Voices of Europe; Friedrich Luft and Wolfgang Staudte

The voices of Europe today in Germany Milton Mayer American author and lecturer broadcaster and professor of social research from the University of Frankfurt interviews two men on the theatre and the film industry in Germany Friedrich looked as a Brilinta whose family just about goes back to the beginnings of Berlin as a drama critic of the newspaper annoyance item in the Berlin radio station ríos Friedrich looked as the only critic in Germany who through book penmen voice reaches all of his own countryman. Here is Milton Mayer to interview Friedrich look at love. I understand that you wrote this scenario for a documentary that has swept Germany. The name of the film is Brolin as it was are and the more melodious German gasoline VFR Rivara Carol.

Well that depends on where we should go to speak about Berlin Berlin as I remember it. The limb of the 19th 20th when I was about 20 give myself up to 130. That town was the most lively and progressive and free city in the whole world I suppose at least that was in Europe and we had the influence of America from France from England from Italy cluing into this time and we have the best here I think I can say that of that period we had we had the state going to the Berlin. We had great act of jamming or commodify or Malina deeply under the burden that was the Greek period of Berlin where I grew up and this is pretty good. We tried to recollect to be tried to get a picture of this period of Berlin in that film you were just talking about.

Carola would you go so far to say that early on in the 20s. Had the makings of a new Paris. It had absolutely I don't know whether you have seen in America the play by John Pendleton. I am a camera a play which we are just doing one of out here because you had to I think that gives you exactly the atmosphere of the end of the 1920s in the beginning of the 30s just before the mouth of the revolution in Germany you have the feeling of danger or something coming on something growing up in Germany which will destroy all of the good things we had in that period immediately after 1933 when the Nazi revolution came. Now that readily and of which you were speaking era the Berlin of the 20s. Would you call it a product of. A democracy after the First World War of the monarchy before the first world war r r of neither. Perhaps

my question is actually irrelevant. You didn't cry about it in Berlin probably you had. For the few good things we had that time in Berlin. Democracy was responsible but that the same time you had the ability to be a reaction of monarchy here in Germany and you have the growing up of. Fervent nationalist feelings which became national socialists later on. So even if the few things we had here I do think it rather the first try out in the first democracy in Germany are 1918 up to 19 put this week on our air a lot. I'd like to leave Berlin as it was birding VFR and ask you about Berlin as it is. And how is it now. I think before we can answer this question we com let out the time which

came in between the time between 1933 and 45 the whole aspect of Berlin the big town which we loved and which you to be who allegedly in the open to all kind of opinion in this town suddenly became doddle and one one single dictatorship very suddenly had died or if he didn't die there was just the father of the all time left most of the good actors had to leave Germany or the left by their own will. Most of all good right would had been living here the puma of the grave and the like Einstein and so on that and so on we are left with Libya and left. And then people paid were you to be one of the most lively parts of Europe and I think we can't leave this experience out I might go. Who had started to write for a newspaper who had just become a

critic in one of our minor papers here I was 20 at that time. I my FIL was I got a problem and I wasn't allowed to write any longer Later on I got a kind of relieved I did write short stories and scripts for short documentaries and so on but the whole time if I look back now on these you know just if they were under a. Under a video under it when it was dark empty and it was like living in a foreign city all the time. And if you ask me what of Berlin like now it is very difficult to say. They need something for a man who had been living here all these years. If I go through Berlin I don't get a shock any longer feeling the ruling in which you probably come here. The one by one I personally go I only get the truck if I've been away from

Berlin for a fortnight or so if I come back. I thought only see the old city again. I see the old houses which used to be the corner of our house and so on and so on. Well but if I think longer in Berlin we live absolutely on the prevalence of this city. We don't look back and we try every now and again to look forward even if it's very difficult to look forward here. If I may drop. Recall how it was to be in Berlin in forty five forty six forty seven when the allies came in the Russians. Her friends the American men the British seemed to wake up suddenly to the old spirit it had before. Thirty three. You can't imagine how lively things will bring them on there. We have we have trickles or on cavalry or in the writings and so on. We had

suddenly all the sudden all the power of which had been suppressed up till the end seemed to jump up and come into into into working again and then did that loose fair that revived the revival of old virgin land or of a sense of it. Did it persist and how long or did it die and it did not occur. It didn't die to a great extent. And the reason for that was of course the deplorable political situation which became tougher and more Ben to get up to 47 proving things I have. The 49 I as a drama critic. Of course wind into every sector of women to the rush to think through the French the British. The American and so all the theatrical productions that I wrote about them. What kind of artistic production did you find at that time and

this was up until forty nine in the sector in the Russian sector of the city. How did it compare with what you saw and experienced in the West where where the city is dividing dividing yet they all mocked noticeably on that in there and cut through all things. But in the film think to be able very lucky in having more of those than in the with them sectors of Berlin at that time. I am how I will do it with the opera was still standing. The comma should be a little standing the ship bar dumped it out and you have appear to have a pending bill that Bill Paxon doc reacted to life in Berlin was mostly in the east in fact at that time and what was its quality its quality was there. Probably better because there were more of it it was more of it in that sector of the. Excellent that was very good and I think it was better than it is today in all of the

factors of Berlin because it still had the bit of freshness and we did begin all the American Russian French Italian plays which we haven't seen for the last probably between 30 and 45 it was quite a new ratable world coming back to it. And now how is Berlin culturally by the tuber land to build in. Well the trouble is I have a theatre critic have tried to keep up the link between the two cities and I thought the drama was outside politics. And I have tried up till the last moment to review. Performances in the sector as well and with the themes than the applying the same them both in the west sector of the trouble is as the political atmosphere grew or with more Ben. I will in the end. Kicked out by

the director and the may be producer Youth them out of there. We didn't stand any longer the same criticism which I did apply on American planes or on bridges in principle even the weapon. Good. They didn't want me to apply the same standard of criticism on the plate which they produced at that time and those players were getting more and more propaganda in the room together. But is the revival of the old Berlin continuing in the West in the western sectors of the city. I don't think it is. We caught a kind of that commission and I'm sorry to tell you that at the moment here. That of course. Have the reason in the economic situation of Berlin with three hundred thousand unemployed in a population of two and a half million. You can't really have a great and fine even if the theater isn't heavily subsidized but I don't believe in the day as factor

for quality in theater it can be the opposite. And what hair loss has the influence of American French and British occupation been on the cultural and artistic life as a city we have helped of us of course quite a lot there rotting leaves which we didn't have here before but on the whole I think we come to depend on the foreign influence coming in from other countries we have to do with Probably your own film. And we do believe that direct propaganda through and through film then through on something which is more dangerous then that it is helpful if a drama producer comes and asks for a medical leave of British players or French players I think. One should give them to him and things should come home to a German thieves. But to use the M the r

as. The medium of propaganda always doomed to a life boat. And now here they are. You've spoken of Berlin as it was as it is. How is it going to be. A question. Very many people from our side go and I think there isn't a month or two that the only thing which we can do here at the moment is to be here. And to try to do our best and if there is something like democracy to show good and to live it and not to push it out like something a propaganda thick I think our influence on the east zone if we just do the right things and do the right things really and aren't afraid of don't quit of fear of them and harsh criticism of that I think that is much more helpful for

the future which we can foresee and which I can't foresee. Then anything else. Thank you very much. In Great Britain's national weekly the picture post the following statement appeared in a report of the 1952 Film Festival in West Berlin. The films of Wolfgang shoutin most famous of Germany's new directors since the international success of his the murderers are among us were not shown in the festival uncompromising and fearless he films only the subjects he believes in without caring who backs them. He lives in West Berlin and has worked in the West but has made most of his films in the East Berlin studios because they gave him the backing he could not find in the West. And though there is no ban on the exchange of films for over a year both sides have maintained an indiscriminate boycott. It is hard to say which of his two new films is the more important the film called rotation

is the story of a simple worker who joins the Nazi party against his conscience in order to keep his job and of the price he pays for his mistake. When his son enters the Hitler youth organisation and informs on him the whole film has not a trace of self-pity or sentimentality in it. It is a picture of real humanity and honesty. His second film The Kaiser subject based on Heinrich man's novel Tom is more brilliant pictorially more powerful. It shows in hard satirical tones how a man humiliated and terrified in childhood by parental authority and fascinated as a youth by the traditional glorification of might in his students organization and in the army devotes the rest of his life to a ruthless pursuit of personal power while worshipping the Kaiser as the embodiment of absolute power. No film could be more sincerely more effectively anti totalitarian. And now in Berlin Milton Mayer interviews were shouting

very shouting. What have the most important things in your life then. Desire difficult for me to pick out the important things in my life in my own language and it is a very hard work to do that in my simple English. But I would do my best. If you or anybody asked me for my life always I will come back alive. You mean because I'm feeling great. I wore a ball for a life. The second time the war was over I hope you will understand later. About my life is not very much to

say when I was 8 years old the word war came and everybody had what a grand and glorious time and than the war was over and the grand and glorious time too. And all the heroes whom we had war shaped and who had run away from and able to remain. And then came a little bit of a little inflation and a big unemployment. Naturally I was too young and too and that wound up and all the political and social problems but I'm sure by the time my co-director and my

opinion and if I look back to my per life all things are unclear. I mean a little bit. Readily but I remember after the war we had the most democratic period in Germany and the slogan Never again War was a long time very popular but later was twenty five years old. The slogan Vote long forgotten. We won't have back a war colony of the nation and the frame of that that we have the big slogan of those days and the old heroes from the last war came slowly

back to arrange a new grand and glorious time. But it will go wrong. Calculate a new man came and with him the next grand and glorious time good luck. And what happened to you during the grand and glorious time of Hitler. Oh. That's. Not easy for me to explain my position in the end this time. I don't like to praise you but I never was I not. But it is true and it is true that at the same time I was not a hero. The only thing I did I TALKED TO played in the

theater. I gave up my profession and I believed and hoped that what we were not feeling would quickly break down. And now I know that you fail or think that is not very much. You are right but you are wrong and it was a long time very popular to say we were good at that. Pivot maybe but is it not more human that the India we do find it more important to care for his family his job and to a pack of his natural and Britain. What so ever is going on in great politics. A doctor is

at her and at her interested in his patron a painter in his painting and actor more in Hamlet than Hitler that might not be good but I think the reality here and everywhere. Still with me people we were just waiting for a better life in that war too. It is not necessary to have a big talk about him about might have left me save that my litter dropped to make short confocal get peeved when the war broke out I got the chance to make my read

them and so I might have before I can appear. Who made movies on the ship or will be at me. That is why I made the choice of people and all the more agreeable I became a movie director during the war in Berlin. But it was not as good as I had thought. You can believe me that. And then came the end of the battle and kept people from the impression of the day. I would be able to describe in my own

language and now perished out there. What about your being born again. The day the war ended the day the war ended. After the last truck hired it was like a miracle. I couldn't. I'm the kind I live. And now I thought for the second time in my life that all of the heroes from yes that day that run away again that wrote a very strange situation that lead the hour in which I call it. I was warm for a second time and I knew that many of those

have the same way with me. No. We had come the time to build a new and better field but very soon came disappointment. They all came back it was not the birth of a new era. It was there and then you and two days everything is back again. The bill curb the pot thieves and their battle sucking power and the loud intolerant and greed and even the old Logan and the

old. And not really all are coming back slowly and I'm afraid they are just leaping to arrange the next grand and glorious time. But with out me. What should have been done. There's doubt that my opinion is that one should have planned all of the many million. One should have made all death fall behind a wait for the end of the under pending between the West and them. Then I think we all wrote about how you. Should or will not be forgotten that it

is not the principle of the good witch when in Akerman fair because every trial knows that appear to come where the word could bring all of this to an explosion. I think to day it is not any longer the question of the Army of this or that name but all of them are a big unit of humanity and love not leave it so viable. I know that my opinion have become very unpopular the last two years I've heard before that I'm not a hero and not to mock what I all who I'm not. Come here young when the war was

over. Nearly all German direct was an act of war for the American British Russian and friend. Life will move into three. So did I and now it is forbidden for. From there you need to work in the them part of their own country that is crazy and more crazy is their victory and does not come from the government of the eastern part of Germany but from our democratic German government. I don't pay any attention to that with the politics of my business but I think it must be possible to comen Mehta and OB to the same pending at Leckie cream in the Olympic games down there while you're waiting to be born.

Still a third time. I rather suspect that you will make more movies. Am I right. You have you our ride and where and what will your next movie be on my next bill. I am going to make again a mini. Invest in ME where I live I'm not allowed to make one because I have refused to let the politics of one of the world become too are and what will the subject of your next film be my next will be a theory tale in Technicolor for children everywhere. Thank you for stopping the programme you have just heard is made possible under a grant from the fund for adult education an independent organization

established by the Ford Foundation. These programs are prepared and distributed by the National Association of educational broadcasters. This program was in two doormen Mickie and this is the end AP beat tape network.