GDR's national Identity in National Foundation films

Thesis (M.A.) from the year 2010 in the subject Communications - Movies and Television grade: Merit University of Reading (German Studies) course: MA (Res) language: English abstract: This dissertation examines two DEFA films produced in the 1960's by Joachim Kunert and Konrad Wolfwho became part of East Germany's 2nd generation of filmmakers and who explored the causes of National Socialism and the remedies for the dreadful catastrophe that overcame Germany between 1933 and 1945.The collapse of the Reich in 1945 saw the end of the 12 year National Socialist reign of terror over Germany. The Nazi's had ensured that they had control of cultural life in Germany and had invested heavily in a film industry that created a national myth in order to support Nazi Party aims and which manipulated the public. The defeat of Germany saw the discrediting and failure of fascist national identity myth making artistic stereotypes and the foundational films produced in Germany during the period 1933-45. By the 1960's DEFA the GDR's state film production company had been exploring the origins of National Socialism for twenty years starting with Wolfgang Staudte's Die Mörder sind unter uns 1946 DEFA. The GDR's state film company DEFA was given the task of [...]restor[ing] democracy in Germany and remove all traces of fascist and militaristic ideology from the minds of every German[...] (Allen 19993). These films were produced to enable the Germans to have an honest confrontation with the military and moral catastrophe that [...]the Germans had brought on themselves[...] (Barnouw200848) and sought to develop a cinematic language[...]to confront the recent German past (Pinkert200820). The grammar of DEFA anti- fascist films was established by such films as Staudte Die Mörder Sind Unter Uns orIrgendwo in Berlin 1946 Gerhard Lamprecht DEFA and Die Buntkarierten1949 Kurt Maetzig DEFA or Rotation1949 Wolfgang StaudteDEFA. These films were made by a generat