On December 8, 1950, DEFA, East Germany’s state-run movie studio, released its first color film. The film was shot in Agfacolor, which was developed for the Nazis to compete with Technicolor. After the war, there was enough color film stock at the AGFA plant in Wolfen to make a few movies, but the Soviets claimed it as compensation for the war. They took it Russia where it was used to make the first Russian color film, The Stone Flower (Каменный цветок). Meanwhile, back in Germany, the folks at DEFA were stuck with in a black-and-white world. Black-and-white worked great for the bleak, almost noir Rubble Films, but not so well for musicals and kids’ films, where they had to compete with the likes of Hollywood. Eventually, the Soviets were able to produce their own version of Agfacolor film (Sovcolor) and DEFA again had access to color stock.
In the west, the Allies—and especially the United States—continued to throw up roadblocks to keep the West Germans from making movies. Films were such an important part of Hitler’s war machine, they argued, that it was better if the Germans were just not allowed to make any more movies at all. Instead, Hollywood films were imported for screening in German cinemas, sometimes without subtitles. This lined the pockets of the Hollywood producers, but only served to infuriate the German public, many of whom spoke no English at all back then.
The Soviets had a very different take on the subject. They had already seen the power of film as a tool for proselytizing with movies such Battleship Potemkin and Mother. Rather than block film production in the Soviet sector, they encouraged it, and helped found DEFA. As a result, before the dust had settled from the war, DEFA was up and running, producing its first film in 1946 (The Murderers Are Among Us).
Because of the U.S. resistance to film production, ambitious German filmmakers in the Allied sectors headed east to get their movies made. This was, of course, a great publicity coup for the Soviets, but it also meant that some of the films made during this period were DEFA in name only. They looked and felt like West German films. In fact, some of them looked and felt like Third Reich-era UFA films—minus the anti-Semitism, of course.
A perfect example of this is Heart of Stone (Das kalte Herz). Anyone watching this film for the first time would logically assume that it was made in West Germany. It has all the characteristics we have come to expect of West German films—the handsome, über-blond hero, the affinity for traditional folk festivals and clothing, the scenes of nature accompanied by gushingly romantic music. It’s all there. A quick rundown of the cast shows that nearly everyone who worked on this film came from West Germany. A few worked on other DEFA films during the early years, but most did not. Nonetheless, it’s an important film in the history of East German cinema. It is not only the first color film made in the GDR, it is also the first in what would become a long line of East German Märchenfilme (fairytale films).
Heart of Stone tells the story of Peter, a young man who works as a collier—a meager existence if ever there was one. Fed up with his lot in life, and wishing to impress the beautiful Lisbeth, he goes into the forest to make a deal with the Glassman (Glasmännlein) a leprechaun-like character that can grant wishes for any children born on Sunday. There, Peter meets Dutch Michael (Holländer-Michel), an ominous giant who tells Peter that he can make him a rich man if Peter is willing to give up his heart. Dutch Michael keeps the hearts of local rich men pinned to a wall like a butterfly collection. He tells Peter he will replace his heart with one made of stone. At first, Peter balks at this suggestion, preferring instead to continue looking for the Glassman. He eventually meets the Glassman and gets his three wishes, but the frivolity of his wishes come back to bite him, so Peter rethinks his strategy and goes looking for the evil Dutchman to broker a new deal.
This film is based on a fairytale by Wilhelm Hauff. Hauff wrote three books of fairytales, and this story appeared in two parts in the last of these books. It was translated into English and published under its literal title translation—The Cold Heart—as the second of two stories, along with The Marvellous History of the Shadowless Man by Louis Adelbert von Chamisso. This edition is now available at the Project Gutenberg website as a free download. The movie follows the story the fairytale closely, although in the fairytale, Lisbeth does not show up until late in the story, and the scene where Peter uses a glass cross to stop Dutch Michael is removed entirely from the film—no real surprise there, considering Marxist philosophy’s antipathy toward religion.
Hauff’s stories are still popular in Germany and many have been turned into feature films and cartoons. Heart of Stone has been filmed at least three times; two of his other fairy tales, The Story of Little Mook and Zwerg Nase (Little Longnose), have been filmed five times each. Hauff also wrote the notorious Jud Süß, which was the basis of the virulently anti-Semitic film made by Veit Harlan for the Nazis, although, it must be said, the Nazis took many liberties with Hauff’s story, with the most notable one being the fact that Hauff’s character discovers he is not a Jew at all.
Director Paul Verhoeven was already an established actor and director when he came to DEFA to film this project. He got his start in films during the Third Reich, when he both acted and starred in several motion pictures. After the war he managed the Bavarian State Theater until 1948, when he returned to cinema to film his play, Das kleine Hofkonzert (Palace Scandal). Thereafter he continued his career as an actor/director until the early seventies.
Oddly, Paul Verhoeven died of heart failure while giving a eulogy on the stage at the Munich Kammerspiele during a tribute for the famous Munich actress Therese Giehse (best known to U.S. audiences as the headmistress in Mädchen in Uniform). Verhoeven stood up, began the obituary, and keeled over dead.
Verhoeven’s son, Michael Verhoeven became a filmmaker in his own right, directing the excellent films, The Nasty Girl and The White Rose. Michael is married to the beautiful Senta Berger. Paul Verhoeven’s daughter, Lis Verhoeven, became an actress and has appeared in many German films. She was briefly married to the great German actor, Mario Adorf, and their daughter, Stella Adorf is now also an actress. Paul Verhoeven is not related to the Dutch director of the same name.
Lutz Moik plays Peter the collier. He does an admirable—if somewhat melodramatic—job of portraying the young man and the changes he goes through. His transformation from the naive, warm-hearted proletarian to the greedy, cold-hearted capitalist is a Jekyll-and-Hyde performance. He doesn’t even look like the same person. Mr. Moik was born in Berlin, and began his acting career during the waning days of the Third Reich, working at first on radio, and later appearing in movies. He was in a few early DEFA films including Und wenn’s nur einer wär’… (And If Only…) and 1-2-3- Corona. Eventually, he settled on the western side of the wall where he continued work as an actor and a dubber for many years. He died in 2002 in his hometown of Berlin.
Playing Lisbeth,was the lovely Munich-based actress, Hanna Rucker. Ms. Rucker began her career as a theater actress, appearing in several productions in the Munich Kammerspiele. A year before appearing in Heart of Stone, she made her film debut in the West German Rubble Film, Wohin die Züge fahren (Wherever the Trains Travel). Throughout the fifties, she starred in several West German films, including Unter den tausend Laternen (Under a Thousand Lanterns), San Salvatore, and Heiße Ernte (literally, Hot Harvest). She retired from films in 1956 at the age of 33, when she married producer Mo Rothman and moved to England with him. Although they later divorced, Ms. Rucker stayed in England until the end of her life and never made another motion picture.
The two spirits of the woodlands—the Glassman and Dutch Michael—are played by Paul Bildt and Erwin Geschonneck respectively. Paul Bildt was already a well-respected actor by the time this film came out. He had been acting in films since 1910, and also appeared in a few DEFA films during the forties. But Heart of Stone was his last film for DEFA. After this, he moved to West Germany, where he continued to appear in movies until shortly before his death in 1957 (for more on Paul Bildt, see Razzia). Erwin Geschonneck, on the other hand, was a relative newcomer in 1950, but he steals every scene he’s in. By the end of the GDR’s existence, Geschonneck had become the most beloved actor in East Germany (for more on Erwin Geschonneck, see Carbide and Sorrel).
The cinematography was by two of the best technicians working in East Germany at the time—Ernst Kunstmann and Bruno Mondi. Mr. Kunstmann was primarily known for his special effects, and was most likely the man behind the camera in the scenes the featured Dutch Michael. Like Paul Bildt, Mr. Kunstmann’s career stretches back to the silent days, where he worked with special effects pioneer Eugen Schüfftan on Metropolis to help create the ground-breaking special effects for that film. During the thirties Mr. Kunstmann worked with Leni Riefenstahl on Triumph of the Will and Josef von Báky on The Adventures of Baron Munchausen. After the war, he decided to settle in East Germany, where he contributed special effects for many classic DEFA films, including Chemistry and Love, The Story of Little Mook, The Singing, Ringing Tree, and The Silent Star.
Bruno Mondi also got his start during the silent era, beginning with Fritz Lang’s Destiny. He worked on many films during the Third Reich years, including Veit Harlan’s notorious Jud Süß. He was the man in charge of the color photography on Kolberg—Veit Harlan’s hugely over-budget spectacle, which cost the Nazis dearly. After the war, Mondi worked on a few East German films, but he was a West German at heart. Heart of Stone would be his last East German film. He found his calling in the mid-fifties with the über-schmaltzy Sissi films, which virtually defined the Heilmatfilm.
Heart of Stone was one of the last of the West German-led DEFA productions. A little over a year earlier, both the east and the west declared themselves as to be sovereign states. This is what finally ended the U.S. resistance to West German filmmaking. Prior to that, American film moguls had already been protesting the distribution of DEFA films overseas and were trying to get them to stop. But once the Allied sectors and the Soviet sector became separate and opposing states, any potential negotiations over whether DEFA had the right to distribute its film in South America were off the table. By this time, America was so rabidly anti-communist that the very mention of the word could make some senators start foaming at the mouth. The U.S., they argued, had to do everything it could to make sure that the Bundesrepublik outperformed the GDR.
The U.S. dropped its restrictions and did everything it could to promote economic growth in every sector of the West German economy. The result was the Wirtschaftswunder—a period of economic growth that pulled West Germany out of the rubble and back into the twentieth century. West Germany began to thrive while the enforced stagnation of the SED began to takes its toll on East Germany.
While Heart of Stone certainly falls into the category of DEFA in name only, its importance to film production in the GDR cannot be underestimated. It was released right before Christmas and was huge hit on both sides of the borders. DEFA had, quite by accident, stumbled on the perfect genre for making films that the west wouldn’t find objectionable, but still had a socialist moral to them, and were suitable for the whole family—the Märchenfilme. After all, the rich were usually the bad guys in fairy tales, while the poor were often the heroes. Before the Wall fell, East Germany made dozens of these Märchenfilme, which were distributed throughout the world and translated into many other languages, including some in English for the British and American markets (see The Singing, Ringing Tree and The Golden Goose).
IMDB page for this film.
Buy this film.
YouTube version of the film.
Separate English subtitles.1
1. Whenever possible, I try to provide those readers who don’t speak German with links to subtitled versions of the films. The main source for these in America is, of course, the DEFA Library at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Sadly, Heart of Stone is not one of the films that is currently available. In the meantime,I have created subtitles for this film that are currently only available here. For more information on how to use these subtitles to enjoy the film, visit Pop Void.
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