Antifascism – Ulrich Sander: Undetorrable and tireless

The current cinema landscape is shaped by blockbusters and niche film-there is no place in the commercial cinema for critical documentation. It is all the more meritorious that filmmakers from North Rhine-Westphalia were shooting a biographical portrait of two activists, Traute and Ulrich, Sander, Sander, who have been active in the anti-fascist and peace movement of the Old Federal Republic for decades.

At the beginning of July, the film “Life Motto Peace and Anti -Fascism” premiered in a Dortmund alternative cinema. Not only in Dortmund and Hamburg, but also in many other parts of the Federal Republic, Ulli and Traute Sander are known as long -time activists of the anti -fascist and peace movement and are appreciated as interlocutors. In addition, Ulli Sander as a journalist is still published in various magazines and is also known as the author of numerous books. Both stand up for women and men who have campaigned for the anti -fascist ideals in the past decades who have never again fascism in the key statements! Never war again! ”.

Since the time of the contemporary witnesses of anti -fascist resistance, now also the early phase of the Federal Republic of Germany for biological reasons, ends irretrievably, it is now the relatives of the second generation that come into focus as mediators of this historical perspective. And so activists of alternative media work, the photographer Jochen Vogler and the filmmaker Martin Bauer, supported by historian Ulrich Schneider, went on the way to approach these two people in contemporary history with interviews and historical images. It proved to be an advantage that the creators of the film and the protagonists had known themselves from the common history of historical policy for decades. There were no misunderstandings or barriers that had to be overcome. You can tell the film sequences that people communicate with each other at eye level.

Published on the 80th anniversary of the liberation of fascism and war, the protagonists and their cooperation partners have their say in this film. They report convincingly and with their own dismay of their experiences and the social disputes of the past decades in the old Federal Republic. And so there are conversations in the center of the film not only with trusted and Ulli Sander, but also Beate Klarsfeld and Nicole Mattern from the Association “Children from Bullenhuser Damm”, with fellow campaigners of “vulnerable traditional care” and others.

In eight chapters, this film deals with various facets of anti -fascist and memory work, in which trust and Ulli Sander were particularly involved. In the first chapter “Childhood and Crimes Bullenhuser Damm”, Ulli Sander reports: “My oldest memory of my childhood in war sees me as a little boy on burning, bombarded streets of Hamburg. I started to hate war and fascism early on, heard the stories of my parents’ comrades who returned from the concentration camps. I came to school in 1947 – it was the school on Bullenhuser Damm, in which 20 Jewish children and their supervisors had been murdered by the SS two years earlier. «

In the consequence, Traute and Ulli Sander, as the second chapter under the heading “Geschwister-Scholl-Youth and Helmuth Hübener”, said in the association of the persecuted of the Naziz Regime (VVN) Hamburg, for their anti-fascist youth work and the establishment of the sibling-Scholl youth. An important point was the research and publication on the youth resistance, the White Rose Hamburg and the Helmut-Hübener Group, to which even the Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass referred.

For Traute and Ulli Sander, “Never again war!” And “Never again fascism!” Ins Not separable, which is why they were already involved in the first Easter marches with the sibling-Scholl youth. The continuity of your commitment shows an impressive image series.

The examination of old Nazis in public offices of the FRG is largely forgotten, for example Chancellor Kurt Georg Kiesinger. In the film, Beate Klarsfeld (Paris) reports on her cooperation with the youth information service and Ulli Sander’s support in the political debate after the legendary slap in the face for Chancellor Kiesinger.

The historical memory, not only of the persecuted of the Nazi regime, but also to the perpetrator and profiteers of the Nazi regime was concerned with Ulli Sanders for many years. Together with the VVN-BDA North Rhine-Westphalia, he dealt with the crimes of the economy that benefited from their active participation in the fascist regime. It was about a social memory that was now made visible by the establishment of a monument for the forced laborers at the Dortmund Phoenix lake.

For the VVN-BDA and the International Rombergpark Committee, Ulrich Sander researched and published on fascist crimes in the final phase of the Second World War. Significantly, Ulli Sander was observed by the German domestic secret service for decades due to such anti -fascist work and often mentioned in the annual reports of the Office for the Protection of the Constitution. Ulli and trusted Sander did not hold back that, they continued undeterred and tireless.

A special chapter deals with the actions against traditional militaristic care at the meeting of the mountain hunters in Mittenwald. Members of the group of “attackable traditional care” and Traute and Ulrich Sander describe the long-standing campaign of the VVN-BDA in NRW and other initiatives to expose the veterans of the mountain hunters in Mittenwald as SS-like murder troops-a campaign that was finally successfully completed with a memorial in front of a school in Mittenwald.

For Traute and Ulrich Sander, “never again war!” And “Never again fascism!”

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The film asks the question in all sequences: did it be worth it? Yes. And for Traute and Ulrich Sander it remains important that memories are passed on, precisely because of the increasing activities of right -wing populists and right -wing extremists. The film documents the appearance of the “Children of Resistance” against the Federal Party Congress of the AfD in Essen. Thus, this film not only provides a memory of the political reality in the former FRG, a look back at the challenges of anti -fascist action in the past decades, but also encourages it to get involved today and tomorrow.

Thanks to the media portal R-Mediabase, the Rosa-Luxemburg Foundation in North Rhine-Westphalia, the VVN-BDA and numerous individual dispensers, which have made the film recommended for school lessons or other public events.

“Motto peace and anti -fascism”, a film by Jochen Vogler and Martin Bauer, with the collaboration of the historian Ulrich Schneider. 70 min. Copies can be obtained for 20 euros via R-Mediabase, Samoastr. 12, 42277 Wuppertal and under R-Mediabase »Motto: Peace and Anti-Fascism. Ulli and Traute Sander « – Uz shop