Naked Among Wolves (1963 film)

Naked Among Wolves () is a 1963 East German film directed by Frank Beyer and starring Erwin Geschonneck and Armin Mueller-Stahl. The film is based on author Bruno Apitz's 1958 novel by the same name. The film was remade in 2015 under the direction of Philipp Kadelbach.

Plot Buchenwald concentration camp, early 1945. A Polish prisoner named Jankowski, who has been on a death march from Auschwitz, brings a suitcase to the camp. When the inmates in the storage building open it, they discover a three-year-old child. Jankowski tells them he is the son of a couple from the Warsaw Ghetto, both of whom perished. Prisoner Kropinski becomes attached to the boy, and begs Kapo André Höfel to save him. Höfel, who is a member of the camp's secret communist underground, consults with senior member Bochow. He is instructed to send the child on the next transport to Sachsenhausen. Höfel cannot bring himself to do so, and hides him. Jankowski is deported to Sachsenhausen alone.

SS man Zweiling stumbles upon Höfel and his friend, fellow communist Pippig, as they play with the child. Knowing well that the American Army is approaching, Zweiling decides to turn a blind eye, hoping to present himself as a humane guard to the Americans. His wife tells him to get rid of the boy to avoid punishment by his superiors. Zweiling writes a denunciation letter to the Gestapo, making it appear as if it was composed by a prisoner. Kluttig and Reineboth, two other SS officers, realize that Zweiling was the informant, but choose to ignore it; they begin to search for the child. Kluttig is keen on massacring the camp's surviving prisoners, but commandant Schwahl forbids it, fearing American retribution - although he knows of the secret resistance. Kluttig and Reineboth brutally torture Höfel and Kropinski, but they refuse to tell the boy's whereabouts. The resistance leaders meet to discuss the crisis which threatens to bring about an SS crackdown before their planned uprising. They decide to save the child, who is hidden in a barrack.

Reineboth takes all the personnel of the storage chamber to an investigation by the Gestapo. Pippig is subjected to horrible torture. After seeing his injuries, prisoner August Rose has a nervous breakdown and confesses all. Pippig dies of his wounds. Kluttig raids the barrack, but cannot find the child.

The SS plan to evacuate the camp. They order camp elder Krämer, who is also the communists' covert leader, to organize the prisoners for transport. Krämer manages to stall the preparations by pretending to cooperate. Resistance leader Bogorski, a Soviet prisoner-of-war, reveals that he hid the child on his own, where Kluttig would not find him. As the deadline for evacuation nears, the boy is taken out from his hiding. Kluttig enters the room where the inmates are gathered, intending to shoot the child, but the prisoners form a wall around him and force Kluttig to leave. Krämer orders an armed uprising. The prisoners, led by Bogorski, drive out the remaining SS. Most of them survive and flee wearing civilian clothing. Höfel and Kropinski are freed from their cells. Krämer takes the boy out as the camp is liberated.

Cast

Jürgen Strauch: child Erwin Geschonneck: Walter Kraemer Armin Mueller-Stahl: André Höfel Fred Delmare: Rudi Pippig Gerry Wolff: Herbert Bochow Peter Sturm: August Rose Viktor Avdyushko: Leonid Bogorski Zygmunt Malanowicz: Josef Pribula Werner Dissel: Otto Lange Bruno Apitz: old man Angela Brunner: Hortense Zweiling Krystyn Wójcik: Marian Kropinski Hans-Hartmut Krüger: Henri Riomand Bolesław Płotnicki: Zacharias Jankowski Jan Pohan: Kodiczek Leonid Svetlov: Zidkowski Christoph Engel: Peter van Dahlen Hans Hardt-Hardtloff: block elder Werner Möhring: Heinrich Schüpp Hermann Eckhardt: Maximilian Wurach Peter-Paul Goes: Max Müller Günter Rüger: Karl Wunderlich Albert Zahn: Otto Runki Steffen Klaus: Alfred Friedrich Teitge: jailer Dieter Wien: block leader Friedhelm Eberle: block leader Otto Krieg-Helbig: Rottenführer Erik S. Klein: Untersturmführer Reineboth Herbert Köfer: Hauptsturmführer Kluttig Wolfram Handel: Hauptscharführer Zweiling Heinz Scholz: Standartenführer Schwahl Fred Ludwig: Oberscharführer 'Mandrill' Mandrak Joachim Tomaschewsky: Sturmbannführer Weisangk Gerd Ehlers: Gestapo commissar Gey

Production

Bruno Apitz, a member of the Communist Party of Germany, was incarcerated at Buchenwald concentration camp from 1937 to 1945. He later recalled that in the last months before liberation, he heard about a little Jewish child who had been harbored by the International Camp Committee and protected from the SS guards. In a 1974 interview, Apitz claimed he swore that "If I will survive, I will tell the story of this child."Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 13.

After the war, Apitz resided in the German Democratic Republic, working as a journalist and as a dramatist in the state-owned DEFA Studio. On 27 November 1954, Apitz wrote to DEFA's director-general Hans Rodenberg and suggested producing a film about the child's story. Rodenberg rejected the proposal; officially, it was due to the emphasis laid by the East German cultural establishment on depicting active resistance to Fascism rather than passive suffering. Private correspondence also revealed that studio officials regarded Apitz as insufficiently talented to handle the task.Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 14.

Apitz abandoned the idea to make a film and instead, turned his rudimentary screenplay into a novel. He wrote the book from 1955 to 1958.Langford. p. 171. Historian Bill Niven commented that since April 1955, the 10th anniversary of the camp's liberation, "the collective memory of Buchenwald's communist prisoners was transformed into the official memory of the Socialist Unity Party of Germany", and incorporated into the country's "anti-Fascist legitimization myth".Niven. p. 3. Apitz's novel Naked Among Wolves was published shortly before the dedication of the Buchenwald Memorial Site in 1958. It turned into an instant success, selling 500,000 copies within a year.Thiele. p. 235. By 1965, it had been translated into 25 languages and had sold 2,000,000 copies.McCauley. p. 96. It was also entered into the East German schools' curriculum.Rodden. p. 54. Apitz won the National Prize, 3rd class, in 1958.Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 27.

Already in April 1959, DEFA chief dramatist Klaus Wischnewski contacted Apitz with a proposition to adapt his novel for the screen, but the author was unwilling and made demands which the studio was unable to accept. Representatives of the Deutscher Fernsehfunk station approached Apitz, and he agreed to produce a television film based on his novel, which was broadcast on 10 April 1960. Although DFF did not conduct regular rating surveys yet, the adaptation was considered a success.Heimann, pp. 74-76. The television critic of the newspaper Tribüne published a column praising the series, and called on DEFA to make a version of its own.

During 1960, after prolonged negotiations, Apitz and DEFA settled on an arrangement. Director Wolfgang Langhoff was chosen to direct the planned picture.Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 15, 27-28. Being engaged in his duties as manager of the Deutsches Theater, he eventually declined the role. It was then passed on to the young Frank Beyer, who had been working on Star-Crossed Lovers. In early 1962, he and Apitz began working on the planned film.Poss. p. 187.

Beyer originally intended to have Ernst Busch play the role of Krämer, but the singer declined because his face was half-paralyzed from injuries during a bombing raid in World War II. Erwin Geschonneck was chosen in his stead.Beyer. p. 39. The director also picked his neighbor's son, the four-year-old Jürgen Strauch, to portray the child saved by the resistance.Beyer. pp. 115-116. DEFA sought out foreign actors for the roles of the foreign members of the resistance, like Soviet actor Viktor Avdyushko, who was already well known in East Germany and cast as Bogorski.Niven. p. 130. A minor part was given to Apitz himself - he appeared as an old man caring for the child who is found dead after the camp's liberation.Thiele. p. 245. Beyer also retained several of the actors who performed in the television adaptation, like Wolfram Handel, Fred Delmare and Peter Sturm, who was called to depict August Rose for the second time. The actor was very reluctant to take the role and had to be pressured by Apitz and the director,Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 35. Sturm, who had been twice incarcerated in Buchenwald, was badly depressed by the work on the film, falling ill after it ended.Thiele. p. 244.

Deputy Minister of Defence Admiral Waldemar Verner provided more than 3,000 soldiers to be used as extras. Principal photography took place in Buchenwald - which was partly renovated by the Ministry of Construction for this purposeNiven. p. 127. - and in the Babelsberg Studios from 4 May to 10 September 1962.Thiele. p. 236. Beyer told historian Bill Niven that the ending scene's score - which was not triumphant, but rather menacing - was the only manner in which he could hint to the existence of the postwar Soviet Special Camp no. 2 in Buchenwald, one of the NKVD special camps that became known to the public only after German reunification. His uncle was imprisoned in one such camp.Wie Stefan Jerzy Zweig seine Idnentität verlor. MDR Interview with Bill Niven. 13 April 2010. 06:30 - 08:00.

Reception

Distribution On 10 April 1963, the eve of 18th Anniversary of Buchenwald's Self-Liberation, the film had its premiere in East Berlin's Colosseum Cinema. It was released in 24 copies in East Germany,Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 46. and sold 806,915 tickets in the first year. By 1976, it had been viewed by 1.5 million people in cinemas, a number which rose to 2.5 million until 1994.Thile. pp. 248-249. In addition, 35mm reel copies were supplied to the National People's Army, the League of People's Friendship and to other public organizations. Private screenings were held in West Germany in April 1964 - for example, by the East-German-funded Uni-Doc-Verleih in Munich - but although the government never banned it, a local distributor, Pegasus Film, did not purchase the rights to it until 1967.Niven. p. 139. By that time, the film had already been exported to all the European countries, as well as to Canada, the United States, India, Japan, China, the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, Ethiopia, Mozambique and Guinea.Beutelschmidt, Steinlein. p. 47. DFF first broadcast it on television in September 1966 and re-ran it five times during the 1970s.Thiele. p. 248.

Awards

Naked Among Wolves won a Silver Prize in the 3rd Moscow International Film Festival, in July 1963. Although the Communist Party of the USSR instructed the Soviet members of the jury to award the Grand Prix to the East German entry, Naked Among Wolves narrowly lost it to Federico Fellini's 8½; allegedly, during the thirty-six-hour debate of the jury before the choosing of the winner, members Stanley Kramer, Jean Marais and Sergio Amidei threatened to leave if Beyer received the prize rather than Fellini. Polish member Jan Rybkowski described Naked Among Wolves as a "glossing over of reality."Niven. pp. 143-145.

On 6 October 1963, Apitz, Beyer, cinematographer Günter Marczinkowsky and art director Alfred Hirschmeier received the National Prize of East Germany, 1st degree, for their work.DEFA chronicle: 1963. On 14 March 1964, actors Erik S. Klein, Herbert Köfer, Wolfram Handel and Gerry Wolf were all awarded the Heinrich Greif Prize, 1st class, in recognition of their appearance in Naked Among Wolves.DEFA chronicle: 1964.

The Evangelical Film Guild of Frankfurt am Main chose Naked Among Wolves as Best Film of the Month for March 1968. The West German Wiesbaden-based National Review of Cinema and Media granted it the assessment "Valuable", its second-highest rating for motion pictures.Thiele, p. 250.

Critical response