Spur der Steine
139 Min. | Director Frank Beyer | 1966 East Germany | German with English subtitles | PAL
Spur of the Stones is a 1966 film produced by DEFA-Spielfilm, Künstlerische Arbeitsgruppe (KAG) “Heinrich Greif.” The director was Frank Beyer, who also wrote the screenplay with Karl Georg Egel. It is based on the novel by Erik Neutsch. The film was premiered at the 8th East German Workers' Party in Potsdam, followed by three days in some cinemas, before being dropped out of “anti-socialist tendencies.” It was not until October 1989 that the film could be performed again in the GDR, a little later at the Berlinale 1990 in the Federal Republic of Germany.
The Zimmermann and Brigadeleiter (foreman) Hannes Balla is working on the GDR large-scale construction site in Schkona. Balla and his people do not keep much of the bureaucratic rules of the planning industry, but still count among the most productive workbrigades on the construction. In case of emergency, they also provide the missing material with force. Nevertheless, their methods are initially tolerated by the construction management because of their work. When one day the idealist SED party secretary Werner Horrath took his job at the construction site, he initially undermined his authority, but he succeeded in winning Balla, who he admired as a first-rate worker, for his idea of higher productivity for the working conditions to improve.
The two men soon combine a mixture of mutual respect, but also a certain rivalry for the love of the engineer Kati Klee, who has also come back to the large construction site. Both men fall in love with Kati, but Horrath succeeds in winning Katis Herz. He begins a secret love affair because he is already married, does not want to endanger his party costs and can not separate himself from his family. Later Kati gets pregnant. But she does not reveal the name of her father out of partial loyalty and thus protects Horrath, who, in turn, alienates himself more and more from Kati and falls into a crisis in which he must decide between fulfillment and his love for Kati. Only when Kati finally wants to get rid of him does he publicly acknowledge her and lose all the party costs. His wife passes the divorce, so Horrath has to work as a worker in Hannes Ballas Brigade. Balla is ultimately the person who defends him at a party closing procedure.