Rauhreif (1963)

After a year, Thomas comes to visit his higher-lying home village from the Oderbruch. He wants to speak to his father, but his father is away. With nothing accomplished, Thomas returns to his wife. Their marriage is going badly. Two years earlier, Thomas had been full of enthusiasm. Alongside his father, he had driven the farmers into the LPG. The forced collectivization had mainly created resentment and resistance. Father Rothardt is regarded as a decisive man and, because of his toughness, is as respected as he is feared. He is chairman of the LPG, which in the past two years has become one of the district’s model cooperatives. His son Thomas often opposed his father’s decisions, and his father made it clear that even after his death, Thomas would not succeed him at the LPG. With the agreement of the district leadership’s first secretary, Thomas became deputy chairman of the neighboring LPG in the Oderbruch. Resistance among the farmers who had been forced into collectivization is especially strong there. If necessary, they pretend to be ill so they will not have to work in the fields alongside the others. The livestock receives no care, yields decline, and Thomas cannot assert himself. At first, the unwilling farmers had feared him as Rothardt’s son, while those enthusiastic about the LPG had looked to him with hope. But after two years, the lines are clear: the unwilling farmers get away with what they are doing, while the willing ones are disillusioned and lose their respect for Thomas. He, in turn, is too proud to ask his father for advice and help. One day, Thomas’s wife Anne has had enough. The teacher had never wanted to live in the village and is despairing because, although Thomas’s situation is hopeless, he cannot bring himself to give up. She wants to leave him, but instead goes to the elder Rothardt and tells him what is happening at the LPG. The district secretary had also visited Rothardt and made it clear that Thomas had not been sent away back then to tackle the task at the LPG on his own. Naturally, he was meant to find support in his father. Rothardt relents and goes to see Thomas. Thomas tells him about the problems, but sees their cause exclusively in the farmers. He does not recognize his own mistakes. Rothardt speaks sternly to him and promises to help. Soon afterward, he returns to the LPG with Franka, a poultry expert, and Kersten, a master of pig husbandry. They will stay for a while and pass on their knowledge and experience. Rothardt takes firm action in the period that follows. Anyone who fails to care for their livestock and consequently achieves lower yields than possible will receive less money from then on and must reimburse the LPG for the resulting losses retroactively. Anyone who is lazy and lets others do work they themselves have failed to do must pay those people. Gradually, attitudes begin to change, especially since LPG chairman Braune is also confronted with his transgressions but is not removed from his position. In the end, it becomes clear that Anne and Thomas’s marriage has a chance again, too.