin played in the events...

, with a color scheme dominated by red. On early 1954, two years after the original deadline, Son of his Class was ready for screening. After the release of the first part, the principal photography of the second was carried out at the summer of 1954. As many as 150 servicemen of the Barracked People's Police
Kasernierte Volkspolizei
Kasernierte Volkspolizei were the military units of the Volkspolizei in the German Democratic Republic...

 were daily used throughout the shooting in the roles of extras.

Contemporary response

Ernst Thälmann - Son of his Class premiered in the Friedrichstadt Palast
Friedrichstadt Palast
The Friedrichstadt-Palast is a revue in the Berlin district of Mitte . The term Friedrichstadt-Palast designates both the building itself, and the revue theater as a body with his ensemble...

, on 9 March 1954; over 3000 people attended, including Wilhelm Pieck
Wilhelm Pieck
Friedrich Wilhelm Reinhold Pieck was a German politician and a Communist. In 1949, he became the first President of the German Democratic Republic, an office abolished upon his death. He was succeeded by Walter Ulbricht, who served as Chairman of the Council of States.-Biography:Pieck was born to...

 and Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht
Walter Ulbricht was a German communist politician. As First Secretary of the Socialist Unity Party from 1950 to 1971 , he played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany and later in the early development and...

. In a speech he carried after the screening, Pieck called the film a "message to all peace-loving Germans, especially our youth". The picture was distributed in eighty prints. It was the first film ever to be released simultaneously in East and West Germany, after the 1954 Berlin Conference brought about a temporary rapprochement between the two states.

The first part was excessively promoted by the press; tickets were handed out without charge on several occasions, and mandatory screenings were held in collective farms
Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft
The German expression Landwirtschaftliche Produktionsgenossenschaft , or — more commonly — its acronym LPG was the official designation for large, collectivised farms in the former East Germany, corresponding to Soviet Kolkhoz.The collectivisation of private and state owned agricultural...

 and for school children. Within 13 weeks of its release, Son of his Class was viewed by 3.6 million people. Director Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig
Kurt Maetzig is an East German film director who had a significant effect on the film industry in the GDR. He is one of the most respected filmmakers of East Germany. He currently lives in Wildkuhl, Mecklenburg, and has three children....

, Willi Bredel, Michael Tschesno-Hell, cinematographer Karl Plintzner and actor Günther Simon
Günther Simon
-Early life:A bank clerk's son, Simon attended an acting school already in Gymnasium. At the age of sixteen, he was sent to a pre-military training camp of the Hitler Youth and then drafted to the Reich Labour Service. He volunteered to join the paratroopers in August 1943...

, who portrayed Thälmann, were all awarded East Germany's National Prize
National Prize of East Germany
The National Prize of the German Democratic Republic was an award of the German Democratic Republic given out in three different classes for scientific, artistic, and other meritorious achievement...

, 1st Class, at 7 October 1954. The film also won a special Peace Prize in the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
Karlovy Vary International Film Festival
The Karlovy Vary International Film Festival is a film festival held annually in July in Karlovy Vary , Czech Republic. The Karlovy Vary Festival gained worldwide recognition over the past years and has become one of Europe's major film events....

, on the same year.

Leader of his Class, that had its premiere in Berlin's Volksbühne
Volksbühne
The Volksbühne is a theater in Berlin, Germany. Located in Berlin's city center Mitte on Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz in what was the GDR's capital....

 at 7 October 1955, was strongly endorsed by the government, as well. Within 13 weeks, it was viewed by 5.7 million people. His appearance in the film won Günther Simon the Best Actor Award in the 1956 Karlovy Vary Festival.

De-Stalinization

Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev led the Soviet Union during part of the Cold War. He served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964...

's Secret Speech on February 1956 signalled the beginning of a new course in the politics
Khrushchev Thaw
The Khrushchev Thaw refers to the period from the mid 1950s to the early 1960s, when repression and censorship in the Soviet Union were partially reversed and millions of Soviet political prisoners were released from Gulag labor camps, due to Nikita Khrushchev's policies of de-Stalinization and...

 of the Eastern Block, including in the field of art. Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

's character, which was celebrated during his lifetime, was now being edited out of many motion pictures; some films that were made before 1953 were banned altogether.

On 5 June 1956, a month before the 9th Karlovy Vary Festival, Alexander Abusch
Alexander Abusch
Alexander Abusch was a German journalist, writer and politician. Abusch joined the Communist Party of Germany in 1918. He would serve as editor of some KPD publications. In 1937, he became part of the exiled KPD leadership in Paris, later in Toulouse. In 1941 he shifted to Mexico, were he became...

 wrote the SED Politburo a letter notifying them on the removal of montage that featured Stalin from the film, so it would be fit for screening in Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia
Czechoslovakia or Czecho-Slovakia was a sovereign state in Central Europe which existed from October 1918, when it declared its independence from the Austro-Hungarian Empire, until 1992...

. Abusch alsp requested permission to edit out a scene in which Fiete Jansen quoted Stalin's words: "Hitlers come and go, but Germany and the German people remain." After the 1961 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which espoused a strict anti-Stalinist line, a group of officials in the East German Ministry of Culture held a conference from the 25th to the 27th of November 1961. They decided to remove all the footage involving the figure of Stalin from the film. All copies, even those abroad, were subject to the resolution. In the post-1961 version, Stalin does not make an appearance, but his name remains in the opening credits, along with the actor portraying him, and is mentioned on several occasions.

Critical reaction

In East Germany, the films were received with favourable acclaim. On 28 March 1954, Minister of Culture Johannes R. Becher
Johannes R. Becher
Johannes Robert Becher was a German politician, novelist, and poet.-Early life:Johannes R. Becher was the son of Judge Heinrich Becher. In 1910 he tried to commit suicide with a friend; only Becher survived. From 1911 he studied medicine and philosophy in Munich and Jena...

 called Son of his Class a "national heroic epic," and a "masterful depiction of history" at an article published in the Tägliche Rundschau newspaper. Berliner Zeitung
Berliner Zeitung
The Berliner Zeitung, founded in 1945, is a German center-left daily newspaper based in Berlin, published by Berliner Verlag. It is the only East German paper to achieve national prominence since unification. In 2003, the Berliner was Berlin's largest subscription newspaper—the weekend...

columnist Joachim Bagemühl wrote that "Maetzig created massive crowd scenes, the likes of which were rarely seen in film hitherto." Journalist Herbert Thiel dubbed the second part "an outstanding film" in a Schweriner Volkszeitung article from 1 October 1955. The Das Volk magazine critic Kurt Steiniger claimed that when he watched the picture, his "heart beated in coordination with the thousands of people around Thälmann." On 18 October, a reporter of the Mitteldeutsche Neuste Nachrichten wrote "not a single person will not ask himself... how is it, that this film touched me so deeply?" Author Henryk Keisch commented: "in the midst of those unprecedentedly monumental scenes... There is a distinct man, with distinct emotions and thoughts... it is a grand work of art." At 1966, the GDR's Cinema Lexicon called Ernst Thälmann a "thrilling and informative document about the indestructible force of the best parts of the German people, successfully recreating... the heroic struggle of the German workers led by Thälmann."

French writer Georges Sadoul
Georges Sadoul
Georges Sadoul was a French journalist and cinema writer.Once a surrealist, he became a communist in 1932. He was a journalist of the Lettres Françaises....

 praised the series for "presenting Thälmann in a thoroughly human way" on an article published in Les Lettres Françaises at 21 July 1955. In West Germany, a Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel
Der Spiegel is a German weekly news magazine published in Hamburg. It is one of Europe's largest publications of its kind, with a weekly circulation of more than one million.-Overview:...

review from 31 March 1954 dismissed the first part as communist propaganda, calling it "a machine of hate" that is "bearable to watch only due to Kurt Maetzig's mischievous sense for details." The magazine's film critic viewed the second part as "less original and even less well-made." Detlef Kannapin wrote that the films were "a myth", intended to "espouse propaganda elements... in a Socialist Realist style" and their main aim was to depict Thälmann as "the great, faultless leader." Seán Allan and John Sandford described it as combining "fact with the officially endorsed distortion of history." Sabine Hake wrote that the film was made after Maetzig turned to directing pictures with "straightforward propagandistic intentions." Russell Lemmons concluded that eventually, instead of a story of a simple man rising to greatness, it was a history of the German working movement in 20th century.

In a 1996 interview, Kurt Maetzig told "I believe that the first part is bearable and even has artistic qualities, while the second deteriorated... Due to over-idealization. In many aspects, it is simply embarrassing."

Historical accuracy

Shortly after the script of Son of his Class was approved, DEFA director-genral Joseph Schwab told the Thälmann committee members that he was concerned about the veracity of the plot. He pointed out three inaccuracies: at 1918, there were no Workers' and Soldiers' Councils on the Western Front, only inside Germany; the American general accomppanying Mr. McFuller could not have been present in Berlin during the crushing of the Spartacus Uprising, since peace with the United States was not achieved yet; and finally, Wilhelm Pieck was not with Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg
Rosa Luxemburg was a Marxist theorist, philosopher, economist and activist of Polish Jewish descent who became a naturalized German citizen...

 and Karl Liebknecht
Karl Liebknecht
was a German socialist and a co-founder with Rosa Luxemburg of the Spartacist League and the Communist Party of Germany. He is best known for his opposition to World War I in the Reichstag and his role in the Spartacist uprising of 1919...

 at November 9, 1918. Only Pieck's part was omitted from the screenplay. Bredel told Schwab that the rest would be left for the decision of the Politburo. The scenes which the director-general opposed to appear in the film.

In a meeting held in East Berlin's Academy of Sciences at 17 November 1955, West German film critic Klaus Norbert Schäffer told writer Michael Tschesno-Hell that the second part focused solely on the communist resistance to the Nazis, ignoring the Social-Democrats and others who opposed the regime. He also mentioned that while Thälmann was incarcerated in three different prisons, the film gives the impression that he was held only in one. Another claim made by Schäffer was that the arms shipment promised to the communist rebels in Hamburg was intercepted by the army, and not held back by Thälmann's enemies in the party, as seen in Son of his Class. Tschesno-Hell responded to Schäffer by telling that "there are great truths and minor truths. In art, it is completely legitimate to permit the great ones have precedence." René Börrner noted that the film skipped over the years between 1924 and 1930, thus ignoring Thälmann's ascendancy to the position of party chief - and the many controversies and ideological rifts that characterized the KPD in that time.

Jouranlist Erich Wollenberg, a former member of the KPD, wrote a review of Son of his Class at 1954, in which he claimed that the film was a "cocktail of heroic lies and distortions, with few drops of truth mixed in it." He pointed out that, contrary to the film, Thälmann was not on the Western Front when the German Revolution broke out on 5 November 1918, but in Hamburg. That was cited in Thälmann's official biography, written by Bredel himself. Wollenberg had found one other discrepancy between the biography and Son of his Class: the real Thälmann played no major role in the struggle against Kapp's supporters
Kapp Putsch
The Kapp Putsch — or more accurately the Kapp-Lüttwitz Putsch — was a 1920 coup attempt during the German Revolution of 1918–1919 aimed at overthrowing the Weimar Republic...

.

Historian Detlef Kannapin noted that, while the film portryas Thälmann as seeking to convince the reluctant Social-Democrats to join forces against the Nazis, he never pursued that policy. As late as October 1932, he referred to the SPD as the chief rivals of the communists, and often called them "Social-Fascists
Social fascism
Social fascism was a theory supported by the Communist International during the early 1930s, which believed that social democracy was a variant of fascism because, in addition to a shared corporatist economic model, it stood in the way of a complete and final transition to communism...

". The Comintern
Comintern
The Communist International, abbreviated as Comintern, also known as the Third International, was an international communist organization initiated in Moscow during March 1919...

's resolution to form an anti-Nazi bond with the Social-Democrats was only made at 1935, when Ernst Thälmann was already imprisoned. According to Kannapin, the figure of Robert Dirhagen, the minor SPD member, symbolizes the Social-Democrat wing of the SED, which united with KPD under Soviet pressure. Seán Allan and John Sandford wrote that in the film, the blame for Hitler's rise was "laid solely on the Social-Democrats", thus justifying the KPD's Stalinist line and its rivalry with the SPD before 1933.The film has several other fictional details that are presented as historical occurrences: While a Soviet ship named Karl Liebknecht existed, it was the flagship of the Caspian Sea Fleet and never reached Hamburg. There was no 143rd Tank Guards Division or any other military formation named after Thälmann in the Red Army.

Cultural impact

Mandatory screenings of both parts continued to be held in factories and collective farms years after their release. The films became part of the curriculum in the East German education system, and all the pupils watched them in school. Footage from the movies was used to make eight short films, with lengths ranging from 8 to 27 minutes, that were shown to young children. It held a particularly significant status in the Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation
The Ernst Thälmann Pioneer Organisation, consisting of the Young Pioneers and the Thälmann Pioneers, was a youth organisation of schoolchildren aged 6 to 14, in East Germany...

; At 1979, the movement's manual still listed the film as an important source of information about Thälmann's life.

External links

.
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