Der Kampf
About Der Kampf
Two lines run together. One is the Reichstag-fire trial, with Georgi Dimitrov accused of setting the 1933 fire. The other is a workers’ circle the SA and SS are trying to break. The SA blames them for a fire at the Spörke factory. Hans Lemke had found that Spörke, which claimed to make perfume, was making poison gas. The SA kills him. His mother and Anna take Dimitrov as the sign of their fight. Demonstrations call for Dimitrov’s release. Fritz, Hans’s brother, a doctor, joins them, and so do some former SA men. The film ends on Dimitrov’s release.
Cast & crew
More about Der Kampf
Gustav von Wangenheim directed this Soviet-German production. Alfred Kurella, Joris Ivens, and Wangenheim are credited with the script. It runs 75 minutes, in Russian and German. The Russian title is Борцы. The German title is Kämpfer. Lotte Loebinger is Mother Lemke. Bruno Schmidtsdorf is Fritz. Ingeborg Franke is Anna. Heinrich Greif is Eickhoff. Alexander Granach is Rovelli. Gregor Gog is Peters.
Themes
Background
The Reichstag fire was in February 1933. Dimitrov was a defendant in the Leipzig trial that followed. The film uses that case and a perfume factory secretly making poison gas.
Making
Wangenheim stages Dimitrov’s trial and the Lemke household as one argument: the man in the courtroom and the mother whose son was killed for the same reason. Mezhrabpom-Film is the Soviet company on the picture.
Preservation
A 75-minute print survives.
Notes
- Hans is already dead when the story of the resistance gets going. He is the son who saw the gas.
- The perfume label is the factory’s cover.
- Aleksandr Timontayev plays Rabenkampf. Aleksandr Geirot plays Klebersbusch. Evgenia Mezentseva plays a woman in the crowd.
- Robert Trösch is Otto.
- The Commons file uses the Russian title.
Scenes
- Hans finds poison gas where the factory claims to make perfume, and the SA kills him.
- Workers are blamed for the Spörke fire.
- Demonstrations demand Dimitrov’s release.
- Fritz, the doctor, comes over to his mother’s side.
- The last image is Dimitrov free.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (1936 Борцы.webm)
