"One day in August – building the wall` `61" (ZDF): Documentarism without guarantee

With a mixture of eyewitness testimony and scenic documentaries, the ZDF commemorates the separation of Berlin 60 years ago.

Berlin – On August 12, 60 years ago, the GDR government began solid preparations to seal off East Berlin from the three western sectors. On the night of August 13th, the maneuver that had been planned down to the finest detail was carried out. At first, barriers and barbed wire blocked the way. Little by little, robust walls and death strips were built. Switching from over there to over there was no longer possible, supply and traffic lines were interrupted or subjected to strict border surveillance. An event for the history books, an anniversary that requires proper programmatic appreciation.

The ARD network decided on a fictional feature film with a thriller element. A form that harbors the risk that what is shown is not or only partially perceived as an exemplary narrative, but rather as a costume drama.

“One day in August – building the wall` `61” on ZDF: history from several perspectives

The ZDF production “A Day in August – Building the Wall ’61” seems less spectacular in comparison, but here the stories are guaranteed. Florian Huber and Sigrun Laste, jointly responsible for the script and direction, looked for contemporary witnesses with characteristic biographies and, commendably, did not limit themselves to one point of view.

The most prominent face undoubtedly belongs to Hans Modrow. He was the last head of government in the GDR and later a PDS deputy in the Bundestag and the European Parliament. Since 1957 he belonged to the People’s Chamber of the GDR. In the film, he reports that, as a graduate economist, he was striving for a position in the economic sector when, to his surprise, he was picked up by a driver late in the evening and taken to the police station of the People’s Police. The then 33-year-old claims to have known nothing of the “Rose Action”, the secret preparations for closing the border, even though he was first secretary of the FDJ district leadership in Berlin and secretary of the central council of the FDJ.

“One day in August – construction of the wall` `61” (ZDF): reports from contemporary witnesses

The authors leave these statements unquestioned and speak for themselves. Likewise the reports of the other contemporary witnesses. All of them were young when the dramatic events loomed. On GDR television, documented in film by archive material, the West-goers who lived in the GDR but worked in the West and earned West Marks were literally pilloried and disadvantaged in everyday life. Others went shopping in the West or to the cinema. An interesting cultural-historical detail: in West Berlin, near the sector border to the east, the movie theaters flourished. Here you could pay with East Marks, the Berlin Senate compensated the cinema operators.

Interest in Western culture could also lead to harassment. Manfred Migdal was a typical thug with a preference for comics, jazz and Hollywood cinema. A denunciation brought him to a home for the difficult to educate. After an unsuccessful attempt, he manages to flee to West Berlin. He received a passport from the Federal Republic of Germany and felt so safe with it that he regularly went to the east to see his mother and friends. Unfortunately also on August 12th.

“One day in August – building the wall` `61” (ZDF): Small flaws, artificial splashes of color

“A day in August – Wall building 61” brings together a number of such stories. Narrated by the contemporary witnesses themselves, staged with actors and shot in Latvia with a feel for a suitable contemporary color. The dialogues were re-dubbed, unfortunately not always lip-true. Documentary material, much of which has often been used, from newsreel, TV and photo archives rounds off the historical presentation. The complaint here is that some of the originally monochrome recordings were colored for television processing. A questionable procedure, especially if the interference is not recognizable to the public.

Among other things, pictures of Manfred Roseneit, who was filmed by cameraman Georg Paul Pahl while looking through the barbed wire from the west and who later managed to escape, were post-processed. A still image of the symbolic moment was widely used and can also be found on the web. In black and white.

You shouldn’t look too closely at the props. The actress of the contemporary witness Ingrid Taegner (Sandija Dovgāne) – Taegner, wrongly written “Taedner” in the accompanying press material, had secretly photographed the construction of the border fortifications – photographed with a Praktica Super TL. A small oversight: the model was not built until 1965.

“One day in August – building the wall` `61” (ZDF): Documentarism without guarantee

Another aspect deserves more attention. At the beginning, the author duo Walter Ulbricht’s frequently quoted statement “Nobody has the intention to build a wall” and, a practice that can often be observed in this form, adds pictures of this very wall four seconds later. With which Ulbricht is automatically perceived as a liar from the observer’s point of view.

However, the said sentence is from June 15, 1961; it came in answer to a question from the journalist Annamarie Doherr from the West German “Frankfurter Rundschau”. Although Ulbricht certainly had the wish to cordon off the borders at this point in time, the action, which, among other things, required the approval of the Soviets, had not yet been decided.

An ambivalence that gets lost in the montage described and, strictly speaking, gives rise to at least an ambiguous impression. Which means once more: Documentary film productions do not guarantee reliable content per se. (Harald Keller)