SPIEGEL: Mr. Noethen, in "Deutschstunde" you play a village policeman during the National Socialist era, who does not allow anything to dissuade him from doing his duty. He even delivers his deserted son to the Nazis. Did the Nazis discredit the concept of duty forever?
Noethen: I do not think so. Duty is once only a vessel. And it depends on the content. I find it particularly important to take responsibility nowadays. Many people - and I do not exclude myself there - are reluctant to commit. Guidelines and rules are resolved. The main thing is we have fun. Commitments that you make to yourself or others are therefore necessary.
SPIEGEL: Is your own everyday life very dependent on duties?
Noethen: It depends on what you mean by duty. When it comes to the family, there are appointments that determine my everyday life. Duty has this negative connotation of compulsion. But if I succeed in recognizing the necessity and meaningfulness of a duty, then I can also enjoy it.
SPIEGEL: So you would think of something if, like Siggi in the film, you had the task of composing an essay on the subject of "The Joy of Duty"?
Noethen: 'joys of duty' is, of course, a sarcasm with Lenz. The village police Jens Ole Jepsen you will not be able to assume that he has had a lot of fun in his duty.
SPIEGEL: What role does conscientiousness play in the upbringing of your children?
Noethen: I have responsibility for the children - and the children should eventually take responsibility. I want to teach them that. If, for example, they are provided with the kitchen to try out a new cake recipe, then the result is an obligation to restore the kitchen to its original state at the end. 'Please leave this place the way you would like to find it yourself!' That also applies on a global scale. I try to teach such things to the children.
SPIEGEL: Does that work?
Noethen: More or less, we are a normal family.
SPIEGEL: What made your film character Ole Jepsen so rigid in his sense of duty to be downright brutal?
Noethen: I do not know. Because no one taught him the courage to think? Because duty must not be questioned for him? Because he is a fear biter who feels threatened?
SPIEGEL: As Jens Ole Jepsen you beat your ten-year-old son Siggi extensively with a cane hissing through the air. The feeling of humiliation and pain gets under your skin. What did you feel when you were playing the scene?
Noethen: This unfolds its psychological power with me only afterwards. First of all, I make it a technical process for me: I wonder how I can implement the script's requirements in such a way that none of the participants gets hurt. Such a scene is indeed taken several times from different angles, in many settings, the child is not physically present, but a dummy, a leather cushion is beaten. Only on average does the whole picture emerge. These are filming days that one congratulates later on, that there is a clear separation between the played and the own ego. But the potential for violence is present in each one of us.
SPIEGEL: Their antagonist, the painter Max Ludwig Nansen, is modeled after the expressionist Emil Nolde. Ironically, now, in the year of the film's release, there is intense discussion that Nolde was not just a Nazi-oppressed painter, but an anti-Semitic and a Hitlerite admirer. Did that matter during the shoot?
Noethen: We talked about it, but we did not want to obscure the strong parable in Lenz's novel by commenting on the debate about Nolde. Even Siegfried Lenz did not want to describe Emil Nolde, he did not know as much about him as we do today. In the reception afterwards one wanted to recognize however Nolde in its fictitious character. The character of the painter in the film is also different from the fictional character, it is less shiny.
SPIEGEL: If you own a painting by Nolde ...
Noethen: ... I would hang it up at home. Many of these pictures impress me in their color, in their plasticity, in their power. Whereby there are many questions for me: Was it right to depose the Nolde in the Chancellery? Is a work of art no longer a work of art because it was painted by a Nazi? And why exactly is it worth less, in the sense of double meaning? We had press day in Munich. There is an unofficial Michael Jackson memorial in front of the "Bayerischer Hof", where fans drop devotional items. Is his music worthless after the accusations of abuse?
SPIEGEL: Do you have an answer for that?
Noethen: Yes. Nolde has painted great pictures. And he turned out to be a lousy Nazi. I can stand to live with contradictions.
SPIEGEL: They often embody figures from the Nazi era ...
Noethen: That may have happened more often, but many of the characters I've played have nothing to do with it. For a while, I was almost exclusively associated with children's films.
SPIEGEL: You are known, among other things, as Professor Sauerbruch from the television series "Charité", as a returnee of war, as Anne Frank's father or as Heinrich Himmler. Her father, born in 1920, was a Wehrmacht officer and later became a pastor. Do you also process your family history in these roles?
Noethen: My father's father was a church councilor in the Lutheran St. Luke's Church in Munich. The Gestapo has supervised its services. My dad was in the youth group of the parish. After the Gleichschaltung he found himself in the Hitler Youth again. Then Reichsarbeitsdienst and Wehrmacht, later captivity. After the war he studied theology. These contradictions, in which my father stood, between the Christian message and National Socialism, between the sermon on the mount and the extermination war, still occupy me. I would not say that through these roles I am working up my family history, but they help me to better understand my father and his generation. And it's an advantage to have someone to talk to about it.
SPIEGEL: Did you talk enough to him about this time?
Noethen: Yes. And no. He died the year before last. He was 97 years old. There have been many conversations about this time. But afterwards you have always talked too little about it. Despite all openness there was also the need to let the topic rest once. I had to accept that these things are over. And he has accepted that these things are not over. He was not the type who felt better when talking a lot about his wartime or captive experiences. And I did not feel like poking around in it again and again. There will also be areas in my life where my children will say, "What exactly was he doing there?" I can live with it.
Also read the film review on "German lesson": meaningless importance