Abschied (1968)

Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968) has a typical sixties subject: the alienation of young people. Unusual is that the film was made in East-Germany. But typical for this Communist state was that the film was unofficially banned. The fresh and good looking stars of this little gem were Jan Spitzer and Heidemarie Wenzel.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3278, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Jan Spitzer in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3279, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Rolf Ludwig, Katharina Lind and Jan Spitzer in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3281, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Jan Spitzer and Heidemarie Wenzel in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).

A farewell to his class

During the 1960s, many films in Hollywood and Europe were made about alienated young men. Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968) is another film in that genre, but this one has the distinction of being made in East Germany, a country where you would not imagine a film celebrating non-conformity could be made.

The film was based on 'Abschied' a famous German novel by Johannes R. Becher and SED politician Alexander Abusch contributed to the scenario in an advisory capacity. Also, the society the lead character is rebelling about is Germany in the years leading up to the first World War. This explains how the unconventional film could be made.

In August 1914, amidst the public ecstasy surrounding the impending war, Hans Gastl (Jan Spitzer) is the seventeen year-old son of a prominent prosecutor (Rolf Ludwig) in Munich. The bullying and hypocrisy of his father and the other adults around him sicken him and he drifts into a life of petty crime. Will some new found friends save him from the road to ruin with their talk of socialism and Karl Marx?

He seeks refuge with Fanny (Heidemarie Wenzel), a prostitute who still has the strength for real feelings, but not the strength to break away from her milieu. Gastl finds new friends among artists. But the war turns some of them - once expressive opponents of the war - into fanatical war supporters. The artist Sack, a poet, remains his only companion.

Hans makes a decision: he will not take part in this war. This resolution signifies a turning point in his life; a farewell to his class and his family. His notions of 'transformation' are still nebulous, but are nevertheless linked with a sensible life in a just society.

Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968) is a visually striking film, with many shots and editing tricks that owe a debt to the French New Wave films of the 1960s. The film has an anachronistic look. Despite being set in the 1910s, everyone looks like they just stepped out of a 1960s fashion magazine. Director Egon Günther did not want to make a mere literary adaptation but translated it to the current GDR.

The film premiere was on 10 October 1968 in Berlin. Abschied was awarded the title 'Particularly valuable', but soon it was criticised for its "stylistic devices". Egon Günther and Günter Kunert had implemented the novel “as a modern satirical spectacle, anti-bourgeois and pacifist at the same time”. At the 9th plenary session of the Central Committee of the SED on 24 October 1968, the film was sharply criticised. When the film was to be shown at a ceremony in honour of Johannes R. Becher, Walter Ulbricht demonstratively left the cinema shortly before the start of the performance.

Abschied was taken from the East-German cinemas after a short time and later only ran occasionally in individual screenings. While the film never ran on television in the GDR, the ZDF showed him the film 1971 on West-German television. In 2007 the film was released on DVD by Icestorm.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3282, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Jan Spitzer and Heidemarie Wenzel in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3283, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Jan Spitzer and Heidemarie Wenzel in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).


East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3284, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Dietrich. Rolf Ludwig and Jan Spitzer in Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).

Sources: Filmportal.de (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.

Jan Spitzer

East-German actor Jan Spitzer (1947) was a star of the DEFA in the late 1960s. He also worked as a pop singer and as a stage and voice actor.


Big East-German card by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 192/70. Photo: Karin Blasig.

A farewell to his class and his family

Jan Spitzer was born in 1947 in Sangerhausen, Germany. He loved pop music and formed in 1963 of the amateur band The Sounds, which covered songs by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones.

Between 1965 and 1968 he studied acting at the Hochschule für Schauspielkunst ‘Ernst Busch’ in Berlin. As a student, he made his film debut in the anti-war film Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968) with Rolf Ludwig. Spitzer played the leading role of a seventeen year-old Munich boy, who decides in 1914 that he will not take part in the First World War. This means a farewell to his class and his family.

He then appeared in the historical comedy Jungfer, Sie gefällt mir/Maiden, I like you (Günter Reisch, 1969) with Wolfgang Kieling and Monika Gabriel.

In 1970 he released the pop single, Wer bist du? (Who are you?) and in the next years he recorded more songs. He did not like the Schlager genre, so in 1975 he decided to focus on his acting career.

His first bigger role was in the family film Philipp, der Kleine/Little Philipp (Herrmann Zschoche, 1978) as the father of a little boy who wishes to be taller in order to be noticed by the others. Then he comes across a magical flute.

In the meanwhile, Spitzer worked for television and could be seen in several TV series and TV movies like Im Schlaraffenland/In the land of Cockaigne (Kurt Jung-Alsen, 1975) with Erwin Geschonneck and Katharina Thalbach, which was shown in cinema in other East-European countries. He also appeared in the Eastern Blauvogel/Bluebird (Ulrich Weiß, 1979). And he played Friedrich Engels in the TV series Marx und Engels - Stationen ihres Lebens/Marx and Engels – Stations of their lives (1978-1980) with Jürgen Reuter as Karl Marx.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3246, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Ebert. Publicity still for Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 3270, 1968. Photo: DEFA / Ebert. Publicity still for Abschied/Farewell (Egon Günther, 1968).

The German voice of Rutger Hauer

Jan Spitzer played a supporting part in the film Bürgschaft für ein Jahr/Guarantee for one year (Herrmann Zschoche, 1981) with Kathrin Sass as a divorced woman in her late twenties who will soon be fully deprived of her custody rights for her three children, who already reside in a home for the displaced, due to many years of willful neglect. Sass won the Silver Bear for her role at the Berlin Filmfestival.

Spitzer played a leading role in the Soviet-East-German co-production Dve strochki melkim shriftom/Two Lines in Small Font (Vitaliy Melnikov, 1981). He also appeared in the Czech fantasy film Carovné dedictví/Magical heritage (Zdenek Zelenka, 1986) and in the Eastern Präriejäger in Mexiko: Benito Juarez/Bounty hunter in Mexico: Benito Juarez (Hans Knötzsch, 1988) starring Gojko Mitic.

On TV, he guest-starred in the popular Krimi series Polizeiruf 110/Police Call 110 (1984-1991). After the Wende, Spitzer mostly worked for television but also narrated video games and was the German voice of James Remar, Chris Cooper, Jon Voight, Rutger Hauer and Alan Arkin in international films.

His most recent feature film is the drama Mutterseelenallein/All Alone (Bernd Böhlich, 2005) about a mother (Katrin Sass) who is confronted with her son being suspected of having murdered a girl on a garbage dump. Spitzer played her ex-husband.

Jan Spitzer is also a stage actor and he had engagements in Altenburg, Halle, Schwerin, at the Deutschen Theater in Berlin, at the Volkstheater in Munich and the Berliner Ensemble.


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 51/69. Photo: DEFA / Kreuss. Publicity still for Jungfer, Sie gefällt mir/Maiden, I like you (Günter Reisch, 1969).


East-German postcard by VEB Progress Film-Vertrieb, Berlin, no. 97/69. Photo: DEFA / Karin Blasig. Publicity still for Jungfer, Sie gefällt mir/Maiden, I like you (Günter Reisch, 1969).


Jan Spitzer sings Mädchen aus Berlin (Girl from Berlin) in an East German TV show in 1969. Source: Thyrathron (YouTube).

Sources: Deutsche Mugge.de (German), Wikipedia (German) and IMDb.