{"id":16078,"date":"2021-05-17T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-05-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/berghahnbooks.com\/blog\/?p=16078"},"modified":"2025-04-08T10:39:00","modified_gmt":"2025-04-08T10:39:00","slug":"the-75th-anniversary-of-the-founding-of-the-east-german-film-studio-defa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.berghahnbooks.com\/blog\/the-75th-anniversary-of-the-founding-of-the-east-german-film-studio-defa","title":{"rendered":"The 75th anniversary of the founding of the East German film studio DEFA"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Elizabeth Ward<\/em><\/h3>\n\n\n\n
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On 17 May 1946, the Deutsche\nFilm-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) was officially founded. Over the course of the\nfollowing four decades, the studio produced nearly 700 feature films, as well\nas hundred of animation and documentary films. By the time it was finally\nprivatised and sold following German reunification, DEFA was one of Europe\u2019s largest\nfilm studios. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Founded in 1946 and privatised and sold in\n1992, DEFA both preceded the founding of the GDR and outlived it. For decades,\nEast German film was overwhelmingly seen through the lens of state politics. As\na state-owned studio, DEFA\u2019s output was certainly impacted by domestic\npolitics, above all as the result of \nso-called cultural \u2018freezes\u2019 and \u2018thaws\u2019 \u2013 periods of cultural orthodoxy\nand periods of relative liberalization \u2013 according to which the parameters of\nrepresentation might shift. But to view DEFA films as a straightforward\nreflection of, or direct insight into, East German politics is to misunderstand\nthe complexities not only of East German filmmaking practices, but also the\nvariety and richness of DEFA\u2019s output. As the director and cinematographer Roland Gr\u00e4f later observed, \u2018Art in the GDR always developed\nfrom friction, never pure affirmation.’ <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Entrance of the DEFA Studio (Google Arts and Culture<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

By the same token, we need to be wary of\nusing \u2018controversial\u2019 and \u2018subversive\u2019 as synonyms. There were certainly\nhigh-profile examples of films that were removed from cinemas and films that\nresulted in the direct intervention of the state. Perhaps the most well-known\nexample of this is the infamous Eleventh Plenum Central Committee of the\nSocialist Unity Party of Germany in 1965. The plenum was originally intended as\na celebration of East German economic policy, but filmmakers unexpectedly found\nthemselves under direct criticism following attempts by the party leadership to\ndivert attention away from the failure to bring about economic reform. Erich\nHonecker spearheaded the attack against filmmakers, accusing them of \u2018sparking\ndoubts about the policies of the GDR\u2019 by promoting certain views and\n\u2018tendencies\u2019 that were \u2018alien\u2019 and \u2018damaging to socialism\u2019, of showing the\nrelationship between the individual and party leaders as \u2018cold and detached\u2019\nand of propagating \u2018nihilistic, despondent, and morally subversive\nphilosophies\u2019. The result was the cancellation of nearly the entire year\u2019s\nproduction output and the curtailment of several directors\u2019 and film officials\u2019\ncareers. Yet such overt instances of censorship were very much the exception in\nthe GDR. Of course, we should not underestimate the role played by\n\u2018self-censorship\u2019: filmmakers understood what types of material would \u2013 and\nwould not \u2013 receive approval. However, even when films did prove to be\ncontroversial, filmmakers were often seeking to make films that provoked\ndiscussion, rather than necessarily seeking to subvert the core principles of\nthe GDR. Understanding the context in which DEFA productions were produced may\nserve as the starting point for our engagement with the films, but it should\nnever mark its end point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DEFA\u2019s feature film studios were located in Babelsberg, an area rich in film history. Formerly the 1920s and 1930s site of the UFA studios and today the location of the famous Babelsberg Film Studio, Babelsberg has always been associated with both German cinema and international filmmaking excellence. One of the most important developments in German film scholarship in recent years has been the confident reassertion of DEFA\u2019s position within the nation\u2019s film heritage. Over the past fifteen years, scholarly interest in DEFA films both within and outside Germany has increased markedly. Whether studies of genre films, co-productions, the studio\u2019s history, key filmmakers or specific themes and subject areas, film scholars and historians have revealed the extent to which DEFA films were marked by aesthetic innovation, challenging treatments of subject material and networks of international circulation and collaboration. The growth in scholarly interest in DEFA films has been accompanied by the growing availability of both well-known and often forgotten productions, whether on DVD, through online streaming services or via the DEFA Stiftung\u2019s YouTube channel.  As we mark what would have been DEFA\u2019s 75th<\/sup> anniversary, we can point to the rich scope of the studio\u2019s output. Without doubt, some of the studio\u2019s films do leave a problematic legacy, above all its explicitly political films. But to reduce DEFA films to little more than cinematic realisations of official political narratives is to simplify the complicated and often contradictory processes that shaped film production in the GDR, as well as to overlook the genuinely innovative images and storylines present in many productions. The DEFA film studio may be a closed chapter in German film production, but the legacy of its output continues to invite new viewings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Elizabeth Ward<\/strong> is a Lecturer in German Studies and specializes in German film. She is a steering committee member of the German Screen Studies Network and has published on East German cinema, contemporary Holocaust film and twenty-first century German cinema. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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EAST GERMAN FILM AND THE HOLOCAUST<\/a>
Elizabeth Ward<\/em>

East Germany\u2019s ruling party never officially acknowledged responsibility for the crimes committed in Germany\u2019s name during the Third Reich. Instead, it cast communists as both victims of and victors over National Socialist oppression while marginalizing discussions of Jewish suffering. Yet for the 1977 Academy Awards, the Ministry of Culture submitted Jakob der L\u00fcgner<\/em> \u2013 a film focused exclusively on Jewish victimhood that would become the only East German film to ever be officially nominated. By combining close analyses of key films with extensive archival research, this book explores how GDR filmmakers depicted Jews and the Holocaust in a country where memories of Nazi persecution were highly prescribed, tightly controlled and invariably political.

Purchase the eBook<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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