Résumés(1)
The main character of this film, who worked as a teacher in a village on the Elbe, lived from 1889 to 1954. Between 1919 and 1953 he kept a chronicle of his life. All that time he worked in the same village. When he started writing the German Republic had just emerged from the ruins of the German Empire. Then came Hitler's Thrid Reich, the war and the downfall, the occupying forces, the split, and the GDR, which was to become 'a different Germany'. The teacher was an imperial N.C.O. and royal-Prussian teacher, a 'Stahlhelmer' in the rather unpopular republic ("Everybody was, over here", the people say.), went with the Stahlhelm to the SA ( "Who didn't!"), then to the NSDAP. Denazificated, he became a member of the SPD (1945), and thus he joined the SED (1946). He was also a cantor. He played chorales on the organ, reconstruction and militant songs on the violin. And he had always taught children writing and arithmetic had praised and punished, made walks with the children, made them conscious about values, do's and don'ts. All this in a period of 35 years and under four different political systems. Those who remember him speak respectfully and joyfully of 'the master'. He was also a German camp follower. And he was allegedly a good teacher. At a moment of new changes - the German unification - the film takes the teacher along on a journey through the 'great' years of german history. (International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam)
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