The 1946 film Todeslager Sachsenhausen is the first German documentary
about a concentration camp, commissioned by the Russian occupying
authorities and produced by the East-German company DEFA. Richard Brandt
directed and Boris Blacher composed the music. While this film was
financed by the Russians, shortly after Blacher went on to compose the music for
Dein gutes Recht, a short educational film by Wolfgang Kiepenheuer,
which was financed by the Americans. Both films have in common that
their purpose is to morally re-educate the German people.
KameraOperaProject's manager and dramaturg Paul Oomens shows some
remarkable footage to explain how differently the American and Russian
occupiers applied the documentary film for their purposes in the period
between 1945 and 1955.
Oomens' talk is followed by a screening of the 1948 feature film Rotation, in which director Wolgang Staudte explores the issue of German Guilt, asking how nazism could ever have happened. According to Staudte, the silent majority of the German people did not occupy themselves with politics. With a portait of the worker Hans Behnke, Staudte illustrates his point that it's the German people's passive attitude which made nazism possible. The fisherman - just as the fisherman in High Tide! (Vloed!) - only wants a job and a happy family life. However, both the film and the opera show that looking away is not going to help avoid atrocities. Rotation is a powerful film about an honest father who is able to forgive his son's betrayal. Rotation would long be the last serious German film to examine the rise and fall of nazism so openly and truthfully.