Architecture and memory in films

Brutalität in Stein [Brutality in Stone] (1961) by Alexander Kluge connects history and memory through architecture and speeches by Hitler. Kluge has also directed Abschied von Gestern/Yesterday Girl (1966)  about a an East German refugee trying and failing to get a foothold in West Berlin (Lee, 2010). The film opens with the text "what separates us from yesterday is not a rift but a changed position".

bluaCONVAIR880 (2011) 1 - Abschied von gestern - 1966 - Kluge [Online]
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMa5TvLpPVA [14/02/2012]
Brody, Richard (2010) The Way West. [Online]
 http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/revivals/2010/05/24/100524gomo_GOAT_movies_brody [13/02/2012]
dekonstrukcija (2010) Brutalitat in Stein - 1961 - Alexander Kluge & Peter Schamoni. [Online] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=islUtYwOOx8 [13/02/2012]
Lee, Kevin B. (2010) 993 (129). Abschied von Gestern—(Anita G.) / Yesterday Girl (1966, dir. Alexander Kluge) [Online] http://www.slantmagazine.com/house/2010/01/993-129-abschied-von-gestern%E2%80%94anita-g-yesterday-girl-1966-dir-alexander-kluge/ [14/02/2012]

Polish Airlines Hijacking

Barbara Galonska was a passenger on board Polish Airlines flight 165 heading for East Berlin. The flight was hijacked by Hans Detlef Tiede who demanded it to land in West Berlin. Galonska chose to return to the GDR, rather than to defect (Scheuermann, 2010). A US court was set up in the Tempelhof airport departure lounge to prosecute (Deutsche Welle, 2008).

Judge Stern (right)

Deutsche Welle (2008) US Judge: Berlin Plane Hijack Trial Had Parallels to Guantanamo.
[Online] http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,3587971,00.html [23/05/2010]
Scheuermann, C. (2010) Hijacked to Capitalism: Unwitting East German Defectors Revisit Decision to Stay or Go. [Online]
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,695710,00.html#ref=nlint
[23/05/2010]

Taiwanadvice.com [2010] US v. Tiede Summary: United States Court for Berlin, March 14, 1979. [Online] http://www.taiwanadvice.com/westberlint.htm [23/05/2010]

Squeezing Berlin

West Berlin is "the testicles of the West. Every time I want to make the West scream, I squeeze on Berlin" claimed the Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in 1962. The Soviet leaders viewed Berlin in similar respects, "a dangerously exposed western enclave within the emerging Soviet bloc, as a place they could exert pressure" (Friedman, 2009).

Friedman, M.J. (2009) Introduction. [online] http://www.america.gov/media/pdf/books/the-berlin-wall.pdf
In PDF
U.S. Department of State Bureau of International Information Programs (2009) The Berlin Wall: 20 Years Later. [online] http://www.america.gov/media/pdf/books/the-berlin-wall.pdf

The white Wall

The Berlin Wall was painted white shortly before the U.S. president Jimmy Carter's visit in 1978 [Bundesrat, 2009]. Here, he stands on a platform, many seen in West Berlin, looking over the Wall with the German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt.


Bundesrat [2009] Potsdamer Platz. [Online] http://gsb.download.bva.bund.de/BR/schaufenster/en/potsdamerplatz.html