Schtonk! (
1992The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films :source: - Awards :Academy Awards:*Article 99B...
) is a satirical
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
movieFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
, retelling the
hoaxA hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive or trick an audience into believing, or accepting, that something is real, when the hoaxer knows it is not; or that something is true, when it is false...
of the
Hitler DiariesIn April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published extracts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries , which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries...
.
Subtitled
Der Film zum Buch vom Führer ("The film accompanying the
FührerThe word Führer is 'leader' or 'guide' in the German language, derived from the verb , a cognate of the Old English words faran and fær and the Modern English words derived from the older terms such as now mostly used in compounds such as wayfarer and sea-faring...
's book"), the movie is a grotesque farce about the events when, in 1983, German
SternStern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
magazine began to publish, with great fanfare, the 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
– which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake.
Schtonk! (
1992The year 1992 in film involved many significant films. -Top grossing films :source: - Awards :Academy Awards:*Article 99B...
) is a satirical
GermanGermany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium,...
movieFilm encompasses individual motion pictures, the field of film as an art form, and the motion picture industry. Films are produced by recording images from the world with cameras, or by creating images using animation techniques or visual effects....
, retelling the
hoaxA hoax is a deliberate attempt to deceive or trick an audience into believing, or accepting, that something is real, when the hoaxer knows it is not; or that something is true, when it is false...
of the
Hitler DiariesIn April 1983, the West German news magazine Stern published extracts from what purported to be the diaries of Adolf Hitler, known as the Hitler Diaries , which were subsequently revealed to be forgeries...
.
Subtitled
Der Film zum Buch vom Führer ("The film accompanying the
FührerThe word Führer is 'leader' or 'guide' in the German language, derived from the verb , a cognate of the Old English words faran and fær and the Modern English words derived from the older terms such as now mostly used in compounds such as wayfarer and sea-faring...
's book"), the movie is a grotesque farce about the events when, in 1983, German
SternStern is a weekly news magazine published in Germany. It was founded in 1948 by Henri Nannen, and is currently published by Gruner + Jahr, a subsidiary of Bertelsmann. In the first quarter of 2006, its print run was 1.019 million copies and it reached 7.84 million readers according to...
magazine began to publish, with great fanfare, the 60 volumes of the alleged diaries of
Adolf HitlerAdolf Hitler was an Austrian-born German politician and the leader of the National Socialist German Workers Party , popularly known as the Nazi Party...
– which two weeks later turned out to be entirely fake. That story is commonly described one of the greatest failures of modern journalism overall.
The film is widely considered a hilarious tale, making fun not only of the events and characters who were involved in the hoax, and who are only thinly disguised in the movie, but also of the discomfort Germany has with its difficult past. It is especially fun to viewers familiar with the country.
The film is co-written and directed by
Helmut DietlHelmut Dietl is a German film director and author from Bad Wiessee.- Work :After completion of grammar school in 1958, Dietl studied theatre science and the history of art. Afterwards, he became head of photography and later assistant director to the Munich Kammerspiele theatre...
and, among his many respected comedies, frequently considered his best. Dietl researched the scandal for two years and has been quoted as having to leave out several real events from the movie because they were too outrageous.
The title is a bow to
Charlie ChaplinSir Charles Spencer Chaplin, KBE was an English comedic actor and film director. Chaplin became one of the most famous actors as well as a notable filmmaker, composer and musician in the early to mid Classical Hollywood era of American cinema.Chaplin acted in, directed, scripted, produced and...
's classic
The Great DictatorThe Great Dictator is a comedy film directed by and starring Charlie Chaplin. First released in October 1940, it was Chaplin's first true talking picture, and more importantly was the only major film of its period to bitterly satirize Nazism and Adolf Hitler.The film is unusual for its period, as...
, in which the
Fooey repeatedly uses "Schtonk!" as an expression of disgust – the word has no meaning in
GermanGerman is a West Germanic language, thus related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. It is one of the world's major languages and the most widely spoken first language in the European Union. Around the world, German is spoken by approximately 105 million native speakers and also by...
but resembles to
Stunk, a colloquial expression for a scuffle or altercation.
Plot
Fritz Knobel (the movie's alter-ego of real-life forger
Konrad KujauKonrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received 2.5 million DM from a person who in turn sold it for 9.3 million DM to the magazine Stern.-A picaresque life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of...
) supports himself by faking and selling Nazi memorabilia. So he sells a portrait of
Eva BraunEva Anna Paula Braun, died Eva Anna Paula Hitler was the longtime companion and, for a brief time, wife of Adolf Hitler. Braun met Hitler in Munich when she was 17 years old while working as an assistant and model for his personal photographer and began seeing him often about two years later...
and one volume of Hitler's alleged diaries to factory owner Karl Lenz. Lenz presents this on a "birthday party to the
Führer" to his guests, among them sleazy journalist Hermann Willié. Willié is working for the magazine
"HH press" (real-world
Stern magazine is located in
HamburgHamburg is the second-largest city in Germany and the sixth-largest city in the European Union...
, which is abbreviated "HH" on German car license plates; "HH" is pronounced "haha"). In the events Knobel writes down according to what happens around him; after he meets his later lover Martha, she becomes his inspiration for Eva Braun. As he then comes under increasing stress, having to deliver the remaining volumes that he had already sold, he turns more and more into a mock image of Hitler himself.
Since the circulation of
Stern had been in decline for years at the time since its glory days under editor
Henri NannenHenri Nannen was a famous German journalist....
(and has been since then), the depiction of its "HH press" movie counterpart and the people who are running it is also quite telling.
Nominations
In 1993, the film
Schtonk! was nominated for an Academy Award in the category
Best Foreign Language Film (losing it to the French film
IndochineIndochine is a 1992 French film set in colonial French Indochina during the 1930s. It is the story of Éliane Devries, a French plantation owner, and of her adopted Vietnamese daughter, Camille, with the rising Vietnamese nationalist movement set as a backdrop...
), as well as for a Golden Globe in the same category (losing it to
Indochine just as well).
Won
In 1992,
Schtonk! won 3 Film Awards in Gold at the
German Film Awards in the categories
Outstanding Feature Film,
Outstanding Individual Achievement: Actor (Götz George), and
Outstanding Individual Achievement: Direction (Helmut Dietl), as well as the Best Screenplay Award at the
Tokyo International Film Festival (Helmut Dietl, Ulrich Limmer). In 1993, Harald Juhnke won the
Ernst Lubitsch Award for his role as Pit Kummer in
Schtonk!
Major characters
- Götz George
Götz George is a German actor, son of actor couple Berta Drews and Heinrich George. His arguably best-known role is that of Duisburg commissar Horst Schimanski in the TV crime series Tatort....
– Hermann Willié (journalist; fictional equivalent of Gerd HeidemannGerd Heidemann is a German journalist best known for his role in the publication of purported Hitler Diaries that were subsequently proven to be forgeries....
)
- Uwe Ochsenknecht
Uwe Adam Ochsenknecht is a German actor and singer.- Work :Films Uwe Ochsenknecht has starred in include Schtonk!, Das Boot and the TV miniseries Frank Herbert's Dune.- Personal Life :...
– Fritz Knobel (forger Konrad KujauKonrad Paul Kujau was an illustrator and forger who became famous in 1983 as the creator of the so-called Hitler Diaries, for which he received 2.5 million DM from a person who in turn sold it for 9.3 million DM to the magazine Stern.-A picaresque life:"Konny" Kujau was one of five children of...
)
- Christiane Hörbiger
Christiane Hörbiger is an Austrian television and film actress.-Life and Work:Christiane Hörbiger is one of the three daughters of Austrian actors Attila Hörbiger and Paula Wessely ....
– Freya von Hepp (Hermann GöringHermann Wilhelm Göring was a German politician, military leader and a leading member of the Nazi Party. Among many offices, he was Hitler's designated successor and commander of the Luftwaffe...
's grand niece, Willié's/Heidemann's noble girl friend)
- Veronica Ferres
Veronica Maria Cäcilia Ferres is a German actress who gained fame as Pierre Richard's co-star in the French TV-movie Sans famille and as the horrible Mme. Thénardier in the 2000 French TV miniseries Les Misérables...
– Martha (Knobel's lover)
- Ulrich Mühe
Friedrich Hans Ulrich Mühe was a German film, television and theatre actor. He played the role of Hauptmann Gerd Wiesler in the Oscar-winning film Das Leben der Anderen , for which he received the award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role, Gold, at Germany's most prestigious film...
– Dr. Wieland (publisher)
- Harald Juhnke
Harald Juhnke , actually Harry Heinz Herbert Juhnke, was a well-known German actor, comedian and entertainer.-Life:...
– Pit Kummer (Williés boss)