The Tower (2012 German film)

Last updated
The Tower
Directed by Christian Schwochow
Starring Sebastian Urzendowsky
Jan Josef Liefers
Nadja Uhl
Claudia Michelsen
Country of originGermany
Original languageGerman
Production
Running time180 minutes
Original release
Release3 October 2012 (2012-10-03)

The Tower (German : Der Turm) is a 2012 German TV drama film based on the eponymous 2008 novel by Uwe Tellkamp. It is about life and history in Dresden between 1982 and 1989 in the German Democratic Republic, GDR and its last years before demonstrations, the time of Die Wende (the turning from former socialistic government with Stasi-elements to democracy), the tearing down of the wall and before German reunification. [1] [2]

Contents

Cast

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Stasi</span> East German secret police

The Ministry for State Security, commonly known as the Stasi, an abbreviation of Staatssicherheit, was the state security service of East Germany from 1950 to 1990.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gesine Lötzsch</span> German politician

Gesine Lötzsch is a German politician of the left-wing party Die Linke. In 2010, with Klaus Ernst, she was elected president of the party.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lothar de Maizière</span> German politician

Lothar de Maizière is a German Christian Democratic politician. In 1990, he served as the head of the first and only democratically elected government of East Germany, holding this office during the final months before German reunification. Subsequently he briefly served as a minister in the new government of the unified Federal Republic of Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">W. G. Sebald</span> German writer and academic (1944–2001)

Winfried Georg Sebald, known as W. G. Sebald or Max Sebald, was a German writer and academic. At the time of his death at the age of 57, he was according to The New Yorker ”widely recognized for his extraordinary contribution to world literature.”

The Heinrich Mann Prize is an essay prize that has been awarded since 1953, first by the East German Academy of Arts, then by the Academy of Arts, Berlin. The prize, which comes with a €10,000 purse, is given annually on 27 March, Heinrich Mann's day of birth. The laureate is selected by an independent three-member jury which usually includes the previous year's laureate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fischerinsel</span>

Fischerinsel is the southern part of the island in the River Spree which was formerly the location of the city of Cölln and is now part of central Berlin. The northern part of the island is known as Museum Island. Fischerinsel is normally said to extend south from Gertraudenstraße and is named for a fishermen's settlement which formerly occupied the southern end of the island. Until the mid-twentieth-century it was a well preserved pre-industrial neighbourhood, and most of the buildings survived World War II, but in the 1960s and 1970s under the German Democratic Republic it was levelled and replaced with a development of residential tower blocks.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christian Berkel</span> German actor (born 1957)

Christian Berkel is a German actor. He is known for his appearances in Downfall (2004), Valkyrie (2008), Inglourious Basterds (2009) and The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Uwe Tellkamp</span> German writer and physician (born 1968)

Uwe Tellkamp is a German writer and physician. He practised medicine until 2004. Before the fall of communism, he was enlisted in the National People's Army as a tank commander and imprisoned when he refused to break up a demonstration in October 1989. Until the fall of the German Democratic Republic shortly after, he was prohibited from studying medicine.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Karl-Heinz Kurras</span> German police officer (1927–2014)

Karl-Heinz Kurras was a West German police inspector, known primarily for fatally shooting unarmed student Benno Ohnesorg in the back of the head during a demonstration on 2 June 1967, outside Deutsche Oper against the state visit of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran. Kurras was acquitted of any wrongdoing in a series of controversial trials, due to which he became a prominent hate figure of the left-wing German student movement of the 1960s as well as the German New Left. They suspected that Kurras was under protection from many right-wing figures in the West German police and justice system and who were resentful towards the left-wing students. The incident is considered pivotal for the rise of left-wing terrorism in West Germany during the 1970s, culminating with the Movement 2 June and the Red Army Faction.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Zion's Church, Worpswede</span> Church in Worpswede, Germany

Zion's Church is a Lutheran parish church in Worpswede, Lower Saxony, Germany. The church is used and owned by the Lutheran Congregation of Worpswede within the Evangelical Lutheran State Church of Hanover. It was completed in 1759 and forms a landmark located on top of the Weyerberg hill.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joachim Gauck</span> President of Germany from 2012 to 2017

Joachim Wilhelm Gauck is a German politician who served as President of Germany from 2012 to 2017. A former Lutheran pastor, he came to prominence as an anti-communist civil rights activist in East Germany.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Altes Stadthaus, Berlin</span> German administration building

Altes Stadthaus is a former administrative building in Berlin, Germany, currently used by the Senate. It faces the Molkenmarkt and is bound by four roads; Jüdenstraße, Klosterstraße, Parochialstraße, and Stralauer Straße. Designed by Ludwig Hoffmann, chief of construction for the city, it was built in 1902–11 at a cost of 7 million marks (US$1,750,000) to supplement the Rotes Rathaus.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Peter-Michael Diestel</span> German politician and lawyer

Peter-Michael Diestel is a German lawyer and former politician. He was the last Interior Minister of East Germany, under Prime Minister Lothar de Maizière (1990). As such, he represented the DDR in the negotiations on the unification treaty. He was then a member of the Brandenburg state parliament until 1994.

Uwe Behrendt was a German far-right extremist. In 1976 he became de facto deputy leader of the ”Wehrsportgruppe Hoffmann” (WSG-Hoffmann), a network of between 400 and 600 politically like-minded activists and terrorists which concealed its underlying mission, rather unconvincingly, by presenting itself as a paramilitary sports club. Behrendt was widely considered as the group member closest in terms of (informal) seniority and personal support to the leader, Karl-Heinz Hoffmann. He came to wider attention because of a notorious double murder and questions posed by the subsequent handling of it when, on 19 December 1980, believed to have been motivated by antisemitic race-based hatred, Behrendt murdered a rabbi-publisher called Shlomo Lewin and Lewin's life-partner, Frida Poeschke in Erlangen. From the perspective of the German legal system, no one was ever convicted in connection with the murder. Behrendt was able to escape to Lebanon where, following further controversy involving allegations of torture and more killing, he is believed to have committed suicide in 1981.

References

  1. Cammann, Alexander (27 September 2012). "Und nun alle: "Sozialismus"". Die Zeit (in German). Retrieved 2016-03-16.
  2. Holden, Stephen (6 November 2014). "Behind Closed Doors in Both Berlins". The New York Times.