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“Das ist die Mauer, die quer durchgeht. Dahinter liegt die Stadt und das Glück: DEFA Directors and their Criticism of the Berlin Wall”

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  • This article examines the strategies used by directors of the East German film monopoly Deutsche Film-Aktiengesellschaft (DEFA) to voice their disapproval of the Berlin Wall.1 My aim is to show how it was possible, despite universal censorship in East Germany, to create films that addressed the wall as an inhumane means to imprison the East German people. Although many DEFA films adhered to socialist law and reiterated the official doctrine of the «antifascist protection rampart» on the silver screen, an analysis of three DEFA films will demonstrate how the representation of human crisis was used as a means to criticize the wall.2 The films Das Kleid (Konrad Petzold, 1961), Der geteilte Himmel (Konrad Wolf, 1964), and Die Architekten (Peter Kahane, 1990) address walls in a variety of functions and appearances as representations, symbols, and metaphors of the barrier between East and West Germany.
  • Keywords: Cinema, Berlin Wall, Director, DEFA, East Germany
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  • “Das ist die Mauer, die quer durchgeht. Dahinter liegt die Stadt und das Glück: DEFA Directors and their Criticism of the Berlin Wall,” Colloquia Germanica, 40.1 (2007), 37–50.
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  • 40
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  • 1
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