''The Sailor's Song'' () is an East German black-and-white film directed by

Kurt Maetzig Kurt Maetzig (25 January 1911 – 8 August 2012) was a German film director who had a significant effect on the film industry in East Germany. He was one of the most respected filmmakers of the GDR. After his retirement he lived in Wildkuh ...

and

Günter Reisch Günter Reisch (24 November 1927 – 24 February 2014) was a German film director and screenwriter. He served in the German Army during the last stage of World War II. On 20 April 1944 he became a member of the Nazi Party. After his release from a ...

. It was released in 1958.

Plot

As the news of the

October Revolution The October Revolution, also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution (in Historiography in the Soviet Union, Soviet historiography), October coup, Bolshevik coup, or Bolshevik revolution, was the second of Russian Revolution, two r ...

sweep through the world, the German

High Seas Fleet The High Seas Fleet () was the battle fleet of the German Empire, German Imperial German Navy, Imperial Navy and saw action during the First World War. In February 1907, the Home Fleet () was renamed the High Seas Fleet. Admiral Alfred von Tirpi ...

's command, wary of a mutiny, decides to send all its ships to a suicide mission in the English Channel. Sailors Albin Köbis and Max Reichpietsch are sentenced to death for political activity. When the socialist sailor Steigert, a member of the firing detail, cannot bring himself to shoot them, he is arrested. On the cruiser ''Prince Heinrich'', Steigert's friends Lenz, Lobke, Kasten and Bartuschek receive

Vladimir Lenin Vladimir Ilyich Ulyanov ( 187021 January 1924), better known as Vladimir Lenin, was a Russian revolutionary, politician and political theorist. He was the first head of government of Soviet Russia from 1917 until Death and state funeral of ...

's transmit to all of mankind calling for peace. Slowly, the sailors in Kiel — all members of different socialist parties: the

Social Democrats Social democracy is a social, economic, and political philosophy within socialism that supports political and economic democracy and a gradualist, reformist, and democratic approach toward achieving social equality. In modern practice, s ...

, the Independent Socialists and the

Spartakists The Spartacus League () was a Marxist revolutionary movement organized in Germany during World War I. It was founded in August 1914 as the International Group by Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Clara Zetkin, and other members of the Social Demo ...

— begin to realize the need for a revolution. The workers and the shipmates rebel against the officers, but the political gaps between them lead the uprising to a failure. In the end, many of the rebel sailors attend the foundation conference of the new

Communist Party of Germany The Communist Party of Germany (, ; KPD ) was a major Far-left politics, far-left political party in the Weimar Republic during the interwar period, German resistance to Nazism, underground resistance movement in Nazi Germany, and minor party ...

Cast

Hilmar Thate Hilmar Thate (17 April 1931 – 14 September 2016) was a German actor. He appeared in 40 films and television shows between 1955 and 2016. Filmography References External links * 1931 births 2016 deaths German male film actors G ...

as Ludwig Bartuschek *

Raimund Schelcher Raimund Schelcher (27 March 1910 – 27 March 1972) was a Tanzanian actor who appeared in over 43 films and television programs between 1939 and 1971. Personal life He was born in Dar es Salaam, German East Africa (now Tanzania) to a railway eng ...

as August Lenz *

Günther Simon Günther Simon (11 May 1925 – 25 June 1972) was an East German actor. Biography Early life A bank clerk's son, Simon attended an acting school already in '' Gymnasium''. At the age of 16, he was sent to a premilitary training camp of the ...

as Erich Steigert *

Ulrich Thein Ulrich Thein (7 April 1930 – 21 June 1995) was a German actor, film director and screenwriter. He appeared in more than 40 films and television shows between 1953 and 1995. He won the award for Best Actor at the 11th Moscow International F ...

as Henne Lobke *

Horst Kube Horst Kube (1920–1976) was a German actor. Selected filmography * '' Ernst Thälmann - Führer seiner Klasse'' (1955) * '' A Berlin Romance'' (1956) * '' Der Fackelträger'' (1957) * '' Schlösser und Katen'' (1957) * '' Don't Forget My Little ...

as Jens Kasten *Stefan Lisewski as Jupp König *Jochen Thomas as Sebastian Huber *

Vladimir Gulyaev Vladimir Leonidovich Gulyaev (; 30 October 1924, Yekaterinburg, RSFSR — 3 October 1997, Moscow) was a Soviet actor of theater and cinema. Biography He was born October 30, 1924, in Sverdlovsk (now Yekaterinburg, Russia). His father was as c ...

as Grisha *Dieter Klamand as Kuddel König *Elfriede Née as Berta König *

Ekkehard Schall Ekkehard Schall (29 May 1930 in Magdeburg – 3 September 2005 in Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 millio ...

as Schuckert *Adolf Peter Hoffmann as Gollwitz * Wolfgang Langhoff as attorney *

Siegfried Weiß Siegfried Weiss (18 April 1906 – 8 October 1989) was an East German actor. Biography Weiss made his artistic debut on the stage of the Halberstadt Theater, at 1924. He continued his career in the theaters of Lübeck, Königsberg, Magdeburg, Le ...

as Captain *Hans-Ulrich Lauffer as machine gunner *Hans-Hartmut Krüger as officer *

Fred Delmare Werner Vorndran (24 April 1922 – 1 May 2009), known professionally as Fred Delmare, was a German actor. Life and work Werner Vorndran was the son of a carpenter and a seamstress and grew up in Hüttensteinach at Sonneberg in Thuringia, wh ...

as sailor *Rolf Ripperger as sailor *Sabine Thalbach as lady

Production

''The Sailor's Song'' was conceived in aftermath of the

Socialist Unity Party 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 Ma ...

's Conference on Cultural Affairs at October 1957, during which the East German establishment embraced a conservative line and ended the brief period of liberalization that begun after

Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...

Secret Speech "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences" () was a report by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, made to the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union on 25 Februa ...

.Heinz Kersten. ''Das Filmwesen in der Sowjetischen Besatzungszone Deutschlands''. Bundesministerium für Gesamtdeutsche Fragen (1963). ASIN B0000BK48Q. page 107. ''The Sailor's Song'' was commissioned shortly after, for the celebrations of the fortieth anniversary to the

German Revolution German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

.Seán Allan, John Sandford. ''DEFA: East German cinema, 1946–1992''. . Page 80. The script writers Paul Wiens and Karl Georg Egel were instructed to present the 1918 Revolution in accordance with the official Soviet interpretation of history;

Walter Ulbricht Walter Ernst Paul Ulbricht (; ; 30 June 18931 August 1973) was a German communist politician. Ulbricht played a leading role in the creation of the Weimar republic, Weimar-era Communist Party of Germany (KPD) and later in the early development ...

told that it failed due to the "opportunistic" Social Democrats and to the lack of a Marxist–Leninist party that would have led the workers "in the smashing of the capitalistic economical apparatus." The plot places emphasis on the Spartacus League, and culminates in the founding of the

.A ''Der Spiegel'' article about the filming, 10 September 1958.
/ref> Principal photography commenced on June 3, 1958. Directors

and

worked separately; the former's crew was responsible for the scenes involving the officers and the admirals, while the latter filmed those with the sailors and the crowds. ''The Sailor's Song'' was the greatest project undertaken by

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 PR ...

up to that time, and was larger in scale even than ''

Ernst Thälmann Ernst Johannes Fritz Thälmann (; 16 April 1886 – 18 August 1944) was a German communist politician and leader of the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) from 1925 to 1933. A committed communist, Thälmann sought to overthrow the liberal democr ...

''. 15,000 workers, soldiers and

Volkspolizei The (DVP, German for "German People's Police"), commonly known as the or VoPo, was the national uniformed police force of the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) from 1945 to 1990. The Volkspolizei was a highly- centralized agency re ...

members were used as extras during the filming. Since

Kiel Kiel ( ; ) is the capital and most populous city in the northern Germany, German state of Schleswig-Holstein. With a population of around 250,000, it is Germany's largest city on the Baltic Sea. It is located on the Kieler Förde inlet of the Ba ...

, the city in which the revolution took place, was located in West Germany, the directors used sets that were constructed in Goerlitz,

Warnemünde (, literally ''Mouth of the Warnow'') is a seaside resort and a district of the city of Rostock in Mecklenburg-Vorpommern, Mecklenburg, Germany. It is located on the Baltic Sea and, as the name implies, at the estuary of the river Warnow (river ...

and

Rostock Rostock (; Polabian language, Polabian: ''Roztoc''), officially the Hanseatic and University City of Rostock (), is the largest city in the German States of Germany, state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern and lies in the Mecklenburgian part of the sta ...

Reception

In 1959, Maetzig won East Germany's National Prize, 2nd degree, for his work on the film, as well as a special Peace Prize at the

1st Moscow International Film Festival The 1st Moscow International Film Festival was held from 3 to 17 August 1959. The Grand Prix was awarded to the Soviet film '' Destiny of a Man'' directed by Sergei Bondarchuk. Jury * Sergei Gerasimov (USSR - President of the Jury) * Antonin B ...

. DEFA Studio's director Albert Wilkening wrote that no picture, except ''Ernst Thälmann'', ever touched the people of East Germany as deeply as ''The Sailor's Song''. The SED considered it as one of the country's greatest cinematic achievements, and this view was upheld until the

German Reunification German reunification () was the process of re-establishing Germany as a single sovereign state, which began on 9 November 1989 and culminated on 3 October 1990 with the dissolution of the East Germany, German Democratic Republic and the int ...

.Dagmar Schittly. ''Zwischen Regie und Regime. Die Filmpolitik der SED im Spiegel der DEFA-Produktionen''. . Page 95. Critics Miera and Antonin Liehm claimed that it was a "made for order" film that was "clumsy and heavy-handed".Miera Liehm, Antonin J. Liehm . ''The Most Important Art: Soviet and Eastern European Film After 1945''. . Page 264. A West German Film Lexicon cited it as "well designed, but obviously propagandistic."
The Sailor's Song
' on zweitausendundeins.de.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sailors Song 1958 films 1958 drama films German drama films East German films 1950s German-language films German black-and-white films Films directed by Kurt Maetzig Films directed by Günter Reisch World War I naval films Films set in the Baltic Sea Films set in 1917 Films set in 1918 Films set in 1919 Films about revolutions German Revolution of 1918–1919 1950s German films