THE WEST GERMAN RECEPTION of Sibylle Schönemann’s Verriegelte Zeit, a documentary that seeks explanations from the various authorities responsible for Schönemann’s 1984 arrest in the GDR, places the filmmaker’s ordeal in dialogue with Germany’s National Socialist past. Both Bodo Fründt and Thomas Thieringer of the Süddeutsche Zeitung seek comparisons between the unwillingness of Schönemann’s subjects to display guilt for their roles in the East German state and postwar (West) Germans’ reluctance to face individual, collective, and state crimes committed during the Third Reich. It is Schönemann who, in her interview with Thieringer, rejects this facile equation of German dictatorial regimes and points instead to the propensity of power and systems to become corrupt everywhere. Beyond the Nazi comparison, Schönemann’s film draws unusual attention from the West. One should not forget its utility in reaffirming the values of German unification under the banner of the Federal Republic.

Bodo Fründt

“We Were Only Doing Our Duty”

First published as “Wir haben unsere Pflicht getan” in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (June 7, 1991).

Translated by Adam Blauhut.

Sibylle Schönemann’s Debut Verriegelte Zeit (Locked-Up Time)

Two women stand in front of a cherry tree. One of them used to gaze at this tree when she was an inmate in a nearby prison. The other could have looked over the prison wall from the ladder that is still leaning against the cherry tree today. The former inmate asks the owner of the cherry tree about her thoughts and feelings, both then and now. The woman to whom the questions are addressed is not unfriendly, but she does not seem honest and is clearly inhibited by the camera. At any rate, as she admits now, she did not really give much thought to the prisoners back then.

In fact, filmmaker Sibylle Schönemann is interested in an entirely different question. She is the woman asking the questions and also the woman who served time in prison. In April 1984 she filed an application to leave the GDR. At the time she was employed as a film director at DEFA. In November 1984 she was arrested by the Stasi, the country’s secret police, and in February 1985 she was sentenced to twelve months in prison. In July 1985 she was expelled to West Germany, her freedom purchased by the government in Bonn.