Studies in European Cinema

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‘Heimat, Heimat, über alles’: Heimat in two

contemporary German films

Alexandra Ludewig

To cite this article: Alexandra Ludewig (2009) ‘Heimat, Heimat, über alles’: Heimat in two
contemporary German films, Studies in European Cinema, 5:3, 219-232

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1386/seci.5.3.219_1

Published online: 06 Jan 2014.

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Studies in European Cinema Volume 5 Number 3 © Intellect Ltd 2008.

Article. English language. doi: 10.1386/seci.5.3.219/1

‘Heimat, Heimat, über alles’: Heimat in

two contemporary German films
Alexandra Ludewig The University of Western Australia

Abstract Keywords
Less than a decade ago, a number of scholars began a renewed discussion of Heimat Heimat
film with the confident assumption that they were speaking about a genre that was Tykwer
passé. These German language films about belonging and attachment to a place and Wortmann
community are almost unanimously condemned in academic circles, despite being German cinema
consistently well received by the public. Regardless of their reception, Heimat films Vergangenheitsbewälti-
have experienced something of a renaissance since the 1990s and I would like to gung
argue that the genre’s recent resurgence is related less to birthplace or place in genre
general, than to a sense of belonging derived from relationships with others and
often enhanced by experiences, performances and spectacle. Discussion of two recent
films, Tom Tykwer’s Winterschläfer/Wintersleepers (X-Filme, 1997) and Sönke
Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern/The Miracle of Bern (Senator Film Produk-
tion, 2003) will illustrate this point. However, they respond to different cues and
forbears of the Heimat genre: Tykwer to the Bergfilm tradition and Wortmann to
1950s Heimat films which in turn mainly recreate folk tales. Both directors are
inspired by the past, Tykwer reworks the Heimat genre critically for Wintersleepers,
whereas Wortmann adopts it in this case seemingly with little reflection.

Less than a decade ago, a number of scholars began a renewed discussion

of Heimat film with the confident assumption that they were speaking
about a genre that was passé. These German language films about belong-
ing and attachment to a place and community are almost unanimously
condemned in academic circles, despite being consistently well received by
the public. Regardless of their reception, Heimat films have experienced
something of a renaissance since the 1990s and I would like to argue that
the genre’s recent resurgence is related less to birthplace or place in
general, than to a sense of belonging derived from relationships with
others and often enhanced by experiences, performances and spectacle.
Discussion of two recent films, Tom Tykwer’s Winterschläfer/Wintersleepers
(1997) and Sönke Wortmann’s Das Wunder von Bern/The Miracle of Bern
(2003) will illustrate this point.
Their cinematic revisitings of the Heimat-motif play into the hands of
another important discourse in Germany: ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ or
coming to terms with the past. Tykwer attempts a critical reworking of the
visual and narrative tropes of the Heimat genre, with explicit reference to

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German political and cinematic history. His take on the issue probes the
past by problematizing personal and national history. This attitude con-
trasts sharply with The Miracle of Bern, which may be read as a return to
the sort of amnesiac politics popularly associated with the 1950s.
The genre of Heimat film was seen as a manifestation of and vehicle for
escapism and/or ideological infiltration; at its best, Heimat in German film
is synonymous with a utopian idyll, while at its worst, it is associated with
the Fascist sublime. With reference to the genre’s desired outcomes, which
are related to nation building and the formation of a strong society, post-
war Heimat films seem, ironically, to take up where their Nazi precursors
left off. In the 1930s and 1950s in particular, a positive identification with
the local surroundings was idealized in the films, an identification which
pertained to an all-encompassing sense of wellbeing relating to family,
village, landscape and country. Heimat therefore denotes less a place, than
a state of utmost self-assurance and harmony with oneself and surround-
ings, and the genre aids the socio-historical investigation of the state of the
society, with most Heimat films mirroring the values and social changes,
the reception of traditions and the yearning for new beginnings current at
the time of their release. As such they form ‘an archive of human fantasies
and desires [preserving] the imaginary of the past within the present’
(Hake 2002: 1). However, they can also serve as a blueprint of the future
derived from the here and now. The two films discussed in the following
illustrate both of these points.
Most Heimat films in the 1930s and 1940s were structured according
to principles of the tradition of the Bildungsroman (novel of development),
which follows the integration of an adolescent protagonist into society.
Successful integration is usually achieved after the protagonist undertakes
a journey leading away from the path of virtue and social acceptance,
after which he or she returns to the safe haven of an ordered society. The
genre’s conformist message which favoured individuals finding their place
within a given order, has served many successive governments well, both
in the past and in the present. It is therefore not surprising that the genre
was already flourishing in the years following the First World War (when
the examination of national identity became an important issue, especially
for people from the Sudetenland, Upper Silesia or East Prussia) as well as
during the Gleichschaltung (coordination) of German society between 1933
and 1945 – and once again following the demise of Nazism when it was
necessary to help millions of displaced people feel at home in their new
locations and life situations. Most recently, the genre has proved popular
since the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, when long-held beliefs and cer-
tainties came under question.
The genre’s genealogy calls on two different traditions; the mountain
film and the Volksgeschichte (folk tale). Bergfilme (mountain films) have
existed since the very early years of Wilhelminian Cinema and focus on
mountaineering and, in particular, the struggle of man in or against
nature. Initially, the new medium was for documentary footage, featuring

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sublime landscapes in a dramatic light. Especially in response to the expe- 1 See Rapp (1997: 18):
‘Mountains and
riences of World War I, the newly developing genre of mountain films was mountain climbing
promoted as a cure ‘. . . for our weary and distraught contemporaries. For function [. . .] as
the veterans of war, for warriors who need[ed] a rest’ (Feld 1931). In the powerful metaphors
against the
mountain surrounds, seemingly removed from civilization and time, the urbanisation and
damaged individual could heal his or her mind and body. However, the vic- rationalism of the
Modern – an ideal
torious pose of the mountaineer after conquering a peak that was cap- stage upon which to
tured in these mountain films was also balm to the soul for the many transform one’s own
loss of social status
individuals who experienced a drastic loss of social standing during the temporarily into
economic turmoil of the 1920s. The mountains thus become an ideal dramatic victory
poses’.
stage for the temporary metamorphosis from loser to winner.1 During the
years of the Weimar Republic, mountain films also served as advertise-
ments for Alpine tourism with documentary style and short form the pre-
ferred formats. It was not until the 1920s and 30s with the features
produced by Dr Arnold Fanck (1889–1974) and his company that the
Bergfilm achieved acclaim as a truly entertaining and narrative genre.
Fanck, who is widely regarded as the founder of the mountain film, had
his most creative period during the inter war years (1919–1933), when the
film medium had been consolidated and extended and was in the process of
adopting longer narratives. As a keen photographer, Fanck had his first taste
of filmmaking with his collaborative work on the short-film documentary,
Besteigung des Monte Rosa auf Skiern/Ascent of the Mount Rosa on Ski
(1920/1921), which was shot in Switzerland. This was followed by attempts
to fuse a storyline together with skiing action, thus gradually transforming
the mountain film genre. By the early 1920s, short films had grown to
feature film length, documentaries into fictional narratives and the solitary
master mountain climber was transformed into a model tourist from the city.
The genre of mountain film epitomized in the formulaic storyline nowadays
associated with the genre – became what it is renowned for today: the strug-
gle of man and nature, which serves the cult of masculinity as much as the
glorification of iconographic sites of nationhood. The typical situation
depicted in Fanck’s early features centred on the recreational mountaineer’s
triumph over nature, while at the same time becoming one with it. The
alpine scenery was never merely a backdrop – it played a central part in the
composition of each scene, as well as in the development of the action.
Indeed, the mountains shared equal billing with the protagonists, motivat-
ing their every move, as well as those of the camera. The dichotomy of man
and mountain always favoured nature, rewriting history as fate, with the
mountain serving as a ‘quasi-sacral space of action’ (Rapp 1997: 9), as a
number of Fanck’s film titles, including Der heilige Berg/The Holy Mountain
(1925–1926) and Der Berg des Schicksals/Mount of Destiny (1924) suggest.
One film to reconnect with those early notions of the genre is Tom
Tykwer’s Wintersleepers (1997). As a Bergfilm produced in post-unification
Germany it testifies to a continued interest in the search for a Heimat in
the mountains. However, this Bergfilm is keen to engage critically with its
heritage: both its artistic predecessors and its national baggage. By

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turning to a genre that is widely associated with Germany, Tykwer delib-

erately places the reception of his film within a national framework,
notwithstanding the debate raging about this issue in academic circles.
Despite its origins in France and Switzerland and the fact that most of its
films were shot in the Swiss and Austrian Alps, the mountain film genre –
like its cousin the Heimat film – has been described as a peculiarly German
phenomenon (Kracauer 2004: 110), an anomaly which may be attributed
to the fact that, despite international efforts, the genre only established
itself as a commercial success with German audiences. As such, mountain
iconography is bound to remind cinema lovers of works by such accom-
plished directors as Arnold Fanck, Luis Trenker and Leni Riefenstahl.
Tykwer relies on this mental map when he uses Wintersleepers to prob-
lematize approaches to genre as much as to history.
Despite mountain films reaching their pinnacle in both popularity and
quality around 1930, coinciding on a technical level with the transition to
sound film and socio-historically with the ascent of National Socialism, audi-
ences have not shunned them, although many critics – inspired by
Kracauer’s and Sontag’s critiques in particular – still choose to interpret
mountain films retrospectively as expressions of irrationalism, mysticism,
and as being dangerously close to Fascist ideology. Mountain films, with
their ‘combination of auratic landscapes, breathtaking atmospheres, and
high-pitched emotions’ (Rentschler 1990: 137), have remained relatively
unchanged in their focus on ambivalent depictions of nature’s might and
beauty to this day. ‘Set in an enchanted landscape where time and space
seem suspended, where the conventions of the fairytale replace the quotid-
ian perception of life’ (Nenno 1996: 309), mountains and mountain films
continue to evoke emotions. Fittingly, Tykwer has stated how important it is
to him – as it was to the directors of the classic mountain films – that the
audience understands his film Wintersleepers to be ‘atmospheric’ (Tykwer in
Vahabzadeh 1997), that is visually, as well as with regard to the underlying
storyline. Reviews have stressed the typical predominance of ‘Schicksal’(destiny)
(Schäfer 1997) and ‘Zufälle’ (chances) (Makartsey 1997), the foregrounded
might and beauty of nature, the images of snow, clouds and the grandiose
mountain panoramas that transcend the banality of the story, and the fact
that landscape acts both as a protagonist and as a mirror for grand emotions
and catastrophes. Superficially speaking, however, this is where the similari-
ties end: in Wintersleepers Tykwer has cleverly reworked the main hallmarks
of the traditional mountain film, from the mountain-centred salvation that
opens and closes the film, to the German romantic notion of nature’s purity
and urban or lowland corruption. He reflects critically on the stereotypical
idea that village folk possess intact family structures and close social bonds,
the longing for which – just like the desire for a home – is central to the
Heimat film genre. Setting the film in a contemporary Alpine ski village in
winter, Tykwer uses the landscape and other symbols found in Heimat films
to juxtapose the superficial threads of his narrative with modern concepts of
identity and history. By doing so, he questions the preoccupation of his

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fellow citizens with history and guilt as a source of identity for collective as
well as individual Germanness.
Tykwer introduces a group of four young strangers to the Alps to con-
trast them with the only native son of the soil, the farmer Theo. The film is
dedicated to the clash between and the development of the characters as
they all experience a transformation of sorts, with the end of winter
certain to herald their individual metamorphoses. Each develops along
rather contradictory lines and becomes ever more complex before the
viewer’s eyes. This complexity is enhanced by the visual qualities of the
film. Despite the authentic aspects placing it deliberately in time and
space, the film foregrounds its artificial and stylistic qualities to make the
viewer reflect on perspective and point of view. Carefully composed mise en
scènes, the colour coding of characters and the camera work combine to
emphasize the film’s symbolism. One example has the horizontal axis in
the film used as a basis for rotation: water from a showerhead does not
move from top to bottom but instead from left to right, forcing the viewer
to re-adjust, re-assess and reflect on location and perspective.
The film introduces each character at a slow pace, layer-by-layer, unveil-
ing different idiosyncrasies and swaying the viewer’s opinion of each. First
impressions must be revised, as the exposition raises expectations that are
soon dashed. Not knowing and having to reassess are just as much themes of
Wintersleepers as yearning. All the characters are driven by urges and desires:
Rebecca longs for love, Laura for peace, René for a sense of certainty about his
past, Marco for wish-fulfilment and instant gratification, while Theo longs for
revenge. The film seems to affirm the desires of the first three characters –
love, peace and knowledge – while the selfish wishes of Theo and Marco are
revealed to be futile and destructive. Neither Theo nor Marco seems able to
find a Heimat; on the contrary, both are successful at destroying homes and
idylls. Marco undertakes nothing to construct a home, and instead abuses the
homes of others – namely Laura’s villa and the luxury abode of a friend – by
using them temporarily and leaving them in a mess. He remains a nomad at
heart, which is evident in his restless love life and his seasonal profession.
Theo is also unable to provide for and protect his loved ones, losing his home,
uprooting his family and destroying their Heimat. In contrast, Laura has been
able to create a home in a new location, after realizing she is no longer able to
connect with her parents and her birthplace. She makes the deliberate choice
of ‘coming home (earlier)’, leaving the domestic hell of her parents’ house and
retreating to her own Heimat – her inherited residence in the Alps. The
concept of Heimat revolving around one’s place of origin is thus turned on its
head; it has been substituted with a place of choice. Laura and René become
paradigms of Peter Dürrmann’s (1994: 11–12) modern man searching for
zones of comfort as spaces of Heimat by retreating to ‘manageable spaces
which offer safety and cultural identity’.
As complex as the characters of Wintersleepers and their development is
the concept of truth. Time allows aspects of the truth to be revealed, forcing
the characters to deal with their personal and communal pasts. A happy

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ending can apparently only be achieved by facing up to one’s mistakes and

faults. This process is structured in a communicative fashion, as Tykwer
includes both utopian and dystopian models in his Alpine microcosm. The
utopian/dystopian imagery extends to the portrayal of the couples them-
selves. However, the demarcations are never particularly clear, neither with
regard to the characters, nor to the landscape through which they move; as
a distant panorama the Alps appear extremely picturesque, yet, upon closer
inspection, they have a more complicated and darker side. Tykwer chose
the snow-covered landscape for symbolic reasons:

[. . .] On the one hand it always imparts a feeling of innocence to a land-

scape, a land with an unblemished surface. On the other hand [a] landscape
scarred with glacier crevices. (. . .) it looks so flat and smooth when you see
it from above (from a helicopter), but when you see it up close, wounds seem
to open up everywhere as if the skin of the earth has been torn and injured.
(Tykwer in Anon 2004)

Indeed, the characters reveal the same tendency. They harbour complex
temperaments and outlooks beneath seemingly smooth surfaces. Nature in
general and the mountains in particular are not catalysts for personal devel-
opment, but become the nemesis of certain characters. Only the comfort of
social bonds in homely shelters will afford the others a happy ending.
The concrete history of the area – Wintersleepers is set near ‘Hitler’s
favourite residence and resting place’ (Grieben 1928: 64), the world visible
from the Berghof above Berchtesgaden in the Bavarian Alps – coupled
with the cinematic tradition of the Heimat films and their tendency to sim-
plify, romanticize and instrumentalize German identity with reference to
mountains and history, have certainly influenced Tykwer. With this film
he confronts issues which are troubling to the German sense of identity
and the understanding of history felt by many Germans. He uses tradi-
tional images of the Alpine sublime as a backdrop against which to juxta-
pose conservative notions of German identity with a story of fragmented,
confused individuals striving to construct their identities anew, irrespec-
tive of societal expectations and unafraid of breaking with traditions.
Tykwer’s depiction of community in Wintersleepers departs from the tradi-
tion of the Heimat genre. By bringing together people from around the
country, he represents a microcosm of a nation consisting of a variety of
regions and challenging the Heimat notion that German identity is con-
structed around childhood memories and attachment to one’s native soil.
His cosmos consists of very different people in search of a Heimat of their
own: Theo and Rebecca cannot find a Heimat in the Alps, whereas the
newcomers Laura and René are able to achieve this.
Finding a way to live whilst dealing with the past is as difficult for each
character in the film as it has been for their nation as a whole. The con-
troversial term ‘Vergangenheitsbewältigung’ stands for the phenomenon
which has occupied individual as well as national remembering. Although

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Germany has had to come to terms with the weight of its past and its guilt 2 ‘The symbolic
discourse in Heimat
with regard to the Third Reich, Tykwer’s choice of location makes the link films: the Good live in
to the Nazi past unmistakable, and the film’s setting in contemporary the mountains, wear
society shows the underlying traumas of Tykwer’s microcosm to be pars traditional dress, love
hunting (i.e. they only
pro toto for the buried past on more personal terms. Ultimately, the estab- kill animals lawfully),
lishment of an honest relationship is shown as one way of achieving a the Bad find
themselves in the
happy existence, something which is essential for an affirmation of a sense valley, sometimes
of Heimat, but which nevertheless remains fragile. wear normal street
clothes and often
Wortmann’s approach to the genre is less critical but reverent. engage in poaching or
Although a recent film, his Miracle of Bern harks back to the typical some other crime
against nature.
Heimat films of the 1950s. Their prototypes are owed to Peter Ostermayr, Whenever a couple of
who as producer and director of numerous films that appeared between lovers meet, then the
1910 and 1958 can be credited with finding a winning formula for the decisive kiss often
takes place against
Heimat film genre related to the folk tradition. He started by producing the threatening mountain
first silent black and white adaptations of Ganghofer’s Hochland/highlands summits, which tower
above this union
environment, and then continued with remakes, first utilizing the new approvingly and
sound technology ‘as an independent UFA producer’ during the Nazi protectively, as it
were. It wasn’t
period and then adopting wide-screen and colour versions in the 1950s essential to be a local
(von Moltke 2005: 43). Scholars write of his practices as the ‘Ganghofer- inhabitant in order to
belong to the Good,
Scheme’, which was to become part and parcel of the symbolic language because ultimately
of Heimat films.2 Offering identification for viewers (aided by point-of-view one didn’t want to
shots, eyeline-match editing, narrative teleology and the casting of stars), alienate the potential
summer tourists from
this model continued to be crucial for the success of Heimat films during Germany; on the
the 1950s. In this vein, Ostermayr’s trendsetting was happily appropriated contrary, one wanted
to offer them
as thema con variazone. Typical soundscapes that have since been associ- opportunities for
ated with the genre include church bells, folk music and cheering associ- identification with the
surroundings’
ated with happy congregations. These standards and stereotypes have (Steiner Daviau
reduced the 1950s proponents of the genre to popular structural elements 2001).
such as a plot typically culminating in a village festival, to which all
members of the community, young and old, rich and poor, come together.
For decades to come, familiar sets and props, a certain iconography and a
range of recognizable character types have come to mind when consider-
ing typical films fitting the general classification of the Heimat film genre.
Ostermayr’s colleague, Robert Erwin Konrad Lüthge, prolific scriptwriter
and producer of melodramas and Heimat films for nearly forty years from
1919 to 1958, also confessed openly to using a recipe – not unlike
Ostermayr – in pursuit of popular success: a good blend of love, eroticism,
conflict, a happy ending and humour (Lüthge in Anon. 1952: 33) He
claimed that a successful film could be mixed from these ingredients like a
good cocktail and did not regard repetition a problem. As if to prove the
point and provide a remedy, the year he made this claim turned out to be
one of his most successful, with his 1951 remake of Grün ist die Heide/
Green is the Heath becoming one of Germany’s all time highest earners. His
production company perfected its understanding of audience demands
at the time by investing in and creating a cycle of popular films which
responded sensitively to market forces. Their narratives cemented the genre

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conventions and seemed to feed the viewers’ need for reassurance and pre-
dictability that was addressed by repetition and happy endings. Most
Heimat films of the post-war period employed a pseudo-realistic style,
although they required the audience to suspend their sense of reality, with
their highly selective narratives mostly constructed with an overt teleology
rendering them ultimately untruthful on closer inspection, as they seem to
imply that nature follows a similar path to the stories’ resolutions.
Utilizing narrative elements from domestic melodramas, 1950s Heimat
films promoted traditional lifestyles and patriarchal households, thereby
providing emotional anchors, particularly for female audiences.
Heimat films have thus occupied a central place in narrating commu-
nities and have experienced special popularity at times of change.
Emerging as one of the most popular genres in the 1950s, filmmakers
catered to the perceived need for reassurance in post-World War II-Central
Europe, and soon resorted to delivering endless variations on the theme.
Most recently, in post-Wall Germany, Ostalgie and Westalgie films have
formed another branch of the ever-growing tree of Heimat film genealogy,
sensitizing audiences to affirmative as well as subversive narratives within
the master teleology. The fundamental social and psychological changes
affecting German citizens both east and west of the Wall since 1989 have
given rise to a sense of crisis provoking a nostalgia of sorts for the disap-
pearing GDR as well as for the old FRG Ostalgie films (such as Peter Timm’s
Der Zimmerspringbrunnen, 2001 and Leander Haußmann’s Sonnenallee/Sun
Alley, 1999) as well as Westalgie films (such as Leander Haußmann’s Herr
Lehmann, 2003 and Hans Weingartner’s Die fetten Jahre sind vorbei/The
Edukators, 2004) respond to the erosion of old patterns of understanding
and the ideological restructuring of Central Europe through the use of
narratives, which – beyond science and rationality – centre on the mythi-
cal to explain the new German order. The recent past is interpreted sym-
bolically in cinematic constructs of Heimat and nation. In doing so, the
workings of Ostalgie and Westalgie films come close to what indeed is con-
sidered one of the origins of the genre, the folk tale.
Sönke Wortmann also revisits what can be seen as a prime story line
leading to a folk festival, a sporting contest honouring the best and the
fairest. In his film The Miracle of Bern (2003), he broadens the folk tale scope
by exceeding any village boundaries to include nation and fatherland,
when recalling the German victory at the 1954 Soccer World Cup.
Although the plot concerns an historical event and the film reveals a
certain desire for authenticity, it nevertheless exposes to the critical viewer
as much about the period depicted as it does about the likely and intended
audience in the twenty-first century. At a time when the economic and
political reality of Germany provided little reason for national pride – in the
post-unification blues at the turn of the millennium – many enjoyed reliv-
ing better times in the past. Foundation myths of West Germany, such as
the unlikely soccer win over Hungary’s national team in the finals in
Switzerland, and the success of the nation’s Wirtschaftswunder (economic

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miracle) barely 10 years after the end of World War II, seemed ideal stories
with which to elevate German spirits. As is evident from the success of the
myriad of Westalgie and Ostalgie films, nostalgia was ‘in’. Accordingly,
Sönke Wortmann’s film transports the audience back to the ‘good old days’
in the mid-1950s, when West Germany was ‘world champion in football,
consumption and suppression’ (Pott 1999: 148). The film interweaves the
narratives of West Germany’s regional and national soccer teams in 1954
with 11-year-old Matthias Lubanski’s family and their reconciliation with
their father who returns from a Siberian Prisoner of War (POW) camp after
10 years, and subsequently with the life of the sports reporter Ackermann,
who covers the events in Bern for the German media.
In the characterization of the protagonists the film is not afraid to call
upon stereotypes: with his Lederhosen and blond hair, Matthias is not an
untypical German child, nor is Annette Ackermann, the German
‘Fräuleinwunder’, dolled up and ready for procreation, too far removed
from the archetypal image portrayed in glossy magazines at the time.
Their types evoke a sense of nostalgia for the ‘olden’ days, when Germany
was approaching the status of Exportweltmeister, Fußballweltmeister in
1954, (again in 1974 and 1990) and Konsumweltmeister but also
‘Verdrängungsweltmeister’ and travel and tourism champions. Fittingly,
for both the Lubanski duo and the Ackermanns, the journey to
Switzerland becomes a rite of passage into a world where traditional
Heimat images are not outmoded and success is attainable. The rediscov-
ery of Heimat in this film is realized visually in saturated colour images,
iconographic imagery ranging from Alpine lakes to Alp horns, from tradi-
tional attire and architecture to the dialects in the German speaking
regions. The sun is shining and the flowers blooming in the Alpine resorts,
providing picture perfect panoramas which give the setting a holiday feel.
In the closing scene, the train with soccer team and father and son
Lubanski on board – a luxury coach that seems to epitomize the material
wealth of the Wirtschaftswunder and contrasts sharply with the cattle
wagon in which the prisoners of war had returned from the Union of
Soviet Socialist Republics earlier in the same year – rolls into the pink sky,
bringing colour, hope and euphoria into the darkest reaches of West
Germany, allowing for identification with a national Heimat.
Earlier in the film, Heimat had been represented as something
extremely personal, small and secret. For Matthias, sensing his father’s
rejection, the rabbit cage behind their run-down house had been a refuge.
It constituted the only place in the mining town where colours seemed to
prevail and where Matthias felt safe, protected, sheltered and understood.
His father also ends up destroying this Heimat idyll for Matthias by slaugh-
tering his pet for a festive meal on the occasion of his mother’s birthday.
Nevertheless, it is also his father who reveals to Matthias a larger Heimat:
one larger than the rabbit cage and the soccer team Rot-Weiss Essen, even
larger than the Lubanski family – a national Heimat on an international
playing field. Matthias’ innocent enthusiasm for soccer – he is initially

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only concerned with his local idol and his local club – in turn provides the
catalyst for his father’s spiritual renewal and his fresh start in the young
country that is only just regaining international recognition and accep-
tance. Both are united in their sense of pride and achievement. Indeed, the
soccer victory becomes a symbol for private and public rapprochements,
as it serves as the turning point for personal and national identity. The
years of guilt and shame seemed to have ended, just as the time of mater-
ial hardship appeared to have passed with the new economic development:
the Federal Republic of Germany had proven to itself and others that its
vanquished people were able to compete on the world stage again.
International recognition proved vital to the population’s self-esteem,
forcing the world to publicly recognize West Germany’s achievements and
to endorse the country as a role model, at least in the world of soccer.
In line with 1950s Heimat ideals, the rise of German national pride did
not go hand in hand with a general emancipation and liberation. On the
contrary, the characterization of Mrs Ackermann and Mrs Lubanski alike
foreshadows a conservative trend in society. The Heimat films of the 1950s
often falsely represented a happy reintegration of ‘Trümmerfrauen’ (rubble
women) and ‘Fräuleinwunder’ (girl geniuses) into a conservative family
structure, favouring the female role of mother and housewife. Wortmann’s
account emphasizes the underlying battles and highlights the opportunities
sacrificed with such a conservative transformation. Nevertheless, he ulti-
mately portrays the empowerment of the male characters and the retreat of
the females into the private sphere as a sign of normalization and celebrates
family reunions, in which mothers and daughters resubmit themselves to a
patriarchal order, if only out of love and respect for the suffering endured by
their partners, brothers, sons or fathers.
The Lubanskis’ initial silence about their dark years is quite representa-
tive for the way in which many Germans, notwithstanding guilt or victim
status, religion or ideology, failed to engage with the recent Nazi past during
the 1950s. In West German society in the late 1960s, this behaviour pro-
voked an outspoken rejection of the parent generation by their children;
Wortmann’s film shows that tensions were already simmering in 1954. The
younger characters are shown to be in a heightened state of restlessness,
with American culture, music, fashion and thought widening the rift
between the generations. Although Americanization became shorthand for
liberation for some of the young generation, the ‘old guard’ – reviving the
anti-American sentiment that had existed in the 1920s and 1930s – saw it
in negative terms as a sign of decline and moral corruption. Matthias’ sib-
lings, Bruno and Ingrid, feel drawn to imports from both sides of the Allied
divide, represented by American cigarettes and jeans, but also by socialist
ideas. As such Lenin, just like James Dean and Marlon Brando emerge as
their role models, as evidenced by Bruno’s ultimate defection to the Eastern
part of Germany and his sister’s love of everything American, highlighted
when she dances to rock ‘n’ roll music with an American soldier. Richard
Lubanski does not agree with either of his elder children’s choices and

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rejects their modern ways in the strongest manner possible. Although he 3 Just how wrong the
film’s appraisal of the
identifies contemporary demons in such bastardization of German society times is, is evident
and culture, he is initially unable to face up to the demons of his own past. from recent
Although Heimat films often feature tense relationships between gen- scholarship that
refutes the common
erations that must be overcome in the course of the plot’s action, this topic assumptions about
was approached in a more roundabout way in the 1950s, in a symbolic the 1950s ‘collective’
amnesia and
confrontation between the value systems of different generations (see highlights how much
father and daughter constellations in Deppe 1951); however, Wortmann’s the past remained
present in 1950s
Heimat film, dealing with the 1950s from the removed perspective of the public discourse
twenty-first century, is able to touch old wounds without flinching. As (Moeller 1996:
1011–1013; see also
such father and son can clash openly. Accused of being a Nazi and Biess 2006).
Mitläufer (follower) by his older son Bruno, Richard Lubanski fumbles for
4 Taberner has taken
justification and explanations. Father and son become estranged; commu- issue in particular
nication between the two breaks down and it seems unlikely that the with the film’s
‘sentimentalised
opposing pair will ever be reconciled. Only Matthias, as the younger son rendition of German
and less dogmatic and politically aware than his siblings, can be impressed suffering’ while ‘Jews
do not feature’ in Das
by his father’s haphazard attempts at making up for past mistakes, Wunder von Bern
explaining away his involvement in the war and neglecting to own up to (Taberner 2005: 371
any infatuation with Nazism. The film allows him to get away with this, as and 361).

Richard can evade every mention of the Holocaust. Indeed the focus stays
on the soldier’s suffering and his slow re-entry into civil society.
The reconciliation between Matthias and his father and the victory of the
German national soccer team provide the overwhelming sense of a happy
ending for the audience and ensure a ‘consensus’ (Rentschler 2000: 264),
just like the film’s 1950s counterparts. It can therefore be concluded that
The Miracle of Bern is not so much a film about the 1950s, but instead a film
that appears to be made in the 1950s: selective in its perspective, sugary in
its lulling effect, and unifying in its attempt at nation building.3 Like the
1950s Heimat films, Wortmann focuses on German victims at the expense
of the victims of the innumerable Nazi crimes.4 In addition, no mention is
made of the displays of national pride at the time which revealed problem-
atic, crypto-nazi tendencies, when parts of the jubilant crowd started chant-
ing the proscribed first verse of Germany’s national anthem – ‘Deutschland,
Deutschland über alles’ (Germany, Germany above all) – rather than the offi-
cial third verse ‘Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit’ (unity and justice and
freedom) (Delius 1994: 116). Wortmann’s film glosses over such controver-
sies, thus allowing the audience to indulge uncritically in the euphoria of the
period. The Miracle of Bern is to some extent a psychogram of the 1950s, as
much as it is an indicator of German affairs at the time of its release, with
Matthias standing in for a younger generation, post-Wende (turning point) as
well as post-war, who are able to overcome the past and begin to forgive, in
essence, the sins of the previous generation(s). The film is a heart-warming
crowd-pleaser that has won audience awards at festivals in Germany and
Switzerland, recalling the manner in which 1950s Heimat films resonated
with popular audiences. In accordance with the intentions of Heimat film,
The Miracle of Bern presents an image of regional integration which witnesses

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the Federal Republic of Germany coming together as a nation, as well as the

unification of pan-German identities in general. This is reflected in the
diverse backgrounds of the Lubanskis and Ackermanns, in the composition
of the national soccer team, and the film’s inclusion of fans from the German
Democratic Republic. The film shows a miraculous unity, with rich and poor,
young and old, East and West – including Bruno Lubanski, who has moved
to live in the German Democratic Republic, and his new East German com-
rades, wearing the uniform of the state’s socialist youth organization – all
celebrating the achievement. As such, the 2003 film provided Germans – in
their not yet so successfully united nation – with a reminder of this accom-
plishment, focussing on the miracle of Bern in 1954 as an event common to
their histories and as a positive start for an appraisal of their similarities. Like
the 1950s Heimat films, Wortmann’s The Miracle of Bern is about nation for-
mation, combining an affirmative construct of the origins of the Federal
Republic with a representation of inner unity. While the ‘highly symbolic act
of reconciliation’ in the 1950s Heimat films occurred ‘during folk festivals,
religious holidays, and communal celebrations’ (Hake 2002: 110), the
soccer match in Bern serves a similar purpose. The shots of Bruno and his
GDR comrades cheering the West German team is indicative of this, as it pro-
jects the dream of German unity back onto 1954.
Like other Heimat films, The Miracle of Bern does not only allow German
audiences an escapist experience, but promises triumph and heralds a self-
fulfilling prophesy of recurrence. This mythical tale is concerned with past
events and affords them a special meaning and significance for the present,
namely the potential for them to recur. History seemed to allow for just that,
when, during the 2006 Soccer World Cup which was hosted by Germany,
director Wortmann followed the German soccer team around with his hand-
held camera, preparing a docudrama. In an interview with Der Spiegel
Wortmann announced that he intended this to be a film about ‘heroes’
(Wortmann quoted by Brinkbäumer 2006: 161): thus continuing the
Heimat project. Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen/Germany, a Summer
Fairytale, the resulting docudrama about the 2006 Soccer World Cup
Championships in Germany, sees Wortmann continue with his nation-build-
ing exercise. While the celebration of the ‘Heroes of Bern’, elevating ‘the
sorely afflicted German people of the post-war period’ (Gerhard Meier-Röhn
quoted in Anon. 2003: 22) was utilized as a political tool by sports officials
and Wortmann alike, their partnership was renewed when Wortmann was
permitted to accompany the team in 2006. Following methodologically in
the footsteps of Stéphane Meunier’s Lex Yeux dans le Bleus documentary of
the 1998 World Cup hosted by France, Wortmann again calls on images of
unity when he recalls his sense of belonging, standing arm in arm among
the German soccer stars and being part of the big family: ‘From this moment
on I have not only said “we” but also felt it’ (Wortmannn 2006: 158).
Wortmann documents the atmosphere in the summer of 2006 that led to a
euphoric embracing of the sport and its national team. In Deutschland. Ein
Sommermärchen, he reflects on his personal experiences as having been ‘in

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the middle of a dream actually shared by millions in Germany’ (Wortmannn

2006: 156), and compares the importance of this mass movement to the
effect of the soccer events in Bern: ‘In 1954 the German national team
imbued the young Federal Republic with its first feelings of self-esteem, and
in 2006 the German national team helped the country to like itself ’
(Wortmannn 2006: 164). The seeds for this development were sown and
nurtured by Heimat films on both occasions.
Heimat films – especially in the form of the 1950s clichés – may have
been declared dead and dangerous, but the genre is certainly alive in
today’s German film industry in numerous adaptations and transforma-
tions. Now as then, the genre provides a ‘simultaneously regressive and
progressive fantasy of belonging that enlist[s] the well-known iconography
of Heimat in the creation of a new collective identity based on more con-
temporary visions of modernisation, industrialisation, and commercialisa-
tion’ (Hake 2002: 110).
Both Tykwer and Wortmann turned towards the Heimat genre, albeit
with very different intentions. While Tykwer’s Wintersleepers borrows and
remobilizes some aspects and revisits and substitutes others, Wortmann
wallows in uncritical nostalgia with his soccer miracle story. However, despite
responding to different cues and forbears of the Heimat genre – Tykwer to the
Bergfilm tradition and Wortmann to 1950s Heimat films, which themselves
illustrated folk tales in most instances – both directors employ the genre for
their respective Heimat projects, inspired by the past, with one critically
reworking it, whilst the other adopt it seemingly uncritically.

Works cited
Anon. (1952), ‘Drehbücher. Libbe, Erijotik und Zoff ’ [sic], Der Spiegel, 16,
pp. 32–33.
——— (2003), Das Wunder von Bern. Presseheft, München: Just Publicity.
——— (2004), ‘Wintersleepers. Interview with Tom Tykwer, Berlin 2004’,
http://tomtykwer.com/03_filmographie/35_winterschlaefer/353_entstehung/
content.shtml. Accessed 14 August 2005.
Biess, F. (2006), Homecomings: Returning POWs and the Legacies of Defeat in Postwar
Germany, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Brinkbäumer, K. and Kramer, J. (2006), ‘WM-Gespräch: “Eine echte Prüfung”.
Reservetorwart Oliver Kahn, 37, und Regisseur Sönke Wortmann, 46, über
Helden im Film und WM-Spiele aus der Bankperspektive’, Der Spiegel 26,
pp. 160–162.
Delius, F.C. (1994), Der Sonntag, an dem ich Weltmeister wurde, Reinbek: Rowohlt.
Dürrmann, P. (1994), Heimat und Identität: der moderne Mensch auf der Suche nach
Geborgenheit, Tübingen: Hohenrain-Verlag.
Feld, H. (1931), ‘Der Fanck-Film der Aafa’, Film-Kurier, 3 February.
Grieben-Reiseführer (1928), Berchtesgadener Land, Berlin: Grieben.
Hake, S. (2002), German National Cinema, London and New York: Routledge.
Kracauer, S. (2004), From Caligari to Hitler. A Psychological History of the German
Film, Revised and Expanded Edition, Leonardo Quaresima (ed.), Princeton and
Oxford: Princeton University Press.

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Makartsey, A. (1997), ‘Spiel der Zufälle’, Nordwest Zeitung, 31 October.

Moeller, R.G. (1996), ‘War Stories: The Search for a Usable Past in the Federal
Republic of Germany’, American Historical Review, October, pp. 1008–1048.
Nenno, N.P. (1996), ‘Projections on Blank Space: Landscape, Nationality, and Identity
in Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg’, The German Quarterly, 69: 3, pp. 305–321.
Pott, P. (1999), ‘Die Flegeljahre der Republik. Der Aufstieg aus dem Nichts’, Der
Spiegel 20, pp. 148–150.
Rapp, C. (1997), Höhenrausch. Der deutsche Bergfilm, Wien: Sonderzahl.
Rentschler, E. (1990), ‘Mountains and Modernity: Relocating the Bergfilm’, New
German Critique, 51, Special Issue on Weimar Mass Culture, Autumn, pp. 137–161.
——— (2000), ‘From New German Cinema to the Post-Wall Cinema of
Consensus’, in M. Hjort and S. MacKenzie (eds.), Cinema and Nation, London:
Routledge, pp. 260–277.
Schäfer, K.H. (1997), ‘Tom Tykwers Winterschläfer. Die Natur drehte mit: Das
Schicksal von fünf Menschen vor grandioser Bergkulisse’, Rheinischer Merkur,
31 October.
Steiner Daviau, G. (2001), ‘Sprache und Bilder in österreichischen Heimatfilmen
der fünfziger Jahre’, in Die Namen der Berge. Anschauungen, 2001, consulted at
http://www.inst.at/berge/perspektiven/ steiner.htm, in August 2005.
Taberner, S. (2005), ‘Philo-Semitism in Recent German Film: Aimée and Jaguar,
Rosenstraße and Das Wunder von Bern’, German Life and Letters 58: 3,
pp. 357–372.
Vahabzadeh, S. (1997), ‘Gruppenbild im Schnee’, Süddeutsche Zeitung, 6 November.
von Moltke, J. (2005), No Place Like Home. Locations of Heimat in German Cinema,
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Wortmannn, S. (2006), ‘Zettels Traum. Aus dem Innenleben eines Fußball-
Wunders,’ Der Spiegel 39, pp. 156–164.

Films
Grün ist die Heide/Green is the Heath (1951), Hans Deppe.
Winterschläfer/Wintersleepers (1997), Tom Tykwer.
Das Wunder von Bern/The Miracle of Bern (2003), Sönke Wortmann.
Deutschland. Ein Sommermärchen/Germany. A Summer’s Tale (2006), Sönke Wortmann.

Suggested citation
Ludewig, A. (2008), ‘“Heimat, Heimat, über alles”: Heimat in two contemporary
German films’, Studies in European Cinema 5: 3, pp. 219–232, doi: 10.1386/
seci.5.3.219/1

Contributor details
Alexandra Ludewig, Associate Dean (Education) and Convenor of German Studies
at The University of Western Australia, has studied and worked at a variety of uni-
versities in England, Germany, South Africa and Australia. Her research interests
include questions of Heimat and identity in European film and contemporary
German speaking literature. Contact: Dr Alexandra Ludewig, Faculty of Arts,
Humanities and Social Science, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling
Highway, Crawley WA 6009, Perth, Australia.
E-mail: aludewig@arts.uwa.edu.au

232 Alexandra Ludewig