Why the Series ‘Deutschland 83’ Was a Flop in Germany
A media science perspective
Like many well-known German series produced in recent years, Deutschland 83 plays in a divided Germany that reunited in 1990. Set in 1983 amidst the Cold War, it spins the story of a young soldier from the socialist German Democratic Republic (GDR) turned undercover agent and infiltrated into the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). It was written by Anna Winger and produced by her husband Jörg Winger (Krauß, 2020). There are action scenes, many historical references, romance, family intrigues, international politics, and questions of belonging and identity. As it seems, this plot predestined it for the unusual international success of a German show.
The first season of what now is a trilogy with Deutschland 86 from 2018 and Deutschland 89 from 2020 could have become a German pride, a production that ‘made it’ abroad. Soon after the series was launched on the UK’s Channel 4 in late 2015, it became the country’s highest-rated foreign-language drama (Friedlander, 2019). It was the first German show to air on the channel Sundance TV in the US, got praise from major US newspapers (Channel 4, 2015), and was the first series ever bought by an American broadcaster before being shown in Germany (Bild, 2015). On the movie rating website Rotten Tomatoes, it has an international critic and audience score of over 90 %, considered excellent (n. d.).
Nevertheless, German viewers did not seem impressed by Deutschland 83. The viewer rates on the commercial TV channel RTL — where the series was released in Germany — dropped to almost half from the first to the last episode of the first season (Ehrenberg & Huber, 2015). In 2016, main actor Jonas Nay explained nobody recognized him in his small German hometown whereas he felt like a star in London (The Guardian, 2016). New York Times journalist Rogers describes the series as a “hit abroad, but a flop at home” (2018). Oltermann (2016) from The Guardian puts it this way: “After decades of being seen as boring and ugly, Germany has found a way of making people abroad think it is cool and sexy”. He considers it a “pity Germans don’t like it”.
What explains that the international success of Deutschland 83 was not mirrored in its country of production? This article focuses on the pluri-medial dimension of cultural memory with Deutschland 83 as a case study.
When Memory Travels
According to the German researcher Astrid Erll, memory can travel through five different dimensions: people, media, contents, forms, and practices (Erll in HumanitiesUU, 2017). In her theory, media and content are interconnected, allowing stories to transcend nation-state boundaries. Erll uses the example of what she calls “memory movies” (Erinnerungsfilme), which are discursively constructed as such by viewers— in a pluri-medial context (Erll, 2008). The pluri-medial setting is where novels and films “appear and exert their influence” on people outside of their fictional context (Erll, 2008, p. 390). It explains that the series Chernobyl sparked discussions on the safety of nuclear plants in Sweden, or communism in the US.
Linear Television: Is RTL to blame?
The first season of the Deutschland series was produced by UFA Fiction in cooperation with the commercial German TV channel RTL. Several commentators on the German movie rating website Movie Pilot claim that RTL is not known for high-quality, internationally acclaimed productions (e. g. Delonghi, 2015). The journalists Ehrenberg & Huber believe the historical series was too complex for a prime-time slot on RTL (2015).
A television expert (Lückerath, 2015) blamed RTL for advertising Deutschland 83 in an old-fashioned and inappropriate manner: To him, the numerous posters in cities around Germany felt overdone and outdated. In Germany, RTL is known for reality TV, romantic comedies or police series. Additionally, there are several commercial breaks per hour. A channel like Sundance TV in the US could have been a better fit because according to Lückerath (2015), the pay TV trailers for Deutschland 83 were much “cooler” than those of RTL. The weekly release of two episodes on RTL (Krauß, 2020) was probably also not adapted to the viewing habits of young audiences, as streaming platforms allow ‘binge-watching’ a whole series in one go.
After mediocre audience ratings on RTL for the first season, the show’s production company UFA Fiction was able to continue the series with Amazon Prime Video, where the second and third seasons then premiered — and were later broadcasted on RTL. Cocreator Jörg Winger stated he was satisfied with not producing the second season according to RTL’s wishes for a popular, less demanding drama (Rogers, 2018). Shortly before the second season, Deutschland 86, was released in mid-October 2018, Amazon had prepared a marketing move: It made the series freely accessible for three days, starting on the national German bank holiday that commemorates the German reunification in 1990 (Hennings, 2018). A third season on Amazon Prime was greenlighted before the second one went online, demonstrating the company’s confidence in the series’ performance (Rogers, 2018).
Historicity, Authenticity and Recent Memory
1983: what seems like history to German teenagers and young adults is still present as lived memory in the minds of older generations. Lead actor Nay identified this issue when lacking historical knowledge to prepare for his role, was the eighties were “the youth time of my parents and the generation of my teachers too, so they didn’t see it as history” (Associated Press, 2016, 1:25).
On Movie Pilot, some German commentators pointed out minor historical mistakes, for instance that a pair of shoes could not have been invented at the time (bootsmann13, 2020). Jörg Winger confirmed that he received criticism for historical inaccuracies from some German viewers (Rogers, 2018). This indicates a failure of individual cultural memory through the series on German territory, as some viewers who lived through the historical period, be it in East or West Germany, do not feel like they were seeing an authentic portrayal of the time. Deutschland was not widely accepted as a memory series (to modify Erll’s expression of a “memory film”) in Germany.
A UK or US audience is less biased by personal experience, and therefore probably less demanding when it comes to historical correctness. For them, the series potentially contributes to a retrospectively constructed memory of the GDR and the FDR. Even some German commentators felt like the reality of the East Germany GDR was aligned with their historical knowledge (Baumkopf Holzfaust, 2015; Kill_Format, 2016). As the GDR is a state that disappeared (and merged with the FRG), it is not surprising that the comments judge the supposed authenticity of East Germany rather than that of West Germany. Only a few commentators on Movie Pilot reveal where they lived while Germany was divided. It is therefore difficult to estimate a gap between the East and West German reception of the production — also among journalists. One commentator admits he lived in the West and comments partly on representation of West Germany (e.g. Baumkopf Holzfaust, 2015).
Jörg Winger also recognized that the show differs from German viewing habits: “I think there is a certain audience in Germany that doesn’t want its historical drama to be stylized” (in Rogers, 2018). One reason for this might have been that his wife, the show’s American writer Anna Winger, speaks English better than German and therefore wrote the initial screenplay in English before having it translated (Schiller & Pölcher, 2016; Krauß, 2020). Sending the original English script to Sundance TV in the US eased the production team’s access to an English-speaking market (Schiller & Pölcher, 2016). The intention was not to focus on historical accuracy but on pop-cultural references, like music, that international viewers more readily relate with (Krauß, 2020, p. 4). This mainstream appeal might have been a reason for the series’ transnational success (Krauß, 2020, p. 5). Rothauge (2020) assumes that the topic of the Cold War was of particular interest for US Americans, which made the traveling of memory successful.
Germans and Their Series, a Love-Hate Relationship
Germans appear to be generally critical of their domestic television and cinematic industry, especially in 2015 when Deutschland 83 premiered. The German industry at the time was aware of its lacking international appeal (Krauß, 2020). On Movie Pilot, the user ratings of the series are mixed. A common thread among positive comments seems to be the justification that a user has liked the series, but under the condition that it is a German production. The following comments illustrate this view:
- “Well, in the ‘excellent rating’, there’s still a ‘for coming from Germany’ factor.” (Baumkopf Holzfaust, 2015; translated).
- “It’s first of all positive that something is happening in the almost non-existent German series landscape.” (Delonghi, 2015; transl.)
- “Pretty good for a German series — for once” (Kill_Format, 2016; transl.).
- “Anyway, Deutschland 83 is a German series worth watching, which is very rare. 99.9% of German TV series are and remain disgusting junk” (DerKritiker123, 2017; transl.).
Stressing the Germanness of the series can have different motives: The users may have felt like the international ‘hype’ (praise, prizes, etc.) made them have expectations that were not fulfilled. They may also have hesitated to admit liking a German series, as the comments convey a German consensus that German series are bad, and German journalists reported about the decreased RTL viewer ratings. These comments also convey that had this been a series from another country, they would perhaps have liked it less.
On the other hand, the comments may imply a certain pride in finally seeing a good German series on the market. The nine most-watched series in Germany in 2016 were all from the US (presumably in dubbed versions) — with merely three German series listed among the top 50 most-watched series in Germany (Statista Research Department, 2016). This speaks for little contact of German audiences with German productions, at least six years ago. It remains difficult to know exactly what the commentators mean since they do not deliver explanations for their criticism of German productions. Nevertheless, the second Deutschland season was already received more positively by the German critics (Rogers, 2018).
A ‘Game-Changer’ for German Series?
Are the success of streaming on the one hand and German series on the other a mere coincidence? Hardly. Streaming platforms need paying subscribers — they have little interest in sequels of an unpopular show. Since the release of Deutschland 83 over six years ago, Netflix and Amazon Prime started getting a steady influx of paying members (Coppola, 2021; Stoll, 2021). Netflix only appeared on the German market in 2014 (Deutsche Welle, 2014), but it was not until 2017 that it published its first German original series Dark (Netflix, 2016). Amazon Prime offered its first German original You Are Wanted in the same year (Amazon Deutschland, 2017). The list of streaming successes from Germany has since grown every year, with How to Sell Drugs Online (Fast) from 2019 (IMDb, n. d.-a) or Biohackers from 2020 (IMDb, n. d.-b).
In 2015, Germany had not yet produced many shows that were highly successful abroad (Rogers, 2018; Krauß, 2020). However, UFA Fiction’s CEO Nico Hofmann anticipated a new era for German series when Deutschland 83 aired: “This is going to be a milestone for the German production scene and will most certainly have an impact on other programs […] produced in Germany in the next couple of years” (BILD, 2015, 0:50–0:57; transl.). The television history expert Lückerath agreed that the show’s large number of fans overseas could be considered a “game-changer” and entry point of German shows into international recognition (Rogers, 2018).
Although these statements might exaggerate the series’ impact on a whole industry, the rise in German series exports since its production is remarkable. After analyzing the transnational circulation of Deutschland and interviewing members of the production team, Krauß stated that the series “has helped to initiate a taste for German TV fiction in English-speaking markets” (2020, p. 2). It was embedded in the larger phenomenon of streaming giants like Netflix identifying the public interest in and thus the economic potential of non-English productions. The French Lupin, the Spanish La Casa de Papel and the South Korean Squid Game are prime examples: They are among the ten most-watched global Netflix productions of all time (Clark, 2021).
© Annika Wappelhorst 2021, 2022
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