Film screening "The Divided Heaven" by Konrad Wolf

As part of the Konrad Wolf Year 2025, we are presenting a four-part film series, curated by Professor Seán Allan, that highlights cinema as a medium of historical memory. Following the premiere of Ich war neunzehn (I Was Nineteen), the second film in the series is now being shown: Der geteilte Himmel (The Divided Sky, 1964), a DEFA production directed by Konrad Wolf, based on the novel of the same name by Christa Wolf.

The GDR (East Germany) in 1961 – shortly before the Berlin Wall was built. Rita recovers from a breakdown in her hometown and reflects on the events of the past few years. She is in love with a ten-year-older chemist Manfred, who supported her and moved to the city with her, but cracks start to appear in their relationship. The two were socialized differently. Manfred could not accept his middle-class home. He also had problems at work. Rita, on the other hand, felt very comfortable during an internship in a wagon construction company. When a chemical process developed by Manfred was rejected without explanation, he made a far-reaching decision.

Der geteilte Himmel remained one of the very few DEFA films that not only addressed the otherwise taboo issue of ‘defection from the republic’ (a criminal offence in the GDR), but also explained it in a comprehensible way and, above all, did not blame the ‘class enemy’ in the West. The director's courage is also confirmed by the characterisation of Manfred's father: according to the official GDR narrative, all the old Nazis lived in the West – but here we learn that Manfred's father had once very quickly exchanged his party badge from the NSDAP to the SED. As a counterpoint, we see the sidelined foreman Meternagel, an upright and honest worker who is damaged by the system, unable to really defend himself against it and resigned to his fate. Wolf tells this story with underlying anger and sadness. HGP

GDR 1964 | Director: Konrad Wolf | 110 mins | Feature Film black and white | German with English subtitles.

Konrad Wolf (1925–1982) was one of the most important directors in the German Democratic Republic and a central figure in DEFA films. After his family emigrated to Moscow in 1934, he returned to Germany at the age of 19 as a soldier in the Red Army – a formative experience for his later film work. His works, such as Sterne, Der geteilte Himmel, Ich war neunzehn (I Was Nineteen) and Solo Sunny deal with German history, anti-fascist memory and social responsibility. Politically socialised at an early age, Wolf remained true to the ideals of communism, but repeatedly asked critical questions. In 2025, his 100th birthday will be celebrated with retrospectives, film restorations and events – an occasion to rediscover his cinematic legacy.

Seán Allan is Professor of German at the University of St Andrews and holds a Joint Research Professsorship at the University of Bonn. He studied at the University of Cambridge and spent a year studying Theaterwissenschaft at the Humbodlt Universität in what was then East Berlin. His publications include DEFA. East German Cinema, 1946–1992 (co-edited with John Sandford, 1996), Re-Imagining DEFA: East German Cinema in its National and Transnational Contexts (co-edited with Sebastian Heiduschke, 2016), and a monograph on the East german ‘artist film’, Screening Art. Modernist Aesthetics and the Socialist Imaginary in East German Cinema (2019). Together with Sebastian Heiduschke he has just published a new volume entitled Documenting Socialism. East German Documentary Cinema (2024).

Picture: DEFA