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Bauhaus series "Die Neue Zeit": When grandma's life becomes a TV event

2019-09-05T15:28:31.193Z


The ZDF series "Die Neue Zeit" tells the story of a young woman who actually studied at the Bauhaus. Not everything is correct in the presentation. But does history TV have to adhere to the facts at all?



"Main thing not a Nazi-Schergin." As far as the portrayal of his grandmother on German television is concerned, Philip Heise has no illusions. "If you look at the TV landscape, what kind of garbage is there, you have to start from the lowest level, because with my grandmother the naming rights are forfeited, film and television can do what they want with a historically real person like you "says the 49-year-old from Hamburg.

His grandmother, this is the painter and illustrator Dorothea, called Dörte, Helm. In 1919 she enrolled as a student at the Bauhaus in Weimar. Later she was involved in famous projects like the house Sommerfeld. However, when the college of art relocated to Dessau in 1924 under the pressure of reactionary forces, Helm did not join in. She returned first to her family in Rostock, in 1932 she followed her husband Heinrich Heise to Hamburg. There she died in 1941, at the age of 42, as a result of a delayed cold.

Among the unknown compared to men like Walter Gropius, Marcel Breuer or Josef Albers Bauhaus women helmet is one of the unknown again. A postcard, which she created as an advertisement for the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923, is probably her most famous work.

Private Archive Family Heise

Postcard designed by Dörte Helm for the Bauhaus exhibition in 1923

Nevertheless, she is in the Bauhaus anniversary year twice in major television productions to see: In February she had a smaller appearance in the ARD film "Lotte at the Bauhaus", from Thursday she is seen as the main character in the six-part series "Die Neue Zeit", first on Arte, then on ZDF, in addition, in the media libraries.

In the ARD movie, Dörte Helm was a red-haired seductress, having fun at the Bauhaus in Dessau, in the Arte / ZDF series she has blonde curls and can be carried away to an affair with Bauhaus director Walter Gropius. The real Dörte helmet wore her dark hair during her time in Weimar as a bob. She was never in Dessau, an affair with Gropius is not proven.

The debate

When DER SPIEGEL reports in February for the first time critically on the presentation of Dörte Helm on the occasion of the ARD film, the reactions are passionate. Philip Heise, the grandson, answers. He and his mother, Dörte Helms daughter Cornelia Heise, thank you for the article. There is also strong approval from the readers' side, but also sharp criticism. As an "inappropriately exaggerated" a letter evaluates the text: "We are intelligent beings and as such able to look back on a fictive story and to speculate on the important role played by the women at the Bauhaus." Another communication states, "I think you have a high standard of television."

But what is the standard for television? Which authenticity expectations should we have as viewers, which may have relatives like the Heises? How much pragmatism is appropriate - from all sides?

"You can not fully correspond to the facts in a historical drama, otherwise there would not be a great deal of novels and films," says Lars Kraume. He is the creator, co-writer and director of Die Neue Zeit. Together with his producer Thomas Kufus, he spent four years developing and producing the series. First they had a fictitious main character, then they came - thanks to a hint from the Bauhaus expert Michael Siebenbrodt - on Dörte helmet.

"Of all true biographies, their best suited for our story," said Kraume. "She came from a middle-class home and yet was the most rebellious among her fellow students, was exmatriculated and yet resumed, had this unexplained relationship with Gropius, with the help of which she could join the painting class of Oskar Schlemmer, although women were only allowed to weave - and then gave up after so many fights to move back to their patriarchal father in Rostock, we wondered why. "

For Kraume, Helms life has what it takes to reveal a major contradiction in the self-image of the Bauhaus: Why did the school outwardly propagate the equality of women, but did not implement it in everyday life?

The affair

Kraume and his co-authors Judith Angerbauer and Lena Kiessler talk about it by letting Helm have an affair with Gropius (played by August Diehl) - charismatic master meets restless talent. First they rub against each other, then they fall in love. Almost it comes to the engagement. Under the impression that she will always be in the shadow of Gropius, Helm decides in the series, however, against the marriage. Gropius then puts her in the way of obstacles until she gives up disappointed and does not follow her friends to Dessau.

In fact, there was a court of honor, which should clarify whether Gropius had a relationship with his student Helm. Johannes Itten, Gropius' bitter opponent in the first phase of the Bauhaus, was before the court. His decision: no affair.

"That there may have been something between the two is the only speculation the series allows," says Lars Kraume. "It is our answer to the question of why women at the Bauhaus had such a hard time: in the end, they failed because of the vanity of men who were not interested in equality."

Julia Terjung / ZDF

Anna Maria Mühe as Dörte Helm and August Diehl as Walter Gropius

"The proposal to marry on my knees, the trip from Gropius to Rostock to my grandparents, to stop Dorte's hand - that did not happen," says Cornelia Heise. The 80-year-old barely knew her birth mother. When Dörte Helm died, Heise was barely three years old. The father married a short time later a friend of the family, then fell in 1944 at war. So Heise grew up with her stepmother, her, as she says, "second mother." She had inherited pictures and drawings by Dörte Helm from her husband and kept them carefully until her death. Inquiries from archives to take over Helm's work were always rejected by the Heises. They want the pictures to reach the widest possible audience.

The family is therefore pleased - but also irritated - by the current interest in the mother or grandmother. The fact that Dörte helmet will play a role in the ARD movie, learned the Heises from the media. No one had previously reported from the transmitter or the production company. "Total Liebesschund" is her verdict on the film.

The series

The series they see much more positive. Already in the summer of 2018 contacted Zero One, the production company of Thomas Kufus, Cornelia Heise, invited her to the set visit and sent her the script. The fact that the alleged affair of Helm with Gropius takes up so much space, disturbed the Heises even then. "But we said goodbye to the claim to influence the series very early," says Philip Heise.

The Heises made their peace with the final product, followed Zero One's invitation to the German premiere at the Munich Film Festival, and recently watched all six of them at the Berlin premiere. "For an entertainment format, they made something great out of it," says Cornelia Heise.

Moments of irritation remain nonetheless. When it is certain that the blonde Anna Maria will play trouble Dörte Helm and will not dye her hair or wear a wig for the role, someone from the Heises outfit asks if Helmut's self-portraits could be overpainted which is also blond. The Heises refuse.

In the series now several scenes are included, in which an old Walter Gropius longingly looks at pictures of a brunette. The fact that this is original images of helmet, opens up in this context, hardly, but has actress effort too little similarity with her.

Trouble: Julia Terjung; Helm: private archive family Heise

Self portrait by Dörte Helm, Anna Maria Mühe in the serial role

"No spectator will ask: Why is Dorte helmet because blond?", Producer Kufus is sure. "It's not that she is a star of the Bauhaus and has achieved a great reputation beyond our series." Kraume also insists on a difference in the presentation of known and unknown persons in contemporary history. "When I make a film about Dalí and bear a Hitler beard in it, I can understand when journalists ask what happened to the beard, but what brings the viewer in our case an unattractive wig that is constantly distracting?"

In fact, all the better known people from the Bauhaus - from Johannes Itten to Anni Albers - have been very accurately staffed and equipped in the series. Just not the main character. Nevertheless, she should profit the most from the attention the series draws to her. "Without the series, the media would have no reason to write about Dörte Helm," says Kraume. In fact, SPIEGEL had never reported Helm until the February article.

"I've come to the conclusion that it's brilliant to show you as blond," says Philip Heise. "So it's clear that the series is fiction." In the run-up to the television premiere, he has set up a homepage at doerte-helm.de with a detailed CV and several works by his grandmother. "Anyone who wants to know more about Dörte Helm after watching the series will find it here."

The audience

The historian Björn Bergold has been researching such authentication processes, ie the comparison between fiction and historical facts in the reception of contemporary historical TV. On the basis of the ARD filming of "The Tower" he has examined how young people in particular perceive and attribute the authenticity of TV history. In October his dissertation will be published on the subject.

"As you might expect, some are aware of the ambiguity of fictional television presentations and suspect that not everything shown corresponds to the truth," said Bergold. "But there are also recipients who accept not only the aspects of an account as historically accurate, which are plausible, but invariably everything in the presentation." In turn, a third group would hardly perceive the historical context. "They focus on the entertaining elements, such as the triangular relationships that dominated Event TV for a long time, and see the films as a kind of soap opera."

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Björn Bergold
How Stories become History: On the authenticity of contemporary history in feature films (Histoire)

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What arrives as the spectators and viewers, can therefore hardly control. "From the representation can not be closed to the reception," said Bergold. Supplementary documentary formats, be it in the form of films or web dossiers, he holds in principle suitable to classify fiction better. In the case of "The Tower", however, he came to the conclusion that additional TV documentaries did not deconstruct the fiction, but on the contrary were reinforcing for many spectators: The feature film was due to the additional effort that the ARD had operated with the documentaries, as even more credible.

Lars Kraume is certain that "Die Neue Zeit" emanates a clear message and does not overshadow the love story: "In the end, the viewer will have a very accurate picture of the complex historical situation in which the Bauhaus was founded and what its goals were The series will be a great way to hear new things but not feel taught. "

Björn Bergold moved to school after completing his doctorate and now teaches history at a Gymnasium in Thuringia. He shows his students also feature films with contemporary historical content, but not to impart content, but to strengthen media literacy: "They should recognize the constructs on which the fictions are based, and be authorized to independent criticism."

"The New Age" , on 5.9. and 12.9. at 8.15 pm at Arte as well as completely already in the Arte-Mediatheque; from 15.9. at 10:15 pm on ZDF.

Source: spiegel

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