“Zschoche places the problem of young people on the verge of growing up at the center of the plot. […][The film] deserves the highest respect for how successfully it portrays those first careful, but no less insistent physical attempts at closeness.”
— Zwischen Marx und Muck
 

“Noteworthy for its frank treatment of teenage sexuality.”
—Joshua Feinstein, The Triumph of the Ordinary

 “First love, first sex… it’s quite interesting to have a look at East German youth in the 1970s.”
–Turner Classic Movies

“The film offers a more than interesting portrait of a society not much different from our own in the West.”
—Variety

“There were internal screenings, as always, and there must have been objections towards the educator in the film, who was anything but an exemplary pioneer leader. [...] So it was not about erotic or about the nude scenes. At least not that I know of. We were never present at these meetings of the gray eminences who decided on films. We only found out about after the successful screening in the Leipzig cinema, which was packed and we thought the audience members were all selected, the best of the FDJ and they put them in the cinema as an award. But these were obviously school classes, and they stood up and applauded. They were crazy about the film, and it was a great success. Then we were approached by State Secretary for Culture Löffler, who said: I really had to work hard for this movie, because there were people who didn't like it at all.”   — Herrmann Zschoche, Zeitzeugengespräch, 2011