The Sailor's Song
The Sailor's Song is an East German black-and-white film directed by Kurt Maetzig and Günter Reisch. It was released in 1958.
Plot
As the news of the October Revolution sweep through the world, the German High Seas Fleet's command, wary of a mutiny, decides to send all its ships to a suicide mission in the English Channel. Sailors Albin Köbis and Max Reichpietsch are sentenced to death for political activity. When the socialist sailor Steigert, a member of the firing detail, cannot bring himself to shoot them, he is arrested. On the cruiser Prince Heinrich, Steigert's friends Lenz, Lobke, Kasten and Bartuschek receive Vladimir Lenin's transmit to all of mankind calling for peace. Slowly, the sailors in Kiel— all members of different socialist parties: the Social Democrats, the Independent Socialists and the Spartakists— begin to realize the need for a revolution. The workers and the shipmates rebel against the officers, but the political gaps between them lead the uprising to a failure. In the end, many of the rebel sailors attend the foundation conference of the new Communist Party of Germany.
Cast
- Adolf Peter Hoffmann
- Eduard von Winterstein
- Ekkehard Schall
- Fred Delmare
- Fred Düren
- Gabriele Hoffmann
- Günther Simon
- Hans Finohr
- Hilmar Thate
- Horst Kube
- Horst Schönemann
- Jochen Thomas
- Karl Brenk
- Monika Lennartz
- Raimund Schelcher
- Rolf Römer
- Senta Bonacker
- Siegfried Weiß
- Stefan Lisewski
- Ulrich Thein
- Walter E. Fuß
- Werner Lierck
- Werner Wieland
- Willi Neuenhahn
- Wolf von Beneckendorff
- Wolfgang Brunecker
- Wolfgang Langhoff