Using the original taped recordings of Heinrich Himmler’s »Posen Speech«, delivered on October 4th, 1943 before 92 SS-generals, filmmaker Romuald Karmakar wrote the script text to the film “The Himmler-Project in 2002. In the film, actor Manfred Zapatka stands at the lectern and reads the historical speech in which Heinrich Himmler soberly expounded upon the abyss of Nazism. The speech served as important evidence within the framework of the Nuremburg Trials and it was not only the dictum of having remained »decent« when faced with 1,000 corpses which made it sadly infamous. The film takes the speech out of its historical context so that the impression arises of taking part in a political event today. By reducing the stage-setting and montage, the danger of taking the bite out of the historical speech is avoided. 

»The Himmler-Project« marks a new development within film-making, on the border between documentary and dramatic cinema.

Romuald Karmakar made a name for himself at the beginning of the 1980’s in Munich’s Super-8-scene. Numerous documentary and feature films such as »Warheads« [1989 – 92], »Der Totmacher« [1995], »Manila« [1999] and »196bpm« [2002] were to follow. Afterwards, Romuald Karmakar will speak about the film with Boris Groys, Professor for Philosophy and Aesthetics at the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe [HfG].

Organization / Institution

ZKM ; HfG | Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe