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Juliane vistis Marianne in prison (1)
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The German Sisters
Margarethe von Trotta’s film The German Sisters was made in 1981, four years after the eventful autumn of 1977. The film is based on the story of Christiane and her younger sister Gudrun Ensslin, who was one of the RAF prisoners who committed suicide in Stammheim.
| The film describes the relationship between the
two sisters Juliane (Christiane) and Marianne (Gudrun). They grow up in the ‘leaden
years’ of the 1950s and both become politically active in the late 1960s, early
1970s. However, they have taken different paths. Whereas Juliane works for a women’s
magazine, Marianne wants to change the world and has joined a terrorist group.
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| In flashbacks the film traces the women’s
upbringing in an oppressive patriarchal household. In their teens Juliane comes across as
being rebellious, refusing to wear a skirt to school and disobeying her father. Marianne
is portrayed as the obliging daughter, a ‘daddy’s girl’. At the beginning of the film, Juliane is visited by Marianne’s husband, Werner, who asks Juliane to look after his son, Jan, for as long as he has to work abroad. Juliane refuses but allows Jan to stay with her for a few days. However, Werner commits suicide and Juliane takes Jan to foster parents. |
 Juliane breaks up with her boyfriend, Wolf. (2) |
At her office, Juliane receives a phone call from her sister, who asks Juliane to meet her in a statue museum where the two women debate their political opinions and the fate of Jan. Marianne only shows contempt for Juliane’s life choice, which she describes as ‘bourgeois’. Even when Marianne is arrested she continues to condemn Juliane’s work. Even though the two women have completely opposing opinions on how to act politically, they share the common memory of their childhood, and this brings them closer together and makes Juliane at least understand her sister’s actions.
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| When Marianne allegedly commits suicide,
Juliane takes over her role in condemning and fighting against society. In her attempts to
prove the ‘suicide’ wrong she breaks up with her boyfriend and completely
isolates herself from her surroundings.. Only when the editor of a newspaper tells her
that her story is of no interest to anybody, does she find her way back into life again.
The film’s final scene shows her about to explain to Jan the violent past of his
mother’s political life.
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| As with most of her films, von Trotta combines
emotional dimensions with current political affairs. Like Germany in Autumn, The
German Sisters mixes the country’s past with its present, implying that the
oppressive atmosphere in post-war Germany is responsible for the political activism of the
student revolt and the terrorist activities of the RAF.
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| The film made in 1981, however, depicts a Germany where terrorism is no longer such an important issue, nor is there a unified collective effort to change things. On the contrary, the film points to an individualistic ending, where Juliane withdraws herself from the collective team-work of the magazine and continues her work on an individual level by explaining to Jan the reasons for his mother’s actions, an exchange between the generations which was denied to Juliane’s own generation. |
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| 1 Agde, Guenter (ed.) Margarethe von Trotta: 'Die bleierne Zeit' und andere Filmtexte (Berlin: Henschelverlag, 1988), p. 163 |
| 2 Elsaesser, Thomas and Wedel, Michael The BFI Companion to German Cinema (London: BFI, 1999), p. 266 |
| 3 AGde, Guenter op. cit., p. 190 |
