Figure 1.-- This shots shows one of the boys wearing short pants, long stockings, a winter jacket, and cap as a bicyclist. The clothuing seems reasonably accurate, but not the bike. Few workingclass boys at the time had bicycles. Clickon the image for a discussion of this.

Another good German film, "Die Kinder aus No. 67" (The Children of No. 67), directed by Usch Barthelmess-Weller and Werner Meyer (1980). It's about two 12-year-old boys, Paul (played by Rene Schaaf) and Erwin (played by Bernd Riedel), who decide what is right and wrong according their own special code, "important and unimportant". The setting is a working-class area of Berlin in the period before and just after Hitler's rise to power. The film used non-professional children, not trained actors, in order to portray boys with great psychological individuality and realism.

Filmology

Another good German film, "Die Kinder aus No. 67" (The Children of No. 67), directed by Usch Barthelmess-Weller and Werner Meyer (1980).

Book

The film is based on a series of children's books by Lisa Tetzner (1894-1963) about the adventures of a working-class group of children who live in a run-down apartment house in Berlin during the early-Nazi period.

Setting

The setting is a working-class area of Berlin durung the NAZI era, just before and just after Hitler's rise to power.

Cast

The film is about two 12-year-old boys, Paul (played by Rene Schaaf) and Erwin (played by Bernd Riedel), who decide what is right and wrong according their own special code, "important and unimportant". The film used non-professional children, not trained actors, in order to portray boys with great psychological individuality and realism.

Plot

Paul Brackmann and Erwin Richter are friends who belong to a gang of children from one of the back courtyards of an apartment with the street address of No. 67. The parents of one of the boys are about to be evicted for failure to pay the rent, so the boys turn a masquerade party in the courtyard into an event to raise money for the needed rent. As was common in working-class neigborhoods, there were many anti-NAZIs before Hitler seized power. After he seized power, opposition was supressed and could opponents could wind up in one of the concentration camps. The children, following their parents politics, are rather anti-Nazi at the beginning of the story, but as the regime begins to have greater influence upon them, the tight-knit solidarity of the group begins to dissolve. One of the central relationships is between Erwin, a boy who resists Nazi propaganda, and his friend Paul, who eventually joins the Hitler Youth movement which at first was voluntary. One of the girls in the group is Miram, who is Jewish and whose aunt runs a masquerade shop. There are scenes with the children trying on costumes and performing amateur skits. There is not a great deal of plot. Much of the film depicts the humorous antics of the children, meant to received as comedy, but some serious political issues in the background such as working-class poverty during the Great Depression, anti-Semitism, and class tension. Before the Third Reich commences the boys of the apartment complex enjoy a kind of communitarian solidarity and support each other as a more or less cohesive group. But after Hitler comes to power, the gang of cooperative friends falls apart and the friendship between the two boys is destroyed. A trader writes, "The loss of emotional connection and social cooperation become a metaphor for the coldly mechanistic regime of National Socialism." We are not sure we agree with this. One of the achievements of the Third Reich was to disolve Germany's class structure through such mecanisms as the Hitler Youth and Youth labor Serviuce where boys worked together on an equal basis regardless of social class. Also social class became less of a factor in entering secondary schools and universities and in obtaining employment.

Costuming

The costuming seems to be fairly accurate historically. Most of the boys in the apartment building wear quite long short pants as was still common in the early-30s when the film begins. The look almost like knee pants or knickers, They also wear shirts with long or short sleeves, and long stockings or knee socks pushed down to the ankles. Most of the boys wear short trousers with suspenders or knee pants with buttons at the knee with bare legs and socks or stockings that are unsupported. When the weather turns chilly we see a few boys in short trousers with long stockings and supporters (held up by Leibchen). Long stockings were still standard for German children when the weather begins to get cold. It gets quite cold in Germany during the winter and yhe Gernmans are used to cold weather. It boggles the mind how Hitler had the German Army fighting deep in Russia durung the dead iof winter in summer uniforms.