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The Truth, the Absolute Truth

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The Truth, the Absolute Truth The Truth, the Absolute Truth- Liberation Policy and DEFA’s For Eyes Only _For eyes only 19.06.13 17:27 Seite 1 THE TRUTH, THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH: LIBERATION POLICY AND DEFA’S FOR EYES ONLY By Bernd Stöver In the history of the Cold War, images of friends and enemies transmitted via the media were of particular importance. Perceptions—including false perceptions—of the opponent have been found to be one of the most important factors in the e rapidly changing dynamics of the Cold War between 1947 and 1991. In 1947, for example, Walter Lippmann—to whom is ascribed the dissemination, if not the invention of the term “Cold A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library War”—made clear that he held perceptions to be a central factor of this confrontation.1 Individual and collective perceptions follow a particular, if rather irrational logic in which “rational evidence” nevertheless pays an important role. In the resulting belief systems, new information always adapts to existing predis - positions and images.2 Films play a special role with respect to the question of how and why certain perceptions came into being during the Cold War. “Good” films—that is, films that made an impression on audiences—stayed in people’s memory, especially as they were later broadcast on television. Many films that had a central politi- cal message were presented in attractive ways—often as crime films—with which they had success.3 A sig- • For Eyes Secret Only • — Top nificant number of these were also linked to “real events,” whose general outlines were known to the public from other media, but whose fictional aspects could be staged as needed.4 This was true of films in both the East and the West. In the East, however, the early and systematic establishment of censorship and political For Eyes Only agenda-setting by the SED5 affected film production, while the lack of an organized and effective alternate public sphere limited access to corrective information on the part of average East German citizens, although access to radio and television from West Germany functioned to a certain extent in this way.6 This article looks at how and for what purpose East German feature films addressed the “Liberation Policy” of the United States, and to what extent they influenced perceptions of the Cold War enemy. Indelibly linked to the name of John Foster Dulles, Liberation Policy referred to a strategy whereby every means except military confrontation would be used to weaken—and if possible dissolve—the region under Soviet control.7 Although the big uprisings “behind the Iron Curtain” in 1953 and 1956 had not been initiated from outside, as those in power in the East continually argued, it was impossible to overlook the hopes demon- strators placed in the promises made as part of Liberation Policy. For the leadership of the GDR, Liberation Policy constituted the prototypical national threat. Over forty years, variously accented warnings against the alleged threat became a staple of the East German media, regularly stoked by new exposés from the Ministry for State Security (MfS). Many media were involved in propagating this view of Liberation Policy, which—in the GDR as in other countries behind the Iron Curtain—was in no way met only with fear, but also Liberation the Policy Absolute “The and Truth: Truth, DEFA’s with hope for an end to communist rule. An important and under-researched observation is that, with regard to its films addressing this topic, the East German film monopoly DEFA insisted that it was showing a sort of documentary theater piece. The point was to present a “truth” that was directly linked to evidence and “facts”; at the same time, however, such films were supposed to deliver the correct political message. Kurt Maetzig, who began by making newsreels for the Augenzeuge series and then directed several feature films on the subject, always under- lined this biased and artistically fractured “claim to objectivity,” even in retrospect. “First—and this was new back then—the films were based on documents. […] The films are based on documents and then also incorporate other film documents, e.g. newsreels, into the finished product. In this way a new relationship 1 The Truth, the Absolute Truth- Liberation Policy and DEFA’s For Eyes Only _For eyes only 19.06.13 17:27 Seite 2 develops between cinema and reality, a documentary style.”8 It was not meant to be superficial “docutain- ment,” but rather to deliver behavioral guidelines along with the political message. “It seems to me,” said Maetzig, “that this explanatory element is always linked to the attempt to activate the viewer, […] to enable him to make his own creative contribution to the development of socialism.”9 For Eyes Only The DEFA film that dealt with western Liberation Policy the most clearly—and, judging from public interest, the most successfully—was For Eyes Only. Almost two years in production, it came out in East German theaters on July 19, 1963, and was successfully screened in theaters all over eastern Europe, A DVD Release by the DEFA Film Library including in Poland and Romania. János Veiczi directed the film and wrote the screenplay with author Harry Thürk, who later wrote bestsellers on the same topics. The idea for the movie came from actor Hans Lucke, who brought pertinent experience from the DEFA film Geheimarchiv an der Elbe (Secret Archive on the Elbe) and now played Colonel Rock of the American Military Intelligence Division (MID). The storyline is set in the secret service milieu in West Germany. The American secret service, MID, is preparing a “war of liberation” against the GDR, which is to start in fall 1961, shortly after the West German Bundestag elections. The central office in Wiesbaden has already worked out plans for an airborne assault, sent spies over the border and set up sleeper agents that will be activated when the attack begins • For Eyes Secret Only • — Top on “Day X.” A Concordia Import-Export Company in Würzburg secretly functions as a branch of MID, where the assault is prepared under the supervision of MID Major Ted Collins. As the protagonist of the film, East 10 German Stasi agent Hansen—alias Lorenz—manages to gain access to the plans and, in a wild chase For Eyes Only scene, get them over the border into East Berlin. When the plans are made public, the “Liberation of the GDR” collapses. Formally, For Eyes Only presents itself as a thrilling crime film. In light of Stasi materials and recently opened sources on military defectors from the West,11 however, it seems that For Eyes Only was also the precisely calibrated, political endpoint of a chain of evidence against western Liberation Policies that the GDR had been developing since 1958. Above all, the purpose of the film was once and for all to justify, in the eyes of East German citizens, the construction of a wall that would cut off the GDR. High rates of attendance and the positive reaction of the viewing public indicate that this time there was at least a willingness to accept the official demonstration of an external threat. On one hand, the content of the film relied on multiple examples of alleged evidence of an immanent “war of liberation,” which the East German press publicized in the 1950s and, increasingly starting in early 1960, during the second Berlin crisis and the “Khrushchev ultimatum.”12 The case in question had to do with NATO strategy and planning papers and, in particular, an operation involving the West German Bundeswehr, codenamed DECO II. The case was nothing new; it had been known since 1955 and an East German docu- Liberation the Policy Absolute “The and Truth: Truth, DEFA’s mentation about it had already been published in 1959.13 That the MfS had been meticulously preparing to present the case to the international press since 1959 under the name of “Operation Straußenei” (operation “ostrich egg”), however, indicates that it was only after the collapse of Soviet pressure in the second Berlin crisis that the case was used to justify the planned structural sealing off of the GDR. It only acquired its public meaning as the “total solution” of the border question—the building of the Wall—was being consid- ered and domestic and international justifications were urgently being sought.14 The MfS, which was more involved in the production of For Eyes Only than in any other DEFA feature film about the West’s Liberation Policies, had not only handed over the plans for the “liberation,” however. It also organized appearances by several active or recently separated members of the West German Bundes - wehr who had defected to the GDR, quasi as witnesses for the prosecution. In a press conference on July 8, 1960, former career officers Bruno Winzer and Adam (von) Gliga were presented to the international press. Winzer, the most important witness for the East German leadership, had himself been a press officer in West Germany, while collaborating with the MfS over several years (code name “Rebe”). He had offered to work 2 The Truth, the Absolute Truth- Liberation Policy and DEFA’s For Eyes Only _For eyes only 19.06.13 17:27 Seite 3 with the MfS on November 18, 1957, if the MfS would help him “fulfill his financial responsibilities.” According to the MfS, Winzer had delivered “much important internal information” about the Bundeswehr and its allies, and had proven himself a “very valuable and reliable source.” On May 1, 1960, he was never- theless “withdrawn” (as it was called in MfS jargon) when faced with the danger of being exposed, “because his safety could no longer be guaranteed.”15 Once in the GDR, he was provided with a new exis- tence.
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