Solange Leben in mir ist

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As Long as there is Life in Me
Progress Film
Release date
Running time
114 minutes
CountryEast Germany
LanguageGerman

Solange Leben in mir ist (English: As Long As There's Life in Me) is a 1965 German biopic from the

Trotz alledem!
(English: In Spite of Everything!) which follows Liebknecht's life during the second half of the war and beyond.

Plot

The film opens in

SPD party meeting, Liebknecht is one of only fourteen members to vote against the war credits. In the subsequent Reichstag meeting, he votes with the party discipline in favor of the war credits, to the public's surprise. He announces in the party meetings that he will no longer yield to party discipline and will stand by his anti-militarist principles even if the party leadership will not do the same. Liebknecht is the only one of the Reichstag — including 111 SPD representatives — to vote against the war loans, resulting in a number of death threats and work bans. Despite his immunity as a Reichstag member, Liebknecht is called to serve on the front as a sapper. It is here that he writes his 1915 manifesto
, "The main enemy is at home!" The manifesto is passed among his fellow soldiers on the front before returning home. While he is away, Paul Schreiner, whose wedding Liebknecht attended earlier in the film, dies on the front. This leaves his wife Käthe to raise their newborn child alone and make Liebknecht's manifesto public.

Liebknecht returns to Germany on furlough in 1916, and finds himself ejected from the Reichstag for disorderly conduct. Liebknecht meets with Rosa Luxemburg (Zofia Rysiówna), who was recently released from prison. The two plan to break away from the SPD and found the Spartacus League, in order to maintain revolutionary methods and resist the SPD leadership for supporting an "imperialist war." Liebknecht goes to Jena to raise some youth supporters for a May 1 demonstration in Berlin. On the day of the demonstration, Liebknecht speaks despite threats of arrest. He is quickly gagged and arrested, to be taken in for questioning away from the protesting crowds. Liebknecht is told he has a choice in his sentencing: He can receive a smaller charge with a minimum sentence of one day, or a larger charge of high treason with a minimum sentence of two and a half years. He is offered the smaller sentence in exchange for a promise not to distribute anti-war propaganda in the future, however, Liebknecht turns this down. He is taken to trial as the workers continue protesting in the streets. Liebknecht uses his trial to denounce the imprisonment of fellow revolutionaries and those speaking out against German militarism. At this point, the public is ejected from the trial, which is now to be held behind closed doors. The film concludes with a shots of Liebknecht being escorted to prison, overlaid with text:

ONE MAN RAISED HIS COUNTENANCE ABOVE THE WAR IT WILL SHINE FORTH WITH THE BEAUTY OF HIS COURAGE: LIEBKNECHT

Production

While there had been earlier films about other German socialist heroes such as Ernst Thälmann, Sohn seiner Klasse (1954) and Führer seiner Klasse (1955), the East German government told the DEFA to begin work a new large-scale project to further document the major personalities of the workers' movement in Germany. In the 1960s, Karl Liebknecht was chosen to be the subject of this new production. Initially, DEFA planned a two-part movie before it chose a two-hour view of the life of Liebknecht, focused not on making a memorial but "making a fellow human accessible." Slatan Dudow was originally slated to be the director until his death in 1963 resulted in the project being taken over by Günter Reisch, who rapidly accelerated production of the film. Screenwriter Michael Tschesno-Hell remained on the project during the switch, having already worked on the script for a similar project with the Thälmann movies where Reisch had also worked as a director.[1]

For this prestigious project 6 million marks were made available by DEFA Studios, an exorbitant sum for the studio at the time (equivalent to €6995843.89 as of 29 March 2024)[2]. The shooting lasted for over a year, shot in locations such as Berlin, Potsdam, Leipzig, and Jena, among others. The movie was released on September 10, 1965 in cinemas, and would go on to be the third most successful film of 1965 in East Germany, ranking behind The Adventures of Werner Holt and a film adaptation of the fairy tale King Thrushbeard.[3]

Awards

Günter Reisch, Michael Tschesno-Hell, Horst E. Brandt and Horst Schulze received the

National Prize of East Germany in the second class for their achievements. The film also received the certification of "valuable" from the FBW, granting it a partial exemption from entertainment tax.[4]

References

  1. ^ Solange Leben in mir ist/Trotz alledem! (booklet) (in German). Günter Reisch. Archived from the original on 2015-07-22.{{cite AV media notes}}: CS1 maint: others in cite AV media (notes) (link)
  2. ^ 1500 to 1850: Ulrich Pfister, 2010. "Consumer prices and wages in Germany, 1500 - 1850," CQE Working Papers 1510, Center for Quantitative Economics (CQE), University of Muenster. 1851-1882: Coos Santing, 2007, Inflation 1800-2000, data from OECD, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Economic Outlook. Historical Statistics and Mitchell, B. R. International Historical Statistics, Africa, Asia and Oceania 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, International Historical Statistics, Europe 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998, and International Historical Statistics, The Americas 1750-1993 London : Macmillan ; New York : Stockton, 1998. After 1883, German inflation numbers based on data available from the Deutsches Statistisches Bundesamt archive and GENESIS database.
  3. ^ Ralf Schenk (Ed.), Filmmuseum Potsdam (Eds.): The second life of the Babelsberg film studios. DEFA feature films from 1946 to 1992. Henschel, Berlin 1994, S. 223.
  4. ^ "Solange Leben in mir ist / filmportal.de". Retrieved 2015-07-17.