After the Wehrmacht invaded Czechoslovakia in 1939, the Jewish population was disenfranchised and killed, as this etude, staged at the Terezín Memorial, recalls. The fact that there was successful Jewish resistance even in extermination camps like Sobibór did not fit in with the traditional image of the passive victims that is melodramatically re-enforced by this film.

Commissioned by the German Book Traders’ Association, Lotte Thiel follows the preparations for the 1971 International Book Art Exhibition, prominently supported on screen and on the soundtrack. The tradition of this fair is recalled, from its predecessor BUGRA 1914 to the first IBA in 1927 and the subsequent events that took place every five to six years starting in 1959. Award-winning illustrations can be viewed in detail.

The people, among them an astonishing number of workers, react with visible anger to the sudden lack of matches – and threaten to go to the barricades. The problem is solved, of course. But does it mean the population’s anger is placated? Puppet animation director Johannes Hempel created this satire based on a draft by Wolfgang Kohlhaase – at the same time as the uprising of 17 June 1953.

“If you want to storm, you use stormer methods”, to quote a direct reference to the infamous anti-Semitic smear sheet of the Nazi era. Set to shrill trumpet sounds, this outraged film pamphlet dissects, or so it seems, the drastic jargon of the “West German monopoly press”, especially the publications of the Springer publishing house, in their coverage of the Six-Day War between Israel and the Arab coalition of Egypt, Jordan and Syria. At the same time, it uses the reviled style for its own argumentation. Under the auspices of the DEFA newsreel editors of “Der Augenzeuge” (The Eyewitness), a sweeping blow against the Bonn Republic arises from news images and superimposed newspaper articles.

At the turn of 1968/69, the decision was taken to introduce a Leipzig City Express to “relieve inner city traffic as an attractive local passenger transport system”. A forward-looking measure of traffic policy which – at a time when the car-friendly city was still the dominant concept in urban planning – represented an appealing mobility option for the citizens of Leipzig.

The railway from the point of view of people who travel by bicycle, on foot or by car: A Schlager music recording of GDR singer Chris Doerk is re-cut many times to accompany the endless-seeming wait at a railway crossing. Meanwhile, young people find each other, couples form. Even the birth of a child finds a place in this ironic short film.

A wall stands in a barren, inhospitable landscape, insurmountable. While the birds are flying unhindered through the air, a human being struggles in vain to open a door in the wall. First as a small child, then as an adult, finally as an old man. When the door at last unexpectedly gives way, it seems too late. A dark allegory by the Leipzig-based painter and graphic artist Rainer Schade.

Under the banner of international solidarity, Arab children from refugee camps in Jordan are spending a holiday in the GDR in 1970. This political gesture ties in with the recently redefined position of the GDR in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. At the World Youth Festival in 1973, Yasser Arafat was already seen standing next to Erich Honecker on camera.

In short sequences of images pointedly set to music by Louis Armstrong, the film follows the pleasurable triumph of young life over the obstacles of setting out into the world. As short as the film is and as curious its contents, the chequered story of its working and release titles is just as interesting. In 1987, the industry magazine “Film und Fernsehen” presented it simply as “A DEFA film by”. The text printed there ends with a sentence in brackets: (And many a viewer may marvel at the courage of the little ducklings and feel encouraged themselves.)

History in a hurry: Namibia becomes independent in March 1990, in July the Publicly Owned Enterprise DEFA becomes a GmbH, in October GDR becomes FRG East, in August a West and an East German filmmaker record one of the last GDR inconsistencies for DEFA. The state in pre-retirement sends 425 Namibian children, whom it had rescued from Angolan camps eleven years earlier, “home.” Hastily. But why? When Grote, Kunert and the children arrive, a Namibian minister explains that the East German supporters of these colonial war victims are now out of power. The new powers had no interest … In the Leipzig festival selection in 1990, and again in 1991, this film about German-Namibian foreignness and alienation cannot be found. The Retrospective 2024 makes up for this strange omission.

Far removed from the officially propagated GDR cultural sector, Christine Schlegel created her very own energetic cosmos on 8mm stock between 1977 and 1986. She painted over or scratched lines and shapes on footage of the dancer Fine Kwiatkowski. She projected painted footage on the dancing body during live performances, enveloping and re-shaping it.