Handout: "For Eyes Only"

Handout: "For Eyes Only" GDR 1962/63<br/>Spy Film

09.09.2011 / 20 Minuten zu lesen

The handout contains full information about the film, classwork designed to reinforce what is taught in lessons, along with a worksheet for students´ group work.

PDF file (135 KB)

Première: 19th July, 1963, Kosmos Cinema, East Berlin
Distributor: Progress-Film, Berlin
Director: János Veiczi
Screenplay: Harry Thürk, János Veiczi
Cameraman: Karl Plintzner
Editor: Christel Ehrlich
Musical Director: Günter Hauck
Cast: Alfred Müller, Helmut Schreiber, Ivan Palex, Hans Lucke, Werner Lierck and others
Production: DEFA-Studio for Feature Films, Potsdam-Babelsberg
Running Time: 104 Min.
Format: 35 mm, b&w

Certificate: 12A.
Recommended viewing: 15+.
Educational level: Year 10
Topics: The East-West Conflict, Security Services, (German) History
Study areas: History, Politics, Ethics and Religion, German

Rights / Permission for school screenings: PROGRESS Film-Verleih. DVD issued by Icestorm.

Content

Stasi operative Hansen is a double-agent. He's on an MfS (Ministry for State Security) mission in West Germany and has infiltrated the American Military Intelligence Division HQ in Würzburg. The Americans have accepted his cover story that he's a defector. Hansen exploits the trust he's won to carry out his mission, which is to get hold of some highly damaging western documents outlining a planned NATO attack on East Germany and to smuggle them back home. Using all the tricks, careful calculation and sophisticated espionage tools at his disposal, he pursues his plan. But suddenly his boss, Major Collins, begins to think there's something wrong. He suspects there's a leak in his ranks and has Hansen interrogated. Hansen succeeds in diverting Collins' suspicions by unmasking a spy from the West German Intelligence service, the BND. Once he has cleared all other obstacles from his path, Hansen loads his car with the documents in a safe disguised as a fridge. But his escape plan goes wrong and his attempt to cross the border turns in to an action-packed showdown.

Origins

For Eyes Only was DEFA's (the GDR state film studios') answer to the James Bond phenomenon; the first Bond film was shown in West Germany just six months before DEFA's spy hero, Hansen, walked onto the screen in the east in July 1963. The film is based on real events from 1956, when the East German secret service (Stasi) pulled off a successful intelligence operation against West Germany. In Operation Punch, the Stasi Agent Horst Hesse – cover name Horst Berger – managed to steal a safe full of top secret documents from the HQ of the American Military Intelligence Division in the Federal Republic and smuggled it across the border into the GDR. The opening credits of For Eyes Only allude to the case: "The action in this film is completely fictitious – any resemblance to actual events and living people is intentional".

For Eyes Only went into production six years after these events took place, in one of the most active phases of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall, which sealed the GDR off from the rest of Germany, had been built just a year previously and the Cuban missile crisis of October 16th to 28th 1962 brought the USSR and the USA to the brink of a nuclear war. The film was made in the state film studios of the GDR – DEFA – in the Potsdam suburb of Babelsberg. Film-making in the GDR was state controlled: before shooting could begin, the screenplay would have to be submitted to the censors for 'inspection and approval'. The building of the Wall did allow film makers to take advantage of a new policy giving them more freedom, but the party functionaries at DEFA still had the last word. The subject matter of For Eyes Only was well suited to the socialist idea of what constituted cultural or educational output: a film in which the hero is a Stasi spy who shows up the weaknesses of western intelligence services, could and should be used to manipulate public opinion in the right direction. The critical propaganda weapon in this chess game is the discovery of the NATO attack plan, which legitimises the theft of the secret documents. The reality was that, in Horst Hesse's case, the documents he stole were actually personal files, which led to the unmasking of 137 US secret agents in the GDR. The NATO strategy of 'massive retaliation', which was propounded a year later in 1957, is the actual background story to the alleged plan to attack the GDR, which is the theme of For Eyes Only.

It was important that the threat of invasion was understood as a clear and present danger, and not only in the minds of the GDR's cinema-goers. Even the real spy, Horst Hesse, was for a long time led by his controllers to believe that he had delivered them an attack plan – and so saved his country. A documentary film, For Eyes Only – a Film and its History / For Eyes Only – Ein Film und seine Geschichte (Germany, 2008, directed by Gunther Scholz), examined the background to this spy operation and the film version of it; it showed that the double-agent Hesse, in spite of the dangers he underwent on his mission, was nothing more than a disposable cog in the GDR security machine and was exploited for propaganda purposes. Hesse only found out that his 'story' had been filmed when the film was premiered. Party functionaries had deliberately prevented the writer of the screenplay, Harry Thürk, from meeting the former spy. For Eyes Only was a huge success: over a million GDR citizens saw it in the first three months.

Characters and Character Groups

Hansen
MfS Secret Agent Hansen is a character the audience can empathise with: he's played by an actor otherwise unknown at the time, Alfred Müller. The double-agent goes about his mission with commitment and single-mindedness, using sophisticated gadgets and making sure he's armed in case of trouble. He's intelligent, charming and can always talk himself out of tricky situations. Although he shoots to kill and has abandoned his son back in the GDR, his moral integrity is indisputable: he is a shining example of the loyal GDR citizen, working to build socialism and ready to risk his life in the process. He's presented as a model for the East German man or woman in the street.

The western security services
The two western security services that appear in the film are the US Military Intelligence Division (MID) and the West German Federal Intelligence Service (BND – Bundesnachrichtendienst). They don't co-operate, but actively work against each other. Schuck, the BND agent, is caught by Major Collins photographing secret documents belonging to the MID. Rivalry is the trademark of capitalism, according to the film, and makes the system divided against itself and vulnerable. The members of the American intelligence service and those who assist them are shown in the film as corrupt and immoral. They spend their leisure time in gambling, playing games and bribery.

Major Collins of the US Military Intelligence Service
Major Collins is Hansen's superior officer in the MID. The film portrays him as the prototypical western secret service agent: immoral and grasping. At the climax of the investigation into the possible leak, he leaves his post in order to pursue a sexual liaison. He defrauds an MfS-spy who's working for him as a double agent, in order to line his own pockets.

The Stasi Colonel
The Stasi Colonel is Hansen's boss in the MfS. Unlike Major Collins, he's portrayed as a paternal superior officer, who treats his agents as if they were his own sons, and shares their anxieties. His solidarity with his staff stands out as a socialist virtue, in contrast to the egoism of his western counterpart.

Cinematic Resources and Materials

Genre
For Eyes Only is a spy film with an ideological stamp, quite typical of the genre at the time of the Cold War. Spy films classically reflect the fear of the unknown 'other', who threatens to attack and take over one's homeland. During the Cold War, this 'other' was the political enemy on the other side of the Iron Curtain. Spy films portray the characters on each side symbolically as black and white, representing these to the audience as 'evil' and 'good' and so leading them to identify with the protagonists on the 'right' side. In the context of the Cold War, the country where the film was made was where the good´ side lay. Above all others, this genre of film was one, which lent itself to being used for propaganda purposes; and in the socialist countries of the former Soviet Bloc, western secret agents were usually portrayed as exaggerated figures – and this is true of For Eyes Only. In addition to this type-casting, various other cinematic devices were used to underline the differing characteristics of 'them' and 'us'.

Décor, Costumes, Music and Lighting
The opening sequences in For Eyes Only, in which the departmental heads of both sides come to their planning meetings, show just how the film subtly conveys which of the two security services is 'friend' and which 'foe'; they do this in the way the rooms are laid out and furnished, how they are lit and through the use of 'mood' music.

The atmosphere in the American HQ in Frankfurt-am-Main is austere: neon lights and strip panelling make the room look cold, sterile. The military intelligence chief, a General, chairs the meeting at the head of a long table; his departmental heads each present their reports individually, in isolation. These reports, which detail the plans for the attack on the GDR, are overlaid by a music track, which creates and heightens the tension.

The situation in the Ministry for State Security in East Berlin is very different: the mood is relaxed, the MfS colonel in charge does not sit in an executive chair but is surrounded by his colleagues, leaning over a map. As the discussion proceeds, he moves about the room and sits on the edge of the table. People are smoking and drinking coffee; the lighting is warm and there are books and photos of leading communists scattered here and there. The two meetings are shown in parallel montage (alternating shots), so that the contrast between 'them' and 'us' is crystal clear.

Background and Secondary Themes

The role of the security services during the Cold War can be examined as part of an educational programme of further study, as a means of setting the well documented Horst Hesse case in its wider historical context. Students can take as their theme the job of the security services; based on the film, they can examine the use of ideologically loaded language by the (East German) Ministry for State Security (MfS), and / or on the basis of further case study, they can study another famous espionage case.

Security Services during the Cold War
In the course of the division of Europe into two blocs after the Second World War, and the ensuing confrontation between capitalism, the market economy and democracy on one side of the Iron Curtain and communism, the planned economy and dictatorship on the other, the security services are in the ascendant. The nuclear arms race is the spymasters' own 'cold war', a race to gather information on the other side's political and military intentions. Their primary aim is to spy on the enemy – and also to deploy counter-espionage against the enemy's spies. Until the Soviet Union explodes its own atom bomb in 1949, its main target is American nuclear research; after the Soviets get the bomb, espionage on both sides is about ascertaining the other's weapons potential and assessing its plans for weapons development and possible attack. It's not just political and military espionage that matters, industrial spying also has a part to play, although in this case it's largely the Soviet Union copying Western designs for computer technology and military aircraft. Another important task is to infiltrate the other side's security services – counter-espionage – in order covertly to disrupt their activities and also to get information about their counter-espionage efforts and agents. Here it's a question of both turning the other side's spies into double-agents as well as penetrating their organisations. In the 1950s, air reconnaissance becomes increasingly important, followed by satellite surveillance in the following decade. Later on, the security services on both sides support opposition and terrorist organisations – as well as coup attempts – in foreign states regarded as hostile; and they make attempts on the lives of other spies and on politicians.

The Ideological Language used by the GDR Security Service
In 1970, the East German Ministry for State Security produced the first edition of its "Dictionary of State Security Terminology" – not something that you could buy in a shop as it was for internal use only – but it included definitions of terms like "politically operational work" and throws an interesting light on the day-to-day jargon and ideological justification of the Stasi's work. Spy activity abroad is defined as "political and operational reconnaissance and fieldwork". The commentary that follows is a perfect example of the ideologically loaded vocabulary that was used in the communist bloc. 'Politically operational reconnaissance' is explained as: "any activity, which provides timely and reliable information about any enemy activity which might endanger or harm the interests of the GDR or the community of socialist states or the communist world movement or other revolutionary forces; and any activity, which might hinder or prevent surprise attacks on the political, military or scientific and technical interests [of the above]"; and also "any activity, which furthers and strengthens the international status of socialism and its supporters in their class war against imperialism".

Famous espionage cases of the Cold War: The Spy in the Federal Chancellery
The most spectacular spy incident in German post-war history was the case of Günter Guillaume. From 1972, he worked as an expert researcher in the Federal Chancellery in Bonn and was a personal advisor to the then Chancellor, Willy Brandt. He was, however, a Stasi officer; and he had access to top secret West German government documents, as well as to the internal discussions of the Social Democratic Party. Although Guillaume and his wife – fellow spy Christel – were able to pass on very little information of value to the Stasi, which meant the damage to West German interests was kept to a minimum, his unmasking in April 1974 shocked the public. Willy Brandt took personal responsibility for the affair and resigned the following month.

Suggested further viewing

Three Days of the Condor
USA 1975, Director: Sydney Pollack
This classic American spy film dates from the 1970s and belongs to that group of films that critically examine the activities and operations of the security services. Joseph Turner – agent 'Condor' – works for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in one of their clandestine New York offices with the cover name The American Literary Historical Society. Contrary to the usual clichéd depiction of the secret agent, Turner's days are largely spent in deskwork: his job is to search international magazines and other written material for coded messages from foreign security services. He returns to the office one day from buying lunch to find all his colleagues have been shot dead. The killer was clearly out to get him too. As he goes on the run, Turner realises that it's his own employers, the CIA, who are behind the murders. A tense game of cat-and-mouse ensues. In this film, Sydney Pollack is reflecting on the danger posed by an all-powerful – and therefore uncontrollable – secret service organisation, where the leadership acts in its own interests and eliminates anyone who no longer fits in. Turner has to accept that he is a mere cog in an impenetrable power structure.

The Director of For Eyes Only, János Veiczi

b. Budapest 30 September, 1924, d. Berlin 26 June, 1987.
Veiczi grew up in very poor circumstances. After graduating from secondary school, he took a further education course in Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. In 1944, during the Second World War, he and his wife were transported to Berlin as forced labour: he worked in the Dollberg armaments factory in the Berlin suburb of Rudow. At the end of the war, he applied for a job as a trainee at the DEFA studios, where he studied Drama and Direction, from 1949 to 1952. He then worked as assistant director to such figures as Gerhard Klein, before making his own first feature film The Benderath Incident / Zwischenfall in Benderath (1956). He made seven feature films in all, which mainly dealt with political themes such as Nazism and the Cold War: but his most successful was For Eyes Only.

Further Links

The Celluloid Curtain – Europe's Cold War in Film: website.
http://www.celluloid-curtain.eu

bpb.de: Informationen zur politischen Bildung. Heft 245 (Information on Political Education, Pamphlet no. 245): Internationale Beziehungen (International Relations). Articles and source material on the origins and development of the East-West conflict.
http://www.bpb.de/publikationen/90DR2J,0,0,
Internationale_Beziehungen_I.html

bpb.de: Kontraste – Auf den Spuren einer Diktatur: Glossar zu politischen Begriffen und Institutionen in der DDR (Contrasts – on the Trail of a Dictatorship: Glossary of Political Terminology and Political Institutions in the GDR).
http://www.bpb.de/themen/6X7JLZ,3,0,Glossar.html#art3

bpb.de: Handwörterbuch des politischen Systems der Bundesrepublik: Ministerium für Staatssicherheit (Concise Dictionary of the Political System of the Federal Republic: Ministry for State Security).
http://www.bpb.de/wissen/06403250300653476753895
993768824,0,0,Ministerium_f%FCr_Staatssicherheit_%28MfS%29.html

Private, journalistic website with German language information links on Security Services; glossary and suggestions for further reading.
http://www.geheimdienste.org

The "Living virtual online museum" of the German Historical Museum. Detailed background information on the Cold War era.
http://www.hdg.de/lemo/html/DasGeteilteDeutschland/index.html

Progress-Film Agency website for information on For Eyes Only
http://www.progress-film.de/de/filmarchiv/film.php?id=315

Interview with the actors Alfred Müller and Eva-Maria Hagen about For Eyes Only.
http://www.superillu.de/kino-tv/_For_eyes_only__264708.html

Radio documentary "The Cold War in Spy Films" on Deutschlandradio Kultur.
http://wissen.dradio.de/kino-der-kalte-krieg-im-spionagefilm.38.de.html?dram:article_id=10449&sid=

Supporting Educational Material on Cinema

VISION KINO: Schule im Kino – Praxisleitfaden für School and Cinema (Practical Textbook for Teachers).
http://www.visionkino.de/WebObjects/VisionKino.woa/1/
wa/CMSshow/1109855?wosid=Kn90jwNCZMNhhnMifJHlQM

Glossary of Terms

BND
Bundesnachrichtendienst: Federal (i.e. West German) Intelligence Service, which was formed from the earlier "Gehlen Organisation" in 1956. The foreign intelligence service of the Federal Republic of Germany.

CIA
Central Intelligence Agency: set up in 1947 as the highest secret service agency of the USA (foreign operations only).

Cold War
Colloquial term used to describe the ideological and political conflict between the Western Alliance, under the leadership of the USA and the Eastern Bloc under the leadership of the USSR (Soviet Union). The term was in use between the 2nd World War and the collapse of the USSR in 1991. The adjective 'Cold' referred to the fact that, in the northern hemisphere at least, it never broke out into an active or 'hot' war.

DEFA
Deutsche Film AG (1946-1992), GDR state film studios in the Potsdam suburb of Babelsberg.

Subversion, subversive activity (Diversionstätigkeit)
Disruption of the enemy´s economic and political systems, e.g. by damaging machinery or other industrial installations; breaking into military bases or damaging military equipment; damaging buildings, transport facilities; intercepting raw materials; falsifying scientific research papers, and so on.

Worst case scenario (E-Fall = Ernst-Fall)
A case of emergency, in security policy: a crisis point.

Secret collaborator (GM = Geheimer Mitarbeiter)
Covert or secret collaborator with the (East German) Ministry for State Security (often people employed to report on their families or neighbours or workmates).

Iron Curtain
Originally a name for the fire safety curtain in theatres, it became a catchphrase coined by the British Prime Minister Winston Churchill from 1945 to describe the political and ideological division between east and west, especially during the Cold War

KGB
The USSR's Committee for State Security, set up in 1954 as both the home and foreign security service.

MfS
GDR (East German) Ministry for State Security, formed in 1950, as the security agency for both home and foreign operations. Usually known as the 'Stasi'.

MID
The US Military Intelligence Division, set up in 1942 as a separate section of the Military Intelligence Service (MIS).

NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, formed in 1949 as a military alliance of North American and Western European states. Its original aim was for defence and deterrence against the Soviet Union and its client states, which in 1955 entered formal alliance as the Warsaw Pact. After the end of the Cold War, NATO members agreed to shift its main objectives to include arms control and crisis intervention measures throughout the European and Atlantic areas.

Operational Area (Operationsgebiet)
An area, workplace or other specific place in the West, where the GDR deployed its spies or secret agents.

Sleeper (Schweigefunker)
Agents (usually also trained as radio operators), who live in an enemy country and are inactive during normal times. They are brought into action via radio signals at times of crisis, in order to spy, subvert or take part in armed underground operations.

SSD
State Security Service: another abbreviation for the GDR's MfS, a pejorative term because of its associations in the German mind with the SD (Security Service) of the Nazi régime.

Stasi (Staatssicherheitsdienst)
The abbreviation for the MfS in normal, daily use.

Suggestions for further classroom study

Study Area	Topic	Social Types and Classwork Exercises
German	Character outlines	Individual work (IW): create written profiles of Hansen, Major Collins and the Stasi colonel in For Eyes Only, giving details of their personal qualities and behaviour.
	Stereotypes	Group work (GW): analyse how the agents of both the western and GDR (East German) security services are portrayed in For Eyes Only and create a chart to compare and contrast the scenes in the film which demonstrate the differences between the two.
	Film comparisons	Class Work (CW): Compare Hansen, from For Eyes Only with James Bond, on the basis of, for example, clips from Dr No (GB 1962). Bring these similarities and differences together in a chart, and analyse how each character is portrayed against the background of the political system each worked for.
History / Politics / Social Studies	Security Services in the Cold War period	IW: Write a (short) essay on the tasks and activities of the secret services during the Cold War, in order to place the case of Horst Hesse in its wider historical context.
	The Horst Hesse spy case	IW: Compare how the case of the spy Horst Hesse was reported in the newspapers Süddeutsche Zeitung and Neues Deutschland of July 11th 1956. CW: Correlate the findings of the IW above and draw conclusions about the styles of reportage used during the Cold War; compare them with reportage styles used today.
	Propaganda	IW: Read some of the entries in the "Wörterbuch der politisch-operativen Arbeit" (Dictionary of State Security Terminology) and mark up the passages which contain ideological concepts or expressions. GW: Analyse how the ideological outlook of the Stasi is reflected in the way the western secret agents are depicted in For Eyes Only, and provide examples to back up your conclusions.
	The Günter Guillaume spy case	IW: Write a (short) essay on the case of the spy Günter Guillaume. CW: Based on the strip cartoon in the West German satirical magazine "Pardon", discuss the significance of the ideas of free expression and freedom of the press and media. Pay particular attention to the ideological slant given to the Horst Hesse case in For Eyes Only.
Art / Music	Cinematic Design and Production Techniques	GW: Analyse and compare the type of decor and costume, camera settings and frame-size, and of background music, in the scenes of the planning meetings in the US headquarters and the Ministry of State Security in For Eyes Only. CW: Make a presentation of the findings of the GW with the aid of stills or clips from the film.

Worksheet

The Stasi spy Hansen, who is working under cover as an operative in the American secret service, is tasked with getting hold of highly damaging documents detailing a planned attack on East Berlin, the East German capital, and smuggling them back to East Germany. The agent pursues this task, using calculated deception and the best espionage equipment available, but his commanding officer suddenly becomes suspicious...

The GDR (East German) film For Eyes Only was premiered in East Berlin just six months after the first James Bond film was shown in the Federal Republic (West Germany). The Stasi agent Hansen was the socialist counterpart of 007. The characterisation of his colleagues on both sides of the Iron Curtain reflected the ideological outlook of the then communist government in the GDR. The tasks outlined here are intended for students aged 15 years and above, and are meant to stimulate critical debate on the way the real-life case of the spy Horst Hesse (which was in 1956) is portrayed in the GDR feature film. They have been designed for use in the following subject areas: German, History, Politics, Social Studies, Art and Music.

Task 1: Preparatory work before viewing the film

Subject areas: German, History, Politics, Social Studies

Research the names and abbreviations of the security services of West and East Germany (FRG, GDR) and of the USA during the Cold War period. With the help of a dictionary or other reference work, explain the following terms:
- worst case scenario
- sleeper
- subversive activity
- operational area
Write a (short) essay on the 1956 Horst Hesse spy case.
Observational tasks whilst watching the film:
- Note down keywords to describe the various characters and character-groups.
- Watch out for the various cinematic devices used in the sets for the two planning meetings in the first third of the film: picture detail, camera settings, lighting technique, montage type, use and style of music.

Task 2: Portrayal of 'us' and 'them'

Subject areas: German, History, Politics, Social Science

In small groups, analyse the way the western secret agents and their GDR counterparts are portrayed: consider the atmosphere in their respective places of work, the 'work ethic' they follow, their leisure activities. Put these into a comparative table, with details of scenes from the film to illustrate your conclusions.
Create a fictional job advert to recruit for the post of secret agent in the GDR Ministry of State Security (MfS). Use Agent Hansen from the film as your model.
Hold a class discussion to analyse the relationship between Hansen and his commanding officer in the MfS: discuss also why a GDR film shows this relationship in the way it does.

Task 3: Background to the real spy case of Horst Hesse from contemporary press reports.

Subject areas: German, History, Politics, Social Science

Read the two marked articles about the Horst Hesse case, in the West German newspaper "Süddeutsche Zeitung" and the East German newspaper "Neues Deutschland" dated 11th July, 1956. Compare their differing editorial attitudes and values: where are the articles placed (page, column, section)? How much space is given to the text (column inches, headline size)?
Compare how the two newspapers report the case and the opinions expressed in those reports. Compile these differences in a table.
Having read the two articles, draw your conclusions on the style of reporting used during the Cold War. Hold a class discussion on how modern reporting styles differ from those used during the Cold War.

Task 4: Cinematic Design, Resources and Production Techniques.

Subject areas: German, Art, Music

Look at the two screenshots above from For Eyes Only. Which sets do these stills show? Analyse the composition of the shots, considering the following: set detail, composition of the middle, fore and background, positions of the actors in the room and their posture, the objects in the room and where they´re located.
Use keywords to describe the atmosphere in the two scenes; hold a class discussion to determine why you think the two scenes are portrayed in this way. To what extent do you think the atmosphere created influences how the audience perceives the two sets and the people in them – and why?

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