The Campaign Volunteer / Der Wahlhelfer (1967) dir. Harun Farocki

Der Wahlhelfer deals with the development of a young trainee lawyer and FDP (Free Democrat Party) supporter who becomes a revolutionary. As it is an agitation film one cannot really speak of ’development’. Harald Loch’s political improvement takes place more ’by leaps and bounds’ as indeed everything in the mid-sixties happened ’by leaps and bounds’: the people’s war in Vietnam; the escalation of class struggle in West Germany and West Berlin; the transformation of the SDS (Socialist Student Association) from an abandoned appendage of the SPD (Social Democratic Party) into the spearhead of the extra-parliamentary opposition; and the intensification of the conflict between students and administration of the German Film and Television Academy Berlin. Besides the story of a young man’s politicization, the film tells of Kreuzberg, of the problems faced by the FDP in a traditional working class district of Berlin and about a love in Algeria. In other words, it is well worth examining it more closely.