Themes & Genres

When the DEFA Studio for Animation Film was founded in Dresden on 1 April 1955, the chief investor—the East German state—expressed one wish: eighty percent of the films made there were to specifically target children. Of the approximately 750 animated films ultimately made at the Studio between then and 1990—which included animated cartoons, puppet films, shadow plays and stop-motion animation—there were naturally also many works intended for adults, however. Experimental forms were seldom employed, as filmmakers at the Dresden Animation Studio wanted to avoid being accused of formalism, which officials understood as an overemphasis of form over content and an antithesis to socialist realism. The fundamental mission of East German animators at the Studio thus changed very little over time. Not until the last years of the GDR did they begin to get to the heart of social issues with any regularity, resulting in cheeky, aggressive and witty animations.

The British Film Institute credits DEFA with offering "the most consistent and coherent analysis of fascism of any national cinema." In European socialist parlance, the Nazis were considered part of the fascist phenomenon that had also taken hold in Italy and Spain. In East Germany, antifascism thus primarily referred to anti-Nazi resistance activities. A wide range of DEFA films spanning four decades dealt with the Nazi past in one form or another. The classic antifascist films highlight—and often glorify—communist resistance to the Third Reich, although titles like Five Cartridges, set during the Spanish civil war, are also included in the genre. Another strand focuses more on Nazi anti-Semitism and war atrocities, including films by acclaimed German directors, such as Frank Beyer (Jacob the Liar, Naked among Wolves), Kurt Maetzig (Marriage in the Shadows), Wolfgang Staudte (The Murderers Are among Us) and Konrad Wolf (Stars, Professor Mamlock). 

This theme highlights the importance accorded to the arts and artists in the socialist state. East German films addressing this topic fall into one of several categories. Many DEFA feature films recount the lives of well-known artists of the past, including Goya, The Lost Angel, Marriage in the Shadows and Käthe Kollwitz: Images of a Life. Many documentaries about artists were also made, such as Three of Many, Hermann Glöckner – A Brief Visit and Slatan Dudow – A Film About a Marxist Artist. Other films, such as Solo Sunny and The Architects, present fictional stories about artists and the challenges they face in society. Yet other DEFA films represent the work of artists filmically; The Flying Dutchman belongs to this category, as do Tuba wa Duo, Latest from the Da-Da-R and Transformations, three experimental shorts by painter and director Jürgen Böttcher. Finally, the DEFA Film Library collection also includes films about avant-garde and underground artistic activity in the GDR, such as La Villette, Counter Images and The Subversive Camera.

The Artists of the Marx-Engels Forum

Artists Featured in the Film La Villette

Although avant-garde artistic forms were frowned upon by officials in the GDR, some artists and filmmakers nevertheless succeeded in creating artworks in this vein. Best known among them is director Jürgen Böttcher, who also paints under the name Strawalde. Films such as Egon Günther’s Farewell repeatedly tested the limits of what was acceptable. Filmmakers like Uli Weiss, Jörg Foth and Herwig Kipping increasingly experimented with form in East Germany’s last days and months. And artists like Cornelia Schleime and Via Lewandowsky, who have since become well known in the international art world, were experimenting with film in the GDR as well.