KLK AN PTX – DIE ROTE KAPELLE (Horst E. Brandt, East Germany 1971) is one of seven features on big screen analogue format produced by DEFA between 1968 and 1974. It depicts the brave, far-reaching activities of several resistance groups against the National Socialist regime. They were characterized by the collaboration between people of a wide range of different backgrounds and world views and were referred to by the Gestapo as the “Rote Kapelle” in obviously simplistic fashion. The groups around Arvid Harnack, Adam Kuckhoff, Harro Schulze-Boysen, Walter Küchenmeister (father of co-scriptwriter Claus Küchenmeister), and others formed shortly after the beginning of the National Socialists’ reign of terror and intensified its activities after the invasion of the Soviet Union, until they were discovered by Gestapo and the spy detection system. Former cinematographer Horst E. Brandt depicts the resistance as an epic act of heroism in brilliantly composed, gripping images rich in detail, full of honest, unsentimental admiration. (gv) (3.10.)
