Defa director – Herrmann Zschoche: The power of dreams

Herrmann Zschoche is the romantic among the Defa directors. This never stopped him from describing the often dreamless everyday life in the GDR with a hard look. He insisted on giving everyday life a poetry that made it worth living.

This was already the case in his first film success in 1964 based on the children’s book by Benno Pludra “Lütt Matten and the White Shell”, a father-son story by the sea. Lütt Matten feels misunderstood by his father, who never has time for him, and dreams of the “White Shell”. Its relationship to the “Blue Flower” of longing from Novalis’ “Heinrich von Ofterdingen” is obvious. Follow the dream, never betray it – that is the message in all of his films, at least a dozen of which are part of the lasting image memory of East Germans.

He found important colleagues, such as the screenwriters Benno Pludra, Ulrich Plenzdorf and Christa Kożik. And of course actors like Jutta Hoffmann (to whom he was married) and Ulrich bother, but also amateurs who he had play themselves.

Herrmann Zschoche was born in Dresden in 1934. So he is a child of war who felt cheated out of his childhood. That’s why he later enjoyed making films for children and young people because he wanted to accompany them on their early life adventures. And conveyed to them values ​​that had nothing to do with the false heroism of the war and nothing to do with the ideological dogmatism of the officials in the GDR. So with his wonderful film “Karla” in 1965 he found himself caught up in the encirclement of the XI. Plenum of the SED Central Committee against the artists. His film was one of the twelve out of fourteen banned in Defa’s annual production. A clear-cutting that Erich Honecker, who was in charge at the time, was responsible for and from which the GDR never recovered. For many, the dream of socialism was already over.

In “Karla”, based on the screenplay by Ulrich Plenzdorf, Jutta Hoffmann is a young teacher who comes to a school fresh from university. She wants the students not to repeat what is presented to them, but to think for themselves. She meets the disappointed journalist Kaspar (Jürgen Hentsch), who almost leads a dropout life. Karla feels attracted to him, which is interpreted badly for her. No more lies is their claim, which becomes the reason not only to ignore the young teacher in the film (but she is only transferred there), but to ban this very important work. “Karla” only premiered in 1990.

That was the bitter reality of the censorship system in the GDR. And yet Zschoche continued to make new films, most of which were huge hits with audiences. Based on a book by Benno Pludra “The Island of the Swans” (1983), another plea for the power of dreams. Five years earlier, “Seven Freckles” was released in cinemas and attracted over a million viewers. Karoline (Kareen Schröter) is fourteen, Robert (Harald Rathmann) fifteen. They once lived in the same house and now meet at holiday camp. And something develops between them that irritates them and to which the adults react strangely. First love in a hostile environment!

The trick of this film, for which Christa Kożik wrote the script, is that “Romeo and Juliet” is rehearsed in the holiday camp, which they want to perform at the neighboring LPG. That was also part of the GDR: bringing art to the proletariat and also to the farmers, whether they wanted it or not. Of course, Robert and Karoline are the main characters Romeo and Juliet in the amateur play of the holiday camp. And they take the fate of the two lovers, who in Shakespeare find death instead of fulfilled love, very seriously. The side effect of “Seven Freckles” (in addition to some quite innocent nude scenes) was that many of the young viewers certainly noticed for the first time what a great author this Shakespeare is. He obviously knew them and their needs well, even though he was born at the end of the 16th century. This was followed in 1980 by “And Next Year at Balaton,” a road movie with two young people who are on their own for the first time and have to make decisions on their own. I saw all of these films back then and liked them because there was always something free-spirited about them.

This director, I had the impression, is always on the side of his actors, who mostly become explorers of life and need support for this. They are never mere objects of education. That’s what “Bürgschaft für ein Jahr” from 1981 is about, with Katrin Sass as Nina Kern. The young woman is divorced and has three children. She works as a cleaner, but often goes to the bars, drinks too much and neglects her children. That’s why they come to the children’s home – a bitter poetry of the circumstances. Nina is provided with two guarantors. She should finally learn to take responsibility for her children. But that’s only half successful – there’s no happy ending.

For me, Herrmann Zschoche’s most beautiful – and most important – film is “Half of Life” from 1985 (again based on a book by Christa Kożik) about Hölderlin and Susette Gontard. The young poet as steward and the banker’s wife. This is also an impossible love, but this time with a strong focus on German conditions. A great moment for the young Ulrich bother alongside Jenny Gröllmann (who married immediately after filming ended). Hölderlin, with “Hyperion” in mind, flees in his mind to Diotima and notes bitterly about the Germans: “You see craftsmen, but no people, thinkers, but no people, priests, but no people, masters and servants, boys and respectable people, but not human beings…” The inhumanity of the conditions and the suffering of the individual as a result – this is becoming more and more central for Zschoche.

At the end of the 80s, the tone of Zschoche’s films also became rougher. In “The Solo Sailor” (based on the book by Christine Wolter) from 1987, he gives the main role to a laywoman: Christina Powileit, drummer in the women’s band Mona Lise. Wolter’s subtle story of the sailboat as a metaphor for inherited responsibility on the one hand and freedom of one’s own decision on the other takes on something almost punky-rustic in the film. Perhaps “The Solo Sailor” is not Zschoche’s strongest film, but it is an indication that his patience with the leaden conditions in the end of the GDR was also exhausted.

The sequel to “Seven Freckles” took place during the turning point in 1989. The lovers from the past get married far too early, are overwhelmed by the burden of everyday life and end up at a loss. Where have they gone, the “White Shell” or the “Blue Flower”, those images of longing that Zschoche – despite all resistance – persistently followed in everyday life? The poetic spark always threatens to be lost, it almost dies out under the weight of everyday life.

After the fall of the Wall, Zschoche shot a few more series for television and then ended this phase of his life. But he didn’t stop being a romantic looking for expression and wrote numerous books about artists and poets, including several on Caspar David Friedrich. How nice that someone stayed true to themselves!