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„Der Zeuge“(The Witness)
Film and discussion with director and main actor Bernd Michael Lade, Patrick Metzler (FSU) and Michael Löffelsender
Germany, shortly after the Second World War: As a prisoner of the Buchenwald, Lichtenburg, Esterwegen and Flossenbürg concentration camps for many years, Carl Schrade (Bernd Michael Lade) experienced the atrocities of the Nazis at first hand. Now the former jewellery dealer is to testify as the prosecution's key witness in a court of law in order to put his tormentors behind bars. In the dock are SS men, NSDAP officials and Ilse Koch (Lina Wendel), the wife of the notorious concentration camp commander Karl Koch. The list of their inhuman crimes is long, the list of excuses and justifications almost longer. There is hardly any doubt about the guilt. But where did Carl Schrade's extensive knowledge of the camp administration procedures come from and how did he survive more than ten years in the camps?
As director and leading actor, Bernd Michael Lade (formerly a member of the GDR punk band "planlos") creates an exciting thought experiment in DER ZEUGE, based on real court transcripts. The dialectically narrated trial drama about guilt and innocence relentlessly contrasts perpetrator and victim testimonies. With unprecedented directness, it reveals the mechanisms that led to the systematic exploitation and eventual extermination of millions of people in the concentration camps.
Production: MARUTO Filmproduktion, 2023. Length: 93 Minutes
An event organised by the Buchenwald and Mittelbau Dora Memorial Foundation in cooperation with the Thuringian State Agency for Civic Education.
This applies to the commemoration ceremony as well as to the film screenings or musical readings. Excluded from this are the external events such as the commemoration of Robert Büchler. The Jewish prayer for the dead and the interreligious memorial service are also not included.
