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DEFA
DEFA (''Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft'') was the state-owned film studio of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) throughout the country's existence. Since 2019, DEFA's film heritage has been made accessible and licensable on the PROGRESS archive platform. The DEFA Foundation is a non-profit organisation that was established in order to preserve the films in the DEFA library as well as the film studios, and make them accessible to the public. History DEFA was founded in Spring 1946 in the Soviet Occupied Zone in eastern Germany; it was the first film production company in post-World War II Germany. While the other Allies, in their zones of occupation, viewed a rapid revival of a German film industry with suspicion, the Soviets valued the medium as a primary means of re-educating the German populace as it emerged from twelve years of Nazi rule. Headquartered in Berlin, the company was formally authorized by the Soviet Military Administration to produce films on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Hans Klering
Hans Karl Klering (8 November 1906 – 30 October 1988) was a German actor, director, voice actor, graphic designer and author. He joined the Communist Party and went into exile in the Soviet Union in 1931, returning to Germany in 1945. In 1946, he became a co-founder of DEFA, the East German state-owned film studio, as well as one of its directors and board members. Biographical details Hans Klering was married to Else Korén and Antonia Nizkowskaja. Born in Berlin, he apprenticed himself from 1921 to 1924. However, he became unemployed at the end. Later, he worked on the docks as a sign painter. In 1926, he joined the Communist Party of Germany. He was a member of several agitprop theater groups in Cologne and Berlin, including the ''Rote Raketen'' (Red Rocket), ''Blaue Blusen'' (Blue Blouse), and the Left Column. As the political situation in Germany worsened, Klering fled to Moscow in 1931, where he continued to work with the Left Column. He was later arrested as part of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Walter Janka
Walter Janka (29 April 1914 – 17 March 1994) was a German communist, political activist and writer who became a publisher. Janka is notable for having spent time incarcerated as a political prisoner under the rule of the Nazis and later imprisoned under suspicion of counter-revolutionary activities by the Supreme Court of East Germany, in both cases serving most of his sentence at Bautzen prison. Biography Early years Walter Janka was one of six children born to a tool and die maker called Adalbert Janka. He attended junior school from 1920 till 1928. Between 1928 and 1932 he undertook a type setting apprenticeship. In 1930 Walter Janka became an Organisation Leader, and then a Political leader of the Young Communists (KJVD / ''Kommunistischer Jugendverband Deutschlands'') for the Chemnitz sub-region. After his elder brother, Albert, had been murdered by the Nazis, Walter himself was imprisoned by the Gestapo. He was remanded to custody in Chemnitz and in Freiberg before be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Murderers Among Us
''Die Mörder sind unter uns'', a German film known in English as ''Murderers Among Us'' in the United States or ''The Murderers Are Among Us'' in the United Kingdom was one of the first post-World War II German films and the first '' Trümmerfilm''. It was produced in 1945/46 in the Althoff Studios in Babelsberg and the Jofa-Ateliers in Johannisthal. The film was written and directed by Wolfgang Staudte. Plot In Berlin in 1945, after Germany's defeat in the war, former military surgeon Dr. Hans Mertens ( Ernst Wilhelm Borchert) stumbles down the street, drunk. He suffers from flashbacks of the war and has an aversion to people in pain, which prevents him from practicing medicine. Instead, he spends his days drinking. An artist and Nazi concentration camp survivor, Susanne Wallner (Hildegard Knef), finds him living in her apartment as she returns home. They reluctantly live together at first, then become friends. Susanne finds a letter to a Mrs. Brückner in the apartment and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babelsberg Studio
Babelsberg Film Studio () (also known as Studio Babelsberg), located in Potsdam-Babelsberg outside Berlin, Germany, is the oldest large-scale film studio in the world, producing films since 1912. With a total area of about and a studio area of about it is one of Europe's large film studios. Hundreds of films, including Fritz Lang's ''Metropolis'' and Josef von Sternberg's '' The Blue Angel'' were filmed there. More recent productions include ''V for Vendetta'', '' Captain America: Civil War'', '' Æon Flux'', '' The Bourne Ultimatum'', ''Valkyrie'', '' Inglourious Basterds'', '' Cloud Atlas'', '' The Grand Budapest Hotel'', ''The Hunger Games'', '' Isle of Dogs'' and '' The Matrix Resurrections''. Today, Studio Babelsberg remains operational mainly for feature film productions. It also acts as producer on German productions and co-producer on international high-budget productions. Since January 2022 it has been owned by TPG Real Estate Partners (TREP) and Filmbetriebe Berlin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ufa Film Company
UFA GmbH, shortened to UFA (), is a film and television production company that unites all production activities of the media conglomerate Bertelsmann in Germany. The original UFA was established as on December 18, 1917, as a direct response to foreign competition in film and propaganda. UFA was founded by a consortium headed by Emil Georg von Stauß, a former Deutsche Bank board member. In March 1927, Alfred Hugenberg, an influential German media entrepreneur and later minister of the economy and minister of agriculture and nutrition in Adolf Hitler's cabinet, purchased UFA and transferred ownership of it to the Nazi Party in 1933. In 1942, as a result of the Nazi policy of "forcible coordination" known as the Gleichschaltung, UFA and all of its competitors, including Tobis, Terra, Bavaria Film and Wien-Film, were bundled together with Nazi-controlled foreign film production companies to form the super-corporation UFA-Film GmbH (Ufi), with headquarters in Berlin. After the Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wolfgang Staudte
Wolfgang Staudte (9 October 1906 – 19 January 1984), born Georg Friedrich Staudte, was a German film director, script writer and actor. He was born in Saarbrücken. After 1945, Staudte also looked at German guilt in the cinema. Alongside Helmut Käutner, he was considered the only German post-war director of any standing who, after 1945, could look back on continuous artistic filmmaking far removed from Heimatfilm and the suppression of history. Staudte's films stood for politically committed cinema as well as for professional craftsmanship, for film art and (good) entertainment with a social claim. His most important work came in the ten years following World War II, in which he worked with the DEFA in East Germany. The main focus of his work was to highlight the limits of German national pride. His work in anti-Nazi films, such as '' Murderers Among Us'' (1946), was also a personal working-through of his film career under the Nazis (he acted in the anti-Semitic film ' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Althoff Studios
The Althoff Studios () were film studios located in Potsdam outside the German capital Berlin. The studios were constructed in 1939 by the film producer Gustav Althoff who controlled the independent company Aco-Film. The original building was a former restaurant, but Althoff soon expanded the site by adding a larger sound stage. The studios were located close to the film city of Babelsberg which was the centre of production during the Nazi era, used by large German companies such as UFA and Terra. The Althoff Studios catered instead to smaller, independent films such as those made under the Berlin Film banner. The studios were captured by the Red Army during the Battle of Berlin and were then used for dubbing Soviet films for release in Germany. After the Second World War they were located in the Soviet Sector and were used by Communist-backed DEFA film concern which would become the state-owned monopoly of East Germany. DEFA was officially launched in a ceremony at the studi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
German Democratic Republic
East Germany, officially known as the German Democratic Republic (GDR), was a country in Central Europe from Foundation of East Germany, its formation on 7 October 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with West Germany (FRG) on 3 October 1990. Until 1989, it was generally viewed as a communist state and described itself as a Socialist state, socialist "workers' and peasants' state". The Economy of East Germany, economy of the country was Central planning, centrally planned and government-owned corporation, state-owned. Although the GDR had to pay substantial war reparations to the Soviets, its economy became the most successful in the Eastern Bloc. Before its establishment, the country's territory was administered and occupied by Soviet forces following the Berlin Declaration (1945), Berlin Declaration abolishing German sovereignty in World War II. The Potsdam Agreement established the Soviet occupation zone in Germany, Soviet-occupied zone, bounded on the east b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Grete Keilson
Margarete "Grete" Fuchs-Keilson (21 December 1905 – 4 January 1999) was a German politician and official in the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and the Socialist Unity Party of Germany (SED). Biography Margarete Schnate was born in Berlin on 21 December 1905, the daughter of a labourer. She attended ''Volksschule'' (elementary school) and ''Handelsschule'' (trade school) there. She joined the Young Communist League of Germany (KJD) in 1922, and the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) in 1925. She went to work as an assistant to Ernst Thälmann, the General Secretary of the KPD. In 1927 she married the graphic artist and journalist Max Keilson, who accompanied her as part of the 1928 delegation of the Central Committee of the Communist Party to the 6th World Congress of the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow in 1928. The following year she became assistant to Georgi Dimitrov, the manager of Western European offices of Comintern, who was living in Berlin under the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Socialist Unity Party Of Germany
The Socialist Unity Party of Germany (, ; SED, ) was the founding and ruling party of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from the country's foundation in 1949 until its dissolution after the Peaceful Revolution in 1989. It was a Marxism–Leninism, Marxist–Leninist communist party, established in 1946 as a Merger of the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democratic Party of Germany, merger of the East German branches of the Communist Party of Germany and Social Democratic Party of Germany. The German Democratic Republic (GDR) was effectively a one-party state. Other institutional Popular front, popular front parties were permitted to exist in alliance with the SED; these parties included the Christian Democratic Union (East Germany), Christian Democratic Union, the Liberal Democratic Party of Germany, Liberal Democratic Party, the Democratic Farmers' Party of Germany, Democratic Farmers' Party, and the National Democratic Party of Germany (East Germany), Nat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Babelsberg
Babelsberg () is the largest quarter of Potsdam, the capital city of the German state of Brandenburg. The neighbourhood is named after a small hill on the Havel river. It is the location of Babelsberg Palace and Park, part of the Palaces and Parks of Potsdam and Berlin UNESCO World Heritage Site, as well as Babelsberg Studio, a historical centre of the German film industry and the first large-scale movie studio in the world. History A settlement on the small Nuthe creek was first mentioned in the 1375 ''Landbuch'' (domesday book) by Emperor Charles IV of Luxembourg, who also ruled as Margrave of Brandenburg since 1373. Then called ''Neuendorf'' (New Village) after its former West Slavic name ''Nova Ves'', it was shelled several times and was severely damaged during the Thirty Years' War. In the mid-18th century the new village of Nowawes was founded by King Frederick II of Prussia and settled with Protestant Bohemian deportees, predominantly weavers who as descendants of th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
