Die Konferenz der Tiere (1969)

In the opening sequence, children rescue a group of animals from a burning circus and let them return to their homelands. From then on, the animals regard the children as their friends. When the lion reads in the newspaper that the 365th Human Peace Conference has ended without finding solutions to problems caused by humans themselves, such as wars, famines, and environmental destruction, he consults with the other animals. Together, they decide to convene an Animals’ Conference to finally persuade humans, for the sake of their children, to make peace worldwide. All the animals on Earth are notified and send delegates to the conference. Five human children, one from each continent, are brought along as guests of honor. At the same time, the 366th Human Peace Conference begins. Disagreements start immediately, with the question of what shape the conference table should be. The animals, who have given their conference the motto “It’s About the Children,” demand that humans ensure there will never again be war or hardship. They explain that bureaucracy is preventing consensus and that they will clear the way for humans. To do so, they send hordes of mice and rats into the human conference building to destroy the files. But the humans have copies and transcripts brought in and continue the conference undeterred. The animals then demand that the main obstacle to peace be abolished: national borders. The humans consider this an unacceptable interference and declare war on the animals. Machines with grappling arms collect people all over the world to prepare them for military service. Another machine compresses them all into a standardized shape, then uniforms and arms them. Images of peace are extracted from their minds and replaced with images of war. They are trained and drilled in fast-forward, then march against the animals. The animals discuss what to do. A dinosaur skeleton, which is also attending the conference, favors a counterattack, saying that in its time, people acted quickly instead of talking so much. The other animals condemn its opinion as old-fashioned and point out that this may be why the dinosaurs went extinct. But when General Zornmüller, the spokesman for the human conference, delivers an ultimatum demanding that the animals’ assembly be dissolved and threatening to disperse it by force otherwise, the animals refuse to comply. Instead, they conclude that humanity’s problems basically stem from the military, so they send swarms of moths to destroy all the uniforms, leaving all the troops—and many of the conference participants—naked. Chaos breaks out in the military because nobody can tell anyone else’s rank anymore. However, the humans quickly obtain new uniforms and declare that no animal can eat cannons or rifles. They deploy their troops again. The animals are on the verge of giving up, but then come up with a saving idea: they gather up the children in every country and hide them. They invoke their right to remove custody from unfit parents until those parents prove capable of taking responsibility for their children, and repeat their demands. The humans now march to war against the animals under General Zornmüller’s leadership. In a speech, the general explains that this serves peace, since peace can be maintained only with the help of soldiers; and since children are tomorrow’s soldiers, attacking to reclaim the children is a necessary means of safeguarding peace. For the first time, the heads of state are in agreement about this. Although the humans are technically superior to the animals, the animals prevail through solidarity and cunning, and win. At the same time, a popular uprising takes shape among parents demanding the return of their children. The heads of state now agree to negotiations and invite a delegation of animals to meet them. When the general asks where the children are, the only answer he gets is that they are well. We then see the children, cared for by the animals, wishing as they fall asleep that the conflict would last a long time, because they like being with the animals so much. After some hesitation, the human heads of state eventually sign a treaty abolishing all national borders, disbanding the military, banning all weapons, and stipulating that all science must serve peace exclusively and that educating children to become true human beings must be the highest priority.