Professor Mamlock

Shortly after the National Socialists came to power, Friedrich WOLF (father of the director Konrad WOLF and the GDR secret service chief Markus WOLF) wrote this play in exile in France.

It's about the Jewish hospital boss Professor Mamlock (Wolfgang HEINZ, 1900-1984), who sees himself as a German national and doesn't want to accept the consequences that Nazi rule will have. His son Rolf (Hilmar THATE, 1931-2016) is made of completely different stuff. Wife Ellen (Ursula BURG, 1919-1996, had her first theater engagement in Göttingen) is the typical sufferer, overwhelmed by the whole situation.

Director Konrad WOLF sets the whole thing up as a chamber play; even at the operating table there are still passionate arguments about politics. The film gets additional drive through clever cuts and unusual camera perspectives. Definitely worth seeing!

The film was seen by 940,000 visitors in East German cinemas. The play is now being performed more frequently again, so interest in the film adaptation has also increased (the material was filmed in the Soviet Union in 1938). The other cast of the film is also very interesting: Lissy TEMPELHOF (1929-2017) as a doctor, Doris ABEßER (1935-2016) as Ruth Mamlock, Braunschweig-born Ulrich THEIN (1930-1995) as Rolf's friend, popular actress Agnes KRAUS (1911-1995) as a surgical nurse and the young Manfred KRUG (1937-2016) as an SA Sturmbannführer.

There is still a lot to discover from the collection of the East German film studio DEFA!!!