Category Archives: Germany

Movie: Judgment at Nuremberg (1961)

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The Nuremberg Trials are a historical fact. However, this movie is a work of fiction that instead captures the feel of history by being based on actual facts; it can be said that it aims to depict the world after World War II from the point of view of the American conscience during the Cold War.

After the end of World War II, military leaders from the victorious nations—U.S.A., Britain, France, and Russia—gathered in Nuremberg in order to judge German war criminals. In the first half of the trial that began in 1945, the highest German leaders that led the war were one-sidedly judged and sentenced severely, but this movie is set in 1948, when the global situation surrounding the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials had subtly changed. For the U.S., Britain, and France, the threat was no longer Germany, but rather the Soviet Union. The Soviet Army occupied the eastern part of Germany, and it seemed to have its eyes set on occupying all of Germany. The U.S., Britain, and France concluded that, if the Soviet Union took control of Germany, all of Europe would bit by bit be taken over by communism; therefore, the interest of the U.S., Britain, and France became to protect Germany from the Soviet Union and the spread of communism, rather than punishing Germans.

The movie begins with a U.S. district court judge, Haywood (Spencer Tracy), being appointed as the Chief Trial Judge for one of the cases in the Subsequent Nuremberg Trials, and thus him going to Nuremberg. The reason he is appointed is that this case is judging some of Germany’s highest-class lawyers; in particular, since one of the defendants is Dr. Ernst Janning (Burt Lancaster)—who is internationally known and acted as the Minister of Justice at the time of the Nazi’s defeat—no one wants to be the judge of the trial, so the duty is imposed on nameless, honest Judge Haywood.

Judge Haywood and the American officers staying in Nuremberg are impressed by the German traditions and the depth of the culture. After the war, even though they are poor, people drink delicious beer, enjoy a beautiful chorus in a bar, and appreciate piano and opera musical performances. People are kind, as if everyone is trying to prove that, “Germans are not beasts, like the world believes.” The officers, who came here as part of a victorious nation, make fun of themselves with, “We are like those Boy Scouts that walk around a beautiful palace with muddy shoes.” If there hadn’t been a war, I think Americans would have aspired for German culture. Judge Haywood, who is among these Americans, and prosecutor Colonel Lawson (Richard Widmark) are implicitly pressured from higher powers to quickly complete the trial, and to not give a severe sentence in order to win over Germany’s support.

The defendants’ lawyer Rolfe (Maximilian Schell, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor with this movie) refutes the claims presented by Colonel Lawson, one after another, with sharp logic. Because Colonel Lawson has personal experience liberating a Nazi concentration camp, he wants to make sure the accused lawyers, who approved the documents to have Jews rounded up, are held fully accountable. Enraged, Rolfe refutes with, “What about the war responsibility of the Soviet Union that had the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty with Germany, and illegally occupied and massacred under this treaty? What of the war responsibility for Great Britain’s Churchill, who agreed with Hitler in order to hold back communism?” With this, he voices the bitterness of Germans who silently endured the tyranny of the victorious nations in the Nuremberg Trials.

The greatest focus of the trial is whether Dr. Janning committed crimes under the Nuremberg Laws. The Nuremberg Laws were laws made by the Nazis, and defined relations between Jews and Germans as a crime. As a judge, Dr. Janning sentenced an old Jewish man to death on the charges of association with a young German girl Irene Hoffman (Judy Garland), and sentenced Irene to penal servitude for perjury when she denied the charges against the old man.

Judge Haywood, contrary to everyone’s prediction, passed a guilty verdict for all of the defendants, and he sentenced them all to life imprisonment. The basis of his sentence is that the prosecution proved “beyond a reasonable doubt” that the crimes were truly committed, and that, although the defendants did not commit the crimes directly, the crimes could not have occurred without the order of execution documents with the defendants’ names; thus, they are legal accomplices. Against Chief Judge Haywood’s judicial decision, the American judge serving as the trial’s deputy agrees with lawyer Rolfe’s argument, and refutes that the defendants were just abiding by the Nuremberg Laws—which were Germany’s national laws—and it would have been treason against the nation for the defendants to not abide by these laws.

There is also a pattern of conflicting interpretations between common law—preferred by Britain and America—and statutory law—preferred by Germany and France. Because Judge Haywood studied law in America that uses common law, he arrives at the guilty verdict based on the principles of case law that say precedent cases are the primary source of law for judgment, and that if there are previous similar trials, current verdicts are bound by precedent verdicts. Of course, since there is statutory law in Britain and America, when there is statutory law in the domain to judge, the stipulation is that statutory law takes preference over common law. Statutory laws have clear standards, and there are laws that have been used as the standards for a long period of time, such as the Napoleonic Code; however, what about the Nuremberg Laws? I think that the Nuremberg Laws suggest that a crazy leader can make crazy statutory laws. One can make a new law in America. However, that law must be approved by the majority in Congress, and it can be rejected by the Department of Justice if it opposes the Constitution.

Judge Haywood’s conviction disappoints both Germans and Americans. People believed that the defendants were only obeying the Nuremberg Laws, and it is the laws themselves that should be blamed. Also, there is disappointment because other trials happening around the same time generally found the defendants to be not guilty, and even if the defendants were found guilty, the sentence was very light. When Rolfe meets Judge Haywood face-to-face, he remarks, “In five years, the men you sentenced to life imprisonment will be free. In the near future, Americans may be placed in the situation where they are tried by the Soviet Army for injustice, so be warned,” and then leaves. Judge Haywood, when he meets with Dr. Janning in private upon Janning’s request, states, “You are guilty. The reason why is that you had already decided guilty before facing Irene Hoffman in court.” Also I think that, since Judge Haywood’s judicial decision becomes the precedent for future cases, he wanted to avoid his verdict from being cited to find future individuals who signed the death penalty for others as not guilty, as it could be if Judge Haywood had given an acquittal.

Marlene Dietrich performs as the widow of a general who was executed in the Nuremberg Trials. Her husband was found guilty in the Nuremberg Trials in what was like a lynching by the victorious nations immediately after the war, but the movie suggests the possibility that he may have been found innocent in a trial performed in1948. The widow tries to convey the spirits of German people to Judge Haywood, who she befriends, by telling him that both she and her husband hated Hitler, her husband had fought in order to protect the people of Germany, and most German people did not know of what the Nazis were doing.

It is said that Marlene Dietrich’s life was the inspiration for the character of the general’s wife. After Marlene, a German woman, came to America, she and Jewish director Sternberg became a top Hollywood combo. Adolf Hitler liked Marlene and requested that she return to Germany, but Marlene who hated the Nazis refused, and in 1939, she acquired American citizenship; because of this, the screening of Dietrich’s movies was prohibited in Germany. During World War II, she repeatedly visited the American soldier frontline in order to give moral support.

Actress Setsuko Hara, who visited America after the war, said the following when she was introduced to Marlene Dietrich. “She looked so beautiful in her movies, but when I actually met Dietrich, she was a candid and casual person; her face was plain, and I didn’t feel that bewitching beauty seen in her movies. I didn’t get the impression of a beautiful person at all…”

I wonder if Marlene Dietrich’s beauty comes from her outstanding professionalism and determination in life. When Dietrich performs in this movie as the young and beautiful widow, she is already 60 years old. Of course Setsuko Hara suffered immense hardships during the war (like other Japanese people), but her words seem to not have much thought for how much Marlene Dietrich had to overcome.

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Movie: The Lives of Others — Das Leben der Anderen (2006)

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It is said that Lenin once stated, “If you listen to Beethoven’s sonata, it will be difficult to continue a revolution.” This movie is a story of the men who listened to the sonata.

It is 1984 in East Berlin. Captain Wiesler of the Ministry of State Security (Stasi) is a talented member of this secret service. He is ordered to spy on a playwright, Dreyman, who is suspected of anti-establishment thought, and Dreyman’s lover Christa, a stage actress. Wiesler wiretaps the apartment they live in, but finds out that the real reason the wire was placed was because the Minister of Culture wants Christa for himself. Wiesler is moved by the sonata Dreyman plays. Dreyman had carefully separated himself from anti-establishment groups, but after a close friend who was oppressed as a writer by the government commits suicide and leaves behind a piece of sheet music titled, “Sonata for a Good Man,” Dreyman decides to publish a story in the West to disclose the reality of East Berlin. Meanwhile, Christa loses the favor of the Minister of Culture and is pushed into a difficult situation, so she becomes a spy to inform the authorities of Dreyman’s secrets. Wiesler, developing sympathy for the two through the wiretap, tries to help Dreyman and Christa using the information that he knows, but Christa commits suicide, and Wiesler is suspected and demoted to a dead-end job.

A while after the collapse of the Berlin Wall, Dreyman discovers that he had in fact been wiretapped by the authorities, and from these surveillance records, he learns that Christa was a spy. However, the person in charge of gathering this intelligence, whom Dreyman only knows by his codename, did not report any evidence to his authorities that Dreyman was the author of the story published on the West side that revealed the reality of the establishment in East Berlin. For the first time, Dreyman discovers that this anonymous spy had protected him. After many years, Wiesler, now living a quiet life, becomes aware of the recent publishing of Dreyman’s book titled, “Sonata for a Good Man.” The movie ends with Wiesler opening up the book in the bookstore and seeing a note that said the book was dedicated to him with gratitude.

Ulrich Mühe, who splendidly plays Wiesler, at first appears to be a highly skilled and ruthless man dressed in uniform, but as he listens in with the wiretap, he is gradually transformed into an ordinary, middle-aged man with unfashionable pants and a balding head. Wonderful themes, acting ability, images, sounds and voices, and suspense make this the “perfect movie,” but if there is a criticism for this movie, it would be the following.

The historical inaccuracies within this movie may be the target of criticism. The Stasi wouldn’t have the room to produce people of kindness like Captain Wiesler. Observing each other is among the duties of a spy, and it would be impossible for a spy to help someone. Even if there were spies that were kind like Wiesler, I would think that the punishment wouldn’t be something as simple as, “doing a boring job for 20 years.” Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who wrote the script and directed the movie, spoke of this in an interview: “The more I studied the Stasi, the more I found that what they did was too cruel to depict as it was, so I intentionally avoided cruel scenes.” The only cruel scene is the one of Christa’s death, and even in this scene, it is not clear whether it was an accidental death or a suicide. This movie poses a question that cannot be answered: when conveying a theme through art, which method has a more lasting impact on the audience, depicting cruelty as it is or abstractly?

Ulrich Mühe who played Wiesler was highly esteemed as a stage actor in East Germany, but he also participated in anti-government demonstrations and was involved in plays that criticized the system. He had two children while with his first wife, stage director Annegret Hahn, but they divorced, and he married actress Jenny Gröllmann in 1984. However, he later learned that four of his theater colleagues and his wife Jenny Gröllmann were spying on him and reporting information to authorities, and he divorced his wife in 1990. After that, he married again in 1997 to actress Susanne Lothar.

The Lives of Others won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film in 2007, but Mühe had to rush back to Germany immediately after in order to undergo surgery for his stomach cancer. Mühe passed away at the young age of 54, at the height of his fame due to the many prizes The Lives of Others received.

In 2006, in an interview included in his book that was related to The Lives of Others, Mühe confesses that, in the days of East Germany, his former wife Gröllmann spied on him as an “unofficial collaborator”—similar to the story of the movie—and reported to a Stasi officer who had the codename of “HA II/13.” Ex-wife Gröllmann filed a suit to the Berlin district court against what Mühe claimed, and argued that she had become a source of information on Mühe as an unofficial collaborator without her knowledge, and that the publication of the book be prohibited. The court approved this statement and prohibited the publication of the book; Mühe’s appeal was rejected and he was prohibited from denouncing Gröllmann as the source for the Stasi as an unofficial collaborator. Immediately after, Gröllmann died from an illness, and then one year later, Mühe also died. In addition, his third wife Lothar died in 2012 at the age of 51. All three certainly died prematurely.

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Movie: I Served the King of England (2006)

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This movie is a Czech movie, not a British movie. Neither Great Britain nor the King appear at all. The Ethiopian emperor makes just a brief appearance. Therefore, if we watch this movie expecting a movie like The King’s Speech, we might think, “Huh???”

This movie is a satirical comedy with beautiful and grotesque images. However, in a sense, it can be said that this movie allows us to understand modern history of the Czech Republic through the protagonist’s life and the times he lives in. This movie depicts the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after their defeat in World War I and the formation of the Czechoslovakia Republic in 1918; Hitler absorbing the Sudetenland region in 1939, followed by Czech becoming a German protectorate; the establishment of the communist regime with the support of the Soviet Union through the “Victorious February” of 1948; and finally ends around 1968. Based on the novel Bohumil Hrabal secretly wrote in 1970 when freedom of speech was oppressed in Czech under the control of the communist party, director Jiří Menzel, whose freedom to produce was also oppressed under the communist party, made a film adaptation in 2006 after the collapse of the communist party. In 1967, Jiří Menzel won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film for Closely Watched Trains, another film adaptation of one of Bohumil Hrabal’s works, but there was a long gap in this career after that until the communist regime collapsed in 1989.

Czechs suffered throughout the 20th century—first bullied by Germany, then dominated by the Soviet Union—so we may expect the theme of Czech movies to be about this, but this movie depicts 20th century Czech history from a different angle. The Czech region Sudetenland shows up often in this movie.

The history of the Czech Republic is complicated. Bohemia was the center of the Czech Republic, but since the 11th century, German-ification has progressed due to Germans migrating there; also, there was a long-lasting, complicated power struggle between the north part of the Kingdom of Poland and the south part of the Kingdom of Hungary over ruling the land of Bohemia. Because of the eventual defeat of the Czech nobility in the Thirty Years’ War that started in 1618, a German sovereignty was established in Bohemia, but there historically was a strong antagonism between Germans and Czechs in the Bohemia region. Czech was traditionally anti-Germany, Pan-Slav, and had a strong sense of closeness with Russia, but this area in the end became a part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. There are many coalmines in Bohemia. Utilizing the abundant coal and the investment by German capitalists, Bohemia successfully partook in the Industrial Revolution and became a prominent industrial area in Central Europe.

Sudetenland was on the western edge of Bohemia and on the German border; this area had many Germans living there since ancient times and thus the most intense antagonism between Germans and Czechs. German citizens under the control of the Czech majority suffered from discrimination such as unequal hiring process. As a result of the defeat of Germany and Austria in World War I in 1918, the Austro-Hungarian Empire dissolved; Czech and Slovakia were merged and the independent nation of Czechoslovakia was formed. Anti-German thought was mainstream in Czech, but, conversely, in Slovakia near Russia, there were strong anti-Russia, pro-Germany thoughts. Czech invaded the Sudetenland and seized this land from Germany. Many scenes of Czechs bullying Germans appear in this movie. The bullying is depicted full of humor, but it is cruel when considered carefully. With a lightness and skillful movement by actors like that seen in Chaplin movies, this movie attracts the audience masterfully, but there is poison at the bottom that makes you think about various things.

For Hitler who succeeded in absorbing Austria in March of 1938, his next territorial ambition was Czechoslovakia; with the excuse that Germans living in Sudetenland were being persecuted, Hitler tried to gain sovereignty over Sudetenland. At that time, Czech was involved in conflicts with their neighbors Poland and Hungary over territory. Taking advantage of this situation, Germany gained sovereignty over Sudetenland and from there, absorbed Czech.

Mirrors are effectively used in this movie. A mirror reflects something back. This movie satirically reveals the true face of Czech through the non-mainstream Czech protagonist. The protagonist is a plain, small-statured Czech man who doesn’t attract attention from anyone and has blonde hair, which is rare for Czechs. He was a poor man when the Czech Republic was erupting in prosperity after their independence. While other Czechs bully Germans, he is the only man who helps Germans and he even marries a German women. When Nazis took control and began oppression of other Czechs, he was able to get a job at a high-end restaurant and a high-end hotel thanks to his wife. The high-end hotel looks to be the pinnacle of elegance, but the true characters of the rich people, high-salaried officers, and politicians that come here are exposed. Since the hotel employees never fail to follow, “After watching it all, pretend to see nothing,” the rich clients that come here don’t mind the eyes of the hotel employees at all. By depicting the protagonist, the movie provides a reflection of the people over different times like a mirror. Because the protagonist is an extremely wealthy person when Germany is defeated in World War II and the communist revolution comes to life, he is sentenced to 15 years in prison for this crime. After he is released, the protagonist is sent to Sudetenland and assigned to do heavy labor.

When the protagonist arrives, Sudetenland is deserted. After World War II, all Germans were forcibly deported. The movie suggests that terrible things such as being pillaged or massacred also happened and that being expelled was actually the most benign treatment. The movie ends with the protagonist in this deserted place in the middle of the mountains quietly looking back on his life. The two different actors who perform the protagonist when he was young and when he is old do not look alike. I think two actors are used to depict change in the protagonist’s personality. This movie depicts the protagonist over about 35 years, from adolescence to middle-age. It is usually enough to have one actor to perform this range of years.

This movie picks up the issue of Sudetenland, an issue not many Czechs want to touch since it is like a disgrace in the modern history of Czech. This movie is made as a comedy with beautiful images, but it is quite brave to raise the theme of the Sudetenland issue. It is especially admirable for the author of the original work Bohumil Hrabal to write a book about the Sudetenland issue back in the 1970s, long before an official resolution. Considering this, this light comedy may be asking Czechs including himself the terrifying questions of, “Did we not create the situation of becoming victims of Nazis ourselves? Are we not narrow-minded people for having held onto a hatred for a neighbor of a slightly different race?”

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Movie: The Counterfeiters — Die Fälscher (2007)

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The Japanese title is “Hitler’s Counterfeit Bills,” but the original title does not include the name “Hitler.” However, I feel that the name “Hitler” is packed with the additional meaning of “dictator” as well as “a dangerous man who could do unfathomably terrible things once he had political power.” By adding this single word to the Japanese translation, people will get a sinister feeling, appropriate for the story of this movie. This movie depicts the tragic struggle for survival by the Jews sent to concentration camps during the dark ages of the Nazis, but the way of depicting this is more than just Nazi (bad) versus Jews (good).

The protagonist is a Jew named Salomon, a masterful manufacturer of counterfeit money and documents. He is arrested for making counterfeit dollar bills and sent to a concentration camp because he is Jewish; because of his ability with drawing, he gains favorable treatment from the German soldiers. Before long, the skilled police officer who arrested this counterfeiter gets promoted to a major of the Nazi S.S. and makes contact with Salomon. The major gathers people among the prisoners sent to concentration camps who have talent with drawing, printing technique, and counterfeiting in order to forge money used by Allied nations such as Great Britain, and he becomes the project leader of the operation to destroy the economy of the Allies. The major appoints Salomon as the technical leader of the project and gives Salomon special treatment to complete the project successfully.

Salomon’s dilemma begins from here. By all means, he doesn’t want to help the Nazis he hates. However, his life as well as the lives of his fellow Jews are in danger if he does not obey the major. His fellow Jews are not united for one cause; some flatter the major, some want to believe that their lives are secure if they succeed with the project, while others are temporarily satisfied with the privileges and relatively comfortable living conditions given to them as an elite, and others still—like the printer Burger—urge for anti-Nazi rebellions. It isn’t easy to unite a team in a situation like that. During the project of counterfeiting British bonds—which are considered to be the most difficult to counterfeit in the world—a pride and passion for their work as counterfeiters gradually develop. When their imitation British bonds are completely accepted as genuine by British banks, there is a moment (just a moment) of shared feelings among the major and Jewish prisoners of, “We accomplished something really great together.” The prisoners of the project team are allowed to play ping-pong as a reward.

However, the state of the war gradually shifted unfavorably for the Nazis. Knowing this, the major plans to flee to Switzerland and has Salomon forge Swiss passports for all of his family members; he tells Salomon as he is about to leave, “These are difficult times now. Each of us must persevere to survive.” If he had lived in times of peace, the major may have been a good father, husband, and friend—family-oriented and capable in his job. However, the major brought Salomon into this difficult situation and unintentionally insults him by saying, “Ha ha, nobody can surpass a Jew when it comes to counterfeiting,” when he is excited by the success of the project team. In times of peace, these two men might not have had any reason to hate each other, but in this situation, Salomon acts in a twisted manner towards the major.

The Allies liberate this Nazi concentration camp; the emaciated Jews who were housed on the other side of the camp enter Salomon’s building, but they don’t believe that Salomon and the others are prisoners held captive by the Nazis because they were too healthy. Salomon and the others have to prove that they are fellow Jews and not Nazi soldiers in disguise. In addition, one of Salomon’s associates commits suicide immediately after the concentration camp is liberated. His only reason to live was to fight the terror of the Nazis, but now that the Nazis collapsed, he lost his will to live. Something had broken inside of him along with the collapse of the Nazis.

This movie was made based on the autobiography of the printer named Burger. The comparison of the actual lives of Burger and Salomon afterwards is interesting. Burger was arrested for forging Catholic baptism certificates to help Jews escape from the Nazis and was sent to a concentration camp. After being released, he became a journalist in order to convey his personal experience to the future and continues to work to impeach fascism through publications and lectures. On the other hand, Salomon continued to make counterfeit bills after World War II and was on international wanted lists. He is said to have secretly escaped to Uruguay and some say he further escaped to Brazil and spent the rest of his life there. The full details of Salomon’s life remain a mystery.

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Movie: A Dangerous Method (2011)

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Most everyone is familiar with the psychologists Freud and Jung as well as Freud’s theory of dream analysis. However, the specific details of Freud and Jung’s medical treatment are not very well-known outside the actual field of psychology. I think that the relationship between the two men and the conditions of the times in which they emerged are also not well-known. This movie depicts Freud and Jung’s friendship and eventual falling out, as well as their relationship with their student, the female psychiatrist Sabina Spielrein.

Sabina lived in the city of Rostov-on-Don in western Russia, born into a wealthy Jewish family. However, she was afflicted by mental illness, and in 1904, was admitted to a Swiss mental hospital, Burghölzli, in Zurich. Here she was treated by Jung, a young psychiatrist. Jung was the son of a Lutheran pastor, and had married a woman from a wealthy family; he was sincere, faithful in marriage, and blessed with good looks and intelligence, but also had a keen perception that was akin to a sixth sense. When they meet, Jung recognizes that Sabina also possessed this same kind of perception and exceptional intellect. Through Jung’s treatment, Sabina eventually recovers from her illness and starts medical school with the aim of becoming a psychiatrist.

Jung becomes aware that Sigmund Freud is treating a patient with similar symptoms as Sabina using psychoanalysis, a method based on the theory of the subconscious that was innovative for its time, and the two become close friends around 1907. Freud is very fond of Jung and asks him to treat Otto Gross, an apprentice of Freud who was suffering from a mental illness. In the private sessions with Otto, Jung, a conformist and one who strictly adhered to monogamy, is greatly challenged by Otto’s depraved philosophy; eventually, out of the desire to be honest with himself, Jung admits his love for Sabina, and he and Sabina begin an affair. During the time of this affair, Sabina’s brilliant mind greatly influenced Jung’s theories.

However, starting from around 1913, Jung and Freud have a falling out. Freud considers Jung’s love for the psychic ability to be occult and fears he is drifting too far away from the scholastic field of psychology; on Jung’s side, he becomes skeptical of Freud’s use of dream analysis to explain the whole nature of the subconscious. After that, the two become antagonistic within their field. At the same time, Sabina, now a fully-fledged psychologist, begins asking Jung if they could be more than lovers, and this causes Jung and Sabina’s relationship to fall apart as well. After Jung, the next person Sabina chooses as a mentor is Freud. Freud tells her that, as they are both Jewish, they’re able to understand each other well. However, after Sabina, Jung begins an affair with Toni Wolff, also Jewish. The film ends just before World War I when Jung and Freud part ways.

The fact that Freud was Jewish makes the relationship between Jung and Freud very interesting. Freud and Jung were integral in the founding of the International Psychoanalytical Association in 1911, but Jung, not Freud, became the first president, and it is said Jung was chosen because the president of the association could not be a Jew. Freud was an Ashkenazi Jew (a Jew descended from Eastern Europe). In those days, it was difficult for Ashkenazi Jews to be researchers through university positions, so Freud earned a living as a common doctor of private practice while working hard on his research.

Ashkenazi refers to Jews that reside in German-speaking areas or Eastern European countries. Sephardim refers to another group of Jews that resides in the Middle East. At first, the Ashkenazi Jews were traveling merchants that linked Islam to Europe. However, since direct trade between Europe and Islam became common practice and the long trip became dangerous for Jews because of Jewish persecution, the Ashkenazi shifted to being settled merchants and moved into the finance business, which was banned for Christians. The merchant in Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice is an Ashkenazi Jew. The Ashkenazi were expelled from Britain in 1290 and from France in 1394, thus immigrating to Eastern Europe. They were persecuted in the Holy Roman Empire, but since the social rights for Jews were guaranteed in the Kingdom of Poland since 1264 with the “Statute of Kalisz,” Poland was an extremely safe country for Jews to live in. The Kingdom of Poland also welcomed Jewish immigrants as skilled workers to enhance their economy. From Poland, Jewish people immigrated east to Ukraine and Russia.

When Adolf Hitler as the leader of the Nazis expelled Ashkenazi scholars from the psychiatric society in 1938, Jung, using his position as the president of this society and as a citizen of a permanently neutral country, planned to secure status for Ashkenazi doctors within Germany by accepting them into an international society. He asked Freud about his plan, but Freud rejected it by saying, “I can’t accept a favor from Jung, who is the enemy of my research.” Freud himself took refuge in London immediately after that, but the Ashkenazi doctors that were unable to take refuge lost work, and most were sent to concentration camps and murdered in gas chambers.

As for Sabina, she married Russian Jewish doctor Pavel Scheftel in 1912, and lived in Berlin. They lived in Switzerland during World War I, but after the Russian Revolution in 1923, she returned to Russia under Soviet Union control and established a kindergarten in Moscow. However, in 1942, her hometown Rostov was invaded and she was murdered by Nazis.

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Movie: Der Baader Meinhof Komplex – The Baader Meinhof Complex (2008)

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1960 through the 1970s was a time of global disturbances—the American-Soviet Cold War, the Vietnam War, the Palestine refugee problem, China’s Cultural Revolution, Algeria’s independence, the South American Dirty War, and the assassinations of President Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr.—but I wonder how many people today remember the terrorism in Europe by the Red Army Faction from Germany. Around 1970, one-third of young Germans in their twenties sympathized with the Red Army Faction, and the uprising of this youth was a great threat to the West Germany government. The youth supporting the Red Army are now in their 60s and 70s. Young Germans who had a strong sense of justice and received a higher education became involved with the left-wing movement during the 1960s, burning with idealism; in the 1970s, the movement split between non-violent and armed resistance. This movie The Baader Meinhof Complex depicts the process of radicals of the Red Army rapidly transforming into a terrorist group. It is not depicted in the movie, but the Berlin Wall collapses in the ‘80s and people eventually became aware that the socialist system was a failure.

Because this movie depicts many young people from the Red Army as well as the authorities that countered them over a 10-year period, violent acts occur one after another in the movie and the depictions of individuals are superficial. Moreover, the movie just depicts the facts with a documentary touch and the most important questions of, “Why did the German youth of the ‘60s join the armed Red Army Faction or support it? Why did the Red Army that had such strong support collapse?” are not depicted. Also, this movie is a little difficult to understand for people who don’t really know German history or don’t remember that extremists exist in developed countries like Germany. This movie assumes that the audience knows history and does not explain the details at all. I investigated some of the background to this movie.

The movie begins with the Shah of Iran visiting West Berlin in 1967. A peaceful protest demonstration led by students and Iranians who had fled because of the Shah’s dictatorship changes into a riot when a police officer shoots and kills a student. Ulrike Meinhof was a famous left-wing journalist, but she was shocked by this case and became more radical in her ideology. Her husband was also an editor at a left-wing magazine, but he opposed violent acts so the two divorced.

Gudrun Ensslin, daughter of a pastor, was a bright honors student. She was working toward her doctorate at one of Germany’s top universities—the Free University of Berlin—and hoped to posthumously publish the manuscripts of her fiancé’s father, a former Nazi. Like her own father who possessed sympathy to social problems as a pastor, she believed in moderate reform through the Congress, but her life changed when she met Andreas Baader. She abandoned her fiancé and their child and eloped with Andreas.

Andreas Baader dropped out of high school and was the kind of man who repeatedly committed every crime. He was a unique individual among the radicals, many of whom had a background of high education, but he was strongly charismatic and he and Gudrun Ensslin led the radicals to terrorism and criminal acts.

Ensslin and Baader were arrested for setting a department store on fire. Meinhof visited the imprisoned Ensslin for the news story and the two immediately had a mutual understanding. Meinhof, Ensslin, and Baader founded the Baader-Meinhof Group, which later developed into the Red Army Faction. After staying and receiving military training at the guerilla training camp of the Palestinian Liberation Organization based in Jordan in those days, they succeeded in acts of terrorism and bank robberies to fund their activity, one after another, and became a great threat to the government of West Germany. The leaders of the Red Army Faction including Meinhof, Ensslin, and Baader were arrested in 1971, but through meetings with their lawyers Klaus Croissant and Siegfried Haag, they trained Red Army soldiers while still imprisoned and brought up the second and third generations of Red Army Faction activists.

The next generations of the Red Army Faction rapidly became more radical, kidnapping and hijacking for the sake of the release of Baader and the others. Famous acts of terrorism included the kidnapping and killing of an Israeli team member from the Olympic Village of the Munich Olympics in 1972, the occupation and blowing up of the German embassy in Sweden in 1975, and the assassination of Siegfried Buback and Jürgen Ponto, the kidnapping and killing of businessman Hanns Martin, and the hijacking of Lufthansa Airlines Flight 181 in 1977. The level of violence of the Red Army reached its peak in the late 1970s; this series of terrorist acts is called the “German Autumn” and the Red Army lost the last of its support from citizens. Albrecht, a member of the Red Army, participated in the terrorist act against Dresdner Bank—the failed kidnapping and subsequent murder of the banks’ President Jürgen Ponto, who was Albrecht’s father’s friend as well as her godfather. “Black September”—a Palestinian armed group that was expelled from Jordan, moved to Lebanon, and became more violent—allied with and fought alongside the Red Army Faction.

arabian_map_smThe leader of the Lufthansa Airlines Flight 181 hijacking, a “Black September” soldier, demanded of the West Germany government that eleven Red Army Faction first generation members be released, as well as $150 million. When Palestinians had become refugees, international opinion—especially Arab countries—became sympathetic to Palestinians and their liberation movement, but these sympathies began to shift following this incident. The Palestinian Liberation Organization already lost support from Jordan and Syria. The hijacked aircraft was passed around to Larnaca (Republic of Cyprus), Bahrain, and Dubai, but after Dubai, no other airport in the Arabian Peninsula provided permission for the plane to land. After having to make an emergency stop in Aden, Yemen when the fuel was all used up, the hijacked plane eventually landed in Mogadishu, Somalia where it is apprehended by the German government. Immediately after this hijacking failure, the first generation Red Army Faction leaders in jail committed suicide.

I think the new postwar generation after World War II was trying to find a much-needed solution to the problems left behind or even created by their parents’ generation in those days, and turned to left-wing ideology to do so. However, the movement that began with idealism was gradually forced to choose between violent or non-violent methods. Resorting to violence may have looked like a quick and easy way to get a solution, but it was not a lasting solution.

The director of this movie was Uli Edel. Ulrike Meinhof was performed by Martina Gedeck who also starred in Mostly Martha (Catherine Zeta-Jones starred in the Hollywood remake No Reservations) and The Lives of Others. The movie was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but the prize that year ended up going to Japan’s Departures.

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Movie: Katyń (2007)

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If I were to be asked right now to choose only one movie among the movies I’ve seen that is the most worthwhile, I would choose the Polish movie Katyń without hesitation. It is quite a high quality movie and this movie offers information that I may never have known if I hadn’t watched it. I am grateful for this movie from the bottom of my heart.

Sandwiched between Russia on the east side and Germany on the west, Poland has tragically been the victim of the two countries’ power struggles throughout history. In September of 1939, Germany invaded Poland, beginning World War II, and, utilizing this chaos, the Soviet Army invaded Poland from the east. While this was going on, the Nazi-Soviet non-aggression treaty was covertly signed and Poland was occupied and divided by Germany and the Soviet Army. Poles being pursued by from the German army from the west and Poles being pursued by the Soviet Army from the east encountered each other near the Bug River in eastern Poland. Those escaping from the Soviet Army told the Poles who escaped from Germany that it was dangerous and to head back west, while those escaping from the German army said the opposite. At that moment, trapped between two armies, each individual had to decide their fate.

The Polish government escaped to London and formed a Polish government-in-exile. Polish soldiers immediately complied with the orders of both armies, honorably and peacefully surrendering to the German and Soviet armies. The German army, in accordance to international law, released their Polish soldiers, but the Soviet Army did not. Katyń depicts the fates that followed the Polish soldiers that surrendered to the Soviet Army.

After the Soviet-German War broke out in 1941, the Polish government-in-exile and the Soviet Union formed a treaty with an anti-German interest, and the Soviet Union was supposed to release all of their Polish prisoners and organize a Polish unit to attack the Nazis. However, more than 90% of the soldiers that were prisoners were unaccounted for; when the Polish government-in-exile in London pursued the Soviet Union to release all of the Polish soldiers, the Soviet Union responded that there was delay due to office work and transportation.

However, the German army violated the non-aggression treaty and invaded Soviet Union territory in April 1943; near the Katyn forest, former Soviet Union territory, they discovered the dead bodies of nearly twenty thousand Polish soldiers. Germany widely broadcasted this crime committed by the Soviet Army in 1940. After Germany was defeated and World War II ended in 1945, Poland was put under Soviet Union control as a satellite country of the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union argued that, in fact, the Katyn forest massacre was an act of the German army and they carried out a grand anti-Nazi campaign; afterwards, it became taboo for Poles under Soviet Union control to mention the truth of the event.

This movie depicts the tragedy of the few families of the Katyn massacre victims that resisted the occupying Soviet Union by trying to reveal the truth of the event—after the Soviet rule started, most Poles obeyed the Soviet Union because of their hatred of Nazi Germany and for the sake of their personal safety.

Director Andrzej Wajda’s father was killed in the Katyn forest massacre. He gained international fame with works such as Kanał, Ashes and Diamonds, and Man of Marble, but because of his anti-Soviet stance, he was oppressed by the government of Poland. For over 50 long years, he had a plan to make a movie of the Katyn forest massacre, but it was impossible before the collapse of the Berlin Wall; he was already 80 years old when he was finally able to make the movie in 2007. I felt through this movie his determination of, “I can’t die until I convey what happened in the Katyn forest.” We must remember the following three points from this movie.

One, the crime. War is an abnormal, extreme situation where people kill each other, but there are universal rules in it. First, civilians must never be killed intentionally. And even soldiers must be treated humanely once they have surrendered. However, under the orders of Stalin, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) in charge of prisoner accommodations interrogated each Polish soldier, and any soldier that was thought to have even a trace of anti-communist belief was killed mercilessly.

Two, the lie. After Germany discovered the dead bodies near the Katyn forest, Geneva’s International Committee of the Red Cross was asked to conduct a neutral investigation, but, faced with resistance from the Soviet Union, the International Committee of the Red Cross abandoned dispatching the commission. On April 24, 1943, the Soviet Union demanded that the Polish government-in-exile, in alliance with the Soviet Union at the time, announce, “The Katyn massacre was a German scheme.” But the Polish government-in-exile refused and, in response, the Soviet Union cut off their alliance with the government-in-exile. Believing that support from the Soviet Union on the side of the Allies was needed to win World War II, direct criticism of the Soviet Union was not permitted. In 1944, American President Franklin Roosevelt appointed Navy Commander George Earle as a secret agent to gather information on the Katyn forest massacre. Earle collected information by contacting Bulgaria and Romania who were sided with the Axis and came to think that the Katyn forest massacre was an act of the Soviet Union, but Roosevelt rejected this conclusion and ordered for Earle’s report to be suppressed. Earle requested permission to release his investigation, but Roosevelt sent him a written order prohibiting him. Earle was dismissed from these duties after that and he was demoted to duties concerning Samoa. Supported by circumstances from ally countries like this, the Soviet Union was allowed to maintain the lie that Nazi Germany was responsible for the massacre for over 50 years.

Finally, I want to emphasize the arrogance of a nation that wins in war.

The crimes of Nazi Germany were judged in the Nuremberg Trials in 1946. The Soviet Union took advantage of the opportunity as a victor to accuse particular Germans as the masterminds of the Katyn forest massacre, but America and the United Kingdom drew the line at this and refused the accusation of the Soviet Union. After that, an argument on the responsibility of this event continued in both the Western Bloc and Eastern Bloc, but nobody in Poland was permitted to investigate the truth out of fear of the Soviet Union which controlled Poland then. This situation of not asking for the truth continued until the communist regime collapsed in Poland in 1989 and the young generation knew nothing of the Katyn forest massacre.

After the Soviet Union became less oppressive in 1989, the human rights of the victims of the Katyn forest massacre were finally recognized. In 1989, scholars in the Soviet Union disclosed that Stalin gave the order for the killings and Beria, the chief of the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs, signed the decree for the Katyn forest massacre. In 1990, Gorbachev admitted the Soviet Union’s People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs involvement in the killing of Polish people including in Mednoe and Pyatikhatki, where burial sites like Katyn were found. After the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1992, the Russian government finally released the official documents on the Katyn forest massacre, publicly revealing for the first time in over 50 years the lie that the Soviet Union had maintained.

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