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 Spandau Citadel: "Ich war 19" - Berlin, Germany
N 52° 32.417 E 013° 12.745
33U E 378769 N 5822634
One of the main scenes in this East-German movie tells the story of the surrender of the Spandau Citadel in World War II
Waymark Code: WMZYW4
Location: Berlin, Germany
Date Posted: 01/25/2019
Views: 2
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Movie Plot from IMDB:"April 1945: Gregor Hecker, 19 years of age, reaches the outskirts of Berlin as part of the Red Army's scouting team. Having fled Germany with his family when he was eight, he is confronted with the dilemma of having to fight men from the very country he was born in. ... Based on the diary entries of director Konrad Wolf, the episodic movie authentically portrays the protagonist's struggle to come to terms with his own past and identity."
One of the essential scenes in the movie is the surrender of the Spandau fortress. The scene was shot at the original location at the gate of Spandau Citadel. |
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Movie Posters; Source: IMDB
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In the scene, two negotiators, a Russian captain (played by Vasily Livanov and his interpretor (played by Jaecki Schwarz) arrive at the gate to the Citadel (right). Since the gate is barricaded, the German commander (played by Johannes Wieke and his adjutant (played by Jürgen Hentsch) had to use a rope ladder to meet their adversaries.
The scene was shot in 1967 at the original location. We took some screenshots from the movie shown at Youtube and matched two of them to our own pictures (above and below), taken during our visit in 2017. |
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It was hard to find good pictures of the movie. We settled for taking screenshots of the movie shown at Youtube and hope that does not violate any copyright law.
The default picture shows the negotiation in front of the Citadel. The peaceful surrender of the fortress not only saved the lives of the soldiers and hundreds of civilians who took refuge in the Citadel, but also the lives of thousands of people in the surrounding area. Unbeknownst to the Red Army, the Citadel contained a secret stockpile of chemical weapons and a shelling by Russian artillery may have exposed the fortress and the town of Spandau to deadly Tabun-Nervegas.
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The film is autobiographic. In the movie, the interpreter and the Russian captain are named Gregor Hecker and Wadim Gejman. Their real names were Konrad Wolf and Vladimir Gall.
Being Jewish, Konrad Wolf's family had to flee Germany when he was eight years old. After a short stay in France, they got asylum in Moscow, where Wolf grew up and learned to speak fluently Russian. At the age of nineteen, he returned to his home country as interpreter for the Red Army.
He later became one of East-Germany's most prolific film directors and produced and directed sixteen movies, many of them about Nazi-Germany and World War II.
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Konrad Wolf and Vladimir Gall in 1945. Source: slideplayer.org
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The film has Wikipedea entries in English (short) and in German (extensive). There is also a detailed synapsis of the entire movie in English language at IMDB.
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Movie or TV Show: Ich war 19
Year Released or First Aired: 1,968.00
IMDB Link: [Web Link]
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Visit Instructions:New logs for waymarks must include a photo of the location. The photo should try and match, to the extent possible, the original present-day photo posted for the waymark.
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