Director Wolfgang Staudte co-wrote this fine film with his father Fritz Staudte together with Erwin Klein. Both Staudtes took part in Reinhardt and Piscator productions, and in Hans and Lotte's wedding entertainment American audiences may hear Brecht and Weill.
This powerful work was released three years after Staudte's "The Murderers Are Among Us". In contrast with that film's depiction of an educated paragon tortured by conscience, Rotation traces the lives of Berliner everyman Hans, his beloved Lotte, and Lotte's politically-engaged brother Karl from the depression and runaway inflation of the 1920s through the return of economic normalcy, the Nazi ascension to power, war, impending defeat, the battle for Berlin, and finally war's aftermath and reconstruction. Rotation opens during the fall of Berlin. Sheltering from the battle outside a woman hears the Soviets have reached the Moabit district and she immediately leaves safety to dodge the bombs and shells outside. Why? Our interest of course is immediately piqued. The film then flashes back to 1925, the year of Hitler's reorganization of the NSDAP. Hans strives heroically to provide for Lotte and their dear son Hellmuth. Hans is a good neighbor to the Jewish family downstairs. Karl the communist thinker and activist fights both capitalists and Nazis. Hans, Karl, and Lotte care deeply for one another and for toddler Hellmuth. Hans resents the class oppression which feeds children of the aristocracy cake while Hellmuth is sick and malnourished. Hans is jailed for labor organizing. While not endorsing the NSDAP he accommodates the party in order to secure work he desperately needs to put food on the table. Here Staudte and DEFA show industrialists solidly behind the NSDAP while Karl and Hans have only the backing of fellow workers. For years Hans refuses Karl's entreaties to join the struggle, citing his family responsibilities. Finally out of devotion to his brother-in-law as well as to humanity Hans commits acts of resistance and is betrayed by Hellmuth, who is now a committed member of the Hitler-Jugend. It is the ramifications of this act for Hans, Lotte, and Hellmuth in the context of their love for one another which begins and ends the film.
Rotation celebrates the strength and continuity of human life and love: love erotic, filial and fraternal.
This powerful work was released three years after Staudte's "The Murderers Are Among Us". In contrast with that film's depiction of an educated paragon tortured by conscience, Rotation traces the lives of Berliner everyman Hans, his beloved Lotte, and Lotte's politically-engaged brother Karl from the depression and runaway inflation of the 1920s through the return of economic normalcy, the Nazi ascension to power, war, impending defeat, the battle for Berlin, and finally war's aftermath and reconstruction. Rotation opens during the fall of Berlin. Sheltering from the battle outside a woman hears the Soviets have reached the Moabit district and she immediately leaves safety to dodge the bombs and shells outside. Why? Our interest of course is immediately piqued. The film then flashes back to 1925, the year of Hitler's reorganization of the NSDAP. Hans strives heroically to provide for Lotte and their dear son Hellmuth. Hans is a good neighbor to the Jewish family downstairs. Karl the communist thinker and activist fights both capitalists and Nazis. Hans, Karl, and Lotte care deeply for one another and for toddler Hellmuth. Hans resents the class oppression which feeds children of the aristocracy cake while Hellmuth is sick and malnourished. Hans is jailed for labor organizing. While not endorsing the NSDAP he accommodates the party in order to secure work he desperately needs to put food on the table. Here Staudte and DEFA show industrialists solidly behind the NSDAP while Karl and Hans have only the backing of fellow workers. For years Hans refuses Karl's entreaties to join the struggle, citing his family responsibilities. Finally out of devotion to his brother-in-law as well as to humanity Hans commits acts of resistance and is betrayed by Hellmuth, who is now a committed member of the Hitler-Jugend. It is the ramifications of this act for Hans, Lotte, and Hellmuth in the context of their love for one another which begins and ends the film.
Rotation celebrates the strength and continuity of human life and love: love erotic, filial and fraternal.