Verena Altenberger in "Sturm kommt auf" "Fascism has a different kind of cruelty in the village"

A single mother experiences the rise of National Socialism in a Bavarian village. Actress Verena Altenberger talks about her personal approach to fascism in the village.

Verena Altenberger, the two-part historical film "Sturm kommt auf" was shot in an open-air museum in Salzburger Land. The area you come from ...

I don't come directly from the open-air museum (laughs), but from Dorfgastein, about an hour further south. I knew the open-air museum, of course, because it's a compulsory excursion for all primary school children in Salzburger Land. There are houses, mainly farmhouses, from different centuries. They were often demolished one-to-one somewhere and rebuilt there in exactly the same way.

The story of Oskar Maria Graf's novel is actually set in Bavaria. Nothing was found there that looked like it used to?

Our director Matti Geschonneck told us that they searched for a long time. But Bavaria has simply become too modern. You need certain features for filming: electricity and a large parking lot, for example.

The open-air museum fulfilled all of these requirements. In the film, you can see a lot of the interior of two houses. The "Schusterhaus" was specially built by the film team. However, the other house, the "Heingeigerhof", is the actual interior of one of the museum houses.

Was it strange to film in a place that you visited as a primary school pupil on a day out?

I wouldn't say strange because I love filming in Salzburger Land. We also stayed in a hotel in Salzburg's old town and I absolutely love being there. I have my favorite café there and lots of friends and acquaintances. I moved to Vienna when I was 18, but Salzburg is basically "my city". I went to grammar school there, worked there again and again afterwards and also had an apartment in Salzburg for a long time.

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What was it like with the dialects in the movie? The fictional village in Graf's novel was supposed to be in Lower Bavaria. Did you have to learn the authentic dialect?

Some of the characters, like Josef Hader's, are newcomers. They had it easy, of course. But I love playing with dialects and I always take it seriously. You have to prepare yourself thoroughly, but then forget the technique at some point. You shouldn't have to think about pronunciation when you're acting. Fortunately, director Matti Geschonneck saw it the same way.

It is said that in England or America, much more attention is paid to dialects and language when acting. Do we have a deficit in German film culture?

I don't believe that more attention is paid to this in the Anglo-American region. It's more that the actors there are trusted more. In England and the USA, it's taken for granted that transformation - including language - is part of the job. Here, there is still a bit of tradition or conviction: People can only play what they are. I think that's totally stupid.

I used to hear that sometimes when I was rejected: We're looking for a blonde for that! But of course I've always been prepared to transform myself. You have to remember that: In the English-speaking world, more money is paid to prepare for a role. This also includes language training, for example.

Oskar Maria Graf is considered a keen observer of the rise of fascism in the provinces. Would you say that there is a difference between rural and urban fascism?

I would spontaneously say "yes", but on reflection I realize that it's not that simple. I know both worlds because I've lived in Vienna for a long time, but I come from a village of 2,000 people. My circle of friends, who are real Viennese, often don't understand things that I understand because I come from the countryside.

Fascism has a different kind of cruelty in the village. Because neighbors who know each other well suddenly turn into enemies or defame each other. Many are even related. It's different from when convictions clash in the anonymous big city. If the neighbor above me is a Nazi, I might not even notice. And if I do notice, it doesn't scare me because I can't relate to the guy.

It's completely different in the village. When your neighbor, brother, cousin or uncle becomes a Nazi, you don't understand the world anymore. It's scary when something like that happens. Especially when convictions turn violent. Then suddenly neighbors are shooting at neighbors. That kind of thing is deeply disturbing.

Do changing values have an uglier face in the provinces?

Yes, the possibility exists. For example, I find it astonishing how long enmities between "blacks" and "reds" have persisted in the countryside in Austria, for example. And we're not even talking about the extreme fringes of society.

How worried are you that fascism will return as a political reality?

I am more hopeful than worried because I am a stable optimist. However, the example of the USA alone shows how quickly fascism can come back and take over. I've always been a bit of a fan of believing that we can turn things around at the last minute.

But perhaps that is also naive. We are living in a time that clearly shows us that fascism can happen anywhere and very quickly. We Austrians live in the neighborhood of Hungary. And we ourselves have been on the brink of a right-wing takeover several times. The FPÖ is currently back at around 30 percent support.

What can be done to counter this development?

The problem is that both sides know exactly what they don't want: One side doesn't want fascism. And the others don't want foreigners or people who are different. Unfortunately, we all lack a vision of what we actually want, as do politicians.

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Yet there are so many great approaches: What about the European idea, which used to be so great? Why do we value our welfare state so little, which makes us so much more humane than the USA or most other parts of the world? What if we invested heavily in education and integration?

These could all be great visions of a better future and also profitable projects. But we hardly ever talk about such things, only about fears and disasters.

Why can't we manage to develop such a vision?

This is a difficult question that deserves more thought. What we definitely lack is a good culture of debate or a public culture of error. I think we have become a society in which it is better not to hear that someone has a different opinion. People prefer to ignore it. That's why a lot of things remain unspoken and fester. What's more, the image of politicians is very negative. I myself would never go into politics, where life is made a living hell. You live there in an intensity of constant observation that you wouldn't wish on anyone. Actually, you can only fail in politics today.

What is - for the little people - so seductive about fascism?

Fascism is seductive because it suggests that there are simple solutions to complex problems. But there aren't, which is why fascist arguments are always lies. There are enough studies that prove that massively restricting immigration would not make people's lives better, but rather worse. But you can claim that this would be the solution. Many people are afraid of foreigners. The most successful societies are those in which everyone, or at least the vast majority of people, are doing well. Exclusion and playing people off against each other, on the other hand, has never worked as a successful model for a society. A divided society benefits no one. Not even those who divide.

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