IN 2008 FILMMAKER VOLKER SCHLÖNDORFF, best known for his affiliation with the West’s New German Cinema and his efforts to revive Studio Babelsberg after the Wende, triggered a heated debate about the artistic value of DEFA films. In an interview for a German regional newspaper he stated, “I did away with the name ‘DEFA.’ The DEFA films were terrible. They played in Paris when I studied there, but only in the cinemas of the Communist Party. We’d go in there and have a laugh.” These comments, of course, caused an uproar among various former DEFA directors, screenwriters, editors, and actors as well as film critics and led to a long debate. Regardless of who said what and why, this controversy reveals the prevailing legacy of DEFA films and raises the question of how to appreciate them today.

As a film enthusiast, I have no doubt that these films are tremendously valuable—both for their aesthetic qualities and for their merits as historical, social, and political documents. What is more, I have come to understand their value in my professional capacity as president of Germany’s Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung (BPB, Federal Agency for Civic Education). DEFA films successfully combine two of the major tasks our institution seeks to accomplish. First, our work centers on promoting democratic awareness and social participation. We do so by taking up topical and historical subjects; issuing publications; organizing seminars, events, study trips, exhibitions, and competitions; and offering films and online products. In short, we want to motivate and empower people to think critically about political and social issues and to play an active role in our civil society. Second, our multimedia and film department works to educate children and young adults about how different forms of media work and, in particular, how cinema uses aesthetic means and communicates content. We believe that a film cannot do one without the other. To understand how certain political changes come about (and have come about historically), it is important to understand how these events are represented—whether on the radio, on television, on the Internet, or in the cinema. It is at this intersection of interests that our work on the DEFA archive began.

In 2005 our institution initiated a project to select some of the DEFA films for a DVD box set.