Der Stern von Afrika was premièred on 13 August 1957 in Berlin and was popular at the German box office. The film was criticised for hewing closely to wartime propaganda in its portrayal of the German war effort and for avoiding an honest confrontation with the past.
Plot
The film begins shortly before the outbreak of World War II with Jochen Marseille (Joachim Hansen) attending a Luftwaffe school in Berlin. His squadron is transferred to the Afrika Korps in North Africa. Marseille quickly becomes the most successful fighter pilot.
His unit loses more and more pilots to the Desert Air Force, and Marseille begins to doubt the usefulness of his operations. He travels to Berlin to receive a high military decoration where he falls in love with a teacher, Brigitte (Marianne Koch).
The couple go to Rome where Marseille is to receive a decoration. The distraught Brigitte tries to persuade him to defect, but he returns to North Africa. During a flight over Egypt, his aircraft suffers an engine failure and crashes. Marseille attempts to take to his parachute, but his body is later found in the desert. Brigitte receives the news of his death.
Writer Herbert Reinecker and director Alfred Weidenmann had started a productive streak of collaborations in 1941, when Reinecker had published a historical novel in a series of children's books edited by Weidenmann.[1] Weidenmann had directed his first feature film for the Reichspropagandaleitung of the NSDAP[de], Hauptamt Film in 1942.[2]
As specialists for propaganda specifically targeting the German youth the two teamed up as writer and director in 1944 to make Junge Adler (Young Eagles), one of the most successful and renowned Nazi propaganda movies.[3] After the war Weidenmann helped Reinecker to reenter the film business.[4] During the 1950s they did several movies of various genres together, among them documentaries, comedies and crime films, but also the spy movie Canaris (1954).[5]
Reinecker based his script of Der Stern von Afrika upon a "factual report" by journalist Udo Wolter in the magazine Revue.[6]
Several actors, who would later become well known stars of German cinema and television such as Hansjörg Felmy and Horst Frank, made their screen debut with Der Stern von Afrika. The Cuban Roberto Zerquera, who was cast by Weidenmann on the spot when they accidentally met on an aircraft, would later make a decades-long career in Germany as a singer under the stage name Roberto Blanco.[7]
The movie was edited by Carl Otto Bartning, who had worked on the Nazi aviation propaganda movies Feuertaufe and Kampfgeschwader Lützow with director Hans Bertram. In 1941, Bartning had also collaborated with effects cameraman Karl Ludwig Ruppel to make the semidocumentary Front am Himmel (Front in the Sky). Ruppel worked on Der Stern von Afrika. Here he used British traveling matte techniques to incorporate model airplanes.[8] Mechanical effects and explosives were designed by Erwin Lange, who had also worked on Pour le Mérite (1938), Stukas (1941), Quax the Crash Pilot (1941) and Kolberg (1943-44) and would continue to be involved in war movies like Paths of Glory (1957), Stalingrad: Dogs, Do You Want to Live Forever? (1958), Die Brücke (1959) as well as The Vikings (1957) and Cleopatra (1960-1962).[9]Eduard Neumann, the former Geschwaderkommodore (wing commander) of Jagdgeschwader 27 (27th fighter wing) and Marseille's commanding officer, served as a technical advisor on the film.[10]
Der Stern von Afrika was produced by Neue Münchner Lichtspielkunst GmbH - Neue Emelka. To finance the picture, Neue Emelka applied to Berliner Revisions- und Treuhand Aktiengesellschaft through which the Federal Republic of Germany granted loans for movie projects. In their submission to Treuhand, Neue Emelka touted their project as a kind of counterweight to Des Teufels General. Their film, they claimed, would be indispensable to foster military preparedness in West Germany's war-weary population.
The application was turned down, however, because the German Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence found fault with the script. The producers managed to raise the production cost of DM 1,3 million by themselves, not at least because they received support from Francoist Spain. The Spanish Air Force provided aircraft, pilots, personnel and any military material needed.[11]
Release
A first version of Der Stern von Afrika was screened to representatives of the German Ministries of Defence and the Interior on 20 February 1957. The Ministry of Defence asked for several cuts, because it feared the film might be seen as romanticizing wartime events and could provoke the impression that it followed Nazi German propaganda suggesting the invasion of Poland was somehow provoked by Polish attacks.
The ministry further asked that any reference to Hitler would be left out and that the film would not end with a scene in which Marseille's fiancé receives the message of his death while teaching a school class.[12] It was perceived that this would lead the audience to conclude that the children of the 1940s were to become soldiers again in the present. In general, however, both ministries now supported the film, which they considered to be an authentic portrayal of the spirit of German fighter pilots in 1942. They saw and acknowledged in it a general tendency to depict the hardships and problems of the war, while positively honoring the human value of soldierly achievements and comradeship.[13]
With that endorsement, Emelka applied for a final grant from Treuhand. It was once again turned down, most likely because Treuhand feared that the film would be banned out of political concerns.[14] In fact, in May 1957 the Freiwillige Selbstkontrolle der Filmwirtschaft (FSK) initially did not approve the film, because it perceived "national socialist tendencies" and, in particular, because it thought that the historical situation was inappropriately distorted. It is neither clear, how the FSK came to that conclusion, nor what made it change its mind, but the film was approved soon after.[15]
In June 1957, the Press and Information Agency of the Federal Government (Bundespresseamt) provided for the last DM 300,000 needed for post-production, but ensured that it would not be publicly involved by channeling the money through a private bank and another company.[16]
The film distributor advertised Der Stern von Afrika by claiming that "it was about time that a German production showed how splendid the German fighter pilots actually were, the more so, as we can present the absolute world record holder in this field, the Captain Hans-Joachim Marseille".[17] The movie premiered on 13 August 1957 in Hannover with Marseille's mother attending.[18]
Reception
Der Stern von Afrika was a box office success.[18] Newspapers reported that the audiences were "most pleasantly shaken", while younger viewers were enthused.[19]
Der Stern von Afrika was criticised by reviewers, however, who had hoped for a critical confrontation with the past. Critics pointed to the past collaborations of director Alfred Weidenmann and writer Herbert Reinecker and noted the similarities between Stern von Afrika and Young Eagles (Junge Adler).[20] They spoke of the "teutonic glorification" in the film, likened it to the propaganda style under Goebbels and speculated that the Der Stern von Afrika would not have looked much different if the Nazis had won the war.[21]
The Süddeutsche Zeitung commented that "now they're flying again, and they're falling again, they do it most discreetly and no blood flows".[21] In the Berlin Tagesspiegel Karena Niehoff concluded, that the movie might not endorse the Nazis on war, but that it did not explicitly oppose neither.[21] Weidenmann himself claimed in an interview that he was attempting an act of "spiritual cleansing", because "in history there are no completely new beginnings, only continuations."[21] The Frankfurter Rundschau commented: "One leaves the movie theatre thinking, that it has been Marseille today, in two years it could be - if one is simply continuing - Sepp Dietrich."[22]
Critics unanimously agreed that Weidenmann's portrayal of history in Der Stern von Afrika evoked dangerous continuities and was designed to clean up the past from National Socialism.[23] The FSK was criticized for not restricting the movie to audiences under 18.[22]
Related Research Articles
Hans Fischerkoesen, also known as Hans Fischerkösen or Hans Fischer was a German commercial animator. Fischerkoesen is considered an animation pioneer, due to the inventions and innovations he applied to animation technology, especially the use of three-dimensional elements in his animations. Later he becomes Germany's most influential cartoonist, often nicknamed “Germany’s Walt Disney” alongside Rolf Kauka. He won both first and second prizes at a Dutch-sponsored international competition in 1937, for advertising films. By 1956 he had won major prizes at commercial film festivals in Rome, Milan, Venice, Monte Carlo and Cannes. Most notable was the participation in the 1st Berlin International Film Festival, where Fischerkoesen's film Blick ins Paradies won the Bronze Medal award.
Herbert Reinecker was a German novelist, dramatist and screenwriter.
Hans-Joachim Marseille was a German Luftwaffe fighter pilot and flying ace during World War II. He is noted for his aerial battles during the North African Campaign and his Bohemian lifestyle. One of the most successful fighter pilots, he was nicknamed the "Star of Africa". Marseille claimed all but seven of his 158 victories against the British Commonwealth's Desert Air Force over North Africa, flying the Messerschmitt Bf 109 fighter for his entire combat career. No other pilot claimed as many Western Allied aircraft as Marseille.
Joachim Hansen was a German actor. He was best known for film roles in the 1960s and 1970s in which he often portrayed Nazi officers and World War II German officials.
Heinrich Wilhelm "Heinz" Rühmann was a German film actor who appeared in over 100 films between 1926 and 1993. He is one of the most famous and popular German actors of the 20th century, and is considered a German film legend. Rühmann is best known for playing the part of a comic ordinary citizen in film comedies such as Three from the Filling Station and The Punch Bowl. During his later years, he was also a respected character actor in films such as The Captain from Köpenick and It Happened in Broad Daylight. His only English-speaking movie was the 1965 Ship of Fools.
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.
Eduard "Edu" Neumann was a Luftwaffe officer and commanded the Jagdgeschwader 27 'Afrika' during the North African Campaign from 1941 to 1943.
Alfred Weidenmann was a German film director, screenwriter, and author of children's books. He directed more than 30 films between 1942 and 1984.
Hans-Joachim von Merkatz was a German politician. He was Federal Minister of Justice from 1956 to 1957. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1949 to 1961. He was a member of the German Party before joining the Christian Democrats in 1960.
Helmut Ashley or Helmuth Ashley was an Austrian cinematographer, television and film director.
Stukas is a 1941 Nazi propaganda film, directed by Karl Ritter and starring Carl Raddatz, which follows three squadrons of Luftwaffe dive-bomber (Stuka) flyers.
Karl Ritter was a German film producer and director responsible for many Nazi propaganda films. He had previously been one of the first German military pilots. He spent most of his later life in Argentina.
Target in the Clouds is a 1939 German drama film directed by Wolfgang Liebeneiner and starring Albert Matterstock, Leny Marenbach and Brigitte Horney. It was based on a novel by Hans Rabl. The film portrays the struggles of the fictional German aviation pioneer Walter von Suhr, an officer in the pre-First World War German army who saw the potential for military aircraft.
Star of Africa or Cullinan Diamond is the largest gem-quality rough diamond ever found.
Linen from Ireland is a 1939 German drama film directed by Heinz Helbig and starring Otto Treßler, Irene von Meyendorff, and Friedl Haerlin. It was part of an ongoing campaign of anti-Semitism in German cinema of the era, and was also intended to discredit the governance of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. By the time of the film's release in October 1939, Britain and Germany were at war, so it was also useful in creating anti-British sentiment.
Franz Kurowski was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, revisionist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.
Carla Bartheel was a German film actress and photographer.
Erik von Loewis (1904–1986) was a German stage actor and director. He also acted in film and television. Born in Estonia, he was of Baltic German heritage.
Hans-Joachim Büttner (1900–1973) was a German stage and film actor. After the Second World War he appeared in East German films.
Heroism after Hours is a 1955 West German anthology comedy film directed by Wolfgang Becker, Erik Ode, Wolfgang Schleif and Fritz Stapenhorst and featuring an ensemble cast. It is in four parts, each portraying a different tale of German soldiers attempting to get home at the end of the Second World War. It was shot at the Wandsbek Studios in Hamburg and on location around West Berlin, Bavaria and the Rhineland. The film's sets were designed by the art directors Wilhelm Vorwerg and Hans Berthel. The production company made a documentary the same year that also celebrated the ordinary German soldier.
↑ Marianne Koch (actor), Joachim Hansen (actor), Alfred Weidenmann (director) (13 August 1957). Der Stern von Afrika (DVD) (in German). Event occurs at 1 minute. ASINB00005NOWN. Retrieved 5 October 2011.
Giesen, Rolf; Hobsch, Manfred (2005). Hitlerjunge Quex, Jud Süss und Kolberg: Die Propagandafilme des Dritten Reiches. Dokumente und Materialien zum NS-Film (in German). Berlin: Schwarzkopf & Schwarzkopf. ISBN3-89602-471-X.
Limburg, Guido (1992). "Fliegen und Abschießen – Ja, was soll ich da anderes denken? Der Stern von Afrika und der bundesdeutsche Nachkriegs-Kriegsfilm". In Hans-Arthur Marsiske (ed.). Zeitmaschine Kino: Darstellungen von Geschichte im Film (in German). Marburg: Hitzeroth. pp.117–125. ISBN978-3-89398-111-3.
Moeller, Robert G. (2006). "Victims in Uniform: West German Combat Movies from the 1950s". In Bill Niven (ed.). Germans as victims: Remembering the past in contemporary Germany. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp.43–61. ISBN978-1-4039-9043-3.
Tate, Robert (2008). Hans-Joachim Marseille: An Illustrated Tribute to the Luftwaffe's "Star of Africa" . Atglen, PA: Schiffer Publishing. ISBN978-0-7643-2940-1.
Wübbe, Walter (2001). Hauptmann Hans Joachim Marseille Ein Jagdfliegerschicksal in Daten, Bildern und Dokumenten (in German). Schnellbach, Germany: Verlag Siegfried Bublies. ISBN3-926584-78-5.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
