Maurice Philip Remy, experienced television writer and documentary filmmaker, once involved in the “Hitler series” of Germany’s top TV historian Guido Knopp on ZDF, gets time – from the RBB. It is a full hour and a half in which he reconstructs the case of the former head of the Stasi victims’ memorial, Hubertus Knabe. He was fired in 2018 because he had not acted decisively enough against alleged sexual harassment of female employees by his deputy.
Remy also got time so that the RBB could check the documentation again. The film was due to be broadcast on September 1, shortly after the investigative committee of the Berlin House of Representatives presented its final report on the Knabe case. And who confirmed the actions of the memorial’s board of trustees, led by Senator for Culture Klaus Lederer (left).
Shortly before the broadcast date, the broadcaster received a letter including a previous Facebook post from Remy. Back then, he shared a call for donations in private to help Knabe with the costs of his lawsuit against the dismissal. The accusation against Remy: He was partial.
The RBB postponed the broadcast and announced a revised version in which Remy’s role is made transparent. Nothing has been changed, says Remy. But he can explain himself in a new opening credits. He clearly communicated to the broadcaster that, as a journalist, he found the circumstances of Knabe’s dismissal strange and viewed it critically.
[Wenn Sie alle aktuellen Nachrichten live auf Ihr Handy haben wollen, empfehlen wir Ihnen unsere App, die Sie hier für Apple- und Android-Geräte herunterladen können.]
Remy says he spent two years researching, rolling through files and holding discussions. The broadcaster found nothing in his film that confirms the allegation of partiality. And he states: “I didn’t know Knabe personally, but the fact that he gave the victims of the SED dictatorship a strong voice made me respectful.”
The case is actually closed, most of it is known anyway, the courts have decided. Even civil rights activists and Stasi victims had refrained from the boy when he was still fighting for his post. Anyone who has only sidelined the dispute can at least get a picture of what was going on with Remy’s attempt at a reconstruction.
Remy goes back to the history of the Federal Republic, the Berlin politics and the person Knabe, who had always warned against a government participation of the Left Party. The fact that the documentary has a certain list, Remy can’t hide his sympathy for boys, is almost a given. But only almost.
The women who found the behavior of the boy’s deputy at the memorial abusive did not want to speak to Remy. In the files and interviews, Remy could have seen what they meant. Instead, he puts the events in the historical context of the MeToo debate, with the rebellion of women in the film and culture industry.
Didn’t the filmmaker get the case?
And it creates the impression that the allegations could have been a bit exaggerated, as if Lederer’s cultural administration and, in the end, Minister of State for Culture Monika Grütters (CDU) had everything pointed to the accusation of sexual harassment, where perhaps an elderly gentleman was just a little too relaxed, too physically had been to his co-workers. Didn’t understand anything about MeToo?
Lederer also has a lot to say. He also recognizes Knabe’s work in coming to terms with the SED regime by giving the victims a voice. And he talks about the case itself. At least in this level of detail, that is new – and illuminating.
But the boy continues to see himself as a victim. At least Remy doesn’t hide the fact that he wasn’t the easiest person to be. A former civil rights activist says: Knabe thought he was above everything. Protected by the CDU, as Knabe himself admits.
But that even the head of the victims ‘associations in the memorial’s board of trustees, CDU politician Dieter Dombrowski, in addition to Grütters’ representative and another appraisal expert who is considered close to the CDU, wanted to get rid of Hubertus Knabe in the end because he showed no understanding of the warning signals did not want to see, apparently did not convince Remy.
The choice of conversation partners, mostly men, how files are sometimes misinterpreted, plus a lot of drama, musical background – in the end, the question asked at the beginning of the documentary whether Knabe’s dismissal was an intrigue should be answered with the impression: Somehow yes. But there is no clear evidence.
[Mehr aus der Hauptstadt. Mehr aus der Region. Mehr zu Politik und Gesellschaft. Und mehr Nützliches für Sie. Das gibt’s nun mit Tagesspiegel Plus: Jetzt 30 Tage kostenlos testen.]
Without questioning it, a well-known journalist and history expert from Springer, always fond of Knabe, can say: Lederer has made a “Stalinist principle” his own – namely: Hold your hand. ”Finally Remy gives the impression that the red-red-green majority in the committee of inquiry would have taken part in this later.
The Hubertus Knabe case
This imbalance comes at the end, after an hour and a half of film. And the boy is allowed to say: “At times I felt like I was in Russia.” As in an “extermination campaign”. He just waited for the tax authorities to ring. Dingdong!
How fitting that Remy found something suspicious: that the Stasi called the files of the persecuted a “special process” in the 1960s – and Lederer’s cultural administration called the files in the case of Knabe, of all things, “special process MeToo”. We are shaken. That can not be a coincidence.
In the subsequent transparency opening credits, Remy said he was curious about the viewer’s judgment. Certainly! Here the predicate: Board in front of the head.
The documentation “Special Process MeToo” can be seen on Wednesday, October 27, 2021 at 10:15 pm in the RBB.
