The Silent Revolution
Original title: Das schweigende Klassenzimmer
German title: Das schweigende Klassenzimmer
Stalinstadt, autumn 1956: On a secret visit to West Berlin, the high school graduates Theo and Kurt watch dramatic pictures of the Hungarian popular uprising in the newsreel. While the term “struggle for freedom” is used here, this uprising is officially called a “counterrevolution against the socialist state power” in the GDR, where hardly any of the Hungarian claims are made public. This is why Theo, Kurt and many of their classmates meet at old Edgar’s home to get detailed information from RIAS, a Western broadcasting station. They hear about several hundred killed people, among them the football player Ferenc Puskás, and indignantly decide to hold a minute’s silence for the victims in the classroom the next day. The whole class joins in. Yet they cannot anticipate the consequences this minute of silence will have. Unprepared, the young people get into serious trouble with the political party authorities. Using perfidious interrogation and blackmail methods, the SED party officials try to find the “ringleaders of this counterrevolutionary act” ...