Open Collections

Genius of our own: the GDR and DEFA’s Beethovens

University of Massachusetts at Amherst. DEFA Film Library

From before its inception in 1949, the German Democratic Republic (GDR) pictured itself—in contrast to its West German neighbor—as the natural heir to the pantheon of German-speaking “humanistic artists.” This concept of its cultural inheritance (Erbebegriff) was rooted in conversations that had taken place during the war among Soviet and German exile “Marxists” in Moscow.1 Back in Germany, the concept was put into operation in July 1945 with the founding of the Kulturbund zur demokratischen Erneuerung Deutschlands,whose mission was to “rediscover” and promote the “liberal humanistic, true national tradition of our people.”2 Two films—Ludwig van Beethoven (1954, dir. Max Jaap, documentary) and Beethoven – Tage aus einem Leben (Beethoven – Days in a Life, 1976, dir. Horst Seemann, feature film)—illustrate this overarching cultural drive within the GDR; but they also served somewhat divergent purposes because of the different times at which they appeared. These works arise out of two distinct and consequential periods of GDR cultural and political history, and strive toward related yet different goals, which are indicative of how the GDR and East Germans understood themselves and their contemporaries. Each film delivers a Beethoven of its own, one that reflects the period in which it appeared, even as it served the historical and cultural goal of illuminating the GDR’s heritage.

Other

eng

Vancouver : University of British Columbia Library

10.14288/1.0045302

Arts, Faculty of; Central, Eastern, and Northern European Studies, Department of

Unreviewed

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ca/