Seventeen Moments of Spring: The DEFA Option The third film about the adventures of the Secret Squad in the fascist rear began with two substitutions. The first was the return to the director's chair of Helmut Kratzig, who replaced Richard Groshopp, who went to shoot Chingachgook. The second occurred in the ranks of the squad itself. Alfred Müller, who played the main role in the first two films, for some reason could not play in the Spree, and his character, having received an important position in the Free Germany Committee, remained behind the front line. And to perform the task of the Soviet command went Ober-Lieutenant Roland, who in the performance of Otto Méliès painfully resembles the native for each born in the USSR Sturmbannfuehrer Stirlitz. Unless you're in high school. However, the external similarity of the characters is not limited. The parallels with Seventeen Moments of Spring in the third installment of the Geheimkommando franchise are so strong that a worm of doubt about the non-randomness of some coincidences creeps in. After all, both Yulian Semenov and Tatiana Lioznova could have seen the German film. True, it will all be conjectures and not having a serious ground of imagination.
The reality is that with the return of Kretzig, the characters began to think a little more and adventure less. Still, the master of adventurous cinema Groshopp made of his part of the series one continuous action with endless shootouts and getting out of fire and into the fire. Now the heroes again had the opportunity to catch their breath and speculate about the fate of post-war Germany and their role in it. And in general, in the Spree, the Ober-Lieutenant and the Feldfebel are engaged in an increasingly psychological war, although they do not refuse to shoot on occasion. It is a good thing that SS ranks constantly revolve around them - and they, unlike ordinary Wehrmacht soldiers, do not pity either the heroes or the creators of the film.
As for the task that the heroes received this time, it is exactly the same as what Stirlitz performed. The secret detachment is to thwart the separate negotiations of some Nazi bosses with representatives of the Anglo-American command. To this end, they rub into the confidence of Kaltenbrunner’s inner circle and, posing as American agents, undertake to organize the transfer of the Skorzeny group with secret documents. At the same time, not forgetting to establish relations with the anti-fascist underground and to promote a certain number of Wehrmacht soldiers who are losing their spirit.
How brave spies and saboteurs manage to combine two mutually exclusive missions – we will leave on the conscience of the filmmakers. After all, the series was created primarily for a young audience, and the ideological component in it simply had to be present. Perhaps the fact that in the previous part of Richard Groshopp she was safely expelled from the picture, and served as one of the reasons for the reverse replacement of the director and co-writer of the script. So we have to put up with the fact that the heroes forget about their main task and are launched into propaganda escapades, contrary to all the rules of the intelligence officer.
Given the above, it is not worth waiting for the reliability of psychological portraits from Spree, which distinguished Tatiana Lioznova’s film. But the confrontation of Bernd Roland with the Gestapo Mashmann, although it passes the level below, but very much resembles the fight of Stirlitz and Muller. While Feldfebel Burian and Soviet intelligence officer Bykov are increasingly engaged in rough work, providing “communications, appearances, passwords”, the Ober-Lieutenant is playing a big game that should end up getting secret information into the hands of the Soviet command.
However, the most memorable scene of the film is associated with feldfebel. His companions arrange a date with his wife, who for a long time considered her husband dead. They look at each other, neither look nor gesture, not giving out their emotions, not recognizing acquaintance. They just need to know that the beloved is alive and almost there. This episode isn’t just like the famous mise-en-scene from Seventeen Moments of Spring – it’s absolutely, to the smallest detail, identical. Only the music of Tariverdiev is missing.
And it doesn't come soon enough. Still, the film of Kretzig, with all its primacy, to the masterpiece of Lioznova is very, very far away. Closer to the finals, the characters abandon to play spy games and begin to make up for simple and unpretentious adventures to the delight of the young viewer: with shooting, chases, ambushes. That's just Groshopp was able to present it on the screen much better. That’s why it looked so much more natural. While in the Spree, adventure and agitprop are stitched together much more crudely. However, the amazing plot resemblance to the famous Soviet series to forget this part of the "Secret squad" is unlikely to allow.