\u00a08-1 | Table of Contents<\/a>\u00a0|\u00a0DOI 10.17742\/IMAGE.GDR.8-1.7 | KlockePDF<\/a><\/p>\n Sonja E. Klocke | University of Wisconsin \u2013 Madison<\/p>\n L<\/span>othar Warneke\u2019s 1982 film Die Beunruhigung <\/em>(Apprehension<\/em>, 1982), a low-budget, black-and-white Alltagsfilm<\/em> (everyday film) that features documentary elements, was among the most popular DEFA films of the 1980s.[1]<\/a> At the GDR\u2019s second national festival for feature films in Karl-Marx-Stadt in 1982, it received several prizes, including the so-called Gro\u00dfen Steiger<\/em>, the audience prize for the most effective movie screened within the prior two years.[2]<\/a> As Andrea Rinke highlights in \u201cFrom Models to Misfits, \u201cthe question of how individuals cope with illness, pain, depression, and death was at the forefront of Warneke\u2019s controversial film\u201d (195). Surprisingly, though, scholarship largely focuses on how the protagonist, Inge Herold (played by Christine Schorn) takes charge of her life and seeks a fulfilling love relationship when she finds herself in a time of crisis. These discussions treat the diagnosis of breast cancer as no more than a plot trigger for Inge\u2019s actions. This approach may be attributable to Erika Richter, the artistic advisor for Die Beunruhigung<\/em>, who spotlighted this aspect in her afterword to Helga Schubert\u2019s 1982 script. Richter\u2019s declaration that the main idea of the film was, \u201cillness interrupts normal everyday life and forces individuals to take stock\u201d seems to have been highly influential (88).<\/p>\n Contrary to these approaches, this article proposes a reading that investigates more closely the portrayal of the GDR medical system in Die Beunruhigung<\/em>. It places this interpretation in the context of medical-historical research on GDR healthcare practices and examines how this distinctive medical system\u2014characterized by a lack of patient autonomy reflecting the GDR\u2019s essentially authoritarian and patriarchal structure\u2014affects Inge Herold\u2019s ability to deal with her illness. By considering additional examples of medical treatment in GDR and post-GDR fiction by Christa Wolf and Kathrin Schmidt\u2014fictional texts deliberately chosen to demonstrate that the concern for medical ethics has played a significant role in various historical circumstances and political systems\u2014this approach achieves two goals: firstly, it highlights the idiosyncrasies of the GDR healthcare system, ranging from the effects of a specific doctor-patient relationship based on a legal system influenced by Marxist-Leninist thought to the success of the GDR\u2019s effective cancer screening programs; and secondly, it demonstrates the extent to which practices specific to the GDR medical system are portrayed as lingering in post-GDR literature, a portrayal that is, in fact, authenticated by medical-historical research.[3]<\/a> The chosen texts all feature suffering female protagonists whose illnesses indicate their reluctance to be integrated into the prevailing symbolic order of a patriarchal society\u2014GDR or, in the case of Kathrin Schmidt\u2019s Du stirbst nicht<\/em> (You Are Not Going to Die<\/em>, 2009), post-GDR society. The interest in medical ethics and patient autonomy suggests that the texts\u2019 frame of reference extends beyond the historical parameters of GDR society and seeks to situate the ethical dilemma they explore within a more general analysis of patriarchy and female subjectivity. Yet the fact that all these texts place their protagonists in GDR or post-GDR, i.e., contemporary East German society encourages us to consider the specifics of GDR-style, top-down practices of medical care that, as Schmidt suggests, have not yet been overcome in Eastern Germany and seem to affect women in particular. However, before delving into a more detailed analysis of the fictional texts, we should reflect on their potential to provide us with historical insight. Here, film and literature can hint at everyday life experiences in the GDR, specifically its medical system, which seems to have considered patients in general and women in particular incapable of handling unpleasant truths about their health.<\/p>\n Simone Barck\u2019s claim that GDR fiction is a more illuminating source of knowledge about GDR society than scholarly publications by historians also applies to the medical realm and medical historiography (315). Indeed, in the GDR discussions surrounding contentious topics\u2014such as questions regarding ethics in the medical field\u2014tended to take place in small circles, not in public forums supported by the media. In \u201cEthische Fragen\u201d (\u201cEthical Questions\u201d), physician Susanne Hahn stresses that, since the GDR mass media predominantly broadcast experts\u2019 decisions, more fine-grained information and critical debates about illness and patients in medical institutions became available to the general public through literature and film (77). Furthermore, in Rifts in Time and in the Self<\/em>, Cheryl Dueck writes, \u201cin a society in which potent political and social messages were transmitted by fiction, the fates of characters in novels can be read as a thermometer of societal health\u201d (112). Die Beunruhigung<\/em> exemplifies these aspects as both scriptwriter Helga Schubert\u2014a professional psychologist as well as a writer\u2014and director Lothar Warneke stressed the significance of their film and the main character\u2019s story for catalyzing an intensive dialogue with the audience. As Erika Richter testifies:<\/p>\n A large portion of the audience eagerly takes up this offer to communicate, as the first experiences demonstrate. The film loosens tongues. The audience talks about dealing with illness as well as the willingness to communicate and the lack of communication; about the relationship between generations as well as the manifold problems that come with emancipation. (100-1)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Richter points to the film\u2019s influence on several levels: sparking communication and generating specific discourses, for instance, about illness or generations. According to Rosemary Stott, Warneke, like most DEFA filmmakers, \u201cfelt a strong affinity with their audience and a responsibility towards them. Because of the lack of a democratic press, the arts could serve the function of raising contemporary issues related to everyday life which were taboo in the print media\u201d (35-36). Die Beunruhigung<\/em> thus offers an example for the many fictional texts that triggered critical thought among GDR citizens and that present a remarkable archive of information about daily life and issues.[4]<\/a><\/p>\n Literature and film depicting illness and the healthcare system reveal cultural and ideological discourses in medical institutions as well as social norms\u2014including, but by no means limited to, the signifiers for pathology, since GDR citizens clearly understood the medical system as a part of society that echoed both the problems and the standards governing the GDR. Accordingly, Thomas Ahbe, Michael Hofmann, and Volker Stiehler\u2019s Redefreiheit<\/em>, a volume that contains transcripts of all public debates that took place in Leipzig in the fall of 1989, also includes a chapter dealing with glitches in the healthcare system. Here, the link between difficulties in the medical system and larger societal setbacks is articulated in the statements contributed by Dieter Lohmann, Medical Director of the city hospital in Leipzig, and Rudolf Weiner, Medical Director of the district hospital St. Georg, which met with the audience\u2019s strong approval. Both Lohmann and Weiner emphasize that the healthcare system must be considered an integral part of society, which means its trials and tribulations echo the grievances of society at large (Lohmann 526, 531).<\/p>\n One of the so-called Alltagsfilme<\/em> committed to \u201cdocumentary realism,\u201d Die Beunruhigung<\/em> \u00a0illustrates Warneke\u2019s ideal of the dokumentaren Spielfilm<\/em> (documentary drama), which he delineated in his eponymous master\u2019s thesis in 1964. With reference to Italian Neorealism and specifically to Cesare Zavattini, Warneke articulated the artistic position justifying the need for a GDR-specific realist documentary film. He aimed for the unification of the \u201ctraditional possibilities of the feature film to create lively characters with documentation [in order to] facilitate a new, deeply realistic way of reflecting reality artistically. This possibility is available in the documentary configuration of the feature film. We describe this synthesis as the documentary drama\u201d (238-39).[5]<\/a> While not challenging socialism\u2019s master narrative, such documentary drama would strive to find genuine representations of reality in the texture of personal daily experiences (Harhausen 102; Feinstein 199). Yet following the so-called Kahlschlag-Plenum<\/em> (clean-sweep plenary) of 1965\u2014an event of the ruling Socialist Party that was meant to signal an end to any tendencies associated with the West (e.g., Neorealism) and led to the banning of numerous films and books\u2014there was little space for finding \u201cartistic truth\u201d like Warneke imagined it.[6]<\/a> Hardly surprising, then, that the director only began to explore this credo in his trilogy of the early 1970s\u2014Dr. med. Sommer II<\/em> (MD Sommer II<\/em>, 1970), Es ist eine alte Geschichte<\/em> (It\u2019s an Old Story<\/em>, 1972), and Leben mit Uwe<\/em> (Life with Uwe<\/em>, 1973)\u2014and then much more explicitly with Die Beunruhigung<\/em> in 1982.[7]<\/a><\/p>\n In Die Beunruhigung<\/em>, more than his other films, Warneke strived to attain \u201cthe greatest possible authenticity in presenting the figures and their living space and conditions \u201d (qtd. in Richter 92). He insisted on using black-and-white film stock in support of a greater sense of realism and truthfulness, and on engaging Thomas Plenert, a young cameraman who had never before shot a feature film but was well-versed in filming documentaries (Harhausen 111; Richter 90-98; Dieter Wolf 136-38). Warneke adamantly defended his idea to develop each scene at original locations and in dialogue with all parties involved. The locales included the Berlin Charit\u00e9 hospital, Inge\u2019s workplace in the Department of Health and Welfare, and screenwriter Helga Schubert\u2019s apartment, which serves as Inge Herold\u2019s home in the film. Schubert was willing to accept radical revisions to her script provided Warneke respected the basic spirit of her story. She also supported his desire to work with non-professional actors, particularly for those characters directly linked to the topic of cancer and healthcare. These authentic voices include an elderly lady diagnosed with breast cancer whom Inge meets in the Charit\u00e9\u2019s waiting area; a young woman who tells the protagonist about her breast cancer therapy; and most importantly Dr. R\u00f6seler, an actual Charit\u00e9 physician who examines Inge and informs her about the necessary surgery.<\/p>\n Despite Warneke\u2019s struggle for maximum authenticity and the well-established fact that in the GDR fiction served the function of discussing taboo issues in lieu of a democratic press, we should not simply take Die Beunruhigung<\/em> as the only evidence for quotidian life as it was experienced in the GDR. Still, this film in particular is well worth examining in the context of research on the state\u2019s medical system since it can serve as one<\/em> window onto GDR society and the healthcare provided. It reveals how the medical system\u2014which viewed GDR citizens in general and women in particular as children too frail to handle issues of life and death\u2014affects Inge Herold\u2019s ability to deal with her illness and models how she comes to claim agency in her fight against breast cancer.[8]<\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n An intelligent and well-educated woman in her late thirties, the psychologist Inge Herold works as a marriage counselor for the Department of Health and Welfare. A single mother, she has a trusting if not always easy relationship with her teenage son Mike, who disapproves of Joachim (played by Wilfried Pucher), the married man with whom Inge is having an affair. When she learns of her potential breast cancer and the need to undergo a biopsy and possibly also breast surgery the next day, she fears the biopsy that may confirm the presence of cancer and possibly include a mastectomy. The following 24 hours under psychological stress prompt her to reflect on her life and to see the decisions she has made in a clearer light: she seeks out her son, who proves to be a source of encouragement, breaks up with Joachim, who turns out to be unsupportive when Inge needs him most, and discovers a new confidant in Dieter Schramm, a high-school friend and single father. Despite the constant apprehension due to her illness, she musters up the energy to start her life anew.<\/p>\n This confident if not entirely euphoric outcome corresponds with Inge\u2019s character: like most female protagonists in DEFA\u2019s 1970s and 1980s Alltagsfilme<\/em>, she is a strong woman who asserts her independence as an individual against social norms and does not compromise her ideal of a reciprocated romantic relationship.[9]<\/a> Her resistance to societal standards surfaces particularly vis-\u00e0-vis Katharina (played by Walfriede Schmitt), a former classmate and judge who leads a model socialist life as a married woman with two children, an apartment, a car, and an active social and political life. Faced with both Katharina as well as Inge\u2019s disapproving mother (played by Traute Sense), Inge insists that she is happily divorced and actively seeks a new partner when Joachim proves inadequate.<\/p>\n Given her strength in these situations as well as her confidence when she deals with co-workers and clients in the Department of Health and Welfare, it is all the more remarkable that the patient Inge Herold does not stand up to the medical institution. In one of the film\u2019s most significant scenes, the Charit\u00e9 physician Dr. R\u00f6seler informs Inge about the potentially malignant lump they found in her breast.<\/p>\n
\n
\nThe \u201cGentle Lie\u201d:
\nWomen and the GDR Medical System in Film and Literature<\/strong><\/h3>\nFiction as a Source of Historical Knowledge<\/strong><\/h5>\n
Fictional Representations of the GDR Medical System<\/strong><\/h5>\n