Eberhard Fechner:chronicler of abysses and the everyday

Eberhard Fechner is considered one of the most important German documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, and his documentary "The Trial" about the proceedings at Majdanek concentration camp is a masterpiece. Fechner died in Hamburg 30 years ago.

Eberhard Fechner - born on October 21, 1926 in Liegnitz (now Legnica) in Silesia - made his debut as a young actor in Berlin in 1947 and then played more than 200 roles on German theaters within ten years. In addition to his theater work as an actor and director, Fechner is also increasingly working on television. In 1965 he first became an editorial assistant at NDR. In the same year, Egon Monk, head of NDR television at the time, hired him as an actor for the film "One Day - Report from a German Concentration Camp".

"Slander on Klara Heydebreck":Award-winning debut

In 1969, Fechner experienced an early high point in his career as a television director with his first TV documentary "Nachrede auf Klara Heydebreck" on NDR. The suicide of a 72-year-old Berliner prompted Fechner to look for traces of her life. It is an attempt to reconstruct the personality of a person who has taken their own life from documents left behind, official entries and statements from neighbors and relatives. His curious gaze and open ear for the details of seemingly simple life lead to a harrowing portrait of a life experienced as futile. "Just as their fate is unique, so is the fate of every single human being unmistakable and unique," said Fechner about the importance of his first documentary, for which he was awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize.

NS crimes in Majdanek:Aging perpetrators in court

Fechner later devoted himself to the horrific crimes of the Nazi era:from 1941 to 1944 there was a concentration and extermination camp in Lublin-Majdanek in German-occupied Poland, in which, according to research, tens of thousands of people were murdered. After two trials against former SS members and camp staff in Lublin, the third trial was opened in Düsseldorf in 1975 - and only ended six years later with one life sentence, three and a half to twelve years' imprisonment and a number of acquittals for the accused.

Many observers find the verdict sobering. "Our judiciary could not find more than eight people to blame for a quarter of a million people who were murdered," says the socially critical publicist and literary critic Walter Boehlich, summing up the case bitterly. Heiner Lichtenstein, process observer and commentator for WDR, sees another problem - which today, around eight decades after the Holocaust, is more relevant than ever:conducting such processes is becoming increasingly difficult because of the age of the accused and witnesses. When the trial began in 1975, investigations had already been going on for 15 years. The crimes date back more than 30 years.

Years of research for "The Trial"

During the Düsseldorf Majdanek trial, Fechner interviewed and filmed witnesses, suspects, trial observers, public prosecutors, judges and defense counsel for years. From the material - almost 260 hours of film - he finally assembles a virtual dialogue over three years of work, which, beyond arguments, also makes visible an outrageously human dimension of what happened through all perspectives. The first part of the three-part documentary "The Trial - A presentation of the Majdanek Trial in Düsseldorf", "Indictment" was first broadcast on NDR in 1984.

Fechner's film:Human plea against forgetting

Even if the history of the trials of Nazi crimes is coming to an end, the horror remains present in the stories of the Holocaust survivors. For example, when there is a report about the huge heads of cabbage that - fertilized with human ashes - thrive on the vegetable fields around the Majdanek camp until 1944 and are so heavy that the emaciated prisoners cannot carry them. We also have Eberhard Fechner to thank for the fact that the investigation into the crimes at Majdanek did not end with the comparatively mild sentences. "The Trial" is a deeply human plea against forgetting and at the same time a guarantor of memory.

Documents from "Comedian Haramonists" to "Class Photo"

The three-part film, which is considered the highlight of Fechner's work, is one of more than 40 feature films and mini-series that he directs or is in front of the camera himself - and documentaries. For example, with "Comedian Harmonists - Six Curriculum Vitae" in 1976, the documentary filmmaker provided a unique look behind the scenes of the internationally renowned sextet from Germany, whose story was also filmed for the cinema 21 years later. From 1933 onwards the Comedian Harmonists could hardly perform in Germany, since the members Harry Frommermann, Erich A. Collin and Roman Cycowski were Jews:First they were forbidden to perform and then to practice their profession by the Nazis. The group split in 1935 and the Jewish members went into exile. Their further fate and that of the three "Aryan" singers according to Nazi ideology can be representative of the experiences of many artists in these decades.

For "Class Photo - Memories of German Citizens" - also awarded the Adolf Grimme Prize - Fechner is looking for 40 years after 1933 twelve former students of a high school class and traces their lives. From former SA members to Jewish emigrants. Their descriptions impressively show how the general population came to terms with National Socialism on an individual basis. Many trivialize the Nazi era, suppress the atrocities of the Nazi dictatorship and stand as a multifaceted collective memory for others of their generation.

"Make visible what people feel"

In his work, the documentary filmmaker is primarily concerned with people and their personal destiny - and with history from the perspective of unknown people. He meets them with great interest, respect and patience and gives them the necessary space to tell their own story in front of the camera. Also unpleasant, previously suppressed. Fechner's films show how German society thought and lived during the Nazi era and in the post-war period.

In the "Tagesspiegel" Walter Kempowski, whose works "Tadellöser &Wolff" and "Deutsche Chronik" Fechner filmed, wrote at the time:"Here his art of extracting the most secret information from his interlocutors without ever being indiscreet reached its peak ." And Knut Hickethier admires in the "taz" Fechner's "method of getting people to speak in front of the camera with patient attention."

Unique editing style:the documentary interview film

"You can't hear me, you can't see me, I'm the editor," says Fechner once about his role as a director - invisible, but the determining authority. With his cutter Brigitte Kirsche (1923 - 2017), he also established a unique artistic montage style, "a new form of documentary interview film", as the director himself calls it. Fechner uses the montage to gather his interviewees around an "imaginary round table", as he puts it - and allows them to enter into a dialogue. In this way, their different life experiences collide and it becomes clear how many different perspectives a story can have. Fechner's montage style is still an important stylistic device in the production of documentaries.

Narrative film:Fechner not only wants to show, but to convey

But Fechner doesn't just want to document, he wants to convey. So he doesn't call his works documentaries, but speaks of narrative films. The television documentary "Wolfskinder" (Wolfskinder) was the last of these narrative films to be made in 1990. It is the story of an East Prussian refugee family that gets lost on the way and miraculously finds itself back together - and a tribute to the Lithuanian farmers who made this possible with their willingness to help. In doing so, Fechner creates a cinematic memorial for his home region.

TV games with an eye for the "little people"

But Fechner also skilfully and profoundly serves the entertainment genre. The television film "Four Hours from Elbe 1" with Helga Feddersen and Evelyn Hamann looks at the everyday life of "little people" as a sailor searches for the right woman. With "Gezeiten" from 1970, more or less a sequel with Klaus Höhne and Vadim Glowna, Fechner stays in the world of seafarers. Another classic of the television play directed by him is "Women's Quartet" from 1969 - the story of four elderly sisters who make their way through life with fraud, told based on a true story. For example, he wrote the screenplay for the crime scene "Frankfurter Gold" from 1971.

Retrospective on the 30th anniversary of his death on NDR

In the course of his 40-year career as a director and actor, Fechner, who alongside Klaus Wildenhahn and Georg Stefan Troller is considered one of the most important documentary filmmakers of the 20th century, has won everything from the German Critics' Prize to the Golden Camera to the Adolf Grimme Prize wins all the major TV awards.

Fechner died in Hamburg on August 7, 1992 and is buried in the Riesenberg Cemetery in Bremen-Schwachhausen. For almost 20 years, Eberhard Fechner had a home for his professional and artistic work at the NDR. On the occasion of the 30th anniversary of his death, the NDR is devoting an extensive retrospective to the director with several of his most important documentaries, including "Comedian Harmonists - six CVs" and "Nachrede auf Klara Heyebreck", which can be seen on August 3rd, 4th and 8th and in the media library. The review is also supplemented by the documentary "Eberhard Fechner - chronicler of the uniquely normal" from 1989.

Eberhard Fechner review - the films and dates