Cinema in Berlin during the Cold War (J.Larere, 2013)

CINEMA IN BERLIN: A DIVIDED CITY DURING THE COLD WAR During the cold war, how does the cinema in Berlin depict the image of East or West, and how do these visions affect the representation of the divided city?

By Joséphine Larere (2013)

Under the direction of Brent Patterson, University teacher of architecture’s theory and criticism © Copyright all rights reserved

After the Second World War, Berlin was reduced to a city of

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ruins and voids. In 1949, the city is divided politically and

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administratively. In the East, the creation of the German

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Democratic Republic, or GDR, occupied by the Soviet forces,

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became the capital of the East German territory. West Berlin,

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the Federal Republic of Germany was led by the Western

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Allies, became an island surrounded by East. This division

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affects the development of each side of Berlin differently,

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often reduced to ideological oppositions. During this period,

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these two worlds were being constantly confronted: “Berlin

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becomes the repository of rival and convergent political and

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ideological images” . Cinema became a moralistic instrument

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that disguises the reality in order to praise capitalist or

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socialist values. During the cold war, how does the cinema

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in Berlin depict the image of East or West, and how do these

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visions affect the representation of the divided city? In the first

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place, I will explain the evolution of propaganda in movies

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about Berlin through different periods of the cold war. I will

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then analyze the technical means by which the city is filmed

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in these movies, according to the framing, the soundscape and

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the montage. Finally, I will conclude with the representation

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of the division of Berlin, before and after the construction of

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the wall.

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Part I . Evolution of Propaganda

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In 1946, the Soviets created the DEFA, Deutsche Film-

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Aktiengesellschaft, to encourage the production of film of

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East Germany that uses cinema as a medium of propaganda.

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Walter Ulbricht, an East German politician, explained “the DEFA

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has to concentrate its efforts on the production of films that

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describe the fight for the construction of the socialist basis.”

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Between 1945 and 1962, East German documentaries, such as

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Berlin im Aufbau by Kurt Maetzig from 1945, responded to this

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declaration, showing in the first place the reconstruction of

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Berlin as “a symbol of the birth of a new order of the socialist

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model” , and also urban and architectural realizations such as

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those along the Stalinallee, “the big real estate construction

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site of East Berlin, connecting the East side to the famous

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Alexanderplatz” . The reconstruction of the city offered the

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possibility to show through the use of strong images the

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economic dynamism of East Germany. Later, “Schaut auf diese

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Stadt” (Look at this city), a documentary by Karl Gass in 1962,

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denounces West Berlin as the reason for the construction of the

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Wall: a necessary defense against imperialism. It justifies the

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importance of showing the military control in East Berlin. “This is the German Democratic Republic, where for the first time

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in German history, peace is the program of the government“ .

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East Berlin is represented by images of education and work:

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students going to the Humbodt university, children going to school, men and women working for the state. On the contrary, © Copyright all rights reserved

1.Flyers of the movies: Look at this city (1962), A Berlin Romance (1956), Berlin-Schonhauser Corner (1957)

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West Berlin is represented by the “lure of American popular culture that corrupts the next generation through sexualized visual culture”.6 During the fifties, the DEFA produced several movies referred as the “Berlin Films”, a movement connected to Italian neorealism, characterized by stories set amongst the poor and the working class, and showing the economic and moral conditions of post-World War II. The “Berlin films” such as a Berlin Romance (1956) and Berlin Corner Schonhauser (1957) both by Gerhard Klein, reflect an attempt to resist the stifling structures of the “Stalinist Socialist Realism”7, developing instead a critical entertainment cinema. In fact, following Stalin’s death in 1953 and the “brief thaw in cultural policy under Khrushchev”8, Soviet cinematography and German production groups at DEFA had more independence. Filmmakers were for

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the first time able to take positions, which would previously have been censored. The previous movies show young people who are torn between the “seductiveness of the West and the socialist path of the East.”9 West is identified with unemployment, corruption, sexual abandon and seductive movie-house inspired by the American model. It is the time of the Wirtschaftswunder (economic miracle), when American money was pouring into the West to help rebuild its economy and infrastructure. From the East German perspective, this money only benefited the rich, and not the working class.

The main character of A Berlin Romance is a young man from the West who is in need of work and therefore exploited in dangerous situations, whereas at the same time, the East side integrates “working, fighting and loving”10 convincing the characters at the end of each movie to follow the path of socialism: «together they will find their place in this life of ours, where there is work, struggle and love.»11 The narration of these movies is a concentration of “East and West clichés” of daily life that are filmed in the streets of Berlin insisting on the two opposite dynamics of the city.

But Berlin Corner Schonhauser is the only film that beyond the “moralistic happy ending cliché”, that says «where you won’t find us you will find enemies»12, makes a truthful portrayal of daily life in East Berlin showing how the political and economic division affects everyone. The characters are East German teenagers classed as “rebel” for the socialist community.

They want to be free and avoid the constraints of the State.

Schonhauser corner is the most important setting, located in the district of Prenzlauer Berg, where the characters meet every night under the bridge of the elevated railway. This

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movie was accepted with suspicion by the East German authorities because it emphasizes a negative image of East.

Indeed, these teenagers don’t agree and contradict East German society, and find themselves in dangerous situation dealing with the West. © Copyright all rights reserved

2.Flyer of the movie Die Legende Von Paul und Paula, (1973) 3. Screenshot from Die Legende Von Paul und Paula, (1973)

Between 1960 and 1980, after the construction of the wall,

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cinema is less affected by propaganda that attacks the

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opposite state: in fact, it was difficult for each state to be aware

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of what was happening beyond the wall. Therefore, instead

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of disparaging the other side, filmmakers concentrate on a

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smaller scale of intervention: the neighborhood. Die Legende

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Von Paul und Paula, a DEFA movie of 1973, is the story of Paul, a

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state employee that meets Paula, a grocery store cashier who

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works in LeninPlatz (now Platz der Vereiten Nationen). They

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both live in SingerStrasse in Friedrichsain, Paula lives in an old

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building facing Paul’s new modern housing slab that embodies

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the pride of Erich Honecker’s State, General Secretary of the

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Socialist Unity Party who led the GDR from 1976 to 1989.

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The main theme of the movie is the reconstruction of this

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neighborhood, depicted by old habitations being destroyed and new social housing being built.

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On the other side of the wall, a movie like Berlin Chamissoplatz

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(1980), a West Berlin movie by Rudolf Thom, shows the

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community life’s spirit of the 1970’s West Berlin under the

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pressure of the investors concerned by its plot development:

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“the Chamissoplatz sector was one of the hot spots of the

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housing turmoil in the city” . The protagonists are: a young

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student, who fights for the preservation of the neighborhood,

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and an older architect who is working on its development.

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Moreover, several scenes of the movie show a different image

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of West Berlin than the focus on the neighborhood.

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Scenes are shot in front of iconic buildings such as Mies

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van der Rohe’s Neue Nationalgalerie, a symbol of modern

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architecture, or the Berliner Philharmoniker designed by

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Hans Scharoun, and in other famous places of Berlin like the

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Wannsee’s lakefront beach.

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Part II. Framing, soundscape and montage

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c Movies about Berlin during this period treat important Post

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War themes such as the collective memory, traces and the

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city heritage on one hand and on the other the reconstruction

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of the city. In fact, after the World War II, the physiognomy

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of Berlin reflects its consequences: “the city is composed

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of empty spaces and long distances. Berlin becomes a city

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with spaces to be invested, looking for its boundaries and

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its center.”

The large empty surfaces of Berlin are often

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perceived in Die Legende Von Paul und Paula thanks to the

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position of the camera located on the top of the buildings and

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therefore offering a large horizon of the city. “The intensity of

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the presence of German history is not written in the public

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spaces by a saturation of signs, but on the contrary by their

4.Flyer of the movie Berlin Chamissoplatz, (1980)

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absence: each empty space, emptied by the German disaster-

5. Screenshot from the movie Berlin Chamissoplatz, (1980)

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works in fact as a reminder of memory. Berlin is a palimpsest

6. From the movie Die Legende Von Paul und Paula, (1973)

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city.” This idea of palimpsest is accentuated in Die Legende

7. From the movie Look at this City, (1962)

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Von Paul und Paula by the camera that adopts a fixed position on the top of the buildings, framing the city as a painting.

In The City of Collective Memory, Christine Boyer assumes that traditional cities are represented as works or art. “The picture frame became emblematic of a closed and unified spatial order. The essence of a bounded work of art was this self-containment, a gesture that augmented the unity of the picture as much as it centered the eye and set off the work of art from extraneous detractions.”16 In this framing, there is a fixed background: the cicatrices of Berlin with its large voids, and then actions of old buildings being blown up in front of the camera: behind them the new modern housing constructions suddenly appear. The fixed view of Berlin is the parchment of the palimpsest, the medium on which the old city is erased to let a new stratification of the city be written. “Berlin has a lot of empty surfaces. We see buildings that are entirely freed on one side because the neighboring house has not been reconstructed. Those surfaces are wounds that transmit history better than any book or document.”17 In the documentary Look at this City, the city heritage of the war is filmed from a military airplane; the camera has an instable position filming the bombarded city with the sound of the plane that reminds wartime. A scene of the documentary is

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shot in the Treptower Park Soviet War Memorial, dedicated to the Soviet soldier who died during the Second World War. The statue of a victorious soldier holding a kid and crushing the Nazi swastika is shot from a low angle symbolizing the victory of socialism over Fascism. This low-angle framing gives the sensation of power and monumentality of the socialist state.

In movies about East Berlin, the socialists use the city and its important urban realizations such as the Alexanderplatz, to emphasize their power. The street becomes a place for military parades. Those scenes are frequent in Look at this city. The first scene is a U.S. military show in West Berlin that is filmed under an American popular music track of the Coasters band. It is an ironic way to critique the Americans compared to the socialist: a German military parade coming from the Brandenburg gate is accompanied by Beethoven’s opera. The camera is positioned in the axis of the tanks, approaching fast in its direction. Furthermore, the socialist administrative buildings are always filmed from a low angle that once again engenders a sensation of monumentality and power through the architecture. This documentary shows the militarization of the GDR. The Karl Marx Allee is filmed from the sky to emphasize its impressive proportions. Its spatial

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organization is completed by the dispositions of the soldiers

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all along the Allee. The combination of urban planning and

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soldiers becomes one manner representing the order of the

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socialist State. The whole documentary’s montage alternates

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scenes of political speeches, soldiers, and the socialist crowd, © Copyright all rights reserved

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sequences that are framed by the city.

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The reconstruction of Berlin is the pride of East Berliners. The

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government uses it to show the dynamic of its state against

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West Berlin. In the previous documentary the rhythm of the

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montage changes according to which side of Berlin is filmed.

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For example, the success of East Berliners is shown with

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different fixed shots in front of the university of medicine,

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in the streets showing adults going to work with public

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transportations, workers for big industries, infrastructures,

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social housing units, harbors. These shots follow one another

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very fast and are accompanied by the melody of a German

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Opera. The camera is fixed to accentuate the moving of the city

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with its inhabitants or even its construction machines.

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This dynamic is present also in the first scene of Berlin

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Schonhauser Corner: the camera frames a perpendicular

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street of Schonhauser Allee where we feel the moving city:

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the passing trams, rushing passers-by, a deliveryman with a trolley: a vibrant activity with the original sound. This framing is limited to the top by the elevated railroad of Schonhauser

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Allee on which is written “Neues Deutschland”. In Look at this

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city, other scenes showing workers insist on their hard work

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for the state. For example, one scene frames two workers

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on a roof; they are in the foreground, behind them an old

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abandoned building stands on a large empty surface, and

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in the background we perceive the silhouette of the housing

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blocks of Karl Marx Allee. In Die Legende Von Paul und Paula,

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Paula is collecting stones one by one, stones remaining from

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old demolished buildings. The reconstruction of East Berlin is

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very visual in these movies, but we also feel its materiality

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with the soundscape: the sound of machines or working tools

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hitting the stones of the buildings.

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Before the construction of the wall, while East German movies

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used a fast rhythm of montage to praise the dynamic of their

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state, they used the same rhythm to show that there is no work

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in West Berlin. In A Berlin Romance, the director uses several

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short scenes, that rapidly follow one another, showing Hans,

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the main character looking for a job in different neighborhoods

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in the West, without any success. Moreover, the west side is

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mostly represented during nighttime, to emphasize the fact

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that West Berliners can’t find work and spend their time

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going out in the evening. The streets are represented like an

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American main street, the framing of the camera is made in a

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way that the architecture is not visible, hidden by the lighting,

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advertising panels of commercial brands (Nescafé), shop

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windows and huge cinema posters. In fact, the public space of the west is reduced to the cinema culture, showing movies

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with violence, adultery, sex… The Eastern representation of

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the Western side of Berlin is falsified by hedonistic images.

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A scene is shot in an amusement Park, showing the West

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side mentality: noise, lighting, and entertainment. The ferris © Copyright all rights reserved

8. Screenshots from the movie Look ot this City, (1962)

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wheel is filmed from a low angle, to emphasize its size and its importance in the eyes of the West Berliners. The only time we perceive the city is when the camera is on top of the wheel for less than a second. Uschi, the female character from the East asks herself “is the world better here?”18 Look at this city represents in an ironic way the incoherence of Western politics. The title of the documentary comes from a speech pronounced by Ernst Reuter, the German mayor of West Berlin before the construction of the wall. The Filmmaker Karl Gass shows his public address followed by images of the West with buildings on fire and an agitated crowd that tries to escape, followed by the narrative voice that says “Look at this city, West Berlin represents the ultimate risk”. The documentary also compares West Berlin to Chicago in terms of black market, “robbery, suicide, and murder”19.

Part III. Representation of the divided city The division of the city from 1949 to 1961 was marked by panels that said “you are entering the American sector”, “Ende des Demokratischen Sektors von grossBerlin”, “vous entrez dans le secteur Français”… In the Berlin films from the fifties, between a scene shot in the east and another in the west, the camera always frames these panels to represent the changing of side, and accentuating the division. In a Berlin Romance, the camera frames entirely the “Ende des Demokratischen Sektors” panel, hiding the city behind it, and gets around it as if it was an obstacle, until the American sector panel.

Since 1961, Berlin’s division is materialized by the construction of the wall, “a real architectural fracture that imposes the visual omnipresence of a concrete partition, redefining the spatial perception of the city.”20 Karl Gass’ documentary’s purpose was to explain that “the GDR wanted peaceful coexistence; it is the west that provoked the building of the wall.”21 The Western Deutsche Mark created a serious economic imbalance

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between the eastern and the western sector. «The subsequent erection of 302 watchtowers, 22 bunkers, 127.5 kilometers of electrified fencing and 45000 segments of actual wall, each weighing 2.75 tons, was represented in East Germany as an Anti-Fascist Protection Wall’s necessary to head off Western invasion plans and attempts to undermine the building of the socialist state»22.

But how was the division of Berlin indirectly represented in the movies of this epoch? Der Geteilte Himmel (the Divided Heaven), a DEFA movie made in 1964 by Konrad Wolf, cannot be defined as a wall film because it never makes any explicit reference to its monumental presence. However, spatial metaphors of division are present throughout the film. The title is already one of them. The movie starts with a series of low angle shots that divide the sky. «Already the opening © Copyright all rights reserved

9. Screenshots from the movie A Berlin Romance, (1956)

sequence of the film confronts the audience with an unsettling

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montage of disparate images that divide the sky and suggest

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a lasting impact on the urban landscape and everyday life.»

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The movie’s framing is composed of repetitive visual motives

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that divide the screen. Those motives can be fixed, like walls,

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roads, bridges, or mobile objects like the passing tramways or

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trains. Elements like bridges accentuate the idea of division

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being elements that connect two divided pieces of land. “These

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images indeed, serve to sustain an awareness of physical

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borders and limitations of the topography of division.»

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In Look at this City metaphors of division through the representation of the sky can be seen. For example, several sequences shot from a low angle, frame buildings and western

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airplanes that borrow the eastern aerial routes. The position

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of the camera gives the impression that the planes are going

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to hit the Eastern buildings.

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Finally in The Wall, a DEFA documentary made by Jürgen

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Böttcher in 1990, we see on one hand the wall, being

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demolished, as a material object that used to divide an entire

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city, and on another hand how it suddenly becomes a part of

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the German history. The whole documentary follows the fall of

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the wall, without any commentary or music, focusing only on

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visual elements or authentic soundscapes. In the first scenes

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the camera is immobile and frames the long perspective

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of the wall from Potsdamer Platz to the Brandenburg Gate.

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People are walking along it and appropriating it. The sound

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of hammers hitting the wall gives for the first time the heavy

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materiality of the unbreakable wall. The contact with the

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wall is as visual as acoustic. The cameraman enters in the

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Potsdamer Platz subway; a “ghost station” totally abandoned

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as it used to connect West and East Berlin. The station is

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framed as a painting that shows the cicatrices of the cold war.

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The next sequence, the camera is positioned in a way that it

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frames from a front angle the wall, the Brandenburg gate and

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the TV tower of Alexanderplatz, three landmarks of Berlin’s

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collective memory. «AlexanderPlatz would “reach for the

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sky” with 13 skyscrapers two thirds the size of the landmark

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365-metre-high GDR tower. It is these new buildings and

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reference points that would be an «enduring carrier» for

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a new collective memory in the future.»

Since the 19th

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century, AlexanderPlatz has been an incarnation of “meeting

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place, traffic crossroads, scene of World War II destruction

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and until 1989 the center of the GDR aims to present, in a

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soulless modernism, the triumphant ideas of socialism. The

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Brandenburg Gate, recent symbol of cold war division and

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now symbol of reunification, is shared between Germany and Berlin as the master signifier.”26 Policeman walking on the wall, people passing from one side to another show the end of an important chapter of the 20th century. The wall

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10. Screenshots from the movie Der Geteilte Himmel, (1964)

becomes a material support to project historical moments of

11. Screenshots from the movie Look ot this City, (1962)

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its construction: the videos are projected on the wall like a movie on a screen, showing families being separated the day after the wall was built, and people jumping from buildings to enter the West. The documentary shows also how the wall suddenly becomes mediatized with international TV reporters, photographers, and tourists taking pictures of this precise moment that suddenly becomes a memory. The last sequence is when the wall has entirely disappeared and we perceive only its trace on the ground. The camera finally films Berlin from a rooftop and shows a panoramic view of the city skyline.

The political history of Berlin after the Second World War has directly influenced the cinematic representation of Berlin. The division of the city into ideological camps engendered different visions and obligations in the narrative and filming of the city.

Nevertheless, East German cinema has itself evolved often in accordance with the government’s policy, from the creation of the GDR in 1949 to the construction of the wall in 1961 and finally to its fall in 1989. As the city was the major setting for framing the propaganda, its division had an important impact on its evolution, but the division itself changed the way the city was represented. “The filmed history of Berlin is like the image of the city itself: a succession of crises and metamorphoses.”27 The collective memory of the catastrophes engendered by the Nazi Regime during the Second World War remains an important theme during the whole filming process.

The situation of Berlin inspired at the time also international Filmmakers such as Fassbinder with Berlin Alexanderplatz and Wim Wenders with Der Himmel über Berlin. Before the fall of the wall, this last movie films Berlin from a high angle that represents the point of view of two angels. This means of representing the city shows the urban morphology of the divided Berlin and its war scars. The unique urban environment of Berlin drew the attention of urban planners and architects.

This subject is approached in the recent re-published manifesto, The City in the City-Berlin: A Green Archipelago,

by Oswald Matthias Ungers, (Rem Koolhaas, Peter Riemann and Hans Kollhoff), that uses the image of the archipelago to approach the problem of fragmentation of Berlin, due to the phenomenon of suburbanization and urban sprawl. The project consists in selecting specific areas of Berlin, areas with strong identities, in order to intensify their characteristics. Berlin is therefore composed of a series of cities inside the city becoming an archipelago of autonomous fragments.

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12. Screenshots from the Documentary The Wall (1990)

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FOOTNOTES

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Stéphane Füzesséry, “Berlin” in La ville au cinema (Cahier du

Book

Cinéma 2004) p.320 (my translation) 2. Christian Delage, « Berlin, Guerre des images d’une mémoire

Stéphane Füzesséry, “Berlin” in La ville au cinema (Cahier du

partagée (1945-1989)” vingtième siècle n°104

Cinéma 2005) p.320

(1992) (my translation)

Barbara Mennel, “Cinema and the Divided City: Berlin, Belfast

3. Stéphane Füzesséry, op.cit., p.320 (my translation)

and Beirut” in Cities and Cinema (Routledge 2008)

4. Christian Delage, op.cit. (my translation)

William Neill, Urban Planning and cultural identity, (Routledge

5. From the film “Schaut auf Diese Stadt”, Karl Gass (1962)

2004)

6. Barbara Mennel, “cinema and the divided city: Berlin, Belfast

Philip Broadbent and Sabine Hake, Berlin Divided City, 1942-

and Beirut” in Cities and Cinema (Routledge

1989 (Berghahn Books 2010)

2008)

hristine Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: its Historical

7. Introduction from the film Berlin Corner Schonhauser (1957)

Imagery and Architectural Entertainments (MIT Press, 1996)

by Gerhard Klein 8. ibid.

Online articles

9.Barbara Mennel, op.cit.

10. Barbara Mennel, op.cit.

Eleanor Mannikka, “Berlin Chamissoplatz” New York Times,

11. From the film “A Berlin Romance”, Gerhard Klein (1956)

2013,

12. From the film “Berlin Corner Schonhauser”, Gerhard Klein

Berlin-Chamissoplatz/overview

(1957)

Christian Delage, « Berlin, Guerre des images d’une mémoire

13. Eleanor Mannikka, “Berlin Chamissoplatz” New York Times,

partagée (1945-1989)” vingtième siècle n°104 (1992)

2013,http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/149404/

“Look at this city” East German Cinema blog, September 2012,

Berlin-Chamissoplatz/overview

http://eastgermancinema.com/2012/09/23/look-at-this-city/

http://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/149404/

14. Stéphane Füzesséry, “Berlin” in La ville au cinema (Cahier du Cinéma 2004) p.320 (my translation) 15. ibid.

FILMOGRAPHY

16. Christine Boyer, The City of Collective Memory: its Historical Imagery and Architectural Entertainments (MIT Press, 1996)

Berlin im Aufbau (1945) by Kurt Maetzig

17. Stéphane Füzesséry, op.cit., (my translation from a

“Schaut auf dies Stadt” (Look at this city) (1962) a documentary

quotation of Wim Wenders)

by Karl Gass

18. From the film “A Berlin Romance”, Gerhard Klein (1956)

A Berlin Romance (1956) by Gerhard Klein

19. From the film “Schaut auf Diese Stadt”, Karl Gass (1962)

Berlin Corner Schonhauser (1957) by Gerhard Klein

20. My translation from Stéphane Füzesséry, “Berlin” in La ville

Die Legende Von Paul und Paula (1973) by Heiner Carow

au cinema (Cahier du Cinéma 2004) p.320

Berlin Chamissoplatz (1980) by Rudolf Thom

21. “Look at this city” East German Cinema blog, September

Der Geteilte Himmel (the divided heaven) (1964) by Konrad Wolf

2012,http://eastgermancinema.com/2012/09/23/look-at-

The Wall (1990) by Jürgen Böttcher

this-city/ 22. William Neill, Urban Planning and cultural identity, (Routledge 2004) 23. Philip Broadbent and Sabine Hake, Berlin Divided City, 1942-1989 (Berghahn Books 2010) 24. ibid.

25. William Neill, Urban Planning and cultural identity, (Routledge 2004) 26. ibid.

27. My translation from Stéphane Füzesséry, “Berlin” in La ville au cinema (Cahier du Cinéma 2005) p.320

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