Chapter 8
A Scar that Vanished: Recollections of the Inner-German Border in German Non-Fiction Film
Claudia Plasse
Twenty years after German reunification, physical evidence of the border that divided the two German states has mostly disappeared. Its political and legal repercussions have likewise faded. Yet, as the dust has begun to settle over the notorious German ‘scar,’ concerns about its fall into oblivion have risen. During the past decade, documentary filmmaking in Germany has become noticeably involved in the endeavor of recollecting the physical, political, and psychological implications of the former border. The chapter explores three such documentaries, each with a distinctive approach to recalling the border past and legitimizing the perspectives they present. The 2004 film Grenze - Lebensabschnitt Todesstreifen (“Border—Part of our lives, death zone”) by Holger Jancke represents a rather emotional attempt by a former East German border guard and some of his former colleagues to come to terms with their involuntary deployment at the demarcation line between East and West. More distanced and sober, the 2005 documentary Freedom's Frontier: Traces of the Inner-German Border (Halt! Hier Grenze - Auf den Spuren der innerdeutschen Grenze) by Christian Gierke tries to find physical and historical traces of the former border. And finally, deviating from more traditional documentary styles, Bartek Konopka has chosen an innovative and decisively ironic approach for his 2009 Polish-German co-production Rabbit á la Berlin (Mauerhase), which presents the former borderland from the perspective of the rabbits that inhabited it.
Films discussed in Chapter 8:
Freedom’s Frontier: Traces of the Inner-German Border (Halt! Hier Grenze – Auf den Spuren der innerdeutschen Grenze). Directed by Christian Gierke. Germany, 2005.
Grenze – Lebensabschnitt Todesstreifen. Directed by Holger Jancke. Germany, 2004.
Rabbit á la Berlin (Mauerhase). Directed by Bartek Konopka. Germany, Poland, 2009.
Walled in! What the Cold War Frontier that Divided Germany Was Really Like („Eingemauert!” Die innerdeutsche Grenze). Produced by Deutsche Welle. Germany, 2009.
Films discussed in Chapter 8:
Freedom’s Frontier: Traces of the Inner-German Border (Halt! Hier Grenze – Auf den Spuren der innerdeutschen Grenze). Directed by Christian Gierke. Germany, 2005.
Grenze – Lebensabschnitt Todesstreifen. Directed by Holger Jancke. Germany, 2004.
Rabbit á la Berlin (Mauerhase). Directed by Bartek Konopka. Germany, Poland, 2009.
Walled in! What the Cold War Frontier that Divided Germany Was Really Like („Eingemauert!” Die innerdeutsche Grenze). Produced by Deutsche Welle. Germany, 2009.
Trailer of the film Rabbit á la Berlin (Source: YouTube)
About the author:
Claudia Plasse is a Ph.D. student in German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Since 2007, she is teaching courses in Media Communication and Cultural Studies at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA. Plasse has worked for twenty years as a TV and radio journalist and as a media relations specialist in Germany and in the U.S. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science, TV and Film Studies, and History from the University of Cologne, Germany. Among others, her research interests are German and international documentary films, documentary film production for TV, and issues of representing ‘reality’ in documentaries and in reality TV shows.
Claudia Plasse is a Ph.D. student in German and Scandinavian Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Since 2007, she is teaching courses in Media Communication and Cultural Studies at Anna Maria College in Paxton, MA. Plasse has worked for twenty years as a TV and radio journalist and as a media relations specialist in Germany and in the U.S. She holds a Master’s degree in Political Science, TV and Film Studies, and History from the University of Cologne, Germany. Among others, her research interests are German and international documentary films, documentary film production for TV, and issues of representing ‘reality’ in documentaries and in reality TV shows.