Zwischen zwei Kriegen (1978)

A prologue first takes us to 1917. A nurse asks two dying soldiers, “What are you fighting for, and what are you dying for?” She receives contradictory answers. The later points in time are marked by handwritten white-on-black dates: 1919 – 1923 – 1925 – 1927 – 1929 – 1932 – 1933. The film’s protagonists are a blast-furnace worker and an engineer. They share a sparse room and a bed. When one comes back from his shift, the other has to get up. The blast-furnace worker is concerned with what lessons workers should draw from the war. He belongs to a small Communist cell, and even when he is with a prostitute, he talks about Verdun and says, “We have learned that the proletarian has no homeland.” She replies, “We can talk or look out the window. The price is always the same.” The engineer is concerned with economic rationalization. What a waste of energy, he concludes after consulting engineer friends: on the one hand, the coke ovens are supplied with recycled coke-oven gas that is stronger than necessary, while on the other, the blast furnaces’ surplus top gas is burned off without being used. He persuades the chimney baron of his plans for an integrated system in which the by-products of one part of the system are also put to use elsewhere in it. During the economic crisis of 1929/1930, they have to recognize that the integrated system of coal mines, coke ovens, blast furnaces and steel production is profitable only when every part of it is operating at full capacity. In 1932, Hitler presents his plans for fully utilizing the heavy industry. On a wall is the inscription: “Hitler—that is war.” 1933. To avoid arrest, the blast-furnace worker commits suicide. Alongside the “feature film” narrative, there are several scenes that actually belong to other film genres. For one thing, the author Farocki appears on screen several times and speaks from the narrative present of 1977, explaining the film’s background and how it came about. In addition, the film’s second half contains an extended section in which documentary footage depicts the operations of a coke oven plant; here, too, the author’s explanatory voice can be heard.