Buchenwald

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Buchenwald

Buchenwald
Günter Weschke
Retrospective 2021
Documentary Film
GDR
1961
26 minutes
German
subtitles: 
None

Credits DOK Leipzig Logo

Günter Weschke
DEFA-Studio für Wochenschau und Dokumentarfilme
Günter Weschke
Heiner Müller
Günter Weschke
Heinz Reusch
Kurt Wolfram
Sergio Günther
Ekkehard Schall
Wolfgang Heinz

The inauguration of the “National Buchenwald Memorial”, the first national memorial of the GDR, took place in 1958. The monumental site was also meant to demonstrate the state-supporting importance of a selective culture of remembrance, commemorating the communist resistance fighters – and omitting the fact that the graves were mainly filled with Jewish victims. In 1961, DEFA completed this “introductory film”, commissioned by the Buchenwald committee, which talks about Goethe, Schiller, Thälmann, but only very marginally about Jews. Every visitor’s memorial tour started with this until 1975. Its scriptwriter and production manager was the playwright Heiner Müller, a fact that was not known until 2004.

Sylvia Görke