Stars

Film screening|Konrad Wolf’s poignant exploration of guilt, compassion, and moral responsibility in the shadow of the Holocaust – told through the encounter between a German soldier and a Jewish woman in wartime Bulgaria.

Byre Theatre, St Andrews, St Andrews
Language German with English subtitles
Part of series: Konrad Wolf – Cinematic Art and the Culture of Remembrance

As part of the Konrad Wolf Year 2025, we are presenting a four-part film series, curated by Professor Seán Allan, that highlights cinema as a medium of historical memory. Following Ich war neunzehn, Der geteilte Himmel, and Sonnensucher, the final film in the series is Sterne(Stars, 1959), a DEFA production directed by Konrad Wolf. The screening will take place at the University of St Andrews. The film tells the story of a German soldier stationed in Bulgaria during World War II, whose encounter with a Jewish woman being transported to a concentration camp forces him to confront his complicity and moral responsibility.
(Further information about a Q&A session will follow.)

Bulgaria 1943. Wehrmacht sergeant Walter is stationed in a small city and supervises civilian Bulgarian workers at a car repair shop. Not far away, Greek Jews are housed in a camp for a few days. They are to be deported to Auschwitz. He meets the Jewish woman Ruth, who asks him for help for a pregnant woman through the barbed wire. Walter gets closer to Ruth, has conversations with her about hope and humanity, and develops feelings for her.

GDR 1959 | Director: Konrad Wolf | 92 mins | Feature Film black and white | German with English subtitles.

Konrad Wolf (1925–1982) was one of the most important directors in the German Democratic Republic and a central figure in DEFA films. After his family emigrated to Moscow in 1934, he returned to Germany at the age of 19 as a soldier in the Red Army – a formative experience for his later film work. His works, such as Sterne, Der geteilte Himmel, Ich war neunzehn and Solo Sunny deal with German history, anti-fascist memory and social responsibility. Politically socialised at an early age, Wolf remained true to the ideals of communism, but repeatedly asked critical questions. In 2025, his 100th birthday will be celebrated with retrospectives, film restorations and events – an occasion to rediscover his cinematic legacy.

Seán Allan is Professor of German at the University of St Andrews and holds a Joint Research Professsorship at the University of Bonn. He studied at the University of Cambridge and spent a year studying Theaterwissenschaft at the Humbodlt Universität in what was then East Berlin. His publications include DEFA. East German Cinema, 1946–1992 (co-edited with John Sandford, 1996), Re-Imagining DEFA: East German Cinema in its National and Transnational Contexts (co-edited with Sebastian Heiduschke, 2016), and a monograph on the East german ‘artist film’, Screening Art. Modernist Aesthetics and the Socialist Imaginary in East German Cinema (2019). Together with Sebastian Heiduschke he has just published a new volume entitled Documenting Socialism. East German Documentary Cinema (2024).

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