Rote Erde (TV series)


Rote Erde is a German television film series in 13 parts, the 1983 and 1989, all directed by Klaus Emmerich. The camera was led by Joseph Vilsmaier and Theo Bierkens. The title music was composed by Irmin Schmidt. The German premiere was on channel at 23 October 1983. The last episode was screened on 4 March 1990.
The subject of the series is the story of a fictional family of miners in the Ruhr area over a period of about 70 years between the end of the 19th and the mid 20th century, against the background of the history of the German Empire from the Empire to the Weimar Republic to the end of the Nazi dictatorship.
The shooting took place in the studios and on the grounds of the Bavaria-Film am Geiselgasteig near Munich. The elaborately designed exterior backdrops stood until 1996.
In 1984, Peter Stripp, and Klaus Emmerich, received an honorable mention for the series at the Adolf Grimme Award ceremony

Content

Red Earth

The farmer Bruno Kruska comes, attracted by advertisers, at 17 years of Pomerania in the Ruhr area to work there as a miner on the pit Siegfried. First as a tug, later as a hawker, Bruno finds the work hoped for and witnesses the events surrounding the Siegfried colliery before the turn of the century. He marries Pauline, the daughter of the miner Friedrich Bötzkes. His son Karl developed into a Social Democrat in the imperial era, overran his father and leaves the family. He becomes union official and finally member of the Reichstag, Bruno is critical of the activities of the Social Democrats and can not be taken. He is drafted into the First World War, but is not called back from the front for mining.
Bruno's wife Pauline sympathizes with the Social Democrats and the Spartacists during the war, which Bruno does not really support, but does not refuse. At the end of this first part of the saga, the emperor abdicated and the miners, among them Bruno and his friend, the miner Otto Schablowski, occupy the mine and demand their nationalization. That they could not prevail with this is only hinted at in the cinematic presentation.

Red Earth II

Max Kruska, son of Bruno Kruska, experiences the depression and - also his own - unemployment after the First World War. The Siegfried colliery is occupied by Frenchmen and the coal mining primarily serves the reparation. Max is impressed by the promises of the National Socialists and Adolf Hitler and enters the NSDAP. At the colliery, where Max could invest again, the progress has arrived. But Max's doubts come from National Socialist Germany; When his uncle Karl and his brother-in-law Richard are imprisoned, he turns away from the formerly supported policy. From then on he supports the forced laborers who are under him underground and hopes the war will end soon. But the assassination of a young Russian forced laborer at the mine, which Max has witnessed, further intensifies his anger towards the regime. After all, Max, together with his brother-in-law Richard, who has since been released from custody, prevents the Siegfried von der Wehrmacht colliery from being destroyed at the end of the war.
The story ends with the colliery being shut down a few years later for economic reasons and the winding tower blown up.

Episodes

Season 1: Red Earth
Season 2: Red Earth II

Main Cast

In the 2nd season, he is long-time unemployed and has a brief affair with Charlotte. fathering an illegitimate son, who is called Olaf who he calls 'Olli'. Charlotte marries a much older Jewish laundry owner and Max rarely sees his son. He becomes a member of the NSDAP and often wears an SA uniform. He provokes repeatedly Charlotte's Jewish husband and later he marries Sofie, Richard Brosch's sister, and has more children with her. He later loses his National Socialist idealism, after seeing a young Russian peasant hanged for stealing food. He later meets again Jupp, who now works as a translator of the British. Together with Fränzi, Sofie, Jupp and Richard, Max witnessed the demolition of the winding tower of the Siegfried colliery in the late 1950s.
First season
Second season
During the entire course of action, no concrete place of action is mentioned. Since the Ruhr area only half belonged to Westphalia administratively, the Siegfried colliery must be located in the northeastern district. The chaplain comments on his sentencing to Werden as saying that he should "get as far away as possible", which confirms this somewhat.
In episode 2, on the occasion of the election of the strike delegates, instead of fictional mines real mines are mentioned: "Wilhelmine Viktoria", and "Count Bismarck" are located in Gelsenkirchen, " Bonifacius " in Essen. In the second season, a few statements and signs indicate where the colliery is located: The inhabitants see and hear the explosion of the ammunition depot that Otto blew up, which according to Max is located in Haßlinghausen. Later, a sister of the Caritas Hattingen office delivers laundry and hidden communist leaflets to the Kruska family from. Together with Rewandowski's statement that the Siegfried colliery is already more than 100 years old, the area of today's Ennepe-Ruhr district appears to be the most likely place of action. On a sign at the restaurant is a beer brewery from Dortmund to read. The newspaper, which is read by Friedrich Boetzkes, is called 'Tremonia', which is the Latin name for the city of Dortmund.
The constituency winner of the 1912 Reichstag election, Karl Boetzkes, is indeed a fictional character, but has a similar life as the actual Wahlkreissieger Max King. This won the mandate in the constituency Hagen - Schwelm - Witten, which includes the mentioned localities. The only other constituency winner of the SPD in the Ruhr area was that year the dentist and writer August Erdmann in the constituency of Dortmund - Hörde.
The conveyor tower in the first season has a clear similarity to an early photograph of the Hibernia colliery from the 1850s, as it is printed in the WAZ Chronicle of the Ruhr. Such scaffolding was around 1887, when the action of the series begins, of course, long outdated and almost nowhere in use.

Other notes

Based on the TV series, the director Volker Lösch staged a play by the same name at the Schauspiel Essen 2012.

Literature